Vocabulary

Advanced English Vocabulary – Words to INSPIRE

Many of you are desperate to expand your vocabulary and start using more sophisticated English words. So today let’s focus on some words that can inspire, inspire you and inspire the people around you.

In English, there are many ways to say the same thing. You know a lot of simple vocabulary already, which is awesome but if you want to earn the respect and the attention of people around you, using interesting, thoughtful and meaningful words is definitely something that you want to work on.

Words are powerful! And the words that you choose to use tell people a lot about the type of person that you are. Expanding your vocabulary and using inspiring words can make you more successful in business, in school, in life. Your words can make others want to be around you.They command respect. People are more likely to trust you or to follow your advice if you use powerful words. And the words that you use don’t just affect others, using powerful and positive and inspiring words will also have a positive impact on you.

Today Learn English Fun Way is going to give you six inspiring words that you should learn and start using as soon as possible. We are going to show you how to say them because really, if you can’t pronounce these words correctly, it’s difficult to deliver an inspiring message. We will tell you what they mean and I’ll show you how to use them correctly.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

Six Advanced Words To Inspire

1, Inspire

Alright let’s start with the word ‘inspire’. Yeah if you’re going to inspire people with your words, you’re going to have to know how to use them, right? If you inspire someone, you make them want to do something, you make them feel confident and excited to try something. Maybe something new or maybe something that they haven’t done in quite a while. Let’s start with pronunciation first.

  • Inspire /ɪnˈspaɪə(r)/

So, that middle syllable is the stressed one.

And in the past, it’s ‘inspired’. Now that final D is a soft D sound. So when it’s spoken, you hardly hear it. You should catch that sound ‘d’ before you release it.

  • I feel inspired by her.

We often say “someone can inspire someone to do something”.

  • A friend inspired me to run a marathon.
  • The orchestra inspired her to study music.
  • His brother inspired him to travel the world.

But you can also be inspired by something.

  • She was inspired by her boss.
  • I was inspired by the speech.

Who inspires you? Is there someone in your life who makes you excited to do something and makes you want to do something? Tell us about that person in the comments. Tell us who inspires you.

You can also say that they’re an inspiration or that they are inspiring.

So if you’re thinking of someone who inspires you, try to use all of these words, all of these words from the ‘inspire’ word family to talk about them.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

2, Motivation

When you’re feeling inspired, you may need some motivation to help you take action, right? Motivation is the reason why you want to do something. It’s all of the things and the feelings that make you keep working hard to reach your goals or to finish something.

You want to become a more confident English speaker for a purpose, right? It could be to get a better job, it could be to meet people from other countries, to study abroad, maybe you’d love to travel. These are all reasons or your motivation to learn the language.

So motivation is like a better, more sophisticated way of saying reason. You can ask people What’s your motivation for learning English?”

There’s a lot of syllables in this word to pronounce here.

  • Motivation /ˌməʊtɪˈveɪʃn/

Words that end in -tion like this one are usually stressed on the syllable before last. And that last syllable is unstressed, the vowel sound reduces right down to the schwa so it’s short and low in pitch.

  • My sister Jill works full-time and she studies medicine at night school. Her kid’s education is her motivation for studying at night school.

You’ve got the word ‘motivation’, now, let’s expand your vocabulary a little. We can use the verb ‘to motivate’, ‘to motivate someone to do something’, to also express these ideas.

  • She needs people around her who motivate and inspire her to succeed.

There are also two adjective forms that you need to know, the -ed and the -ing forms, including ‘motivated’ and ‘motivating’.

  • As soon as I lost a few kilos, I was motivated to lose more.
  • His speech was really motivating.

There is another adjective, ‘motivational’, which is used to mention something or somebody that makes people want to do something, especially something that involves hard work and effort.

  • He’s a motivational speaker.

What or who motivates you to keep going? Tell us about that person in the comments.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

3, Courage

Learning a new language, using big words, speaking out loud, all of this takes courage. Courage is the ability to do something even though it might be scary or dangerous or difficult at times. It relates to your emotional strength, to do something that you are scared to do, so it’s kind of similar to bravery.

There are quite a few different ways to pronounce the OU in English words.

  • Courage /ˈkʌrɪdʒ/

In the word ‘courage’ we use /ʌ/ as in ‘up’ vowel sound. This is the strongest syllable so you need to make sure that you’re pronouncing it right. And the final consonant sound might be a little tricky too. The /dʒ/ sound. So to make it, you have to get you tongue behind your teeth and push up to the top of your mouth but the edges of your tongue must be pushed or pressed up to seal the sound in.

The verbs ‘have’ and ‘find’ are often used with the noun ‘courage’.

  • He has the courage to do the right thing.
  • She found the courage to stand up and speak at the rally.

It’s also definitely worth knowing the adjective ‘courageous’ as well. ‘Courageous’ means being ‘brave’.

  • She’s a very courageous woman.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

4, Encourage

And if someone doesn’t have the courage, certainly you can encourage’ them. Encourage sounds really similar to courage. The pronunciation is almost the same but the meaning is a little different. If you encourage someone, you give them hope and confidence and support to achieve something. You don’t just tell them that they can do it but you help them to believe that they can. By encouraging someone, you can help them to find courage that they need. And again, we ‘encourage someone to do something’.

  • Their cheering encouraged me to finish the marathon, even though I was exhausted.
  • Her parents encouraged her to study medicine.

Let’s expand a little. Something or someone can be ‘encouraging’.

  • That was an encouraging sign. I think we’re on the right track.

You can also use the noun ‘encouragement’. And you can use it with verbs like ‘give’ and ‘need’.

  • I think she needs a little encouragement.
  • Her teacher should give her some encouragement.

It is an uncountable noun.  It’s really common to hear this word used with a quantifier like ‘some’ or ‘any’, ‘a little’ or ‘a lot’.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

5, Empower

To empower someone is to give them the strength and the confidence or the authority to do something.

  • The Ladies’ Project empowers women to speak English with strangers.

Notice that the first vowel sound is actually a short sound and the second syllable is the stressed one. The final syllable is unstressed, it’s the schwa sound and you don’t hear people say that sound.

  • Empower /ɪmˈpaʊə(r)/

To empower someone is to make them stronger and more confident to do something and it’s often used to talk about giving power or strength or control to someone who doesn’t have it.

But don’t be confused. If you are ‘empowered’, it doesn’t always mean that you are powerful’. These two words have quite different meanings.

  • The CEO wants to empower his management team to make strategic decisions for the company.
  • What makes you feel empowered?
  • Or have you ever empowered someone else in some way?

You’ll hear the -ed and the -ing adjective forms here. Someone can be ‘empowering’ and people can also feel ‘empowered’.

And it’s worth knowing the noun ’empowerment’ as well. ‘Empowerment’ means ‘the act of giving somebody the power or authority to do something’.

  • Education is a tool for empowerment.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

6, Perseverance

These words and their word families are challenging, challenging to pronounce and challenging to use these different types of words correctly but if you’re still here you’re still working hard, then you’ve got perseverance.

So someone with perseverance keeps trying to succeed even when it’s difficult. Even when things are hard, they keep going. When they get stuck, they find a way around it. When they fail, they try again, they don’t give up. Therefore, perseverance isn’t really something that you can learn. You either have a really strong desire in you to achieve something or you don’t.

So do you have the perseverance to become fluent in English? Can you keep going even when it’s difficult? Since you’re here and you’re practising with Learn English Fun Way, we know that you don’t give up easily. You have perseverance or determination or tenacity. These are all synonyms of perseverance.

Let’s focus on the pronunciation for a second.

  • Perseverance /ˌpɜːsəˈvɪərəns/

That third syllable is the stressed one.

It is also really common to hear the verb ‘persevere’ in difficult situations. “To persevere (in something/in doing something/ with something/ with somebody)is ​to continue trying to do or achieve something despite difficulties.

  • She chose a difficult career path but she persevered and she graduated with the degree that she wanted.
  • Can you think of anything that you have persevered through?
  • Anyone who’s failed their driver’s license several times before, they persevered as well.

Advanced English Vocabulary - Words to INSPIRE

It is the end of the writing. We hope this lesson has inspired you to be a little more courageous with your English vocabulary and that you’re motivated to use these words again soon. If you’re feeling a little uncertain or a little unsure about how to use some of these words, then practise by writing some sentences in the comments below so that we can check them for you. In order to get further explanation and practice your listening skills also, watch the video below. Thank you for reading and see you in the next writing!

Credit: Youtube Channel “mmmEnglish”

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