Your English Five a Day #37.1

E320: 🎙️ Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast! I'm your host, Anna, and you're listening to Week 37, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. In this series, we expand your active vocabulary by diving into five new words each day, Monday through Friday.

✨ Today's list features lots of verbs, as we kick off with "glimmer" and "crackle". Up next, we explore the verbs "tremble" and "cackle". Then we wrap up today's vocabulary list with a noun, "disobedience".

🧙🏾‍♂️ Tune in for some pronunciation practice and a quick recap to encourage you to remember the words we've covered. In today's story segment, Mary and Luke, banished for their forbidden love, wander the cold forest. They find temporary warmth by a crackling fire but tremble with fear as they become spooked by a witch's cackle.

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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're listening to Week 37, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. In this series, we are exploding your active vocabulary by deep-diving into five items every day of the working week, from Monday to Friday. If you enjoy your time here, then please take a moment to leave a like, a rating or a review so others can find this podcast too. But without further ado let's start today's list. We are verb-heavy today. So, we begin with the verb glimmer, glimmer. We spell this G L I M M E R. Glimmer. Glimmer. To glimmer is to shine with a faint, unsteady light. It's very similar to flicker. To glimmer. Okay, so here's an example,"I saw a distant campfire glimmer through the trees. I was so happy to find other people after being lost in the woods for two days." Next on the list is the verb crackle, crackle. We spell this C R A C K L E. Crackle, crackle. A crackle is a sharp crackling sound. It's often made by burning, snapping, or breaking something. A crackle. If you were to put milk onto Rice Krispies, they kind of make this popping sound, which we would describe as a crackle. So it is crackling because it's these constant little pops, very sharp sounds. If you put wood onto a fire, the burning of the wood creates bursts of sound, like popping sounds. This is a crackling sound, so the fire is crackling. And, sorry to all the vegetarians and vegans listening, but if you put bacon into a frying pan and start to fry the bacon, it will also start crackling. The fat starts to pop and awful when you're actually frying things because you end up getting splattered with hot oil, hot liquid, whatever it is you're frying actually. But the sound is a crackle and so the item is crackling in the pan, whatever it may be. Here's another example,"The fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, providing warmth and ambience to the cosy room." Next, we have the verb tremble, tremble. We spell this T R E M B L E tremble. To tremble is to shake, involuntary, so you don't want to shake but you do, and it's usually because you're cold or because you are poorly, or through fear. So, if you are shivering, shaking, we could also say trembling. He trembled with fear. Sometimes my hands tremble if I've done a huge amount of exercise. So, this week I went and played squash for two hours. Lucky me. And it was really high-level squash as well. I cycled to the squash club and I cycled home. And so by the time I got home, my hands were trembling because I'd done so much exercise and my body was now weak. My muscles were crying,"what are you doing?" And so I found it really hard just to hold my cup of tea to my mouth without spilling it because of my trembling hands. Here's another example,"The frightened child trembled as the thunder roared." Okay, next we have the verb cackle. Cackle. Sounds very similar to item number two, doesn't it? But we spell this C A C K L E. Cackle. Previously, the second item was crackle, with an R in there. This item doesn't have an R. Cackle. Listen to the difference: crackle cackle. Crackle cackle. To cackle is to laugh loudly, but also in a harsh way. So, I would often associate this with an evil person. An evil character in a cartoon or a TV programme would cackle. That's a horrible, harsh, loud laugh. So that's a cackle. Okay. Here's another example, Julie has the most awful laugh. In fact, she doesn't laugh, she cackles. She sounded like a witch at the comedy show last night." Do you know anyone who cackles? I don't think I do. I know people who giggle, and I know people who have huge, like, belly laughs that are just infectious, but I don't think I know anyone who has a cackle for a laugh. Anyway, let's move on to our last item. This is not a verb, this is a noun. And it is disobedience. Disobedience. We spell this D I S O B E D I E N C E. Disobedience, disobedience. Notice the O becomes a schwa/ə//ˏdɪsə/ disobedience. Disobedience is a wilful refusal to comply. So not following rules, not doing as you're told. I have a couple of people who come to mind when I think of disobedience. Have you experienced any disobedience in your life? Are you a disobedient person? Do you have to deal with disobedience in your job? How do you deal with disobedience? As a teacher with many years experience of teaching children, I had to deal with lots of disobedience in my classes. It's tricky when you teach drama. I've taught many subjects, but drama was my most memorable subject to teach. And it's difficult when you're teaching drama because it's very physical. And it has a playful nature. You're kind of stirring the children up, you're winding them up and you're getting them on their feet and moving them around. So then trying to also keep a level of control and have boundaries in place when you're actually giving them so much freedom can sometimes be tricky. But I had good methods for dealing with disobedience and it worked out well in the end. Here's an example sentence,"The rebellious child's disobedience was too much for the teachers and they eventually had to suspend him from school." Okay, so that's our five for today. Let's have a quick recap. We started with the verb glimmer, which is to shine with a faint, unsteady light, very similar to flicker. Then we had the verb crackle, which is that sharp, crackling sound, which is often heard when you're burning something or snapping something, or breaking something or frying something. We had the verb tremble, which is to shake, not on purpose, but because of fear, coldness or weakness. Then we had the verb cackle, which is to laugh loudly and harshly. And we had the noun disobedience, which is to signify a wilful refusal to comply. I'm not gonna do as I'm told. Okay, so let's now do this for pronunciation. Listen very carefully and repeat after me. Glimmer. Glimmer. Crackle. Crackle. Tremble. Tremble. Cackle. Cackle. Disobedience. Disobedience. Fantastic. Okay. What's the sharp popping noise? What verb do we use when something is making this sharp popping noise? It is crackling. Yes. And if there is a light in the distance that's quite faint and unsteady, what verb would I use to describe what it's doing? Glimmer. Yes, it's glimmering in the distance. And if I'm suddenly very cold and I start to shake, what verb could you use to describe what I'm doing? Tremble. Absolutely. I'm trembling. And a witch has a horribly loud and harsh laugh. What would we say that she's doing if she's laughing in this horrible way? Cackling. Absolutely. And what noun describes the wilful refusal to comply when someone doesn't do as they're told? What are they showing? Disobedience. Yes. Very good. Okay. Listen out for these items once again in today's storytime. The fire crackled, releasing a warm orange glow, but Mary and Luke trembled with cold. Winter was on its way. And they were alone in the forest, the night sky glimmering with a thousand stars. The lovers wondered how they would ever survive the coldest, darkest months of the year. They had met while working as servants in a castle. Luke worked in the kitchens while Mary was a chambermaid. Their eyes met in the courtyard one day and they fell in love. But the Lord and Lady of the castle forbid relationships between servants. So they had to hide the truth. Mary and Luke managed to keep their love secret, until one day, a jealous servant told the Lady of the castle about their relationship. The Lord of the castle punished them for their disobedience by banishing them forever. With no shelter and no money, they wandered the land, stealing fruit from orchards, vegetables from fields, and sleeping in the forest. The fire flickered, casting long shadows, as a sudden howl pierced the night. Trembling with fear, this time as well as cold, they decided to leave behind their campground. They made torches by placing thick branches in the fire and began to walk through the cold, dark forest. As dawn approached, they spotted a small cabin in a clearing. Maybe someone will take us in, they thought. Luke knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. Nothing. Mary decided to push the door open. They stepped inside. Suddenly, a witch cackled, breaking the silence. The door slammed. They turned around, ready to escape. But when Luke tried to open the door, he found it was locked shut. Cold, vulnerable and afraid, the young lovers had stepped right into the witch's trap. They would provide the perfect ingredients for her next potion. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to come back again for another episode tomorrow. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.