← 💬 English as a Second Language
Vocabulary: everyday topics
Words for school, home, food, travel and feelings, and words that often go together.
📌 Key points
- Learn words in topic groups: school (timetable, subject, uniform), home (kitchen, sofa, cupboard).
- Food: breakfast, lunch, dinner; fruit (apple, banana), vegetables (carrot, onion), drinks (juice, water).
- Travel: ticket, passport, luggage, platform, airport, journey, timetable.
- Feelings: happy, sad, angry, scared, excited, bored, worried, proud, nervous, surprised.
- -ed adjectives say how you feel (I am bored). -ing adjectives describe what causes the feeling (The film is boring).
- Learn collocations (words that go together): do homework, make a mistake, take a photo, go shopping.
- Opposites help you remember words: tidy/untidy, early/late, cheap/expensive.
- Use the words around a new word (the context) to guess its meaning.
📖 Key words
- Vocabulary
- The words you know and use.
- Collocation
- Words that often go together, e.g. take a photo.
- Synonym
- A word with the same or a similar meaning.
- Opposite
- A word with the opposite meaning, e.g. hot and cold.
- Context
- The words and sentences around a word.
- Topic
- A subject, such as food, school or travel.
✏️ Worked example
Choose the correct word: 'I was very ___ because I had nothing to do all day.' (bored / boring)
- Who is the word describing? 'I' – a person and how they feel.
- -ed adjectives describe how a person feels.
- -ing adjectives describe the thing that causes the feeling (a boring day).
- Answer: I was very bored.
Keep a vocabulary notebook with a page for each topic. Write every new word in a sentence, not just on its own.
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