Natural English Vocabulary to Describe Relationships [581]

🚨Improve your English with structured online lessons. Book a free trial and get clear feedback on your level, pronunciation and speaking. Book here ➡️  https://www.englishlessonviaskype.com/trial

In this episode, you’ll learn practical vocabulary that helps you describe relationships, social roles, and how people understand each other. These are the kinds of words that come up in everyday conversations, workplace situations, and more formal discussions.

This lesson focuses on meaning, usage, and context, so you can use the vocabulary correctly instead of just recognising it.

After listening, you will be able to:

• describe relationships and social situations more clearly
 • explain connections and differences between people
 • follow conversations more easily when these ideas come up
 • speak with more confidence and precision

If you want to express ideas about people and relationships in a clearer and more natural way, this episode will help.

If you often hesitate, make mistakes, or feel unsure when speaking English, book a trial lesson. We assess your level, correct you clearly, and give you a focused plan so you know exactly what to improve. 

Book a free trial here: https://www.englishlessonviaskype.com/trial

If you prefer to study on your own, explore our online courses. They give you structured lessons to build stronger grammar, clearer pronunciation, and more confident speaking step by step

Discover all courses and guides: https://englishlessonviaskype.com/confidence

Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, to help you with your conversational skills, your business English skills, interview skills, whatever your goals are, we're here to help. 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 try lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. In this particular advanced English lesson, we're looking at advanced vocabulary for people and relationships. And the words I'm going to give you now, there's a mixture of adjectives, nouns and verbs. And these are words that you can, vocabulary that you can use when perhaps doing your IELTS, writing your essays or any proficiency exams. So really good, important and top-notch vocabulary words that you can use. So I've got 12 particular words and I'll tell you whether it's an adjective or a noun or a verb and I'll give you an example how you might be able to use it. So let's start. Adjacent. Adjacent is an adjective. Adjacent means next to. So instead of saying next to or beside or close to, you can use the word adjacent. My house is adjacent to the motorway. My house is next to the motorway. My house is adjacent to the new shopping center that they're developing. It's next to or the shopping center is close by. So adjacent is a nice good adjective to use to be close to or next to or near to adjacent. Next is a verb and the verb is to bond. Okay, so people bond and they bond in the way that they form relationships. He has bonded well with his teacher. We were a bit worried when we moved home and when the kids went to a new school whether they would settle or not. But they bonded very quickly. The teacher is really nice. She took to them. In fact, she used to live in the part of the city where we lived. So they had a connection here. So they have bonded. And to bond literally means to stick or to come together. So if you're trying to glue two bits of paper together, it will bond. Okay, so to bond means to form a relationship, a strong relationship. When people get married, they have a bond. Yeah, a marriage bond. When they form a relationship at the very beginning, then this bond grows and gets stronger and stronger. So to bond, a verb. We have an adjective next, coherent. Coherent means to be clear and understood. So when somebody speaks or makes a presentation, it's really, really important that they are understood by the vast majority of the people in the audience. So they have to be clear and they have to be coherent. So whatever they say, how they pronounce the words, the points they're trying to get across, they must be clear and coherent. So easily understood without much explanation. So when I give my lessons, I always have at the top of my mind that I want to be clear and coherent, easily understood. Next is another adjective, compatible. When we talk about people, compatibility is really, really important. So if a couple are compatible, well, then there's a good chance that the marriage or the relationship will last for a long, long time. If they're not compatible or incompatible, well, then, of course, there's going to be difficulties when difficulties arise, as they undoubtedly do in relationships. Okay, so compatible. So we're looking for a partner who will be compatible with us, like the things that we like, like doing the things that we like doing, has the same view on life, but not always necessary that they do, but it's important that there is that compatibility. So often couples are compatible, then they live a long, long, happy life, but sometimes people are not so compatible and therefore difficulties arise. Compatible as an adjective. Acquaintance. This is a noun, okay? And it's a word some people don't really understand. It's just a word that means somebody you know, but you don't know them very well. You're not describing them as a friend. You might perhaps describe them as a colleague, but usually an acquaintance is somebody you know, but you don't know them so well. So, ah, he's an old acquaintance, somebody I met many years ago, but I haven't seen him for ages. And if I never met him again, I wouldn't be too concerned. So he's just an acquaintance. Yes, somebody you met on the bus, somebody you met on a course, somebody you used to go to school with, but you weren't so close, an acquaintance. Next, another noun, and that's ancestor. Ancestor are our relations, but the people from the past, people who are no longer alive. Where did your ancestors come from? Ah, well, that's a strange story. We've traced our name back to the Vikings. So I think our family or our ancestors originally came over on the Viking ships. So the story goes. Perhaps it's a little bit of a long story, a bit like the longboats. It's a long story. Perhaps it's not altogether true. But, you know, it's good for telling in a pub. So when we talk about ancestors, we talk about the people who came before us. Grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, whoever they might be. These are all our ancestors. Diverse. Here's an adjective, diversed. So when something is diverse, it's different. We have diverse interests, meaning we have different interests. We have diverse skills. So when you're building a team, particularly in an office, then you want to make sure that the people are not all the same. You don't want all technicians. You don't want all salespeople. You don't want all back office people, administrators. You need a balance in your team. So it's really, really important that they have diverse skills. Somebody can teach somebody something else. Somebody can teach somebody some of their skills. They can pass on their hard or soft skills, but really, really important that they are different and that they are diverse. Or you could have brothers and sisters whose interests are diverse. They come from the same family, the same bloodline, of course, the same mother and father, but perhaps their interests, their skills, their abilities are quite diverse, quite different. Next is a verb to empathize. To empathize with somebody means to have concern for them, to be concerned about the situation, to feel sad about the situation if they have some problems. So we can have empathy when somebody has difficulties. We can empathize with people when they have situations that we ourselves may not have experienced, but we can understand what they are going through. So lots and lots of refugees coming into Europe, traveling throughout Europe because of wars and conflicts. So of course, we might not be able to understand fully what they're going through, but that doesn't stop us empathizing with them to feel what their pain, to feel their sorrow, to feel the difficulties that they have because their lives have been disrupted. So we empathize with them. Next, an adjective, integral. When something is an integral part, it's an important part. It's a critical part. An integral part of our plan is to make sure that we have enough people to go out and visit our customers. An integral part of our plan is to centralize all our operations in the main city. So something that is integral or integral to the whole operation, it's really, really important. Yes, it's not something on the periphery. It's not something on the edge. It's not something that we can do or do without. It's integral or integral to the whole operation. Okay. To intervene. So when somebody intervenes, it means they get involved. So they give their opinion. So they might say when you're making your presentation or you're raising a particular point, they might say, well, excuse me, do you mind if I just intervene there because I've got some information that might help you? So they're not interfering. And often those two words get confused. To interfere means to come in and try to take over, but to intervene is perhaps there just to give some help. So for example, if you're a teacher in a school and two boys or two girls are having a heated argument in the schoolyard or in the classroom, you might step in between them and intervene before it gets out of hand and tell the two protagonists to return to their classroom or their seats and you'll deal with the matter later. So you're not interfering, you're not taking sides as to who started it or what happened. You're intervening to prevent it from getting out of hand more than it already has. So you'll intervene, step in to prevent any other difficulties arising. So when we intervene, we're lending a hand or we're adding some value or hopefully we're giving some people some added information to intervene. And next we have a noun which is peer. So we often talk about our peer group and our peer group is those that are on the same level as we are. So we often want to consider ourselves relative to our peer group. So if we are at a management level, we look around to see what they get paid, what conditions they have, what qualifications they have, what workload they have, what reporting lines, all of these aspects, because we compare ourselves along the line in both directions with our peer group. And you can do the same when you're in school. If you're in form 11 or form 10 or 9, then you compare yourself to your peer group, the people at the same year, and not the people above you, not the people below you, those at the same level. How does he compare with his peer group? How does he compare with those at the same level? And then finally, we have another noun, resemblance. Okay, now we can use this in lots of different ways. There can be a family resemblance. So if we talk about schools again, if your father or mother went to the same school and when you go to the school, the teachers might say, I remember your father and your mother when they were at this school. There is a family resemblance. You have a similarity in your looks. There's a likeness there between you and your father or you and your mother. Yeah, so resemblance, something that looks not identical, but looks similar. Or the traces of the family nose, the eyes, the hairline, the jawline, whatever it might be. There's a certain resemblance. Okay, so there are advanced vocabulary about people and relationships. And those words, as I said, can be used when you're looking at IELTS or any other proficiency exam and when you have to write your essays and emails. Then you can use some of these words. They're good vocabulary to have. And it will certainly impress any examiner who is reading it to see that you've got a wider and broader vocabulary than average. Okay, so once again, let me give them to you. 12 in total. Adjacent, adjective. To bond, verb. Coherent, adjective. Compatible, adjective. Acquaintance, noun, ancestor, noun, diverse, adjective, to empathize, verb. Integral or integral, depending on which way you want to pronounce it, an adjective. To intervene, verb. Peer, noun, and finally, resemblance, noun. Okay, so 12 advanced vocabulary words connected with people and relationships. As I say, you know the drill by now. If you'd like to try them, practice them, come back if you need to find out how to use them, how to put them into sentences. We'd be very, very happy to help you. And you can get me on www.englishlessonviaskype.com. This is Harry saying goodbye. Thanks for joining me again. Join me for the next lesson.