BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

English In A Minute
How to use ‘ish’
This is not a word-for-word transcript

Ish is tiny but useful - especially in informal English.

We add ish to the ends of words to make them more vague, when
something is not exact, for example.

Ish makes times more approximate so 2ish is about 2 o'clock.

Okay, I'll see you there at 2ish.

We also add ish to other numbers, so 40ish is about 40.

I'm not sure how old she is - 40ish I think.

We add ish to many adjectives such as colours, so if something is kind

of brown, we say it's brownish.

My coat's the brownish one over there.

And if someone is quite tall, we can say they are tallish.

I'm tallish with longish brown hair.

Finally, because ish has become so popular, it's become its own word
in informal English as a way to say kind of

Did you like the film?

Yeah, ish.

I hope you found this video useful - ish.

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