English Vocabulary: B1 to B2

About this course

A vocabulary course that starts by explaining why vocabulary study usually fails, and then does something different. Word lists give you a word and a translation. What they do not give you is what the word goes with, how formal it is, or whether anyone actually uses it, which is why so many learners can recognise a word on a page and not produce it in a sentence. This course closes that gap. It covers how English words are built from prefixes and suffixes, so an unfamiliar word can be taken apart rather than looked up, including the handful where the parts mislead you. Then collocation, which is the real difference between correct English and natural English: you can write a sentence with no grammatical errors that no English speaker would produce, and the reason is almost always which words habitually go together. The second half tackles phrasal verbs, which learners avoid and which are precisely what makes English sound stiff when they are avoided, with the pattern behind the particles and the eighty that carry most conversations. Then register, idiom, and the confusable pairs that persist well into advanced English, including two false friends that mislead readers rather than merely sounding wrong. It ends with a B2 word list organised by what you need it for, each entry given as the chunk it lives in. Read the first lesson before anything else. It says exactly what the certificate means, and what it does not.

What you will learn

• Record and review vocabulary in a way that moves it from recognition into use
• Take an unfamiliar word apart using prefixes and suffixes, and guess its meaning sensibly
• Use the collocations English actually uses, including make against do and the adjective pairings
• Use phrasal verbs confidently, including which ones can be separated
• Match your register to the situation, formal, neutral or informal
• Tell apart the pairs that persist at B2, from affect and effect to actually and currently

Before you begin

• Roughly B1, meaning you can read general English and follow an argument
• Everything is text, so no microphone, headphones, or audio needed
• No prior qualification, and no external test booking required