Watchamacallit or Thingamabob

Don’t Freeze in English…Keep Talking | English Fluency in Conversation

Vocabulary chunks to learn from the video:

• a thingamabob what do you call it um
• what’s her face you know the girl with really long hair
• it doesn’t matter whether you are native or a non-native speaker
• we need to find a way to fill that gap to remember the word to give us time to recall it
• speaking exams are notoriously scary
• keep talking without stopping
• placeholder names is going to come invery useful
• the thingymabob
• they are words that are used in replacement of a word or a person’s name when you can’t remember them
• thingamajig or thingamabob
• so when you can’t remember a thing or a person you can use thingamabob thingamajig or thingy
• do you have one of those thingies
• we say it quickly what’s his face what’s her face when you don’t remember a person’s name
• don’t use it in a business context or a formal situation
• what’s his name or what’s her name
• for things you can use whatchamacallit
• doodah and ujjumaflip doodah and usual flip can of course both be used for people or things

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One minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words

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A well-made bed

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Everybody would want to live this way

 

Tom, Sarah, and their daughter Neesa live in a 20sqm off-grid tiny house on a property on the Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand. Instead of paying rent, they share the work of looking after the land with the owners, and both families share in the farm’s abundant produce. We were inspired by how much happier they’ve found themselves by living with less.

Tom is a medical doctor and Sarah is an illustrator but both have chosen to reduce their work to almost nothing in order to have more time to focus on living well – a lifestyle choice that is more possible for many of us than we might think. This little 6-minute film has been one of our most popular to date – perhaps because it describes a lifestyle so many of us would love to be living.

** More about Happen Films **
Support us in making more films – HERE 

Vocabulary chunks to learn from video :

Living Simply
This is my wife Sarah
The house is 20 square meters
This L shaped space
A bit of a deck at the back
Mobile broadband
Hot water is from a gas cylinder
Keeping an eye on her
We need to radically rethink how to live
A healthy step for us
Be okay with the downsizing
Look out to trees and green
I don’t know the term for it
Working in the vegetable garden
Building, digging so that’s most of my work
Part-time I work as a GP (General Practitioner)
Our costs are fractional to what they were in town
I don’t have any stress about money
Which is a huge benefit
Emotionally I’m healthier
I’m much more in touch with sense of well-being
Maybe there is another way of being secure
Working in exchange for rent
Sharing and gifting of what we have
A more affluent lifestyle
Listen to what their hearts tell them will make them happy
Having the courage to act on it
For me this turns out to be what I love
Everybody would want to live this way

 

 

What is culture?

[Hamilton Love Your City]

Vocabulary to learn after watching the video :

• Festivals and events
• A thriving art scene
• Stories and customs
• A sense of history
• Creative talent
• Public art
• Outdoor places
• A positive energy known as cultural vibrancy
• It helps to build community
• A unique identity
• They get involved and they talk about it
• As the word spreads
• It can promote identity, creativity, tourism, jobs and growth
• Revitalizing neighborhoods
• Transforming cities
• Making communities attractive, open, welcoming and vibrant

 

 

What are Language Chunks?

“Language chunks are definitely one of the main ingredients of successful transition to the advanced levels of English. They’re what sets apart one language from the other, what makes each language distinct and unique. Noticing language chunks is a skill that needs to be well-developed by the intermediate level of English. If a student is unable to recognize common phrases and word combinations, s/he’ll stay at his/her current level and will never make it to the advanced stages.

 

The following are commonly referred to as language chunks :

Collocations are phrases that consist of words that recurrently co-occur together (derived from Latin locare ‘to locate’ and cum ‘together; introduced in 30s by John R. Frith).

 

dual citizenship but double occupancy
above zero but over 10 years (experience)
shipwreck but car accident
cut hair but trim hedge

other terminology: 

‘prefabricated chunks’, ‘phraseological units’, ‘multi-word combinations’

 

Idioms are expressions which meaning cannot be understood from the meanings of its component parts (derived from Latin ‘idioma’ – special property).