10 English Verbs That Describe How Things Start [375]

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In this episode, you’ll learn useful English verbs that describe how events begin or reactions are caused. These verbs often appear in news, business discussions, and everyday conversations when people talk about starting actions, reactions, or changes.

You’ll learn:

• the meaning of each verb
• how these verbs are used in natural sentences
• the difference between similar verbs that describe the start of something

This episode is ideal for intermediate and upper-intermediate learners who want to expand their vocabulary and speak more clearly about events, decisions, and reactions in English.

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Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language. So anything that you need, you know where to contact me, www.englishlessonviaskype.com. I'm always very, very happy to hear from you. Okay, so what are we going to talk to you about today? Well, today we're going to talk to you about verbs and in particular, verbs related to beginnings. Like always, I'm going to go through them one by one. I have a list here of 10. Some of them are phrasal verbs and some of them are more formal verbs. So I'm going to give you examples of each and how to use them so that you can practice them, hopefully remember them, try to use them in your conversation, the next conversation you have or the next email or letter that you write. Okay, let's get cracking and let's get started. So here's the list. One, set up. Two, to introduce. Three, implement. Four, set off. Five, generate. Six, prompt. Seven, strike up. Eight, embark on. Nine, trigger. And finally, ten, launch. Okay, so ten particular verbs, as I said, some of them are phrasal verbs. I'm going to go through them now one by one, give you some worked examples. Okay, let's get started. Number one, set up. For example, to set up a company. That's the beginning. When you start a company, the very beginning, you have to set it up. You need a legal team or you need an accountant or an advisor. You have to fill in some documentation, register the company. So the phrasal verb to set up, set up the company. Okay? Now we can set up lots of things. We can set up the house to move into it. We can set up and set the table for a meal. But setting up, establishing, getting ready to start, set up that company, your first adventure, your first time to work for yourself. Set it up. Number two, introduce. Well, governments introduce legislation all the time. So new legislation comes in about driving laws, new legislation about taxation, new legislation about social payments to people who might be unemployed. So they introduce these particular rules and laws. Now we can also introduce one person to another. So I'd like to introduce you to my partner. I'd like to introduce you to my husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend. I'd like to introduce the schedule for next week. So all of these opportunities, there are beginnings, beginning of a meeting, beginning of a relationship, the beginning of a new law. Okay, so to introduce. Number three, implement. Okay, so implement, it's quite a formal verb. To implement means to begin the plan, to start the plan. So somebody writes the plan, somebody discusses and agrees the plan, and then yeah, they pass it on to you to implement the plan, to make sure it works. When will this be implemented? We've got a new budget. The new budget kicks off or starts on the 1st of April. So it will be implemented. Every department has to stick to this new budget, this new plan that we have. So to implement means to get cracking or to start or to work on that particular plan or schedule whenever it will be. Planes, trains, they often change their schedules, particularly for different seasons like the summer season or the winter season. So when they introduce a new schedule, it will be implemented from the beginning of that season. So for the summer season, perhaps from the 1st of May or the middle of May, for the autumn season, from the 1st of October, for the winter season, from the 1st of December. So they will implement the new schedule so that everybody will know when the plane arrives and departs, when the train arrives and leaves. Okay, so to implement. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free trial lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. Next, number four, to set off. And again, this is another phrasal verb. You've got the verb set and you've got the preposition off. To set off, for example, to set off the fire alarm, okay, or to set off the smoke alarm. So if you are cooking in your apartment or your house and you overheat the pan and or you slightly burn the steak on the grill, yeah, what's going to happen? You're going to set off the smoke or the fire alarm, beep ba, beep, beep, to set it off. Okay. Another way to use set off is to start a journey. What time do we set off tomorrow for the airport? The traffic is always bad. Well, we leave a half an hour earlier to set off. He set off on a journey. He wasn't sure where he was going to go. A journey of discovery. To set off, to start or to begin. Next, number five, generate. To generate, and again, a more formal verb here, to generate, we can generate a lot of interest. So marketing campaigns, big advertising campaign for a new product will generate a lot of interest in that particular product. And that's, of course, what the company wants. We're going to spend a lot of money on our advertising campaign. We're going to go on the internet. We're going to go on TV and radio, all the billboards. So yeah, we expect to generate a lot of interest. So when the product comes out to the market, first of all, then everybody will be interested and hopefully everybody will want to buy it. So the next change in the smartphone, the next change in the iPad, the latest trend of fashions will always generate a lot of interest. You can also generate interest in your book. You can have a book launch. You can have a reading of your book and the press will be invited or certain people from bookshops or other individuals will come along and this reading or narration of some part of your book will generate a lot of interest and hopefully get your book up the list to the top of the pick for that particular week to generate interest. Number six, what have we got here? Number six, to prompt. When we prompt somebody, we give them a little bit of a nudge or a little bit of a push or a little bit of encouragement. Actors sometimes have to be prompted with their lines. So when they are rehearsing for the stage play or the movie production, they have to be prompted if they forget or don't put enough emphasis on a particular word or expression. So somebody will prompt them, the director or the producer will come over to them and tell them, no, I would like you to say it that way or no, I would like you to put a bit more emotion into it. So actions by certain people will prompt speculation. Okay, so if the government cancels some particular bill or some particular presentation or some particular change that people are expecting, it prompts speculation. People begin to wonder why. Why is there a change? So maybe the government are about to resign. Maybe the government are about to increase the taxes. Maybe the government are going to do something that we won't like. So at the moment we're in a period of quite high inflation and one of the issues will be what will happen with interest rates. So the increase or the announcement that inflation has increased from, let's say, 3% to 6% or 7% might prompt speculation that the government are about to increase interest rates. And if you've just taken out a mortgage, well, that might be a little bit painful. So something you have to be aware of. So prompting speculation. Number seven, to strike up. Normally we use this as another phrasal verb, strike up. You've got the verb to strike, which can be to hit, and the preposition up, up. So to strike up, we often use it with strike up a conversation. So you're on a long journey on a boat, on a train or a plane, and you want to do something to relieve the boredom. So you strike up a conversation with the person sitting beside you. I don't know about you, but anytime I travel on a plane, the last thing I want is a person beside me telling me their life history over the period of the two hours or the three hours on the plane. But unfortunately, that's what happens. So people like to strike up a conversation, perhaps because they are a little bit nervous, or they're interested to know why you're going to the same city that they are going to. So they will strike up a conversation. But kids, when they go to school for the first time, strike up a relationship with certain kids in their class. Not perhaps with everybody, but they pick somebody or somebody picks them or for some reason they have some common interest and they strike up a relationship and they're friends for life from that day forward. Great way to start friendships, to strike up a relationship, strike up a conversation. Next, to embark on something. And usually we use embark on a journey because embarkation is a word we use when we're talking about journeys, particularly when we're talking about planes and ships. Embarkation, to get on. And when they get off the plane, they leave the plane. So to embark, to embark on the journey, the beginning of the journey. Now, it's quite a formal verb, okay? So we might just say he got on the plane or he started his journey, but to embark is quite formal. But if you were reading a book about some famous explorer or somebody who's going to investigate something happening in some part of the planet, well, the explanation or the description in that journal entry or the book entry might be, he embarked on his journey in Paris or he embarked on his journey on a ship in New York heading for the West Indies or heading for Antarctica, whatever he happens to be or she happens to be investigating. So the journey began in New York. The journey began on a plane, train, whatever it might be to embark. When our kids leave school and then they head to university, they embark on the next stage of their lives. They're all important journey through university when they will get some professional qualifications that hopefully will give them some opportunity to get the job of their dreams or the job of your dreams for them. So they embark on the next part of their life. When our sons or daughters get married, that's the next journey that they embark on when they form their own family or they're having kids and the grandkids are going to arrive. Again, another beginning, another start. They embark on another part of life's great tapestry. Okay, trigger, like the trigger of a gun. So to trigger something is to begin. Okay, so when at the old fashioned athletics races, when the starter would fire a gun, he'd pull the trigger, bang, and the runners would run at the beginning of the race. So that would trigger, that would begin the race. When we use trigger now, we often use it with the word crisis, C-R-I-S-I-S, to trigger a crisis. So if there's a sudden shortage of oil or petroleum around the world because the producers are not producing enough, this might trigger a crisis in the price of oil. So immediately what will happen is the price of a barrel of oil will jump very, very suddenly. It will go up. It will rocket. So to trigger a crisis. Or indeed, some problem in the government and some minister has been accused of some form of deception or some form of corruption. That might trigger a crisis in the government when the government have to resign or a few ministers have to resign and we might have to have an early election. So to trigger a crisis. Lots of things can trigger or start or begin a particular crisis. So to trigger. Trigger, pull the trigger, fire the gun, start the beginning of something happening, as I said, to trigger a crisis. And then finally, launch. Again, a nice verb, launch, the beginning of something. We can launch a career. Earlier I spoke about going into the next phase of your life to embark on your journey through university. And when that university course is over, you then are at the next stage where you launch your career. So having got the results, the results that you want from your university course, you then apply for some jobs. Eventually, through many tried and tested methods of interviews, you get offered a particular job. And this might be the beginning of your career. It might not, it might just be a couple of jobs before that, but at least it's the beginning of a career somehow and you are launching your career. So you're on the first step, the first of many steps. Companies can launch a new product to the market. So they've developed or designed or changed some particular product and they're going to launch it on the 1st of June, the 1st of July or whenever the date happens to be. So the beginning of a new event. We can also launch a rocket. So if they're going to go up to the International Space Station, the rocket has to leave the Earth and the beginning of that journey is the launch of the rocket. So the countdown from 100 down to zero and the rocket takes off and up they go and dock with the International Space Station. So to launch another beginning. Okay, so they're all adjectives. Sorry, they're not. They're all verbs and they're all connected with beginnings. Okay, so all related to beginnings. So let me just make sure you understand they are verbs, not adjectives, verbs about beginnings, or different ways in which we can start something or begin something. So let me give them to you one more time. Set up, set up a company. Introduce, introduce legislation. Implement, implement a or implement the plan. Set off, set off the smoke alarm, the fire alarm. Generate, to generate a lot of interest. Prompt, prompt speculation about or something. To strike up, strike up a conversation with your neighbor, the person sitting beside you. Embark on, embark on a journey, the next step in your life, embark on. Trigger, trigger a crisis. And then finally, launch a career. Just in case I confused you, very definitely verbs related to beginnings. Okay, I really appreciate you listening. Hopefully you got something from those. You'll be able to practice them. If you have any problems, then come back to me on www.englishlezonviaskype.com. Really, really happy to help you. Really happy to hear any suggestions that you have. And of course, as I always say, and I really mean it, if you want to have lessons on a one-to-one basis, we've got 14 teachers working with me who can help, own ready, willing and able to help you to prepare for that job interview, to prepare to get your English up to the level that you think it should be. Okay, you can apply for a free trial lesson and that free trial lesson will be with me. We can chat, find out what's the best course of action for you. As I said, thanks for listening. As always, join me again soon.