Word Building — B1 Vocabulary

B1 VOCABULARY · WORD BUILDING

The Complaint

PICTURE

(you add this)

"I have not experienced 10 euros of inconvenience. I have experienced a month of it."

verb → noun (*-ation, -ment*, irregulars) · noun → adjective and adverb · *careful / careless*

Reading

Speaking

LEAD-IN

The word family

English builds families of words: complain → complaint · lucky → unluckily.

1. In pairs, one minute: how many words can you build from care?

2. Hint: two opposite adjectives, two opposite adverbs — and one for a person who looks after someone.

3. Now try the same with hope. Which family is bigger?

PICTURE

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VOCABULARY · B1

Make nouns from these verbs and sort them into three columns.

Careful with the spelling of one of them — it loses a letter.

achieve · agree · argue · attach · choose · compensate · complain · deliver · demonstrate · explain · lose · pay · respond · sell · succeed

-ATION

-MENT

IRREGULAR / NEW WORD

VOCABULARY · B2 & B3

Stress, then the adjective and adverb families.

1. Stress. Say the -ation nouns aloud. Where does the stress always fall? ( demonstrAtion, explanAtion ) Does it move from the verb? ( DEmonstrate → demonstrAtion )

2. Complete the family: luck → lucky / ________ / ________ / ________

3. fortune → ________ / ________ / fortunately / ________

4. comfort → ________ / uncomfortable / comfortably / ________

5. patience → patient / ________ / ________ / impatiently

6. care → careful / ________ / ________ / carelessly Careful: the negative of careful is NOT uncareful.

BEFORE YOU READ

Order #88412

Three deliveries. No sofa. Forty garden chairs nobody ordered.

READ ONCE AND ANSWER

PICTURE

1. What went wrong with Bea's order?

2. What does she want?

3. What does the company offer?

(you add this)

READING

Subject: Complaint — order #88412

an email exchange

Dear WarmNest Home Deliveries,

I am writing to make a formal complaint about the delivery of my order #88412 — or rather, about three deliveries, none of which contained my sofa.

On the 4th, your driver arrived without warning at 7 a.m., waited ninety seconds, and left. On the 11th, I received a delivery of forty garden chairs, which I had not ordered and which are currently living in my hallway like a silent audience. On the 18th, nothing arrived at all, although I took the day off work — a real financial loss, since I am self-employed.

Each time, I contacted your customer service

and received a cheerful response and no explanation. Yesterday I was offered, with great confidence, a "goodwill payment" of a 10-euro voucher. I would like to be clear: I have not experienced 10 euros of inconvenience. I have experienced a month of it.

I am therefore requesting: a full explanation of what happened; the collection of the chairs; the delivery of my actual sofa; and appropriate compensation for the lost working day. If we cannot reach an agreement, my next letter will be to the consumer protection office — with photographs of the chairs, who remain excellent witnesses.

With rapidly decreasing patience,

Bea Fontaine

READING (continued)

Subject: Complaint — order #88412

Dear Ms Fontaine,

Thank you for your patience, and please accept our sincere apologies — your complaint is justified, and your email has already achieved something unusual: it was read aloud at our Monday meeting, twice.

An explanation, as requested. In our warehouse, your order number was entered carelessly: one digit separated your sofa from a garden furniture sale. The sofa was then, unfortunately, sold to another customer. This was our error — a failure of organisation, not of luck — and we are sorry.

We can now offer the following: the same sofa, from the new delivery arriving Thursday, brought to you this Saturday at whatever hour you choose, carried carefully to whichever room you point at; collection of the forty chairs at the same time; a refund of your delivery costs; and compensation of 150 euros for the lost working day. We hope this represents an acceptable agreement — and, if it helps, the driver has been told that if the sofa does not arrive on Saturday, he should not arrive either.

With our renewed apologies and, we hope, your renewed confidence, Tomas Reyes, Customer Care

COMPREHENSION

True or false? Correct the false ones.

1. Bea's sofa was delivered on the 11th, damaged. ______

2. She lost money because she took a day off work. ______

3. The company first offered her 150 euros. ______

4. The mistake happened because of one wrongly entered digit. ______

5. Her sofa was sold to someone else. ______

6. The company offers delivery on a day the customer chooses. ______

LANGUAGE FOCUS

The word-family hunt.

1. Find at least eight nouns built from verbs in the two emails ( complaint, delivery, ________ ... ). Which verbs do they come from?

2. Find one -lessly adverb and one -fully adverb ( entered ________ · carried ________ ). What is the difference in meaning — and why is this pair dangerous when you are listening?

3. Find unfortunately and patience. Build the rest of each family from memory.

4. Formal-letter skeleton. Underline the phrases that make this a formal complaint: I am writing to... · I would like to be clear... · I am therefore requesting... · If we cannot reach an agreement... Which could you reuse in any complaint?

PRACTICE · F1

Complete with the noun form of the verb in brackets.

1. Have you read the ________ (attach) I sent with the email?

2. We finally reached an ________ (agree) after two hours of ________ (argue).

3. The airline offered us ________ (compensate) for the cancelled flight.

4. Winning that contract was the biggest ________ (achieve) of her career.

5. I'm still waiting for a ________ (respond) to my ________ (complain).

6. The ________ (deliver) arrived on time; the ________ (pay) did not.

7. The company reported a ________ (lose) this year but expects a ________ (sell) record next year.

8. There's a ________ (demonstrate) in the square on Saturday — expect closed streets.

PRACTICE · F2

Complete with the correct form of the word in bold.

1. The hotel bed was incredibly ________ . I slept eleven hours. comfort

2. ________ , nobody was hurt in the accident. fortune

3. He answered the questions quickly and ________ , and made three mistakes. care

4. We were ________ — we missed the last train by two minutes. luck

5. She waited ________ while I told the story for the third time. A saint. patience

6. My new shoes are beautiful and completely ________ . Fashion is pain. comfort

7. Drive ________ tonight — the roads are icy. care

8. ________ , the shop had one sofa left. It was ours. luck

SPEAKING

The complaint

In pairs. Student A writes a four-line formal complaint about an invented disaster — a hotel, an airline, a gym, a language school.

• Student B writes the company's four-line reply: apology, explanation, offer.

• Requirements: at least five built nouns (-ation / -ment / irregular) and two adverbs from the families.

• Read the best exchanges aloud — the class votes for Most Satisfying Compensation.

PICTURE

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TEACHER'S REFERENCE · HIDE OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key

LEAD-IN care → careful, careless, carefully, carelessly, carer (also caring)

B1 -ation: compensation, demonstration, explanation, organisation · -ment: achievement, agreement, argument (no e!), attachment, payment · irregular: choice, complaint, delivery, loss, response, sale, success

B2 The stress always falls on the syllable before -ation, and yes, it moves from the verb.

B3 luck → lucky / unlucky / luckily / unluckily · fortune → fortunate / unfortunate / fortunately / unfortunately · comfort → comfortable / uncomfortable / comfortably / uncomfortably · patience → patient / impatient / patiently / impatiently · care → careful / careless / carefully / carelessly

GIST Three failed deliveries — a driver who waited ninety seconds, forty wrong chairs, and then nothing at all. She wants an explanation, the chairs collected, her sofa, and compensation for a lost working day. The company offers Saturday delivery at her chosen hour, collection, a refund of delivery costs and 150 euros.

COMPREHENSION 1 F — the chairs were delivered, not the sofa · 2 T · 3 F — the first offer was a 10-euro voucher · 4 T · 5 T · 6 T (Saturday, at the hour she chooses)

LANGUAGE FOCUS 1 complaint (complain), delivery (deliver), loss (lose), response (respond), explanation (explain), payment (pay), compensation (compensate), agreement (agree), organisation (organise), sale (sell), collection (collect). 2 carelessly / carefully — opposite meanings, near-identical sounds. 4 All four phrases are reusable in any complaint.

F1 1 attachment · 2 agreement / argument · 3 compensation · 4 achievement · 5 response / complaint · 6 delivery / payment · 7 loss / sales · 8 demonstration

F2 1 comfortable · 2 Fortunately · 3 carelessly · 4 unlucky · 5 patiently · 6 uncomfortable · 7 carefully · 8 Luckily

HOMEWORK Write the complaint you have always wanted to send (100–130 words, names changed to protect the guilty). Ten word-building items minimum.