Skip to content
EveryLingua

 ·  36 lists  ·  1287 words

The natural sciences

As far as a factual text needs them.

What holds these lists together

Not a degree course, but what really appears in an explanatory article, a field guide or a warning notice — from rocks and weather to birds, fungi and fish. The value lies less in the science than in the places where Portuguese draws its lines differently. O tempo is both time and weather, so o tempo está a mudar needs its context before you know whether to take an umbrella. Scientific compounds double their s where the second part begins with one, which English never does: a fotossíntese, o ecossistema, a biossegurança. A reader who knows the English word can still misspell every one of them.

The 36 lists

B2Biology and ecologySpecies, habitat, cycle, decline — the words of every nature report and every environmental story.50 wordsB2Physics and forcesForce, pressure, friction, inertia — the words an explanation begins with rather than ends at.50 wordsB2Chemistry and materialsSubstance, solution, alloy, corrosion — the words for what things are made of and why they fail.50 wordsB2Geography and earth scienceMountain, river, earthquake — and the map that goes with them.51 wordsB2Weather in more detailFrom drizzle to storm surge, with the bulletin that reports it.50 wordsC1Woodland and timberFrom the standing tree to the board — stand, harvest, drying.41 wordsC1Hunting and gameThe high seat, the close season and the cull quota — numbers rather than a bag.40 wordsC1Watching BirdsPlumage, migration, call — and what a field guide has to say.38 wordsC1Map and SurveyScale, contour, datum — from the ground onto the sheet.36 wordsC1BeekeepingColony, hive and the round of the year, from the first flight to the harvest.41 wordsC1Geology and miningRock, bedding, faulting — and how you get at the ore.59 wordsC1Waste and the material cycleFrom the bin to secondary raw material, and what is lost along the way.34 wordsC1Water and wastewaterAbstraction, treatment, discharge, and what happens in heavy rain.35 wordsC2GlaciologyIce that flows, and what it writes down on the way.31 wordsC2ForestryA forest planned across generations.26 wordsC2Amphibians and reptilesAnimals whose body warmth comes from outside.24 wordsC2MycologyFungi — the third kingdom, beside the plant and the animal.34 wordsC2Farm machineryMachines that do heavy work on soft ground.30 wordsC2EvolutionVariation, selection, inheritance — and the words that lay no purpose on anybody.40 wordsC2VolcanologyHow an eruption announces itself, and what is decided then.33 wordsC2Landscape architectureA design that is only finished once decades have passed.29 wordsC2Meteorology and forecastingPressure field, front, model run — and what a percentage actually says.55 wordsC2BiochemistryEnzyme, bond, control — chemistry working under the obligation to stay alive.40 wordsC2Useful plants and what they are forPlants that people have been putting to use for thousands of years.29 wordsC2EntomologySix legs, and more species than everything else put together.30 wordsC2Air quality managementWhat is in the air, how it is measured and what helps against it.30 wordsC2Wildlife managementWhere wild animals and people use the same space.25 wordsC2SeismologyHow to measure an earthquake nobody felt.29 wordsC2OceanographyLayers, currents and series of measurements rather than waves and open water.42 wordsC2FalconryA form of hunting with a vocabulary of its own, centuries old.20 wordsC2Soil scienceThe top layer, and how much hangs on it.32 wordsC2OrnithologyHow a bird is identified, counted and tracked.20 wordsC2PalaeontologyHow a bone becomes a date and a living creature.26 wordsC2Floristry and ornamental horticultureCut flowers go on living after the cut, but not for long.24 wordsC2FisheriesA stock nobody can count and everybody harvests.32 wordsC2The weather forecastA statement about something that has not happened yet.31 words

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.

LevelWordsShare
B225120 %
C132425 %
C271255 %

Practise this category

Multiple choice and gaps, across all 36 lists and all 1287 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.