Repetition Vocabulary

 

Hello, this is AJ Hoge again. And this is the vocabulary lesson for “Repetition.” Again, pretty easy today. Let’s talk about the vocabulary.

First, let’s use that word distinction. I talked about it a lot in the main story so let’s just repeat it again, review it again, one more time. And again a distinction is an important difference. It often has the idea of a small difference, not always but often. But it’s a difference, a distinction, something that makes two things different, so a small difference, an important difference, a distinction.

Right, next is the word vital. Vital means very, very important. Repetition is vital. Repetition is vital for mastery. It’s very, very important for mastery. So again, vital, vital means very important, even necessary. Vital is something that is very important and necessary, so vital.

Next is the word intensity. I used it a lot, intensity. Intensity again means power. It really has the idea of concentrated power, so doing something with a lot of focus, concentration, a lot in a small time. So repetition with intensity means a lot of energy, concentrated energy is what we’re talking about in this lesson. When I say you need to have repetition with intensity, you need to have repetition with concentrated energy, concentrated power, emotional power. That’s what we’re talking about with intensity. It’s kind of the opposite of laziness.

The next word is imitate. I told you to imitate me, imitate my speaking. And as I said in the main story, imitate means copy. It’s a verb, to imitate, to copy. But really imitate is a bit stronger. To imitate means to copy very closely, exactly. And we usually use it when we’re talking about people. So, for example, you can copy a piece of paper, you can copy a paper. But you can’t imitate a paper. We usually imitate people, something that’s alive. Something that’s moving, we imitate it. So if you imitate a person, it means you try to speak like them. You try to look like them. You dress like them, everything. You try to be exactly like them. That’s called imitating and the noun is imitation. That process, that action is called imitation. And the verb is to imitate.

Next we have one of my favorite words, bullshit. Bullshit is a great word and we say this word, bullshit, we say it when we totally disagree with something. When we think something is foolish or crazy or wrong, it really shows that you think something is wrong, totally wrong. So if somebody tells me, a student tells me “AJ, I already know the past tense. I don’t need to learn it anymore. I want to learn the future perfect progressive.” And I say “Bullshit, you’re totally wrong. You don’t already know the past tense. Because you just made a mistake with it. You just said yesterday I go to the

store and then you say I already know the past tense. There’s a problem here.” And a lot of students do this. They say “I know this, I know this.” They don’t know it because they constantly make the same mistakes with it. When I talk about knowing, I mean deep acquisition.

Remember acquisition? It means you have something and you keep it and you never, ever lose it. That’s real knowing. So when students say “I already know it,” I usually say “Bullshit.” It means you’re totally wrong or I think you’re totally wrong. So you can use that word, that phrase, anytime you totally disagree with someone, with what they’re saying. When you think they’re saying something that’s totally foolish or wrong, you say “Bullshit.” Or you can say “That is bullshit.” That’s another way to use it. It’s a very common word.

Okay, and then in this talk I talked a little bit about scales. I was talking about my own singing practice and how I have to practice scales every day. So we’re talking about a musical scale. Scale has other meanings but in this case, in this situation we’re talking about a musical scale. And a musical scale is just notes that go up and down. It’s a series of notes. You probably know, do re mi fa so…nah nah nah nah nah…right? Usually 8 maybe in a scale. So it’s just a series of notes and there are lots of different scales in music. We don’t need to talk about the details of that. But basically a series of notes in music, we call that a scale, a set series.

Okay, that is all, that is all of our vocabulary lesson today for “Repetition.” Now, as always, it’s very important to listen to these many times. That’s the whole point of this lesson today, right? Or I should say this week because you’re going to be listening deeply for the entire week, maybe even longer than that. So none of this is going to help you if you don’t use it correctly. If you just listen to each lesson one time, or a few times, one or two days, you will not get the same benefit. You’ll be entertained, maybe. You might enjoy it. You might learn a couple words, but you’re not going to learn extremely deeply. You’re not going to learn how to speak English effortlessly and automatically like a native speaker. To do that you’ve got to really have this deep level of repetition with intensity. You have to follow this system to succeed at that level and I hope you’ll do it. I’m sure you will. I know you’re serious about it so you’re going to do it.

Good luck. I look forward to hearing about your success on our forums on our member site. See you next time, bye bye.