Essential English Vocabulary and Phrasal Verbs

Prefixes and Word Families

• Prefixes: Inter- (between), pre- (before), tri- (three), dis- (not), im- (not), hyper- (more than usual), over- (more than usual), re- (again).
• Word Families:
  • Educate, education, educative
  • Terrify, terrified, terrifying
  • Strengthen, strength, strong
  • Criticise, critic, critical
  • Endangered, danger, dangerous
• Word Transformations: Blood/bled, cheat/to cheat, dry/dryness, experience/to experience, frozen/to freeze, hot/heat, just/justification, length/lengthen, low/lower, memory/memorize, modern/modernize, separate/to separate, sure/ensure, threat/en-threat.
• Phrasal Verbs (Off): Delayed (put off), move away (back off), cancelled (call off), shouted at (told off), say goodbye (see off), exploded (gone off), disappeared (went off), wear off, separated (cut off).

Crime, Law, and Phrasal Verbs

• Vocabulary: Shoplifting (ladron de tienda), jewel thief (culapons), terrorist (terrorist attack), driving dangerously (recklessly).
• Legal Terms: Arrest (arrestar), suspect (sospechoso), witness (testigo), fine (multa), sentence (condenar).
• Collocations: Reach an agreement, follow a trend, caught in the act, catch my breath, reaching their target, follow a lead.
• Phrasal Verbs (Go): Go off (explotar), go over (repasar), go on (continuar), go ahead (adelantar), go down (dejar de funcionar).

Phrasal Verbs and Mind Idioms

• Phrasal Verbs (Come): Come across (find by chance/appear), come up (think of/happen), come round (agree), come down (catch an illness), come into (inherit), come out (be made public).
• Mind Idioms: Mind gone blank (forgotten), lose my mind (going mad), bear in mind (remember), in two minds (undecided), cross my mind (occur), slip my mind (forget), put mind at rest (stop worrying), take mind off (distract).
• Time Expressions: Time flies, ahead of time, not before time, time is money.

Communication and Animal Idioms

• Verbs of Speech: Say, speak (languages), talk, tell (the difference, a joke, lies, a secret, a story, the truth).
• Speaking Styles: Talk (to yourself, rubbish, sense), mumble, mutter, whisper, yell.
• Animal Idioms:
  • Bark is worse than his bite: Talks tough but does nothing.
  • Let the cat out of the bag: Reveal a secret.
  • Put the cat among the pigeons: Cause trouble.
  • A big fish in a little pond: Important in a small area.
  • Having kittens: Nervous or worried.
  • Kill two birds with one stone: Two tasks at once.
  • Water off a duck's back: Ignoring criticism.
  • Make a beeline for: Move quickly toward something.