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| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Top Words! |
| My name is Alisha and today, we're gonna talk about 10 words for relationships and marriage. So let's go! |
| 1. boyfriend / girlfriend |
| The first word or first pair of words is boyfriend / girlfriend. |
| A boyfriend or a girlfriend, these are words we use for a person you are not married to, but a person you are dating. So if the person you see regularly, if the person you are in a relationship with is a boy, you can say, "He is my boyfriend." If the person you are in a relationship with is a girl, you can say, "She is my girlfriend." |
| I want to see my boyfriend. |
| I want to see my girlfriend. |
| I haven't seen my boyfriend in a long time. |
| When is the next time you're gonna see your girlfriend? |
| So we use these four people we are not married to. They are just for people we are dating. We can use the word, especially for women, we sometimes use girlfriend, girlfriend, to mean our female friends, like… |
| I'm going for dinner with my girlfriends this weekend. |
| In this case, there's not really a romantic nuance. Otherwise there's that...usually there's that nuance of dating someone. |
| In a sentence… |
| Do you have a girlfriend? |
| 2. husband / wife |
| The next pair of words is husband and wife, husband and wife. |
| Husband is used for a man you are married to. Wife is used for a woman you are married to. So husband and wife are kind of the same like there's a...there's a romantic or a special connection between you and that person, so husband and wife, you are married. We use these words for people who are married. |
| My husband works hard every day. |
| Or my wife really likes to fix cars in her free time, for example. |
| So we can use these to talk about that special person that we are married to in our lives. |
| In a sentence… |
| Your husband is really funny. |
| 3. partner |
| The next word is partner, partner. |
| So some people prefer to use a word like partner just to mean the...maybe, there's a special person in their life and for whatever reason, they prefer not to use boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, so we can use the word partner just to mean a person you have a special connection with. So a partner can be a man or a woman. It can be...you can use it for pretty much any, any person that you have a special connection with, but it usually means like some kind of romantic like you are, you are...the relationship you have with that person is different from all your other relationships. It's a very special connection with that person. But this can mean people you are married to or you have like a specific union with, you can use it for that, or you can use it for people you are dating, so your partner. |
| So in a sentence… |
| "He and his partner are busy this weekend." |
| 4. spouse |
| The next word is spouse, spouse. |
| Be careful of the pronunciation with this, spouse. It sounds like mouse, not /spose/ but spouse. Spouse is the correct pronunciation. Spouse means the person you are married to, the person you are in your legal union with. You are a spouse, you're the person...the other person in your marriage. This can be a man or a woman. So we use this not so much in conversation, but in lots of legal documents, so like… |
| Who is your spouse? |
| Or |
| Please list your spouse's name. |
| Or |
| Please write the name of your spouse in this box, for example. |
| I don't hear, I suppose from time to time, you could say like my spouse is so and so, but again, it sounds like something very, very formal, not used so much. Usually, we just say husband or wife or partner, but spouse is used in lots of documentation. |
| So in a sentence… |
| "I think it's important to have a supportive spouse." |
| 5. marry |
| The next word is marry, marry, as a verb, to marry. |
| So when you use this, please use it in an expression like… |
| I want to marry (person). |
| So I want to marry, I don't know, Stevens, for example. |
| I want to marry a kind of person too. |
| So I want to marry a kind person. |
| I want to marry a hardworking person. |
| We do not say, "I want to marry with (blah, blah, blah)." Don't use that. Sometimes my students say, "I want to marry with a kind person." Don't use with. No with, no preposition there. I want to marry (person). I want to marry a kind of person, should follow the verb, marry, here. |
| You can say like… |
| When do you want to marry, (blah, blah, blah, person), for example. |
| So you need to follow marry with the object; who are you going to marry, what kind of person are you going to marry. |
| In a sentence… |
| What kind of person do you want to marry? |
| 6. marriage |
| The next word is marriage, marriage. |
| Please be careful. Many people confuse marry or get married and marriage. Marriage is the noun form. Marriage is a noun. |
| We cannot say… |
| I want to marriage with… |
| I want to marriage (someone). |
| It's not correct. |
| Marriage is a noun. We use marriage when we're talking about the concept of marriage, like… |
| Is marriage important to you? |
| Or |
| What's your idea of marriage? |
| Or |
| How has marriage changed in recent years? |
| Or |
| What do you think of marriage among young people in your country these days? |
| Marriage is used to talk about the concept of marriage, not so much in questions like your own wedding, perhaps, but to talk about the concept of marriage itself. |
| So in a sentence… |
| Is marriage important to you? |
| 7. significant other |
| The next word is significant other, significant other. |
| So significant means something of importance, of significance, something that is maybe different from the other people in your life. Your significant other, the other person in your relationship. Significant other refers to your husband, wife, spouse, partner. The special person, that one special person in your life is your significant other. My significant other, his significant other. So you might also see this, especially on the internet, it's abbreviated, it's shortened to SO on the internet. |
| So my SO thinks… |
| My SO does… |
| My SO (blah, blah, blah). |
| SO means significant other, so the person I am married to or the person I am in a committed relationship with. This can mean married or not married, so significant other. |
| In a sentence… |
| "You should trust your significant other." |
| 8. break up |
| The next expression is break up, break up. |
| So when you are dating someone and you decide the relationship is not going well or if something happens, whatever, you decide to end the relationship. When you end a romantic relationship, we use the phrase break up, to break up with someone. Past tense is broke up, so break becomes broke in past tense. |
| I broke up with my boyfriend last week. |
| I broke up with my girlfriend last week. |
| I don't want to break up. |
| Or |
| Breaking up is hard to do. |
| So break up refers to ending a romantic relationship. |
| In a sentence… |
| I think we should break up. |
| 9. divorce |
| The next word is divorce, divorce. |
| So divorce is different from breakup, because divorce refers to ending a marriage. So divorce and breakup have roughly the same nuance-ish, but divorce means to legally separate, to legally break up. So marriage means to like legally solidify, to legally create a relationship, but to divorce means, oh no, you're done, separating, divorcing. So separating your...from the other person in the marriage. So, like a… |
| I think we should get a divorce. |
| Or |
| I heard the divorce was very difficult. |
| Or |
| My my neighbor got divorced last year. |
| Or |
| What do you think about divorce rates in your country? |
| Divorce, in a sentence… |
| "The neighbors got a divorce." |
| 10. remarry |
| The next word is remarry, remarry. |
| We've talked about the word or the prefix rather, we've talked about the prefix RE- before. RE- means to do something again. Remarry so means to marry again. So after a divorce, after legally separating from someone, so divorcing someone, if you choose to marry again, we use the verb to remarry, to remarry. |
| So after the divorce, my neighbor remarry. |
| Or |
| It may be hard for people to remarry after a difficult relationship, for example. |
| So remarry is to marry again. |
| In a sentence… |
| Do you think you'll ever remarry? |
| So those are 10 words for talking about relationships and marriage. I hope those are useful for you. If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to let us know in the comment section below this video. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Top Words and we'll see you again soon. Bye! |
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