DON'T SAY So, Very, Really - How to Use Advanced Intensifiers to Describe in English

Intensifiers -- Americans love to sound exciting and interesting by using intensifiers. Yes, they can be overused, but I notice that many English learners don’t use them at all! The English students I have who DO use them sound much more natural and native-like.    Intensifiers you probably already know include: So Really Very   And also we can use more interesting words instead of simply re-using these 3 basic words over and over.   Very big = enormous Very small = tiny Very smart = brilliant Very bad = awful, horrible, dreadful Very sure = certain Very good = excellent, amazing, awesome Very tasty = delicious   Examples: Your house is very big → enormous My apartment is very small → tiny You are very smart → brilliant This movie is very bad → awful I’m very sure I left my keys on the table → I’m certain This book is very good → excellent This food is very tasty → delicious   We can also add more interesting intensifiers before the better vocabulary words: Absolutely Awfully* Completely Exceptionally Particularly Quite Totally Dangerously highly You’ll notice that often, certain intensifiers are paired with specific vocabulary words, for example: Absolutely dreadful, horrible, delicious Absolutely amazing, incredible, wonderful, fantastic, brilliant Awfully good, interesting Completely exhausted Exceptionally intelligent Particularly helpful Quite certain Totally crazy Dangerously fast Highly dangerous   Remember these pairings, called collocations! You’ll sound much more native-like. We can mix them up in different combinations too, but those are really common and easy to memorize and start using.   Examples   Your house is very big → absolutely enormous My apartment is very small → awfully tiny You are very smart → totally brilliant This movie is very bad → completely awful I’m very sure I left my keys on the table → I’m quite certain This book is very good → particularly excellent This food is very tasty → dangerously delicious Learn more with our complete Go Natural English course! Join the waitlist here: https://gonaturalenglish.com/prereg/