Arsenio’s ESL Podcast: Season 3 – Episode 12 – Vocabulary – Synonyms and Partial Synonyms

Welcome back! Here’s another one of those head-scratching lessons that can confuse people.  You have synonyms, and partial synonyms.

Let’s look at some of these words down below and see if we can match some of the synonyms with their partials.

List

Bright, cheerful, clever, difficult, elderly, friendly, glad, happy, hard, intelligent, old, outgoing, slim, social, thin.

Example: Bright – clever – intelligent

Put the words in their categories. 

 

Pronunciation

Based on the stress of the word, I want you to write to enunciate the words above and ask yourself how many syllables each one has.  Example, talkative.  The first syllable is stressed and there are three total.

 

Additional Task

Choose the best alternative.  If there is no difference, choose both.

1. Don’t call your grandfather old/elderly! It’s more polite to call her old/elderly.
2. That new teacher in school is really attractive/good-looking.
3. My friend is always smiling.  She’s a really glad/cheerful person.
4. You need to eat more.  You look a bit slim/thin to me.
5. This question is really hard/difficult.
6. I’m clever/bright enough to do this exercise.

Podcast