درسنامه لغات

Hello Effortless English members. This is the vocabulary discussion for the article titled Thriving On Chaos. Let’s get started.

Our first word is revert. It’s a verb, to revert. To revert means to go back to. For example, in the sentence we have many teachers revert to textbooks.

Revert sometimes has a negative idea. In this case it does. It means go back to something that you did in the past and has this idea that you’re not growing, you’re not changing, you’re not improving, instead, you’re trying to go backwards. So you are reverting.

All right, the title we have the word thrive, to thrive it’s a verb. To thrive means to… well, means to grow, to live and it’s a very positive word. It has the idea of live successfully, grow very quickly and very easily.

So this idea, to thrive means to grow and survive very successfully.

All right, we have the phrase to dig in, to dig in. To dig in means to… basically means to resist. It comes from a army, kind of metaphor, if you dig hole, you dig a hole because you’re going to resist and attack. The enemy’s coming to attack you, you dig a hole and then you fight, you’re gonna defend your position.

But it has the idea that you are not moving forward, instead, you’re staying in one place. You’re not moving forward. You’re not moving backwards. You’re digging in. So, it has this idea of resisting, fighting against change, that’s the general meaning.

So to dig in means to fight against change, to resist change, to go against change.

All right, we have the word bitter in this little article. It’s near the bottom of that first page, that many people dig in and become very conservative and some people even become bitter. They become very bitter about change.

In this case, bitter is referring to an emotion. We’re talking about an emotion. Bitter can also be a taste, coffee is bitter, Aspirin is bitter. So in this case, bitter means very, very angry and it usually means angry for a long period of time, over a long long time.

If you’re angry for many many months, many many years, then you can be described as a bitter person.

All right, and you also see the phrase, in the next sentence, other people try to keep up with change but they can’t.

To keep up means to stay equal with, not fall behind. You have to imagine a race when you think of keep up. People are racing, if you fall behind, you’re not keeping up. If you keep up, you stay equal with the other people in the race. And I think we’ve have that word before as well.

All right, and the next page, second page, we see the phrase a recipe for failure. So doing the same thing all the time is a recipe for failure. That’s a little idiom, little phrase we use in American English, maybe British English. And it means it’s a plan that will lead to failure. It’s an action or a plan that will cause failure.

So we will say: wow trying that or doing that is a recipe for failure. Of course, recipe comes from cooking, right? It’s your cooking plan, so a recipe for failure means, a plan that will cause failure.

All right, and in the same page the next paragraph, you see the word enhance. It’s a verb. How do we use change to enhance our lives? To enhance means, basically means to improve, to make better.

All right, in the next paragraph, it may seem antithetical, but one of the key ways is to thrive is to have a set of unchanging principles. Antithetical means opposite or paradoxical. It means it looks like it’s opposite. It seems to be opposite. So, antithetical means opposite or against each other.

So may seem like it’s opposite, you need unchanging principles, very solid principles to help you when every thing is changing, right? This idea of you need something that doesn’t change to help you when everything else is changing, that might seem like it’s an, those are opposite ideas but they’re not really.

OK, but anyway, antithetical means opposite. Principles of course means not really rules but guidelines, values, basic ideas about how to live or what to do, but not so strict. Rules are too strict and it’s inflexible.

Inflexible means doesn’t change easily or does not bend easily.

So, rules are inflexible. They’re hard to adapt, hard to change, but principles are a lot more flexible and you can… they give you a lot more room for action.

All right, we also see the word adaptable, or to adapt is the verb. To adapt means to change with a situation. To survive and thrive in a new situation.

So, if your environment changes, if the situation changes, then you must also change. You must also adapt. You must adapt to, adapt to the situation. It means change for the situation. Adapt to the situation.

All right, we see the word commitment. You need a commitment to something that is deep and meaningful.

Commitment means… it’s a strong decision to do something. It also has the idea of loyalty that you will stick with it, you will stay with it, you will not change your decision. So you need a commitment to something that is very deep and meaningful.

All right, in the next paragraph, we see the word tumultuous. What we need to thrive in this tumultuous age are deep principles and the flexibility to change the way we follow them.

OK, tumultuous age, we’ve had tumultuous before. Tumultuous means changing very quickly. It also is similar to chaotic, chaotic. So changing very very very fast and changing in a way that’s hard to predict. It’s hard to know how things will change, tumultuous. A very rough river we might describe it as tumultuous.

All right, very nice, our next word is theoretical and the next word that goes with is concrete. So theoretical and concrete.

Theoretical means, it’s about ideas, concerned with ideas, concerned with theories. So, we’re talking about not real life things, theoretical means just something you’re thinking about.

So it’s easy to get lost in a theoretical world of ideas. It means sometimes if we think too much, we get lost in this world in our head and we forget about the real world.

And concrete means the real world, it’s an adjective. If you describe something as a concrete, it’s real. That means you can touch it, you can see it, you can smell it, you can taste it, right? It’s a real object, it’s a real thing, that’s concrete.

But theoretical is the opposite, theoretical, it’s in your head. You cannot touch it. You cannot taste it. You cannot hear it or smell it or whatever.

And abstract is very similar to theoretical. Abstract, it’s the same thing. It means with ideas, not concrete. You can’t touch something that’s abstract. You can’t hold it in your hand. But if something is concrete, it’s real. You can touch it. You can hold it.

Okay, moving on, we see the word grounded, grounded in, in the next paragraph. Your thinking… if you act first, your thinking is grounded in the real world.

Grounded in means connected to, to be connected to something. If your thinking is grounded in the real world, it means your ideas are connected to the real world. You’re not only in your head. You also have… your ideas have some connection to real life, real ideas, real things rather.

All right, and then the next sentence we say: When you act first, it’s harder to become caught up in speculation.

Caught up in is kind of an idiom. To be caught up in something means to be obsessed about it. It means you think too much about it.

You say: He is really caught up in religion. It means he thinks too much about religion. He’s too focused on religion. Or he’s really caught up in sports, caught up in football. Means he’s really focused on football, a lot. Really, really obsessed with or focused on or consecrated on football, caught up in.

And speculation, in this case, caught up in speculation. Speculation means guessing or a guess or theory or ideas. It’s something you don’t really know, you’re just guessing.

Okay, so if you’re caught up in speculation, it means you’re too focused on guessing and thinking, but you really don’t know.

All right, we see the word tremendous in the next sentence. Tremendous just means a lot or very big, tremendous. A tremendous advantage means a big, big advantage.

All right, next paragraph, at the end of that paragraph, you see the phrase so-called. In fact, so-called failures are often more valuable than successes.

So-called, that’s kind of a little idiom I think, I don’t know what else to called it, it’s kind of a way we show that we don’t agree with something.

If you say so-called, you’re showing that or you’re saying that people use this word, but you really don’t think it’s appropriate, you don’t think it’s a correct word.

So, so, If I say: oh it’s a so-called failure, it means everybody else says this is a failure. Everyone else describe this as a failure, but actually I don’t think it’s a failure. I don’t agree.

So that little phrase, so-called, means named, so-named. It means, it’s suggests that you don’t agree with the name, you think the name is incorrect or the word is incorrect.

OK, moving on to the third and final page. Reinforces, to reinforce means to strengthen, make something stronger.

All right, so success often just reinforces your old ideas.

If you succeed by dong the same thing, well that success makes your ideas stronger. You think: uh-huh, this is the correct idea. It must be, because I was successful. And so your ideas get stronger and stronger and stronger.

Okay, to discard in the next paragraph, we must discard labels such as failure and success.

Discard means to throw away or to get rid of. You can think of throwing something in a trash can, okay? You discard it. You throw it away and get rid of it. You don’t want it any more. To discard, it’s a verb.

And the last paragraph, we have the word rigid. The time for right thinking was one hundred years ago.

Rigid means not soft, not flexible, difficult to bend or difficult to change, so all of these ideas.

So steel, right? Hard metal is rigid. It doesn’t bend. It doesn’t change easily, right? It’s very, very difficult to change it or bend it. That’s, we call that rigid.

All right, next sentence, we see the word churning. In the churning digital age.

Churning, or the verb to churn, means to mix. It really means to mix, usually a liquid like, maybe butter. You could think of butter when it’s, when you make butter, you churn it, you mix it very quickly and that’s how you make the butter.

You put in the milk, you put in all the ingredients and then you churn them. You mix them in a big circle, that’s to churn.

And it also has this idea of lots of… something that’s changing and mixing very quickly.

And we also see the word hyper, hyper speed. Hyper just means very or a lot. So hyper speed means very fact. OK, so hyper speed means very, very fast.

All right and then finally we see the word embrace. We need to embrace interesting failures.

To embrace, it has two meanings, the direct meaning is to hug, right? Put your arms around somebody and hug them, that is embrace.

But it also has a very general meaning, which means to accept something. To say OK, this is okay, I like this.

So we need to embrace interesting failures, when we fail we need to embrace it, we need to accept it.

And finally, the last phrase, to enjoy the ride. Those who thrive on chaos are those who learn to enjoy the ride.

To enjoy the ride means to enjoy the process. To enjoy the whole experience. Not just the end, not just the result, but the whole process. That’s called enjoying the ride or to enjoy the ride.

OK, that’s it for this vocabulary discussion. Please listen to the mini-story next. Listen to this one a few times first, then listen to the mini-story.

OK, bye.