The next morning, Vivian’s one outfit — a full set of clothes worn together — is a short skirt and tall boots, which won’t work at a business dinner. So Edward sends her, with his credit card, to Rodeo Drive, the city’s most expensive shopping street.

Vivian walks into a boutique — a small, fashionable shop selling expensive clothes, often from a single designer. A designer is the person or brand that makes the clothes, so “designer clothes” have a famous name on the label, and a famous price to match.

The sales assistant looks Vivian up and down and asks the question you’ll hear in every shop: “Can I help you?” If you just want to browse, the usual reply is “Just looking, thanks.” Vivian isn’t just looking. She asks the price of a dress — and the assistant refuses to serve her. Because of how Vivian is dressed, the shop has decided she’s the wrong kind of customer.

Vivian goes back to the hotel upset, and Barney, the hotel manager, quietly telephones a shop he knows. It’s the first step in a makeover — a complete change of look: new clothes, new hair, new make-up.

At the second shop, the manager asks, “What size are you?” It’s the ordinary way to ask which size someone needs, and the answer is simply a number or a letter — a 10, a medium, a small.

Then she’s invited to try something on — to put clothes on in the shop to see how they look before you buy — and shown the changing room, the small private room where you do it.

A point that trips up learners: if something fits, it’s the right size — not too tight, not too loose. If something suits you, it looks good on you: the colour, the shape, the style. A jacket can fit perfectly and still not suit you.

The next day, Edward takes Vivian shopping, and tells the staff he’s going to spend a lot. He wants elegant, not showy. When someone offers you something you’d never wear, the polite no is “it’s not my style” — it’s fine, just not the kind of thing I wear.

Most of us buy clothes off the rack — ready-made, in standard sizes, hanging on a rail. The alternative is tailored — cut and sewn to your exact measurements.

Then Vivian, arms full of bags, walks back into the first boutique. She holds up the bags and says: “Big mistake. Big. Huge.” Just an adjective, “big,” said twice, then a stronger one. In spoken English, one adjective often works as a whole sentence.

Vivian now starts to dress up for each event — to wear smart, formal clothes for a special occasion. There’s a polo match, a business dinner with too many forks, and the opera in San Francisco, where Vivian, in a red dress, is moved to tears.

The words reviewers reached for are the five bonus words above. The Rodeo Drive scenes are deliberately glamorous — mirrors, soft lighting, shopping bags — and by the middle of the film Vivian’s clothes are elegant rather than loud. Even critics who had doubts about the story agreed the film is unashamedly romantic.