Your English Five a Day #21.2

E216: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, your host, Anna! Tune in to Week 21, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day, where we aim to enrich your active vocabulary with five new pieces each weekday.

🌟 Today's journey begins with exploring the prefix "uber" and then we delve into the word "mime", but this time as a verb, and not as a noun as we saw in a previous episode! Moving on, we take a look at the verb "heighten" and next up is the preposition "rather than". Finally, we finish off today's list with the phrasal verb "lumbered with".

🎤️ Test your memory and pronunciation with engaging scenarios, reinforcing your grasp of today's vocabulary. And to round off the episode, we conclude with a listener's email recounting a disappointing concert experience, we reflect on the importance of authenticity and live performance.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 21, Day 2 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that aims to increase your active vocabulary by introducing five pieces every day of the week from Monday to Friday. So, let's start today's list with a prefix. This is the word uber. Uber. We spell this U B E R, U B E R. Uber. Sometimes the'U' has an umlaut over the top, which is the two dots above the letter, über. And sometimes it doesn't. So, uber comes before nouns or adjectives to form nouns or adjectives that refer to the greatest or most extreme of something. So if I say,"I'm really excited about seeing my mum this weekend." Then you know what I mean. But if I say,"I'm uber-excited!" Then you now know that I'm the most excited I could possibly be,"I'm uber-excited!" I always think this one's a little bit strange because as soon as I hear the word uber, I just think of the taxi company. You know, you call an Uber when you want to go somewhere. Here's another example sentence,"Taylor Swift has been uber-successful recently, in 2023, it was said that her net worth was US$1.1 billion!" Wow! Can you imagine being worth that much money? That's crazy. I can't even imagine it. That's uber-insane. Okay, let's move on. Next we have a verb and it is mime. Now you might remember we covered the word mime, but as a noun a few weeks ago. So mime as a verb, M I M E, it means to pretend that you're singing, talking, talking, or playing an instrument without using any sound. So, if you are a professional singer and you have a performance that you have to do, it's booked, everyone's bought tickets, but suddenly you wake up in the morning and you sound like this because your voice is gone, because you've got laryngitis or something. I've had this myself, it's awful. And you still have to get up on the stage and perform, but you have no voice. In this case, in certain situations, a performer would have a track already recorded. So, they have what we call a'sick track', or if they're a big superstar, then they have their recordings that they sell. So, they just play their recording of their voice and lip-sync. So, they move their mouth at the exact same time, and It looks like they're actually singing, but what they're doing is miming. They're miming. In the old days, back in the'80s and'90s, when we had the Top of the Pops on TV and we'd watch our favourite pop stars and singers up on the telly performing live for live television. We'd often say,"Are they miming, or are they... is that a live performance or...? Because they look like they're miming." Often if they were jumping around doing a big dance routine at the same time, it would look like they were miming. Have you ever had to mime? Have you ever been in a choir and thought,"I don't know what the harmony is here, so I'll just move my mouth, pretend I'm singing, but not actually sing the tune in case I'm wrong?" I've been guilty of that in the past. Right, so here's an example sentence for you,"Why did you mime in the concert last night? If the fans find out, they'll all want their money refunded." Next on our list is another verb. It is heighten. Heighten. To heighten something. We spell this H E I G H T E N. Heighten. Or you might hear the'T' pronounced heighten. Heighten. To heighten something is to increase it or to make something increase. This is usually used around emotions. So, it's usually our emotions that are being heightened by an external force often. So, my children have a tendency to heighten my stress levels, but also they heighten the level of excitement around days out and family time. And my son's fear factor can be heightened if he finds himself in a dark room suddenly. We have an automatic light in one of the little toilets downstairs. I say one as if we've got many, we only have one toilet downstairs. There's an automatic light. So, after a certain amount of time, the light will go off if you haven't pulled on the cord. And so, sometimes he's sitting on the loo and the light will just go off when he's in the dark, and this will heighten his feeling of fear and he'll become quite stressed and emotional until someone comes and turns the light on again for him. What heightens your emotions, your stress levels, your level of excitement, what can heighten them easily? Here's an example sentence,"The excitement among the crowd was heightened when they heard Ed Sheeran's voice backstage, they knew the concert was about to start!" Next on the list is a preposition and it is rather than, rather than. We spell this R A T H E R. Than, T H A N. Rather than. Rather then. So, as a preposition, it's replacing'instead of', it often comes at the beginning of a sentence and it's used when comparing two things or showing a preference for one thing over the other. Okay. So, if you say,"I prefer to have this instead of that," then you can use rather than instead of'instead of'. And we would use it at the beginning often. So, here's an example sentence,"Rather than going away on holiday this year, I think we should save up and buy a bigger house, we're going to need the extra room for the newest member of our family. Surprise! I'm having a baby!" Okay, so rather than going away on holiday, let's choose to save our house. Not save our house! To save FOR a house. Very different meaning. Okay, let's move on to the final piece. It is a phrasal verb and it is lumbered with. Lumbered with. Lumbered with, spelled L U M B E R E D. Lumbered. With, W I T H. Lumbered with. To be lumbered with something is to have to deal with a situation or a person or a thing that you don't want to deal with. So, if you are on a school trip and you are one of the parents helping out with all the children, perhaps there are a couple of children that are really hard work. They're particularly troublesome and they don't listen. They have a tendency to run off and cause trouble and you actually don't like them very much. And then the teacher comes to you and says,"Okay, you're going to have these children in your group." And you'd say,"Oh, why have I been lumbered with these guys?" So, why do I have to deal with this situation with these people that I don't want to deal with? So, to be lumbered with something, you might get lumbered with a job. You might get lumbered with doing all the recycling at work, lumbered with having to deal with the customer service tickets that are really hard to deal with. What have you been lumbered with lately that you didn't want to have to deal with? I get lumbered with doing all the litter tray sorting out. So, I have to deal with all the cat poo because it's my cat and I insisted that we get a cat. And so I'm lumbered with all the negative stuff that comes with having a cat, having to clean up after them. So, lumbered with. Here's another example sentence,"Why do I always get lumbered with the filing? I took this job to learn about data processing, not to be the office secretary." OK, so there's our five pieces for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with uber. Uber, which is a prefix that can come before nouns or adjectives to make them a more great or extreme example of what it is. So, if you're uber-excited, then you are extremely excited. Then we have the verb mime, to mime, which is to pretend to sing or talk or play an instrument without producing any sound. Then we had the verb heighten, to increase or to make something increase. Usually, we're talking about emotions or effect. Then we had the preposition rather than, which can be used in place of'instead of', used to compare two things or to show a preference for one over another. And then we had the phrasal verb lumbered with, to have to deal with a situation or a person or a thing that you don't want to. So, let's now do this for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Uber. Uber. Mime. Mime. Heighten. Heighten. Rather than. Rather than. Lumbered with. Lumbered with. Very good. Alright, time for a little memory test. So, I turn up to choir and I'm feeling quite excited because we are going to be doing a performance next week and I love singing and I know that my whole family are going to be there to support me. So, I'm excited, but then our choir master tells us that we are going to have a visit from Ed Sheeran. He's going to come to see us in our final dress rehearsal before we do our live show next week. Now, I am extremely excited and also extremely nervous. What prefix could I use instead of extremely, to show that I am extremely excited and nervous? Uber. I'm uber-excited and I'm uber-nervous as well. In fact, the idea of Ed Sheeran coming to watch me sing in a choir has actually hugely increased the pressure. It's increased my stress levels. What verb could I use instead of increased? Heightened. It's heightened my nerves. It's heightened the pressure. It's heightened my stress levels. So much so that I'm going to consider not even singing in the performance because my voice is very wobbly. I'm very nervous. So, instead I might pretend that I'm singing, but not really sing. What verb could I use instead of saying pretend to sing? Mime. I'm going to mime. I'm going to mime because it's better, I think, to do that. Instead of singing and embarrassing myself, I'm going to mime. What preposition could I use in this sentence? Instead of'instead of'? Rather than. Rather than singing and embarrassing myself, I'm going to mime. That's the better option in this scenario. Okay, so the day of performance arrives and I am given the task of standing at the front of the auditorium and handing out all the brochures and the flyers and telling people how to find their seats. This is the worst job to do before a big performance. I want to be backstage socialising with Ed Sheeran and getting myself ready, but I've been given this job to deal with that nobody wanted, but it's been given to me. What phrasal verb could I use to say that I've been given this job to deal with that I don't want to? Lumbered with. I've been lumbered with this job. It's awful. Okay. How did you do? Hopefully you remembered everything, but if not, don't worry because we're going to visit them once again in our little story. Today's story is an email. For the attention of Taylor Swift's manager; Hello there, my name is Sarah and I am writing to you to express my utmost disappointment and frustration with the recent concert I attended. As a die-hard fan of Taylor's, I have always admired her talent and passion for performing. However, my experience at her concert left me feeling incredibly let down. I paid top-dollar for tickets to see Taylor live, expecting to witness her incredible vocals and stage presence. However, to my dismay, I was uber-disappointed throughout the entire concert. Taylor Swift mimed instead of actually singing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here I was, surrounded by thousands of fans all eagerly waiting to hear Taylor's voice, only to be disappointed by a lip-syncing performance. It was a huge letdown, to say the least. What happened to the artist who used to wow us with her live performances? Where did her passion for singing go? Rather than giving her fans the performance they deserved, it was evident that she had spent her time perfecting her choreography and staging. As a fan, I feel cheated. I understand that live performances can be physically demanding, but Taylor has always been known for her energy and stamina on stage. I have seen her sing live before, and I know she is capable of giving her all to her fans. Why did she choose to mime this time? The miming was not only a letdown, but it also heightened my disappointment. I felt like I was watching a recorded concert rather than being part of a live experience. It took away from the magic and the authenticity that I've come to expect from a Taylor Swift concert. I'm writing this complaint not only as a disgruntled fan, but also on behalf of all the fans who attended the concert with me. We feel let down, the performance did not meet our expectations. We hope that in the future, Taylor will choose to give her fans the live performance they deserve, rather than resorting to miming. Thank you for taking the time to read my complaint. I don't mean to lumber you with additional admin, I am sure you are very busy, but if it's possible for you or even Taylor to reply, I would be very grateful. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found today useful and if Taylor Swift is listening, I do apologise. I'm sure you don't mime in your live concerts. I'm certain that you are a fabulous performer when you are live, giving your fans everything that they deserve. Until next time guys, take very good care and goodbye.