Planning your vocabulary learning

to learn something by heart
to learn something by saying it to yourself over and over;
to memorise

criteria (noun: plural)
the principles or standards you use

criterion (singular)
making a judgement about something. For example, your main criterion for choosing to remember a word might be ‘Is it useful for me?’.

stair rods
metal strips which attach a carpet to steps or stairs.
‘It’s raining stair rods’ gives us the idea that the rain is so heavy that it looks like long pieces of metal.

an idiom
a phrase or saying which you cannot understand by looking at the individual words. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ is a very old-fashioned British idiom meaning ‘It’s raining very hard’.

something is worth doing (to be + worth + verb + ing)
when you tell someone that something is worth doing, you are recommending it to them. For example, you can say that a book you like is worth reading or that your favourite film is worth seeing.

to crop up
to appear unexpectedly