Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you are listening to Week 34, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. I am staunchly committed to increasing your active vocabulary and improving your listening skills by broadcasting to you every day of the working week from Monday to Friday, deep diving into five items of vocabulary. So let's start today's list with a noun and it is assignment, assignment. We spell this A S S I G N M E N T. That G, of course, is silent, so we have assignment. Assignment. Assignment. An assignment is something you will be familiar with if you are studying. We often are given assignments as part of our studies, but it's a task, or it could be a duty that's given to someone, usually as part of their work or studies. So for example, if you are in my geography class, I am now a geography teacher, if you're in my geography class, my end-of-term assignment that I give to you may be to learn more about the life cycle of a frog. I want you to go out and study frogs in the local pond and find out more about their life cycle. That's your assignment for the summer. Although I think actually frogs lay their spawn in the early spring. So maybe the summer would be a terrible time to do this assignment. Well, you'll have to go to the library and find out about it. Okay, so here's another example,"The teacher gave the student a challenging assignment on British Naval History to test their critical thinking skills." I really enjoyed school and getting assignments and doing my homework. I was quite an astute student. I was very good at doing what I was told. I towed the line. Alright, so moving on from assignments, we're going to our next item which is another noun and it is frequency. Now, frequency as a noun, we are referring to radio frequencies or like sound waves. So frequency, it's spelled F R E Q U E N C Y. Frequency. Frequency. Frequency. So the frequency is the number of sound waves passing any one point in a second. And when you're trying to find a radio station, in the old days, you would turn a dial on these older radios, you turn the dial to find the frequency. So you maybe turn the dial to 94.3 or 103.2. And many radio stations would include their frequency number as part of their advertising in their jingles. They might be like,"Hey, tune into Anna Radio 92.5." Something like that. Okay. So frequency. Here is another example,"Do you know what frequency Kiss FM is on? I can't seem to tune in, maybe it's because I'm in the countryside." Okay, moving on from assignment and frequency, we have a verb now and it is to sift. To sift. We spell this S I F T, sift. Sift. To sift. Now we always say sift through something, so it often lives with the word through. To sift through. This means to search very carefully through something in order to find something specific. So, for example, imagine you are out in the farm. You're out in the barn of a farm, they rhyme, and you are moving bales of hay and then you realise as you look down at your hands that your wedding ring has come off. Your wedding ring has slipped off your finger while you are handling the bales of hay."Gasp! Oh my goodness, my poor wedding ring, my husband or my wife, what will they think? I must find it." So then you commit the next few hours to sifting through the hay in order to find your wedding ring. So you look very carefully through all the hay in order to try and find this one very specific thing. So you sift through it. You might sift through piles of paperwork trying to find an old invoice. I usually struggle to find my tax identification number, you know, when you're doing your tax returns or your bookkeeping or you're filling out some form and they say, what's your tax ID number?"Oh my goodness, I can't remember that. I don't know where it is. Oh, let me find my paperwork." And you're presented with a pile of paper and you know it's in there somewhere and you go through every little sheet of paper to find something with your tax ID number on. You sift through it. Here's another example,"Can you help me sift through this pile of receipts to find the one from the shoe shop? If I can't find it, I won't be able to return these boots." Very good. Let's move on. We have another noun here. This is the noun, wrench, wrench. With a silent W. Let me spell the whole thing. W R E N C H. Wrench. Wrench. As a noun, a wrench describes a tool that is used to tighten or loosen nuts and bolts. This is otherwise known as a spanner. Now, there is a difference. In American English, wrench is used to describe a spanner that is fixed. So, the tool that is fixed that you can't adjust. So, it's a specific size. So, it will only fit around a certain size of bolt or nut. So you might have a whole set of spanners. In the UK you'd have spanners. These non-adjustable ones are known as spanners. You'd have a whole set ranging from very small for the teeny tiny little nuts and bolts to very large for the big fat nuts and bolts. So a fixed spanner. In America, this is a wrench. In the UK, wrench describes the spanner that adjusts. So some of them have a little turning mechanism on the head, and you can adjust the size of the wrench or the spanner and make it suitable for teeny tiny nuts or big nuts and bolts. Okay so the adjustable one is a wrench in the UK. The fixed one is a spanner in the UK. In America, they're both called a wrench. They make it much easier. Alright, here's an example sentence,"Have you got a wrench I could borrow? I have a flat tyre and I need to put on the spare wheel." That honestly is my worst nightmare. The idea of being alone in my car and getting a flat tyre, having to pull over to the side of the road and figure out how to change the tyre on my car. We always have a spare in the boot and we have the tools, but having to actually do it terrifies me because if you can work out how to do it and have the strength to loosen the nuts and bolts and, and change the tyre over, you have to then hope and pray as you drive off that you've put the spare wheel on properly and then it's not going to fly off and cause a terrible disaster, cause an awful accident to occur on the motorway. That's my worst nightmare. I did once break down on the M25, which is one of the busiest motorways in London during rush hour whilst on my way to a teaching job. I was in the fast lane at the time and my whole car just stopped. It didn't stop as in became stationary that the engine switched off all the electrics, everything just stopped working. So I had no power steering. My acceleration was gone. I could brake because obviously that's mechanical, but I couldn't speed up and I was in the fast lane and it was rush hour. So I was having to try and cross two lanes of traffic without any acceleration. And I didn't have any electricity, so I couldn't even put on my warning, my hazards to let people know what was going on. Like, the whole car had just, just decided it was gone. And I didn't have power steering so actually steering the car over those lanes was really, really difficult. It was terrifying. I got rid of that car after that incident. Anyway, enough about that. What were we talking about? Wrench. Yes. So we've had assignment, frequency, sift and wrench. And our final item on today's list is an adjective and it is disgruntled. Disgruntled. Let me spell it for you. D I S G R U N T L E. Disgruntled, making sure the NT and L are all pronounced in the middle. NTLD, NTLD is very common with consonant clusters that appear at the end of a word for one of those consonants to be removed, but that's something you should try and avoid. Try to get them all in there. Disgruntled. Disgruntled. If you are described as disgruntled, then it means you're feeling unhappy, dissatisfied, or resentful because you feel like something is unfair or unpleasant. A few days ago, I got a parking fine for parking in a car park that I've been parking in for years. Recently, they moved away from their paid system. So it used to be that there was a barrier at the entrance of the car park and a barrier at the exit, and you got a ticket as you went in. And then on your way out, you would pay for the ticket and you'd use that ticket to exit the car park. So that was the system in the last few months, they have just taped up all the ticket machines and the barriers are now permanently open and they've changed their system. So it's now a free car park and all the small print is still on the walls as it was before, but I just assumed, well, now they've gotten rid of the ticket system and I thought, this is a great idea because this is a car park that's close to an area where there's lots of shops and restaurants and these areas are struggling. The businesses are closing down quite rapidly and I thought this is a great idea. Make it easier for people to come to these areas, allow free parking and people will come in more often, spend time in these areas and spend money with the businesses. So I was really happy about it and I went and parked up for three hours to have a spot of lunch with a friend to pop to the chemist, to pop to the shops and buy some food and bits and bobs that I needed from the high street. So I did a bit of walking around, came back to my car, drove off, and now I have a fine. And the fine says you parked for more than two hours and now you're going to be fined. So I felt very disgruntled. I thought, hang on a minute. I always pay my way. I never cheat the system, but there are no clear and obvious signs to say, the system now is you can park for free, but only for two hours. I didn't know that. The only change I saw was that they taped up all the ticket machines and opened the barriers. That's all I saw. I think if you make a change to something that's been a permanent fixture in someone's life for a long time, you should make it very, very clear what the new rules are. And so I feel disgruntled. I'm unhappy and I feel resentful because I've been charged for something that I think is completely unfair. So I am very disgruntled. That was a very long story. I do apologise. Okay, let's do a quick recap. We started with the noun assignment, which is a task or duty given to someone, usually as part of work or studies. Then we had the noun frequency referring to the number of waves that pass a point in a second. So when we're talking about frequency, we usually trying to find a certain station or point of contact on a radio. Then we had the verb sift, sift, which means to examine or search carefully through something in order to find something specific. We had the noun wrench, meaning a tool that's used to tighten or loosen nuts and bolts. And then we had the adjective disgruntled, meaning that you feel unhappy, dissatisfied or resentful because something unfair or unpleasant has happened. So let's now do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Assignment. Assignment. Frequency. Frequency. Sift. Sift. Wrench. Wrench. Disgruntled. Disgruntled. Very good. Okay, let me test your memory now. What's the noun that refers to the number of waves that pass any one point in a second? Particularly used when we're looking for a station on the radio. Frequency. Very good. And if I've lost something and I need to search very carefully in order to find it, I'm going to look through something. What verb could I use here? Sift. Sift. And if, as a teacher, I give you a task to complete, what word could I use to describe this particular task? It's not a task, but a or an... assignment. Very good. Now, how did I feel about being charged for something that seemed very unfair? What adjective did I use to describe my state? Disgruntled. Disgruntled. And if I find myself with a flat tyre and I need to change the wheel on my car, what tool will I need to loosen and then tighten the nuts and bolts on my wheel? A wrench. A wrench with a silent W. Yes, there we go. Fantastic. Now, I want you to listen out for these items once again as we head into our storytime. Tony's work experience week was even more boring than he expected. Companies have nothing for work experienced students like me to do, he thought. Why should they? I'm a kid. What do I know? Tony had ended up at his Uncle Jim's garage. And Jim wasn't happy about that either. Tony's dad, Brian, was the easy-going brother. Jim was the grumpy one. He had spent most of the week shouting at Tony to make him a cup of tea. Noticing Tony's disgruntled expression, Jim said,"I've got an assignment for you sift through that pile of junk and see if you can find me a wrench." Tony sighed as he headed over to the junk pile. He couldn't believe how much rubbish there was. But after a while, he came across something cool, a vintage radio! Tony plugged it in and turned it on. Amazingly, it still worked! At first, he could only hear fuzz. If I can find the right frequency, he thought, I can listen to some music while I search for that stupid wrench. After fiddling with the dials for a couple of minutes, Tony heard a DJ announcing the next song."Result," said Tony out loud."Who are you talking to?" barked Jim."And where did you find that?" he asked as he spotted the radio."In the junk pile," said Tony, expecting to be told off. I haven't seen that radio in years. And you managed to make it work?" Jim replied softly."I just plugged it in and it worked," explained Tony nervously."It belonged to your grandma that radio," explained Jim, with emotion in his voice."I can't believe it ended up in the junk pile. Thank you for finding it." Tony had never seen his uncle like this."Why don't you make us a nice cup of tea," said Jim. Oh, what about the wrench?" asked Tony."Oh that can wait!" said Jim. With cups of tea in hand, Tony and Jim took a break to bond over the radio and their family history. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. If you would like access to the database, the Master Sheet of all the vocabulary covered in every episode of this Five a Day series, then you can quite simply by heading to the show notes, clicking on the link, join my mailing list, and I'll send the database to your inbox. But for now, I'm going to say, take very good care, and goodbye.