Vocabulary Boost #1

So if you're not ready to learn a bunch of new words, then I suggest you turn this episode off right now. Or just let it play in the background while you go do something else. Passive listening is better than nothing. The transcript for this episode of English with Dane is in the description, so go find that so you can follow along without missing anything. Quick reminder: I'm uploading these episodes to YouTube as well with the transcript on screen and everything.

So if you want to follow along that way, that's cool too. Alright, let's do this. You are listening to episode 19 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. Alright, there's the music, so you know we have officially started the show. Let's get into our headline right away. Let's not beat around the bush. It says, Stunning survival story. Police rescue California man trapped behind waterfall for two days.

Ryan Wardwell was repelling down Seven Teacups Falls when, quote, extreme hydraulics trapped him behind a cascade. Ryan Wardwell 46 of Long Beach went to waterfalls known as the Seven Teacups on the 10th of August with plans to repel down, the Sheriff's Office of Tulaire County said in its social media post. But the extreme hydraulics of the waterfalls pushed Wardwell off his repelling lines and trapped him behind a cascade of the Kern River, according to the Sheriff's Office.

His failure to return to his car that night prompted local law enforcement to spend the 11th of August searching for him with infrared technology and aircraft. Difficult terrain and fading daylight thwarted their efforts that day. But rescuers found Wardwell the next day after flying a drone behind the cascade in question. Wardwell was alive and conscious when rescuers spotted him cuando le vieron, and he told them how he had become stranded there, tirado, varado, stranded there.

A California Highway Patrol helicopter crew that managed to hoist him to safety to cap off what the sheriff's office declared a stunning survival story. Wardwell received treatment for dehydration and only minor injuries, and he was reunited with family who had gone to the scene. The Sheriff's Office captain, Kevin Kemerling, told the Chronicle that Wardwell fought to escape for two days, but there was nothing he could do to break through.

There was no way for him to warm up or dry out in there, so it had to have been miserable, Kemmerling said to the newspaper. Jesus, his friends were really smart, but also should they have talked him out of it? Should they have talked him out of it? In case you missed it, the note said that people should call emergency services if their friend's car was still there in the morning. So menos mal. Menos mal in English? Hmm. I'd probably say something like what a relief, no? Menosmal, what a relief.

Good thing. If you say menosmal que trajun para was, I'd say good thing I brought an umbrella. But when I feel like instead of what a relief, though, I'd actually say, thank God. Let me change that. So what a relief is fine, of course, but I'd probably say thank God. Thank God. Okay, let's look at a few words that popped up during that read. The first one is repel, no con doble pe repel.

To repel means to descend a steep slope, a haruna pendiente pronunciada, a steep slope, to descend a steep slope, cliff, acantilado, cliff, or wall by sliding down a rope while controlling the speed with your hands or a device. My mind goes to the typical movie scene of a SWAT team, no, like a special forces team rappelling down the side of a building during a mission. I'm not sure how to translate it to Spanish.

I think I've heard like hacer rappel before, but I don't know if I'm making that up. So you mean if I'm making that up, let me know if you know. I know the verb to repel comes from the French verb rappelé, which means to pull back, but I don't know how to say it in Spanish. The next one was thwarted, thwarted, s'escrive T H W A R T E D. Thwarted.

The verb to thwart basically means to stop something from happening, to prevent someone from doing what they want, usually by blocking or opposing them, right? So not physically, but also with actions, right? It's a more dramatic word than stop. It's much more dramatic than stop, and it's usually attached to something like a robbery or a plan, right? The police thwarted the robbery before anyone got hurt. Actually, let's bring back the most common collocations thing I did a few times.

I feel like that's useful. A collocation in the context of languages is when two or more words naturally go together and are often used as a fixed combination. It's something native speakers don't really think about, but they instinctively know it sounds right, like heavy rain or pay tribute, right?

To pay tribute to something, raise eyebrows, etc. Heavy and rain don't have to go together, but they often do, which reinforces that they sound good together and therefore get used more and the cycle grows stronger. To raise eyebrows, levantar cejas, literally translated, to raise eyebrows means to cause surprise or shock, or maybe disapproval because something is unusual, maybe unexpected or questionable.

To cause surprise or shock, or maybe disapproval because something is unusual, unexpected, or questionable. A quick example. Okay, next up we have hoist. Hoist spelled H-O-I-S-T. To hoist means to lift or raise something heavy, pesado, something heavy, usually using ropes, pulleys, poleas, pulleys, or some sort of mechanical help. You hoist a flag up a pole, for example, right? Una bandera, you hoist a flag up a pole.

The workers hoisted the crates, crates on cajas de madera como de la flotería, right? The workers hoisted crates onto the truck. The sentence we found it in was a California Highway Patrol Helicopter crew then managed to hoist him to safety to cap off what the sheriff's office declared, a stunning survival story.

The most common collocations for hoist are to hoist a flag, hoist a sail, hoist someone on your shoulders, to get hoisted up, maybe izar or izar in Spanish, levantar or subir, of course, too, but more specifically, I think izar. Bueno, we have to talk about a little phrasal verb that was hiding in there. It's a great one. To cap off, con doble F, to cap off, to finish something in a particularly good, impressive, or fitting way.

Fitting, so appropriate, a good, solid conclusion, let's say, to an event or activity or series of actions. So we capped off the night with an ice cream on the walk home. She capped off her gymnastics career with an Olympic gold medal. The most common collocations are to cap off the night, to cap off the evening, to cap off the season, la temporada to cap off the season if we're talking about sports, maybe, or to cap off a performance and to cap off a career.

The sentence we read was manage to hoist him to safety to cap off what the sheriff called a stunning survival story. Next up is Nestling. Next up is nestling. He ended up nestling himself in a dark cave beneath the waterfall, completely soaked, after being thrust off his rappel lines.

Common collocations for nestled are more preposition-based, so to be nestled into, like nestled into a couch with a book, to be nestled against, the baby nestled against the mother's shoulder, nestled close to, so they nestled close to the fire, etc. This next one, I'm sure you've heard, but I just really like it. Passerby, to lo junto, a passerby, so someone who is passing by at any location, walking to work, hanging out, whatever. They sat on a bench and watched the passers-by.

Oh, and this is crazy. Passerby is a word that is pluralized, so you make it like two or more, by adding an S to the middle of the word. So a passer-by, but several passers-by. I don't know. That one always gets me. The sentence was Wardwell's friends left a note on his car telling passers by to report him missing if the vehicle was still there the next day, which it was. I don't really have anything else to say about this one. I just think it's a really cool word.

The last quick one I wanted to do isn't just one, it's two together, but I really just liked the sound and the tempo of saying them. Also, it says a lot about how we use phrasal verbs, I think. It said there was no way for him to warm up or dry out in there. So it had to have been miserable. Tiene que haber sido, it had to have been miserable. I just like how warm up or dry out sounds.

English is a very physical language because of its Anglo-Saxon roots, and a lot of phrasal verbs come from old English, which was Germanic, and used very short, concrete verbs like give, take, go, come. And when you add a preposition to them, you kind of create a little image that really helps give meaning and context. So they're almost like little pictures or stories in your head when you hear them.

What's really interesting is that apparently humans evolved thinking in terms of space and communicating that, so English really leans into that, separate, so it leans into that, let's say. It makes it really fun to create new ways of speaking, really, and new phrasal verbs are being invented and popularized all the time nowadays. You'll hear like crash out, which means someone loses it, like Pierre de los papeles, for example, to crash out. That's a pretty recent one.

Phrasal verbs get a bad rap or an undeserved reputation. Phrasal verbs get a bad rap con obedole, a bad rap. I feel like students and teachers make a big deal about them because they can be a bit tricky and they become like this monster that people are scared to engage with. The truth is that they can really help you communicate if you embrace them and just become curious about them. You just learned cap off, for example. Try it out this week, even in your head.

You don't have to actually say it. If you have a beer after work on Friday, say to yourself, what a good way to cap off this week. Done. Nailed it. It's about the little things. Don't forget that. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. If you made it this far, thanks for listening to the show. It means a lot. Share this podcast with a friend who'd like it. And as always, don't be shy. Let me know what you thought about this episode.

Leave a comment or reach out to me on Instagram and TikTok at English with Dane. Alright, have a great week. Later,