Welcome to the thousand word challenge! This course will teach you 20 English words a week all year. Learn the words, then follow Dr. Heidi’s tips on remembering your new vocabulary. The theme of the week is dessert, which is a sweet food eaten after the main part of a meal.
Week 1 lesson on YouTube:
Here are the 20 words for week 1. You may know some of these words already. However, it’s very important with vocabulary that you practice the words that you already know in addition to learning new words. So, this is all good practice and will help your language skills. All these definitions are from the Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary, which is highly recommended for English language learners.
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| dessert | sweet food eaten after the main part of a meal |
| food | the things that people and animals eat |
| type | a particular kind or group of things or people |
| serve | to give (food or drink) to someone at a meal, in a restaurant, etc. |
| simple | not hard to understand or do |
| deep | having a large distance to the bottom from the surface or highest point |
| oil | a liquid substance that comes from a plant or animal, that contains fat, and that is used in cooking |
| cook | to prepare (food) for eating especially by using heat |
| egg | a hard-shelled oval thing from which a young bird is born |
| ice | frozen water |
| sweet | containing a lot of sugar |
| milk | a white liquid produced by a woman to feed her baby or by female animals to feed their young |
| freeze | to be become a hard substance (such as ice) because of cold |
| cake | a sweet baked food made from a mixture of flour, sugar, and other ingredients (such as eggs and butter) |
| sugar | a sweet substance usually in the form of white or brown crystals or white powder that comes from plants and is used to make foods sweeter |
| bread | a baked food made from a mixture of flour and water |
| cream | the thick part of milk that rises to the top: the part of milk that contains fat |
| mixture | something made by combining two or more ingredients |
| pot | a deep, round container that is used for cooking |
| cheese | a yellow or white solid food that is made from milk |
Here is an article you can read which uses all these vocabulary words in context. It is from the Simple English Wikipedia, a great resource for English language users. The article to read is: Dessert. As you read this article, think about how the words are used, especially this week’s words. Sometimes you can hold your mouse over a word to see a picture and definition for the word.
When you learn new words, it’s important to use them in order to help remember them. On the Vocab Victor YouTube Channel, you can join a conversation using these words. Type a question using one of the vocabulary words, such as, “What is your favorite dessert?” Then, answer a question someone else has given. Come back to this page later to see if people have answered your question!
Now that you know the basic meaning of these words and how to use, here are some common idioms or phrases with some of these these words.
| Word | Idiom | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| food | junk food | Food that is not very healthy |
| fast food | Food that you buy from a restaurant like McDonald’s that is made quickly | |
| food and drink | A common phrase (“collocation”) is to use “food and” something, such as “food and drink” or “food and water” | |
| type | to be someone’s type | In romance and dating, someone’s “type” is the type of person they commonly date or are attracted to |
| cake | piece of cake | Refers to something that is easy. “The test wasn’t hard; it was a piece of cake!” |
| cream | cream of the crop | The best thing or things of a type, such as the top students in a class |
We’ve prepared a worksheet for you to practice these words. The worksheet contains, puzzles, games, and quizzes for you to keep the learning fun and interesting. Download the worksheet here.
Finally, download our app Vocab Victor which is available for Apple and Android phones. This vocabulary learning software will help you build and strengthen your vocabulary. What does that mean? Build and strengthen. Build vocabulary means it will teach you new words. Strengthen means it will improve the knowledge of the words you already know. Play Vocab Victor for a few minutes every day to help improve your English!