Happy Sunday! This week took us from git commands to AI vocabulary, architecture, meetings, career pivots, and weekend small talk. Today we slow down and lock in the five words that matter most — plus every idiom from the week, so nothing slips away before Monday.

📖 Word of the Day: Recap

  • Word: recap
  • IPA: /ˈriː.kæp/
  • Vietnamese meaning: tóm tắt, điểm lại (những gì đã học hoặc đã xảy ra)
  • Example sentences:
    1. “Let’s recap what we covered this week before we start next week’s topics.”
    2. “Can you give me a quick recap of the standup? I joined five minutes late.”
    3. “The manager ended the meeting with a two-minute recap of the decisions made.”

Listen and practice pronunciation:

Vocabulary Table — Top 5 Words of the Week

WordVietnameseExample
Rebaseviết lại lịch sử commit lên nhánh gốc mới”I rebased my branch onto main before opening the PR.”
Hallucinate(AI) tự bịa thông tin sai mà vẫn nói như thật”The model hallucinated a function that doesn’t exist.”
Decoupletách rời, giảm sự phụ thuộc giữa các thành phần”We decoupled the payment service from checkout.”
Facilitateđiều phối, tạo điều kiện thuận lợi”Can you facilitate today’s retro?”
Pivotxoay trục, chuyển hướng (nghề nghiệp)“She pivoted back to an IC role after two years managing.”

Bonus word from Saturday: Eventful /ɪˈventfəl/ — nhiều sự kiện, sôi nổi. “It’s been an eventful week — we shipped the release and had two incidents.”

🗣 Pronunciation Guide

“Recap” breakdown — /ˈriː.kæp/:

  • Stress on the first syllable: REE-kap, not ree-KAP
  • “Re-” is a long /iː/ sound, like “tree”
  • “-cap” rhymes with “map” or “tap”

Practice sentence (read aloud 3x):

“Before we recap the week, let’s make sure everyone’s on the same page.”

Notice how “recap” and “on the same page” (Thursday’s idiom) fit naturally into one sentence — that’s the goal of a weekly review: combine, don’t just memorize in isolation.

✍️ Exercise 1: Fill in the Blank

Fill each blank with one word from this week: rebase, hallucinate, decouple, facilitate, pivot.

  1. “Our new hire asked a good question, so I let her _______ the rest of the discussion.”
  2. “If the AI’s answer sounds too confident but unsourced, it might _______.”
  3. “We need to _______ the notification service so a slow email provider doesn’t block signups.”
  4. “I want to _______ onto the latest main branch before merging.”
  5. “After the layoffs, he decided to _______ from backend engineering into DevOps.”
Show answers
  1. facilitate
  2. hallucinate
  3. decouple
  4. rebase
  5. pivot

✍️ Exercise 2: Translate to English

Translate these Vietnamese sentences using this week’s vocabulary.

  1. “Chúng tôi đã tách rời frontend khỏi hệ thống monolith cũ.”
  2. “Bạn có thể điều phối cuộc họp retro hôm nay không?”
  3. “Mô hình AI đã bịa ra một ngày tháng không có thật.”
Show answers
  1. “We decoupled the frontend from the legacy monolith.”
  2. “Can you facilitate today’s retro meeting?”
  3. “The AI model hallucinated a date that doesn’t exist.”

💬 Idiom of the Day: “Wrap your head around (something)”

  • Vietnamese meaning: hiểu được, nắm bắt được (một điều gì đó phức tạp hoặc mới)
  • Example 1: “It took me a whole sprint to wrap my head around the new event-driven architecture.”
  • Example 2: “Once you wrap your head around rebasing, merging feels clunky by comparison.”

This Week’s Idioms — Full Recap

DayIdiomVietnamese
MondayBack to the drawing boardquay lại từ đầu, làm lại từ con số không
TuesdayTake it with a grain of saltđừng vội tin hoàn toàn, hãy nghi ngờ một chút
WednesdayBuild it to lastxây dựng để bền vững lâu dài
ThursdayOn the same pagecùng chung quan điểm, hiểu thống nhất
FridayWear many hatsđảm nhận nhiều vai trò cùng lúc
SaturdaySame old, same oldvẫn như cũ, không có gì mới

📺 Recommended Watching

🎯 Sunday Challenge

Write one sentence using two words from this week’s list (e.g., combine “pivot” and “facilitate,” or “decouple” and “rebase”). Say it out loud three times before tomorrow’s lesson — combining vocabulary is what makes it stick.

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