Culture shock: "I wasn't prepared for the culture shock of being an international student"

#B1 #Reading #B1_Reading #Reading_B1 #Vocabulary #Guardian #Authentic
Culture shock အကြောင်း စိတ်ဝင်စားရင် ဒီဆောင်းပါးထဲမှာ မှတ်သားစရာလေးတွေ အတော်များများ ပါပါတယ်။ အရင်ဆုံး Vocabulary လေးတွေ လေ့လာထားရင် စာဖတ်တဲ့အခါ ပိုပြီး အဆင်ပြေမှာပါ။

(catch/throw sb) off balance (idm) = to make sb surprised and no longer calm

The senator was clearly caught off balance by the unexpected question.
She was caught off balance by some awkward questions.
The question threw him off balance for a moment.

to sb's amusement = in a way that makes sb laugh or smile

To my amusement he couldn't get the door open.
To our great amusement, the dog ran off with one of Dad's slippers.
Much to everyone's amusement, someone hid his clothes while he was swimming.
He got up and sang 'Yellow Submarine', much to everyone's amusement.
They were dancing and singing in the car, much to the amusement of passers-by.
The cats are a constant source of amusement to us.

figure sb/sth <> out = to think about sb/sth until you understand them/it

We couldn't figure her out.
I can't figure out how to do this.
We had to figure out the connection between the two events.

daunting /ˈdɔːntɪŋ/ (adj) making sb feel nervous and less confident about doing sth; likely to make sb feel this way

She has the daunting task of cooking for 20 people every day.
Starting a new job can be a daunting prospect.
The country was faced with the daunting prospect of overcoming four decades of division.

syn: intimidating

struggle (v) to try hard to do sth that you find very difficult

They've had to struggle with the painful process of modernization.
The airline is struggling with high costs.

adjust (v) to get used to a new situation by changing the way you behave and/or think

They'll be fine-they just need to time to adjust.
adjust to sth = After a while his eyes adjusted to the dark.
adjust to doing sth = It took her a while to adjust to living alone.
It took her two years to adjust to life in England.
adjust yourself/oneself to sth = You'll quickly adjust yourself to student life.
It can be difficult to adjust to being a parent.

syn: adapt

get used to sb/sth = to become familiar with sb/sth

Eventually you'll get used to the smells of the laboratory.
I just can't get used to getting up early.
It took weeks to get used to having someone else around.
I haven't gotten used to the new system yet.

slip (v) to put clothes on or to take them off quickly and easily
slip + adv./prep. = to slip into/out of a dress
slip sth + adv./prep. = to slip your shoes on/off
He slipped a coat over his sweatshirt.
Ann slipped the jacket on to see what it looked like.
I slipped on something more comfortable and went downstairs.

syn: put on, dress in

get away with sth = to do sth successfully although it is not the best way of doing it

Do you think we could get away with just one coat of paint on that wall?
After the first month, you should be able to get away with one lesson a week.

flawless  /ˈflɔːləs/ (adj) without flaws and therefore perfect

a flawless complexion/performance
Her English is almost flawless.
the flawless skin of a baby
He spoke in flawless Armenian.

syn: perfect

immaculate /ɪˈmækjələt/ (adj) extremely clean and tidy

She always looks immaculate.
an immaculate uniform/kitchen/room/garden
The whole house was absolutely immaculate.
My attorney looked immaculate, as ever.
dressed in an immaculate white suit

syn: spotless, completely clean, extremely tidy

preferably /ˈprefrəbli/ (adv) if possible {OALD: in a way that is more attractive or more suitable; in a way that is preferred to others ways}

Water the plants twice a week, preferably in the morning.
I'd love to go there, preferably in the summer.
We're looking for a new house, preferably one near the school.
She wants to retire, preferably before she's fifty.
When we move I'd like to get a pet, preferably a dog.

borrow sth off sb (UK, informal) I borrowed the DVD off my brother.
I had to borrow the money off a friend.
I borrowed $50 from my mum.
I'll borrow some coffee off the neighbours.
(borrow ရဲ့ နောက်မှာ off လိုက်တဲ့ အခုလို ပုံစံမျိုးတွေကို 'မှားတယ်'လို့ အရင်တုန်းက ယူဆကြပါသတဲ့။ အခုတော့ informal ပိုင်းမှာ လက်ခံလာကြပါသတဲ့။)

wander (v) to move away from the place where you ought to be or the people you are with

wander away/off = The child wandered off and got lost.
wander from/off sth = They had wandered from the path into the woods.
It's a safe place where kids can wander off on their own.

syn: stray, roam, go astray

be used to sb/sth = to be familiar with sb/sth

We're used to tourists here - we get thousands every year.
She was not used to speaking Cantonese.

take sb aback = (usually passive) to shock or surprise sb very much
be taken aback = to be very shocked or surprised

He was taken aback when a man answered the phone.
I was rather taken aback by her honesty.
She had expected him to laugh and was taken aback when he didn't.

syn: surprise, astonish

compared with/to = used for talking about the ways in which two things are different, or about the ways in which sth has changed

Profits were good compared with last year.
Compared to some of the things she's said, this was polite.
I've had some difficulties, but they were nothing compared to yours (=they were not nearly as bad as yours).
Standards in health care have improved enormously compared to 40 years ago.
Her garden is big compared to mine.
This road is quite busy compared to/with ours.
Children seem to learn more interesting things compared to/with when we were at school.

downside (n) the disadvantages or less positive aspects of sth

On the downside, such improvements in efficiency often mean job losses.
This is good news for farmers, but I do see a downside.
Digital cell phones offer more security, but the downside is that they have less power.

syn: drawback, disadvantage, problem
ant: upside, benefit, plus

adapt  /əˈdæpt/ (v) to change your behaviour in order to deal more successfully with a new situation

It's amazing how soon you adapt.
The organisms were forced to adapt in order to survive.
adapt to sth = We have had to adapt quickly to the new system.
A large organization can be slow to adapt to change.
adapt oneself to sth = It took him a while to adapt himself to his new surroundings.

syn: adjust

look back (on sth) (v) to think about a time or event in the past

When I look back I can see where we went wrong.
Most people look back on their college days with fondness.
Looking back on, I've absolutely no idea why I said that.
Looking back, I admit I didn't always do the right thing.

syn: reflect

ဒါလောက်ဆိုရင် ဆောင်းပါးကို ဖတ်လို့ လွယ်သွားပါပြီ။ သိပ်ပြီး အရေးမပါတဲ့ စကားလုံးတွေကို ဖယ်ထားခဲ့ပါတယ်။ B1 Level မို့ သိပ်ပြီး မခက်ခဲလှပါဘူး။
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/30/i-wasnt-prepared-for-the-culture-shock-of-being-an-international-student

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