Learn English through our monthly topic

If you follow our social Learn English feed you’ll know that since July we’ve been helping you learn English by exploring Macmillan Dictionary through focusing on particular topics. July was sports English month, August holiday English and September travel English. Over the last month we’ve been exploring content that is relevant to the topic of family. Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect to get from a week’s worth of topic content:

A red word a week – red words form the core vocabulary of the English language. There are around 7500 red words in the Macmillan Dictionary and these are the words that are vital to know because they are the most commonly used.
An example red word from October: elder

A black word a week – black words form the rest of the dictionary and are the thousands of other words in English that are less common and therefore fall outside of the core vocabulary.
An example black word from October: extended family

A phrase (or phrasal verb) a week – a phrase is a group of words that are used together in a fixed expression. A phrasal verb combines a verb and an adverb or preposition.
An example phrase from this month: cut the cord

A relevant list of synonyms and related words from the thesaurus – the thesaurus is a great place to get lost in for a while if you are studying English.
Example thesaurus content from October was a list of words used to describe babies and included words like bouncing, fussy and cranky.

Bonus content – this can include relevant BuzzWords, Open Dictionary entries, collocations, usage notes and more.
Example bonus share from October: the BuzzWord family balancing

Not many days left in October and from Monday next week we’ll be switching to the sophisticated theme of ‘culture English’. So come and join us in the learning on Facebook and Twitter!