B2 Upper-Intermediate words

Polyglot Tips

Often people tend to learn words in thousands, although confidently learned 2000 will help to understand 98% of English texts. Half of the dictionary may never come in handy, while 500-1000 will be used by you in every conversation. Pay attention to the frequency, which should be indicated in professional dictionaries, including online format (for example, deepl.com), which indicates which word is more common and which is less pronounced.

To be sure to occupy memory with only the right words, learn them along with pictures and reinforce them with writing essays and oral monologues. A good training platform is the Britlex. It consists of 5000 frequently used words, allowing you to communicate without barriers on all possible topics.

We also recommend purchasing explanatory dictionaries: Russian-English (Arakin V.D., Vygodskaya Z.S., Ilyina N.N.) and English-Russian Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press). This is the same classic foundation that you will supplement with modern words if necessary, and you can use it in any life situation.

If you want to expand your child's vocabulary, then we pay attention to English courses for preschoolers from the online school for children and teenagers Skysmart, on whose website you will find a lot of interesting and useful materials.

What words do you need to know at the intermediate advanced level?

Students skillfully express their thoughts on the topics of previous levels, as well as:

• My professional competencies, my career growth, my ambitions.
• cultural standards and deviations.
• Pros and cons of different educational systems.
• Changing beauty standards.
• Truth or fiction: defining and explaining.
• emotions and impressions.
• All types of communication: online, one-on-one, contact with friends.
• Cherished dreams and goals: how to make dreams come true
• Authorities, the role of personality in our life.
• Adrenaline and extreme vs passive lifestyle.
• Money and investments: financial literature.
• Stories and legends: meaning and narrative style.
• Ways of self-expression: respecting personal boundaries.
• Global changes caused by a coronavirus.
• New rules for communication and social contact.
• Travel and border crossings in the post-Covid era.
• New technologies in our lives: uses, benefits.
• Trends in society development: multiculturalism, gender changes.
• Equality of men and women: responsibilities, new family models.
• Social Media: major changes in the 21st Century.
• Advertising and marketing in our lives: changes, degree of influence, popular techniques.
• Modern and classical art: favorite artists, famous contemporaries.
• Changes in modern literature: favorite books and characters.
• Crime and punishment: the role of the judiciary in our lives.
• Laws and rules: justice and revenge.
• Stereotypes and prejudices: their influence on our personality.
• Social inequality: global problems of humanity.
• Illness and treatment: how to stay healthy in our lifetime.
• The eco-friendly action: ideas and postulates.
• Science and innovation: changing the quality of life.
• Clothing style as a way of self-expression.
• Youth movements: how they have changed since the last century.

If level B1 is the ability to hold out, speak out and not lose face, then B2 allows you to keep up the conversation on any of these topics, join the conversation, understand the monologue / dialogue of the speaker, and also express your position using complex grammatical techniques. As a result, you are able to compose a coherent, understandable, competent monologue for up to 10 minutes and withstand the attack of questions after.

100 B2 level English verbs

If you carefully read our blog, then you already own the equally useful B1 verbs that we cited in this article. Indeed, at the Upper-Intermediate worth paying attention to the transformation of all previously studied verbs at all times in order to most effectively reflect the meanings in the phrase time frame. However, you still need to keep learning new things. Most likely, at this stage you will be confused by a large number of words that are close in meaning, but do not panic - you should understand the intricacies of using one or another option.

At level B2, you can arrange verbs into groups according to their semantic load. For example, verbs about negative feelings: to abhor, to abuse, to hate, to blame, to torture, to nerve, to humiliate.

Success verbs: to achieve, to win, to reach, to gain, to get rich, to obtain, to enhance.

Verbs that can be used for a positive attitude: to cheer up, to encourage, to support, to praise, to proud, to love, to adore.

An important success factor will be the use of each word in speech and understanding the intricacies of use. Literature and watching the news will help you with this. We also recommend subscribing to famous personalities, for example, on Elon Musk's Instagram or other people of interest to you, who often become the initial source of new words and expressions.

These trendy verbs in 2021 are:

• To flex - the word was introduced by hip-hop artists and means "to dress up." Sometimes it is used when a person boasts of something strange and incomprehensible.
• To go full send - used by athletes to express admiration for a cool trick. Literally means "to give everything to the full", as well as "to go to the victorious".
• To cut a rug - on YouTube, hearing this phrase suggests a beautiful dance performance, or more precisely: "blow up the dance floor."
• To chuck a sickie - in one video that received a million views, this phrase meant: "pretend to be sick so as not to go to work", the phrase has taken root and is actively used by carriers.
• To spit the dummy, a blogger who talked about his parenting with three children, introduced this expression in order to beautifully say “burst with righteous anger.”
• To skedaddle - "rewind fishing rods, carry away legs."

List of Upper-Intermediate nouns

You should always have a notebook and a pen at hand to write down an unknown word and then learn it. At the Upper-Intermediate you can already understand the lyrics by 99%, so we advise you to switch completely to English-language compositions - this way you will improve your subconscious pronunciation, catch new words, and get acquainted with slang.