TIME Vocabulary & Phrases in English: recently, outdated, of late, nowadays...

Improve your vocabulary! There is more to time vocabulary than “when”, “while”, “after”, and “before”. In fact, there are words you can use to express more detail than just a moment in time. For example, when you say “nowadays”, it gives the listener a sense of change from past to present. In this lesson, I will teach you many useful time words and phrases, like “old-fashioned”, “lately”, “of late”, “outdated”, “latest”, “a week from now”, and more. These words are commonly used by native English speakers in everyday conversations to express more detail about a time period in the past, present, and future. After watching, your next step will be to do the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/time-vocabulary-phrases-in-english/

TRANSCRIPT

I've been lonely, so lonely I could die. Oh, sorry, that's Elvis. E's crying because he's been very lonely lately. He said very lonely lately. Very lonely... E, what do you mean: "You've been very lonely lately"?

Hi. James from engVid. A lot of times we, in English, use time... When I say time words, I'm not talking about: "when" or "while", or "after" and "before", which indicate what is happening in time; if it's coming this way or that way. But we have time words and time phrases, which is to give us more information than "before" or "after" because they can be used more generally.

Example: I can say: "Before I did this video, I had dinner." But if I say: "I recently had it", you know it's in memory; in the period of time in my memory that's very close. It's a little deeper, a little bit more knowledge or a little bit more information.

So, when we're looking here, I'm going to give you some phrases and some words that do the same thing as "recently" does, which is more information than "before" or "after". Cool? Let's go to the board, and we'll find out why E is so lonely he could die. [Laughs] Anyway.

Just as time flows, I'm going to start in the natural progression of time. Past happens before, then the present is now, and the future. And I'm going to try to give you a few words with each that you will find that native speakers use on a regular basis to give you an idea or an impression about what kind of time they're talking about. And some of these things-and E gave me a really good one with "this Wednesday" and "next Wednesday"-are so common that we use it that, you know, foreign speakers get confused, because they're like: "What do you mean there's only one way to say? Why be so specific?" It's like: No, we're actually giving you more information.

So, let's go to the board and we'll start out with "old-fashioned". This one's kind of easy, because we're talking about the past, here, because you know "old" is before. But you're going to say: "Old-fashioned, why?" Well, when somebody says something is old-fashioned, they usually mean it's not in style anymore. All right? It's not modern. So you can say: "This is an old-fashioned donut." It doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it's... You know, it's from an older style or a generation prior to. But when somebody says: "You have old-fashioned manners or old-fashioned language", they're saying: "You know what? People don't kind of use this anymore. That's an old-fashioned idea." Right? It's kind of not being used, so we have that to the past. It's usually associated with things in the past or things that are gone or should be gone.

"Out-dated". "That out-dated mode of thinking they use on a regular basis - PC talk (politically correct talk)." It means it's no longer used or no longer useful. So, you might have this idea or you might have, I don't know. My cellphone is like an S4 from Samsung. I'm mentioning it for two reasons. Samsung, I need a new cellphone; it's an S4. And you people out there, please give me a new cellphone. I'm joking. I want Samsung to give me a cellphone. Advertising for ya. But my phone's basically out-dated. It's so out-dated that they use it to... Oh, I don't even have a good joke - it's that out-dated. It's no longer used or useful. Most new systems are at an S8 or what have you, so somethings I can't use. I don't care. I like my phone, to be honest.

Now, "out-dated" means it's just kind of, like, not being used; no longer used or useful. Operative word or the word that's important is not... "Not useful" means it's not as convenient as something that would be new.

The word you don't want to hear someone say to you is "obsolete". All right? If this is obsolete, it is no longer used. Yes. Old credit cards. You know, you don't pay it? It becomes obsolete; you can't use it no more. Bad example. Obsolete - dinosaurs. Ever seen one? Mm-mm - you don't. Birds is as close as we got to them; they gone. They're obsolete. That technology or that biological technology is no longer used, people. We are the new ones.

Being the... So, now time to move to the present. What present...? Present day forms do we use to explain what's going on in the present? […]