Word of the Week
With its 120th word, Word of the Week has now come to an end. We hope you enjoyed this free feature and that it has given you an insight into the thinking and research behind the English Vocabulary Profile.
All 120 are still available to read in our archive, below. Each Word of the Week in the archive is followed by a link to the full entry for that word on the English Vocabulary Profile. To view the entries, you will need to subscribe to the EVP: to subscribe for free click here.
Word of the week: not
The adverb not has quite a long entry in the English Vocabulary Profile. Its most frequent uses are known at A1 level, including contracted forms with the verbs be, can, etc, as in It isn’t difficult and I can’t go. The entry includes a number of common phrases, such as if not, not (too) bad, not at all and believe it or not. In the English Vocabulary Profile, there is a great deal of information on phrases and these can be searched for as a separate category.To view the full entry for not on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.
Word of the week: even
The adverb even is first met at A2 within the meaning of SURPRISE, as in the Learner example which refers to people at a party: … even Marcelo was there. Two further uses seem to be known at B1, and at B2, the adverb features in the conjunctions even if and even though, both of which are frequently used in FCE examination answers. The phrase even so is added at C1 level, used to emphasize that something surprising is true despite what has just been said. As reported in previous Word of the Week entries, validation work has drawn on research into phrasal expressions (Martínez, 2010), which shows that the phrase even so is commonly used by native speakers of English.To view the full entry for even on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.
Word of the week: vacation
The noun vacation is at level A1 of the English Vocabulary Profile in the American English version only and this is the entry displayed here. The British English equivalent holiday is also at A1 level. For both words, the noun frequently combines with the preposition on and learners of both varieties of English seem to know this phrase at a very early stage. Using the English Vocabulary Profile, it is possible to select either British English or American English, and to switch between the two versions at any time. If a particular word being searched for is not included in one version, such as vacation, the search result will guide you to the entry in the other version.To view the full entry for vacation on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.
