Accent training exercises: Learn vowel sounds with the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-01-13 | The key to improving your English pronunciation is vowel pronunciation. In this pronunciation lesson, you'll learn the vowels of English through the IPA -- the International Phonetic Alphabet. I will teach you four of the vowel sounds in English: /ɪ/ as in ship, /I:/ as in sheep, /ʊ/ as in cook, and /u:/ as in blue. We will compare and contrast these vowel phonemes in different practical exercises so that you can hear and remember them. This lesson is both for beginners who are completely new to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as well as for advanced learners who could benefit from some revision of the English vowel sounds to improve their clarity and accent.If you're ready to learn all the sounds of English and take your accent to the next level, take my Clear Speech course:engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. A quick message before we get started on today's lesson. When you're speaking English, are you constantly getting misunderstood? Are people asking you to repeat yourself a lot? Or perhaps are they looking at you with a confused face, perhaps pretending they know what you're saying when really they don't understand? If your answer is yes and you're at that stage where you already know English and you can communicate, the problem is nobody else understands you, then I really want you to watch until the end of this lesson because I'm going to tell you about my Clear Accent Training Course. So, stay watching until the end of the lesson, and I'll tell you how you can speak clearly and get over that stage of being misunderstood and all the frustrations that come with it.Hi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to teach you four English vowels, and I'm going to teach you those vowels in IPA. I'll teach you those symbols. When I was learning IPA it took me the longest time to remember the sounds and to associate them with the symbols. It actually took years; a really long time. So I'm not sure... I'm not sure if I was really slow to learn this or it's... For some people it's easier than others, but anyway, this lesson comes from what helps me to learn, which is when I practiced rather than just try to memorize, it's when I get to experience the different sounds and that way it sticks in my memory and that way I know. And another thing is we're only looking at four sounds because we don't want: "Ah! Ah!" overwhelm, confusion. And we're looking at four sounds because these four sounds are related, and when we learn them we learn them in comparison to the other sounds.So here they are: "I:", "I", "?", "U:". So you can do this along with me while you're watching the video. "I:", "I", "?", "U:". Here's a drawing of a tongue. What happens when we make these four sounds is that our tongue moves in position... The tongue height changes in position and moves backwards from one sound to the other. Now, you might need to practice this many times and get used to the feeling of... See if you can put your awareness and your concentration on the shape of your tongue, and feel it as it moves back through the sounds. "I:", "I", "?", "U:". Do that enough times so that you can feel your tongue moving, and that's how you know they're related. We can also go backwards the other way, we can go: "U:", "?", "I", "I:". That's harder for me; I had to think about it. Let's look now at the lip shapes when we make these sounds. For I:, I've got an English mouth so I don't actually move that much, but when I make these sounds I go from the widest lips position to the most rounded lips position. "I:", "I", "?", "U:". So, "U:" you can see is more rounded, and I start in the widest position: "I:". Depending on who's teaching you, who you're looking at, depending on how wide their lips are, how big their mouth is, it's easier to see. But I've got a small English mouth, so you can't really see it that well on me. So, practice that, going backwards and forwards. Look in a mirror as well, and that way you can see how your lip shape changes when you make the sounds.Okay, here we have two columns, these are called minimal pairs. This is for "I:", this is for "I". The words are the same, except the vowel has changed. We have: "beet", "I:", "I:", and then we have: "bit". So the only difference is the vowel. "Beet", "bit". And the same through the rest of the list. "Sheep", "ship"; "deep", "dip"; "feet", "fit"; "cheap", "chip"; "piece", "piss"; "he'll", "hill". When we do the minimal pairs, we get to feel in our mouths and also we get to contrast the two sounds. It's helpful when we're learning IPA. But the problem is not all the sounds have pairs of words for us to repeat and to memorize.Let's look at this column now. In this column we're comparing the sounds for "?" and "U:". […]
Learn British English: Vocabulary, slang, grammar, pronunciation, accent, culture English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2024-07-31 | Learn REAL London English with me, Jade!You can watch all my English classes here: youtube.com/EnglishJade/videos
How do posh people speak? Learn about language and social class in England English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-11-20 | How do posh people talk? This lesson is all about posh people in England! How do they talk? What kind of jobs do they have? What kind of lives do they live? I will explain what it means to speak and act like a posh English person in terms of social class and family background. I will also give you some examples of British actors, such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley who, in most of their films, play the parts of posh people. You will also learn about Nancy Mitford’s “U” and “Non-U” language. She was an English journalist and novelist who wrote about posh people in the 1950s. Though society is always changing, awareness of class and the language associated with class is still very important in England, so if you’re studying English or just interested in English culture, watch this video.Take the quiz: engvid.com/how-do-posh-people-speakNext, watch my video on how to pronounce British place names! youtu.be/AW3KJB6CuJA
Australian English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-10-15 | G’day mate! Do you want to learn Australian English? In this lesson with the help of my friend Joey the Kangaroo I’m going to teach you Australian vocabulary and slang. I might be a Pom (English person) but fair dinkum I know a thing or two about life down under. I’ll teach you the meaning of common Australian phrases and Aussie lifestyle slang. Apologies in advance for my Australian accent... I’d had a few too many bevvies before I recorded this lesson! Take the quiz: engvid.com/australian-englishNext, watch my lesson on SCOTTISH English! youtu.be/w6oH1e_Z1PA
GROUP JOB INTERVIEW: What to say and do to succeed English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-06-19 | All my best advice on how to succeed at your group job interview. Even though everyone hates them, group job interviews are very common for graduate recruitment, as well as for airline and call centre jobs. If you are anything like me, you won’t like group job interview situations very much, and therefore, you could find them terrifying... and maybe you don’t show your best side and don’t get the job as a result. Not to worry, though, because I will teach you exactly the phrases you should say in your group job interview so that you get noticed. It’s easy to get lost in the group, but with my tips, you will stand out! Whether you want to be a manager or a team player, memorise my job interview phrases, and you will be on your way to success!Take the quiz on this lesson: engvid.com/group-job-interviewMore JOB INTERVIEW videos to watch next:What to say at your job interview youtu.be/hcyKWsEL2XMHow to do a job interview on Skype youtu.be/Cu_mQsWJA_Q
Learn how to say 30+ foods that are hard to pronounce English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-05-15 | Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you didn’t order something at a restaurant because you were unsure how to pronounce the word? Maybe you purposely mumbled something and pointed at the menu? In this lesson, you will improve your pronunciation of foods that are difficult to pronounce. Many of the words that I will teach you come from other languages such as French, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. You will learn how to pronounce words like “Worcestershire sauce”, “tzatziki”, “taramasalata”, “tabbouleh”, “courgette”, “lychee”, “quiche”, “hors d’oeuvre”, “bruschetta”, and many more. You will also learn a little about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This is a useful lesson for you if you enjoy eating out at restaurants or if you like to try cuisines from around the world. This lesson is also essential viewing for native speakers of English, as the foods in this list are commonly mispronounced! Watch, learn, and avoid embarrassment!Take the quiz: engvid.com/30-foods-hard-to-pronounceWatch next:Sound like a native speaker: advanced pronunciation youtu.be/oN1fP2Ffty48 tips for British English pronunciation youtu.be/T7SWETadMn0
Schedule: Are you saying it correctly? English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-04-27 | The word ‘schedule’ is used almost every day in the workplace. If you need to use English at work, make sure you’re saying this word correctly. It’s difficult because of its strange spelling, as well as the fact that it’s pronounced very differently in British English and American English. In this video, I will teach you exactly how to pronounce it with an English accent and with an American one. You’ll also hear example sentences, to give you context. This is a short and direct video, because I know you’ve got a busy... day. engvid.com/schedule-pronunciation
Get a job: Language & phrases for Your English CV English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-04-09 | Are you preparing your English CV to find work? People increasingly need to have an English version of their CV, even if they hope to find work in their home country. In this video, I give you language tips and phrases you can include in the English version of your CV or resume. By including some of these words and phrases, you will impress your potential employer with your knowledge of English. You may also find the vocabulary and common phrases for CVs useful for your English covering letter. Good luck in your job hunt!Take the quiz at engvid.com/get-a-job-english-cv
Change your life by changing how you speak English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-03-19 | In this lesson, I will show you how the language we use is a reflection of our deeper psychology. For example, if you are the kind of person who always apologises for your “terrible English”, this is going to hold you back in life. Another example happens when people constantly talk about what they are going to do but in fact, they never do it. I will teach you to be much more aware of the language you use so that you can speak in a more powerful way than ever before. When you speak powerfully, you get what you want. If you speak in a weak way, you will never be taken seriously.Test your understanding of this lesson by taking the quiz: engvid.com/change-your-life-by-changing-how-you-speak
Learn about the SCOTTISH accent, dialect, and slang! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-03-03 | Dae ye talk Scots? In Scotland, locals speak English, but they have their own dialect, which means a set of different words that aren't used in England. At first, the accent might also be difficult to understand. There might be a lot of vocabulary that you have never heard before. In this lesson, I’m going to teach you common Scottish vocabulary and fun phrases in my best Scottish accent! Depending on who you ask, "Scots" is either a dialect of English, or it’s vocabulary that is considered a local slang. However, if you are visiting Scotland, the difference in language is close enough that native English speakers can understand most of it easily. The Scots language spoken in Scotland varies depending on the region. Therefore, in this lesson, I will include the most well known Scottish vocabulary as well as some examples of Doric phrases (North East Scots). Be sure to make fun of my attempts at the Scottish accent!
The MOST mispronounced word in English: Learn how to say it correctly! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-02-11 | There is a very basic word in English that’s used by most people almost every single day, but that many, many learners of English mispronounce. I will teach you EXACTLY how to pronounce this word correctly so that you have no more mistakes. You’ll also learn more about the sound in this word that causes confusion and I’ll give you examples of other words that have the same pattern. Then test your knowledge with the quiz at engvid.com/the-most-mispronounced-word-in-englishFor more of my accent and pronunciation videos, audio, and to learn about my private training, go to jadejoddle.com !
How to pronounce British towns & cities: -HAM, -BURY, -WICH, -MOUTH... English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-01-22 | A surprising thing about British town names is they are often pronounced differently than they are written. For example, the name “Tottenham” is actually pronounced phonetically like “tot-nam”, which is only two syllables compared to the three syllables in its written form. Depending on where you are in Britain, you may even hear different variations in pronunciation. So how can you know how to pronounce town names properly? In this lesson, I will teach you about common suffixes of British town and city names and how to pronounce them correctly every time. I will teach you the etymology of suffixes such as –ham, -bury, -field, -wich, -mouth, -pool, and –ing. We will also talk about what these suffixes mean. For example, did you know that any town name that ends in -pool means “harbour”? Learning these suffixes will improve your pronunciation and knowledge of British town names.Test your understanding with the quiz at engvid.com/how-to-pronounce-british-towns-cities
How to remember IPA phoneme symbols: my tricks! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2020-01-04 | Have you ever tried to read a pronunciation guide and been confused? Do you just skip those guides because you don’t understand the symbols? Memorising the symbols for each of the sounds in English is very difficult and takes time. In this lesson, however, I will teach you a shortcut to help you remember all the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols for the sounds in the English language. Learning these symbols takes time, practice, and patience, but it will greatly improve your overall pronunciation of English. Whether you are a beginner or advanced learner, you will surely find this a useful lesson for your pronunciation skills. Next, watch my other IPA lessons to master these important tools for your English pronunciation:1. Introduction to the IPA and vowel sound training: youtu.be/vU3PEAc02y42. Accent training exercises: youtu.be/r6o6NOjGv7I
POSH ENGLISH: Old-fashioned British English Expressions English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-11-23 | In this lesson, I will teach you the kind of posh English that was spoken back in the early 20th century, when the British Empire ruled over nearly a quarter of the world’s land area. “I say, old chap. Wouldn’t it be spiffing to learn some old-fashioned posh words and expressions?” The vocabulary and expressions in this lesson is not in general use anymore, but you still may hear some of the language if you watch period dramas and historic films set in that period of time. If you happen to like the British “stiff upper lip” stereotype from the glory days of the British Empire, then knowing more about the way the upper class Brits spoke during those times will be of interest to you.Test your understanding with the quiz: engvid.com/posh-english-old-fashioned-british-english-expressions
English Grammar: Modal Verbs of Certainty – MIGHT, MAY, MUST, CAN English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-10-17 | Learn how to use the modals MIGHT, MAY, MUST, and CAN to talk about possibility and certainty in English. A speculation is when you use the evidence in a situation to make an opinion about it. To form your opinion, you ask yourself, “What has happened or not happened based on what I know or see?” You don’t know for sure that your opinion is true, but you can make an informed guess. For example, imagine your friend told you she would call at 6 p.m., but she did not. What could you speculate or deduce? She MIGHT have forgotten. She COULD have been too busy. Something urgent MAY have come up. In this advanced English grammar lesson, we will discuss all the grammar you need to make a speculation or deduction in English. After the lesson, take the quiz here! engvid.com/english-grammar-modal-verbs-of-certainty
So many ways to SAY YES in English! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-09-28 | I will teach you 26 ways to say “YES” in English! Not all ways of saying “yes” are equally strong in English. In fact, sometimes, when we say yes, we really mean no! How confusing! Due to the constraints of politeness, we are often forced to agree to something we disagree with. In this lesson, I will teach you all the different ways of saying yes in English. You will learn how to tell the difference between a strong and certain “yes”, a neutral “yes”, and even a reluctant, passive aggressive “yes”. You should always say what you mean and mean what you say, but when that is impossible, try some of these different ways of agreeing even when you disagree! Test your new skills with the quiz at engvid.com/so-many-ways-to-say-yes-in-englishMake sure you also watch my video on how to SAY NO in English: youtube.com/watch?v=AKlksEOSO9I
25 ways to SAY NO strongly! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-08-20 | Saying “NO!” is a very simple way to refuse. However, native speakers of English say “no” in many different ways which you might not know yet. It’s important for you to learn all the ways in which we can say “no” in order to prevent misunderstandings. You should also learn to use these because in some situations, you need to use stronger language. I will teach you 25 ways to refuse in a strong and direct way. Depending on where you come from, this may not be usual in your home country or culture. But in English-speaking countries, being direct is very often the most appropriate behavior. You will learn expressions such as “No way, Jose”, “under no circumstance”, “out of the question”, “no chance”, “fat chance”, “not gonna happen”, and many more. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to say the simple and common word “no” with more variety than ever before. Take the quiz at engvid.com/25-ways-to-say-no-stronglyNext, watch my video on how to stop sounding weak:youtube.com/watch?v=DdS8-qF2lQQ&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=11TRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. This lesson is about strong ways to say NO. Lots of people are scared of that word, of saying no, so they want to know: "How can I say it politely? Or how can I not offend someone when I say: 'no'?" And this lesson is not about that; this lesson is how to say "no" when you really mean it, because sometimes we do need to say "no". It's an important word, and we need to say it so that people respect us when we say "no". So, I've got some different examples of situations where we might say "no", and different examples of language we can use.So, the first example here is a situation where somebody asks for your number, and I'm imagining a situation where you don't want to give your number to that person, they're hassling you, you're not attracted to them, you don't like them, you definitely don't want to give them your number - here are some things people say.First, a very common response is: "Sorry, I've got a boyfriend." And people might say that because they think: "If I say I've got a boyfriend, then that's why I can't give you my number. I would if I could, but I've already got a boyfriend, so that's why I can't give it to you." But in my opinion, this is not... this is not a strong enough no, so I'm going to cross that one out. Whether it's true or not, you've got a boyfriend or you haven't got a boyfriend, if you don't want to give that person your number, use something a bit stronger and don't worry about hurting their feelings in this situation, if they're hassling you.So, you could be more blunt. "Blunt" is another way of saying more direct. You can say: "I'm not interested." Or you could say: "Not gonna happen. No. Not gonna happen." This is... This is not standard English; this is slang - the way we would actually say it. We wouldn't say: "Not going to happen", because it's not as... It's not as fierce, so we shorten it to say: "Not gonna happen."Or you could say: "Not in a million years." This is so impossible and so unlikely for you to ask for my number, the only thing I can say is: "Not in a million years." You can keep asking me again, and again, and again for a million years, and the answer is going to be: "No".You could say: "No chance. No chance", and that means: You have no chance with me; no chance. No chance.If the... If the person who wants your number is coming on really strong, like they won't go away; a lot of hassle, you can then say: "How many times do I have to tell you?!" You're getting more serious, you're saying it more like you mean it now, because you want this person to leave you alone.A similar... A similar kind of strength of "no" for that situation is to say: "What part of 'no' don't you understand? I've said 'no' to you already; this is the final straw. You're really getting on my nerves now. What part of 'no' don't you understand?" This makes you... This is like suggesting the other person is a bit stupid as well. "Don't you understand 'no'?"And the last two, imagine if that person is really hassling you: "Leave me alone!" or "Go away!" Now, it is a little bit hard in the sense that when we... When we do get more direct and aggressive, we have to be careful in a sense as well, because with some people this will... This will work when you shout at them, like: "Leave me alone! Go away!" If you're... If the way you say it is so strong and there's a lot of power in your words, it can scare a lot of people off; they go. But some people react to aggression and the way you... The way you say things. So, if you shouted at them: "Leave me alone!" they might be like: "What's your problem?" or something like that, so you always have to judge in the situation: Is it safe to use aggression with this person? It's safe to say: "No", but you have to decide how strong you can be. […]
The Most Common Words in English: 8 ways to use ‘THAT’ English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-06-29 | ‘That’ is one of the most common words in English. You already know this word, but you probably don’t know its wide variety of uses. In this lesson, I will teach you eight different uses of ‘that’. We’ll look at grammar as well as common expressions THAT you can use start using in your English conversations. You can test your understanding with the quiz at engvid.com/the-most-common-words-in-english-thatNext, watch my lesson on how to use transitive verbs in English:youtube.com/watch?v=2tZT8vcNljsTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about "that". "That" is one of the most common words in English. Let's have a look at how we can use it in conversation and in writing.First use is something close or distant. When something is close, we can say... "This" is a pointing word; it means close to me. "This man", "this room", "this pen". "This pen is close to me." But when something is further away, I can show that in language by saying: "That woman", "that house", "that pencil". "This pen; that pencil" - more far away.We can also use "that" when we want to reduce the length of a sentence. Because "that" is a pointing word, we can take a longer sentence, such as: "The song that is playing sounds great", and instead we can just say: "That's a great song." In a sentence like this, "that" means the song that's playing now. You already know about it, so I don't need to say those extra words. I can make it shorter: "That's a great song."Another example: "What's that thing in your hand?" I can simply say: "What's that?" If I'm looking at it, my eyes will show what I'm talking about: "What's that?" Another example: "The outfit that you're wearing looks great." You're dressed up, you're wearing something nice. I don't need to say all those words; I can simply say: "That looks great. That looks really great."The next use of "that" is to intensify something; make it more strong. I can say... An example... An example situation: "Trust me. It's that bad", and I use my tone of voice to add the intensity on "that", and also a bit on "bad". "Trust me. It's that bad." Another example: "I'm not joking. His cat really is that fat." And when we use "that" with our tone, it's something that native speakers would do to emphasize something. When we're making a joke perhaps or we're exaggerating something in a story, we'll say "that" with a lot of emphasis.Next use of "that" is the difference between writing and conversation. In conversation we don't always say the word "that"; whereas in more formal writing, we often will write "that" in a sentence. "I thought that it was a mistake." That's what I'd write. "I thought that it was a mistake", but perhaps I'd just say: "I thought it was a mistake." I could... I could also say, if I wanted: "I thought that it was a mistake." It's not right, it's not wrong; it depends on the speaker. But typically, if we do something in writing, that's because it's considered more formal, or more standard English, or more proper English.Another example: "They said that the package has not arrived." Perhaps I would write that sentence: "They said that the package has not arrived", whereas I would say: "They said the package has not arrived." Another example: "You promised that you would be home by 9." A written example, maybe we'd see that in a novel. Maybe not actually because this seems like spoken... Spoken dialogue. We could simply say... We could simply say, instead: "You promised you would be home by 9."Now let's look at example number five of when to use "that". We can use "that" in situations to comment and share our feelings about something that's happened. First example: "That's insane!" If I use that tone, I'm surprised. This could be you tell me that you've won 20 million pounds on the lottery - I'm so shocked about that, I say: "That's insane!" But equally, I can use this expression when I'm really shocked that something happened, and I think that it's crazy and insane. Let's say you knew about a criminal incident that happened - a crazy guy came and smashed up your friend's car. Maybe a jealous boyfriend or something like that - he smashed up the car, but when the police came, in the end they didn't charge him for anything. So, nothing happened to this guy who smashed the car. When you hear about it, you can say: "That's insane!" because you think it's a bad thing that happened. It depends on your tone.The next ones: "That's a pity", "That's too bad", and "That's a shame" all mean a similar thing, which is that something unfortunate has happened to you, you've been disappointed. This could be you had a job, you loved the job, you thought it was going really, really well and then two weeks after you've been doing this job the boss suddenly comes to you and says: "Sorry, but we can't keep you on", so you lose your job. […]
Are you using submissive language? English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-06-01 | In this video, I will teach you to identify whether you have a dominant or submissive style of speaking English. I’ll also teach you how to adapt your speaking style if you wish to be either more assertive (dominant) or obliging (submissive) in the future. If you have a dominant style of speaking English, you are someone who takes control of a situation and who isn’t afraid to ask directly for the things you want. On the other hand, a person who uses submissive language has difficulty putting themselves first in any life situation. If you are someone who speaks English in a submissive way, you may find it difficult to achieve your goals in life, although on the positive side, you may speak in a polite and courteous manner. Can you recognize submissive language? Take the quiz at engvid.com/submissive-language Continue to change your behaviour and life by understanding and changing the way you speak by watching these videos next:1. STOP SOUNDING WEAK: youtube.com/watch?v=DdS8-qF2lQQ2. Toxic Language & Violent Communication: youtube.com/watch?v=ruLxkg2Jgys3. Passive-Aggressive Language: youtube.com/watch?v=vbWOh5xjgg8TRANSCRIPTHey, everyone. In today's lesson we're looking at submissive language. "Submissive language" is when you speak in a way that makes you really, really small and not important, and the person to whom you're speaking is all so special and so amazing, and much more important than you.An example of a character who uses submissive language is Dobby the House-Elf. Dobby the House-Elf is in all the Harry Potter films. Here is one of Dobby's quotes, and this is from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. "Dobby is a free house-elf and he can obey anyone he likes, and Dobby will do whatever Harry Potter wants him to do!"So, what's interesting about this quote in terms of submissive language is: "Dobby is a free house-elf", and the thing about the house-elves in Harry Potter is they are like the slaves of some of the wizards; the bad kind of wizards in Harry Potter have house-elves as slaves and they do everything for them. But Dobby is a house-elf who won his... Who considers himself to be free; but yet, if we look at his language, he says: "He can obey anyone". When you obey someone, it means you do what they tell you. So, he's free; but yet, he obeys anyone. So it's a... It's a contradiction."And Dobby will do whatever Harry Potter wants him to do". So, although he's a free house-elf now, I guess Dobby hasn't changed that much because he's happy to do whatever Harry Potter wants him to do, because Dobby is very grateful to Harry Potter and he respects him very much, so we see it in the language that he uses.So, most of us, we aren't going to use submissive language in such an obvious way like Dobby the House-Elf, but there might be signs of it in our speech, and that's what we're going to look at in this lesson. I'm going to give lots of examples where, without realizing it, we might speak a little bit like Dobby the House-Elf.Okay, first, before we get there, I want to talk about what this kind of language shows about us as a person. Some of it's good, and in some situations we might look at it as... We might see it as a negative thing in some situations. It might be good for us sometimes, but if we use it too much and we make ourselves small in that situation, maybe it's not helpful for us.So, first of all, when we talk in this way, sometimes it has the appearance of being very polite language. And that's good in a way-isn't it?-because it seems that we have good manners, and we are... We are a charming person because we're being very polite. But then if we go too polite, sometimes it doesn't seem that genuine or authentic, perhaps. So, when we use this kind of language as well, it shows that we're considerate people; we're people that think about the needs of others first. The people we like especially, we make them very, very important and we care about what they think. So, this shows that we think of other people and not just of ourselves. This kind of language also shows that we're conscientious people. It means that we... We have a... We care what other people think of us, and we want other people to think that we're kind of people, and good people, and helpful people.And then the next thing this kind of language shows about us is low status. That's another way of saying: "Oh, I'm... I'm not very important; you're more important than I am." Or: "You're more important than I will ever be." So it's not very helpful to use that kind of speech in many life situations, for example, in many jobs; but then on the other hand, in some jobs if you have a big boss, your big boss is probably really happy if you make yourself small and look up to them. So it really depends on... On the job that you do. […]
34 things you don’t know about English culture! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-04-16 | Want to understand English people and their culture better? In this listening and culture lesson, I’ll talk you through some of the things you might not already know about life in England. For example, I’ll explain to you why some English people wear paper red flowers in the month of November. I’ll explain some of the things you may have observed, but don’t quite understand if you are new to English culture – such as some of the weird adverts you may have seen on television with talking meerkats in them. There are lots of topics to cover in this lesson: holidays, life events, the big brother state, culture, and more. Join me and learn more about life in England, while improving your listening comprehension at the same time. See how well you understood the lesson by taking the quiz at engvid.com/34-things-you-dont-know-about-english-cultureLike this lesson? We have so many videos about English life and culture. Check them out now: youtube.com/watch?v=6fVRZhHam98&list=PLs_glF4TIn5YtEqu0I-8URDr8GT0JyYnITRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson I've got many, many things about English culture that you may have seen but you don't understand, so I'm going to break them down and summarise these things that, if you're not from here, from an outsider's perspective might be: "Oh, that's different" - something you don't understand yet. All of these topics could in themselves be English lessons on their own, so if you're particularly interested in a topic, what you could do is go and research it for yourself after this lesson.So let's start with... This lesson is broken down into topics, the groups, the different things about English culture. We'll start with charity. In England you may see people walking around wearing red poppies. "Poppy" is like a red flower - it's made from paper, and you see this around the time of November because on November the 11th there is a special day to commemorate-which means, like, remember-the people that died fighting in World War I, and all the wars after that. So this is a charity event to raise money for the survivors of those wars, and to remember the horrors of war. So people walk around with the poppies on, and on television if you're watching around that time of year, in particularly... In particular on the BBC, people will be wearing their red poppies. So, if you didn't know what the red poppy was about, that's what it's for.Next we have charity fun runs. A lot of people are very into running and saving money for charity at the same time. So, sometimes they wear a fancy dress costume; sometimes they run in a costume which is really, really hard to wear or heavy or difficult in some way. So, the people that go in these races, before they all race, they'll go around asking everyone you know: "Can you sponsor me? Can you give me some money for my run?"Next we've got Red Nose Day. Red Nose Day is a charity television event where on the BBC they raise money for the charities they support. Some of there... Some of them are in the UK, and some of them are global charities. And their theme... the thing they mainly are famous for is getting people to wear red noses on that day when it happens. And now you'll more likely see in particular chain shops, big shops that have a partnership with Red Nose Day, you'll see you can buy t-shirts of Red Nose Day. So, when you buy something in that shop, money goes to Red Nose Day. They get all famous people involved doing silly things, and it's just one day on television where they try to have fun and raise money for their charities.It's quite similar to Children in Need in terms of... This is another charity event. In terms of how they do it - get the celebrities in, make some comedy with the celebrities. But Children in Need is raising money for children's charities; and instead of the Red Nose Day thing, they have Pudsey Bear and that's their mascot; their... The thing that represents them is their bear, and they... People also watching at home can raise money themselves with their friends and families, and people at school perhaps by baking cakes, having a clothes... An old clothing sale, something like that. People will get involved with these events and give their money to charity.The next topic I want to look at is advertising. When you go to a different country and you watch the television and you see the adverts, some of the adverts stick in your mind and you think: "That's weird" or "What's that about?" So, here are a few of those kinds of adverts. We have number five, which is: "Compare the Meerkat". "Compare the Meerkat" has been... They've been doing it... I don't... I'm just going to guess, here, maybe 10 years. It's an insurance company, and at some point they decided to use meerkat animals to sell their insurance, and it was really popular and everybody loved it, and thought it was cute and funny. And now it's kind of confusing that they are still an insurance company […]
Learn English Slang: GUY TALK English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-03-26 | Learn 11 slang words and phrases that are popular NOW. The slang in today’s video is used especially by men...men talking about their bodies, men talking about other men, and men talking about women! Learn what it means when a guy is “making gains” or “smashing it”. Is that guy full-natty, or is he 'roided up? - Man, that chick at the bar was hot AF! - Yeah, but she was dumb A all F! I’m looking for the full package... Watch this lesson to learn what all of this slang means, and how you can use it. You'll see and hear these slang terms a lot on YouTube and all over the internet. Do you even lift bro? Take the quiz at engvid.com/learn-english-slang-guy-talkWATCH NEXT:3 popular slang words in British English: youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JUlo0ETZYTRANSCRIPTHey, everyone. In this lesson we're talking guy talk - things that guys say in the gym, or about each other, or about women.And we'll start with: "_______ as fuck". "As fuck" is used for emphasis when you really mean something, so you could see... You could be talking about this woman, and you could say... or girl, you could say: "She was ugly as fuck. She was... she was so ugly." But if you wanted to say it... If she was extra ugly, you've never seen anything as ugly as that in your life, you could say: "She's ugly as all fuck." Then you really mean it. That's extra, extra "as fuck".Now we've got: "smashing it". When... this is more of a British English expression. "Smashing" used to mean... It still does, but it's not really used. Used to mean really good if something is smashing, but it's not used in that way now. It's changed in slang to be: "smashing it". When you're smashing it, you're doing it really well; you're doing it so well. So, if you were at the gym and you were... You were lifting, like, more than you normally lift, you could say... You could say: "I was... I smashed it at the gym today." Or you could say: "He's smashing it" - he's having such a... Such a good workout, whatever. When you really approve when they're doing something really well: "smashing it".Next we have: "making gains". "Making gains" means when you go to the gym and you want to put on muscle, and you want to do bodybuilding because you want to get bigger, you want to get ripped - you want to get ripped as fuck. So, you go to the gym and you do all the stuff they do. You're trying to... You want to "make gains"; get bigger. You want to make gains. This is, like... It's something you're doing as in a sport, but also with the intention to get bigger and put on the muscle.Next we've got: "full natty". If you're full natty, you're... You're... You're someone who works out; you're a man who works out who's fully natural, and that means you don't take steroids to, like, get bigger and bigger and bigger. You have got your muscle the hard way, without any help from steroids. So, people talk about other... Men talk about other men, or men talk about bodybuilders on YouTube, or athletes, and things like that, and they'll say: "Do you think he's full natty?" That means: Do you think he's natural? Or they say: "He's... He's not fully... He's not fully... He's not full natty." That means that he takes steroids.If he takes steroids, then you're "roided up". Steroid; you're roided up. So, if you think about a... you want to go to a club - who's standing there at the door when you want to get in? This big guy like this - he's roided up and you have to show him your ID before you can get in the club.If he's roided up, it's quite possible that he's also got "bitch tits". As he's put on all... He's made gains and he's got really... he's got really muscley, but he's also grown some boobies. That's because the steroids have the impact on him of making bitch tits. You can, by the way, also get bitch tits from eating foods with lots of estrogens in them, so eating lots and lots of chicken has been known... chicken breast has been known to give a man bitch tits.Next we've got: "to have swag". If somebody has swag, then it's like they carry themselves... They carry themselves really... Well, they have confidence, they dress well. "Swag" comes from... In British English, comes from "swagger". Someone with swagger - it means the same thing; walking with confidence, looking good. But now the more modern slang version is "having swag".Now, this expression to say: "Have... have swag. Oh. Oh, you've got swag; he's got swag", some... I think it's been overused a lot by the younger... The younger generation, younger... younger than I am. Anyway, because I've... I've never actually said this myself; I've heard it. Because it's been overused so much and some people don't... I guess they find this term annoying or whatever, it's become a meme, like something people say when they hear it: "Secretly We Are Gay". Okay? […]
Sound like a Native Speaker: WHEN & WHAT QUESTIONS English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-03-05 | In this lesson I’ll teach you FAST native speaker pronunciation. We’ll look at how when native speakers are relaxed and talking fast, individual sounds in a sentence may change completely. This happens because our tongues naturally want to say everything the laziest way possible! I’ll give you plenty of examples of the sounds in words changing when spoken quickly and I’ll also teach you some IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). We’ll also practice speaking with the right intonation when asking questions, as this is really important not only to convey the right meaning, but also to get the correct rhythm in your speech. In under 15 minutes, you will be able to start sounding more like a native English speaker.Do you want to clearer speech? Learn more about my CLEAR ACCENT course at engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to teach you how to speak like a native speaker. When native speakers are speaking, everything flows so it sounds like it's really, really fast and it's hard to understand; but in this lesson I'm going to show you how native speakers connect their words, and for that reason when they speak it sounds really fast. So, based on this lesson, you'll be able to speak faster like a native speaker, but also understand native speakers better when they're just speaking in a relaxed way.Let me explain the columns I've got here. Here we have the question phrases, and here this is written in sentences that you can understand, normal English sentences - this is what we write, but this column is what we say. This is the difference between the sounds that we make in the sentences and what we write. And this column here is the best we can get to and the closest we can get to describing the sounds, still using the English alphabet, but we could only get so close to it because the English alphabet doesn't have letters for every sound in English when we're speaking, so that's why we have this column which is IPA transcription. Now, this might be completely new to you and you won't understand the symbols here. It can be hard to learn at first, but I'm going to point out the most important things you need to know here. And as you learn this, slowly, slowly, this is a way for you to understand the exact pronunciation of words, but also when words are together in a sentence.Let's have a look at the first example. The question phrase is: "When's he coming? When's he coming?" Now, if I'm saying that slowly, perhaps as a beginner, I would say: "When is he coming?"; "When's he coming?" is when I speed it up. So, look here at "sounds like": "Wen-zi kumin? Wen-zi kumin?" What's...? What's changed about the question? Well, the first thing to notice is that the "g" is gone: "kumin, kumin". That happens a lot in words that end in "ing", like: "going", "coming". We don't say the "g" when we're speaking in a really relaxed, informal way at all times, in all... In all situations. So, "coming" becomes "kumin", and there's another change. "When's he...? When is he" changes to: "Wen-zi, wen-zi. Wen-zi kumin?" Why does this change? Where has the letter "h" gone? Well, it becomes silent: "Wen-zi kumin?" And the "s" changes to a "z" sound. "Wen-zi kumin?"Next example: "When did you meet?" Beginner: "When did you meet?" but that doesn't sound very natural, so instead we say: "Wen-jew meet? Wen-jew meet?" What's changed here is where... Where's the "d" for "did" gone? "Wen-jew meet?" This happens because the sounds blend into one another. If we go back here as well: "When did you meet?" - four sounds, four syllables; but here: "Wen-jew meet?" - only three syllables. "Wen-jew meet?" "e", "e", this is long "i" sound - "e" in "meet". "Wen-jew meet?"There's another way we can say this: "Wen di-jah meet? Wen di-jah meet?" Let's compare. Listen closely because it's a small difference. "Wen-jew meet? Wen di-jah meet? Wen di-jah meet?" Just depends on the speaker and whether they're feeling very relaxed, how informal the situation is what pronunciation they would use. "Wen di-jah meet? Wen di-jah meet?" This is the schwa. "Wen di-jah meet?"Next example: "When do you go home? When do you go home?" I'm speaking slowly like a robot, so let's speed it up: "Wen-jew go home? Wen-jew go home? What time? Wen-jew go home? Wen-jew go home?" Dipthong, "o", "home", "o", home". "Wen-jew go home?" I can say that one in a different way: "Wen-juh go home? Wen-juh go home?" Let's look at the IPA. "When..." Oh, there's a mistake here; I've written: "Wen-ya go home". That's an easy mistake to make. So let's... Let's change this. "Wen-juh? Wen-juh go home?" Why did I make that mistake there? Because when I've written it how to say it, I'm using the letter "j". "Wen-juh", so I can read that - that's easy, but in IPA the "j" is a different sound; it's "yuh", not "juh"; it's "yuh", so it's an easy mistake to make and a common mistake to make, something you have to learn. "Wen-juh go home?" […]
Prepositions: 16 ways to use ‘by’ in English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-02-12 | ‘By’ is such a small word, but it’s not simple! In this lesson, I’ll show you many different ways to use ‘by’ as a preposition. I will teach you through specific examples and situations so that it’s not just theoretical. For advanced English learners, I’ll also teach you prepositional phrases with ‘by’, such as ‘by appointment only’. Using these prepositional phrases is a great way to elevate your English to a more sophisticated level. Practice what you've learned with the quiz: engvid.com/prepositions-16-ways-to-use-by-in-englishWATCH NEXT:10 ways to use 'FROM' in English: youtube.com/watch?v=RLXULxzSbtcTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're looking at how to use the preposition "by". "By" is such a common word; we use it all the time, but because of that, it can be confusing. "Am I using the right preposition?" So, in this lesson I'm going to go over lots of examples of when you should use "by", give you the rules of grammar; and also towards the end of the lesson, teach you new uses of "by" that you might not know yet because they're advanced.Okay, let's start with communication. Here's an example sentence: "You can enter the competition by text message, by post, by letter, or by email." These days it's not so common to enter a competition by post, but when I was younger watching children's television, that was often one of the main ways to enter the competition.Okay, moving on to transport now. "P" stands for "preposition". This shows us that in this example of grammar, "by" is being used as a preposition. "She's coming to London by car, by plane, by taxi, or by train." When we're talking about transport, the mode of transport, how we go somewhere - we use "by" as the preposition.Three: Error. "Error" means this is wrong; a mistake. "I'm sorry. I did it by mistake.", "I did it by accident. Oops. I did it by accident. I'm sorry." These are the only two examples you need to remember for error.Next one is luck. "We met each other by chance." I didn't plan to meet you today. I'm walking down the street: "Oh, there you are!" In that situation, I met you by chance. This means same thing as "by coincidence". "We met each other by coincidence." Also similar to the meaning of "fate". This was meant to be, in a way. You walk down the... well, not... coincidence... when people talk about coincidence, they mean: "This is just random it... this happened", whereas if they talk about fate, it's like: "It was planned to be by the gods" or something like that.Next use of "by" is for next to. And when we use "by" in these sentences, we mean: "This thing is positioned next to the other thing." Used as a preposition: "The cat is by the window." Here's the cat-"meow"-here's the window. The cat is by the window. Another example: "Your boots are by the stairs." Here are the stairs going up, here are your boots. "Your boots are by the stairs." And lastly, here: "My keys are by the door. My keys are by the door." More examples coming up.Next we have using "by" when we want to say who did something. These example sentences, here, are all examples of the passive voice. That's a grammar term. If after I've explained this, you want to know more, pause the video and go and... go and check out Adam's lesson on this. Let's look at these sentences: "'Sunflowers' was painted by Van Gogh". "Sunflowers" is a painting. Van Gogh, the artist, painted it. We can take this sentence, and swap it, and say: "Van Gogh painted 'Sunflowers'." But in this sentence, which is the passive voice, the thing that comes first in the sentence is the obje-... Is the object. "Sunflowers", the painting comes first, rather than the artist. And the reason we do passive voice sentences is because this is more formal writing, or we might see it written in an essay or something like that.Next example is: "I was invited by Mr. Smith." Mr... I'll change it around: "Mr. Smith invited me" would be the other way to say this. Next example: "My computer was repaired by the IT Department." I can change that one around and say: "The IT Department repaired my computer." So, in all of these sentences, to form the passive voice we use the preposition "by" in the example sentences.Next let's look at using "by" as a preposition when we're talking about how to pay for something. We can say: "by cash, by credit card, by PayPal". "You can pay for your computer by cash or by credit card in this store."Next... next we have how something is sold. Let's look at the examples. So, did you know that in England: "Eggs are sold by the dozen"? You get 12. A "dozen" means 12 eggs. "By the dozen". Fabric - material that's in our... makes our clothes and furniture, like sofas: "Fabric is sold by the metre." You go in the shop, and the fabric is all on those rolls, and they say: "How many metres do you want?" Fabric is sold by the metre. […]
Learn English Vocabulary: CATS! 🐱 🐈 English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-01-21 | Are you a cat lover like me? In this lesson, I will teach you English vocabulary about cat behavior, and also teach you how to describe the personality of cats. I’ll also tell you a few stories about my love of cats. I recommend this lesson to you if you like cats and also if you wish to improve your English listening skills. This is a purr-fect vocabulary lesson for cat people!See how well you understood the lesson by taking the quiz: engvid.com/learn-english-vocabulary-catsNext, watch some other vocabulary videos I've made:1. TRENDY FASHION WORDS: youtube.com/watch?v=UnIwr2vkb942. SPIRITUAL VOCABULARY: youtube.com/watch?v=52cixIxTKD8TRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. Welcome to my cat lesson. I really love cats, so I'm excited to do this for you today. I'm going to read you a cat poem, I'm going to talk about cat personalities, and I'm going to tell you some stories about my old cat I used to have. Unfortunately, he's dead now, but his name is Mr.... is/was Mr Milo. So, I'll let you know something about Mr Milo as we do the lesson.Let's begin with a poem. This poem is about cat behavior and also about how a cat changes as it gets older. I'll read it to you now.Listen, kitten,Get this clear,This is my chair.I sit here.Okay, kittyWe can share;When I'm not home,It's your chair.Listen catHow aboutIf I use itWhen you're out?So, what happens in this poem is that as the cat gets older, the cat's behavior changes. At first, it's a lovely, sweet kitten, and the cat's owner is in charge. The cat's owner is still the boss, and the cat's owner can say: "This is my chair", when the cat is a kitten; when it's still a baby.Then, later, the power has changed between the cat's owner and the cat. Now, they share the chair; they sit together. The owner sits with the cat, and when the owner goes out, then the cat can sit in the chair by itself. This is when the cat has become a kitty.And then, later, when the cat has become an adult, the power has completely changed and now the cat's owner can't sit in his own chair; he has to ask his cat: "Is it okay if I sit in that chair that you like so much?" when the cat has grown up.So, I really liked that poem about cats, because I think that's one of the main things about their personalities. Unlike a dog that respects you as its master and will always look up to you, that's not guaranteed with a cat. And many cats, as they get older, become very powerful and more powerful even than their owners.So let's look at some cat words now. We've got: "pussy" or "pussycat". The word "pussy" can be a rude word. If we want to say... We can still use it when we're talking about cats, but we have to say it in a sweet way: "pussy". And we can say: "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy" to a cat. It does sound a little bit funny, but you could still say it as kind of a joke or to be sweet.Another cat word is "moggy". A moggy is a cat that... It's not a fancy cat, it's maybe not a very attractive cat; it's a mix of all the different street cats around, and not a beautiful champion cat, but one that you can still love very much.Next we have a "tom" or a "tomcat". This is a male cat. And we have also "pedigree cat". "Pedigree" is a cat that has been bred to look a certain way; to look beautiful.My cat, Mr Milo, was a pedigree cat. He was a Persian cat. He was very, very beautiful, but he wasn't very intelligent as a cat. And perhaps it's true that maybe moggies are more intelligent than... at least more intelligent than Persian cats because they haven't been so inbred to look beautiful.Okay, now let's look at cat behavior. What does a cat do in its general, daily life? First of all, a cat loves to nap. You will often find a cat napping. For example, the cat may nap on a chair, it may nap on your bed. Cats might also do some hunting during the day. So, watch out if there's any wild birds in your garden, or any mice that might be in your garden or in your house because your cat will try to hunt that. Mr Milo was not very good at hunting. No, no, no. It was quite funny. He lived for 17 years, he never caught a bird. He only managed to catch a mouse that was already dying, so it couldn't really... It couldn't really run fast. And Mr Milo was so proud that he... He put his paw on this already half-dead mouse, but that... Mr Milo wasn't... He wasn't much of an aggressive cat. He was just, you know, he was good at looking beautiful, and that was all he did really.Cats also like to groom. "Grooming" is when they lick their... Lick their fur to stay clean. Cats also like to purr. [Purrs] That's how Mr Milo would purr. It was often quite annoying, because he always wanted to do it right there next to your neck, so you would get the feeling of the claws coming out, and also wet-cat breath on your neck and in your ear. […]
Speak English FAST, like a native speaker: 3 methods English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2019-01-02 | Ask questions quickly like a native speaker by learning natural pronunciation. When native speakers of English speak fast, the clear boundaries between words disappear and this is what gives the impression of talking fast. In reality, native speakers are not talking faster than normal -- it’s just that the sounds in their pronunciation flow together in the most smooth and efficient way. For this natural, flowing effect to happen in pronunciation there are three important changes in pronunciation that may occur. The first change is that whole sounds in the sentence may disappear completely (“elision”). The second change in pronunciation is that for the sounds to flow more smoothly, individual sounds may shift to a different sound (“assimilation”). And finally, new sounds that are not in the individual words themselves may appear when the sentence is spoken quickly (“intrusion”). No need to worry if that makes learning natural pronunciation seem very complicated; I break everything down for you in this lesson. All you need to do is follow the lesson and repeat after me. I’ll also teach you some IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) so that you can recognise the individual sounds of English more easily. For a lot more information on sounding like a native speaker and improving your accent, take my accent course: engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we’re going to learn how to speak fast like a native speaker. When you’re learning English and you hear native speakers, why is it that they sound so fast and it’s hard for them to understand? Are they really talking like: “Blub-blub-blub-blub-blub-blub-blub”, or is it something that they’re doing when they pronounce sentences that makes it seem fast, but it’s not really? Let’s look at some example sentences, and I’ll teach you how to speak fast like a native English speaker.All my question phrases are questions with “Do” or “Did”, and this is them written out in the full sentence, then I have in this column what the sentence sounds like. If we don’t know how to read IPA transcription, here, this is very useful for us. But the problem, when we write out the pronunciation in this way, is we don’t have letters for all the sounds. We don’t have letters from the English alphabet for all the sounds in English, so it’s helpful, but we can still sound slightly wrong if this is all we know about the pronunciation. That’s why I’m going to teach you little bits that we need to know from here, so that you get the correct pronunciation. And this is what, altogether, will help you speak fast like a native speaker.So, let’s start here, question phrase: “Do you like it?” That’s really slow. If you’re a beginner in English, you can understand it. “Do you like it?” But this is not how native speakers actually speak. It sounds something like: “D-you lie-kit? D-you lie-kit?” What happens is the “Do” and “you” join: “D-you”, “Do you”, and the “like” and the “it” change. The “k” goes to the second… The “k” joins “it”. “D-you lie-kit? D-you lie-kit?” And we can see this also in the IPA transcription. “Ii: kIt”, “də.ju: Ii: kIt”.What’s also happening, here, in the IPA transcription, if you look here, this is “də. ju”, “də. ju”. This is schwa. “də. ju”. When I write it here, we don’t have any letter in English that can… In the English alphabet that can represent schwa, so that’s why I just put the “d” consonant: “D-you”, “D-you”, “D-you”.Another… Now, you have to listen really, really, really carefully to hear the difference. “Do you like it?” can also sound like: “Jew lie-kit? Jew lie-kit?” I’m going to say the first one, then the second one: “D-you lie-kit? D-you lie-kit? Jew lie-kit?” You have to listen really, really carefully. So, I suggest you watch this video a few times so that you can start to hear the difference between very similar pronunciations. Here’s the transcription: “dʒU: li: kIt”. The same thing is happening, here, in the two examples: “li: kIt”, but the first part is different. “də.ju”, “dʒU”, “də.ju:”, “dʒU”. “dʒU: li: kIt”.Let’s look at the next example: “Did you see that?” That’s how a beginner would say it. “Did you see that?” What does it sound like? “Did-yah see that? Did-yah see that?” Am I speaking fast now—“Did-yah see that?”—or am I just joining up the words so that they flow? “Did-yah see that?” If we look at the IPA transcription: “you” becomes “jə”. Although it’s… It looks like the letter “j”, this is the sound for “yah”, together with the schwa. “jə”. “did.jə si: đaet”. Don’t be scared by this; we don’t use this IPA symbol that often, and this is the word “that”. “did.jə si: đaet”. “Did-yah see that?”Can you hear the difference between the first example and the second example? “Di-jah see that? Di-jah see that?”, “Did-yah see that?”, “Di-jah see that?”, “Did-yah see that?”, “Di-jah see that?” “di.dʒə si: đaet”. “jə”, “dʒə”, “jə”, “dʒə”. “Di-jah see that?”, “Did-yah see that?”, “Di-jah see that?”
United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales... CONFUSED??? English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-12-04 | The United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, or the British Isles: Which one should you use, and what’s the difference between them? And how do Ireland, Scotland, and Wales relate to all of this? It really is confusing, but in this video I will explain exactly what each name refers to, and what belongs where, so you’ll have no more confusion! We’ll also talk about the relationship of Northern Ireland to the UK, as well as the Crown dependencies – the Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey. I’ll also touch upon identity issues such as the proportion of people who feel ‘British’ as opposed to just ‘English’, ‘Welsh’, ‘Scottish’, or ‘Irish’. This one is a really huge lesson, full of facts and interesting trivia about the differences between the countries that make up the United Kingdom. If you learn everything in this lesson and take the quiz at engvid.com/uk-gb-british-isles-terminology you will truly be an expert on the geography and people of the UK!NEXT, watch some of my other videos about life and customs in England and the UK:1. DRINKING TEA IN ENGLAND: youtube.com/watch?v=HcNAxWlFE_g&index=18&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl72. SHOPPING IN ENGLAND: youtube.com/watch?v=CF_U1LW8ap8&index=4&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl73. 3 POPULAR SLANG WORDS IN BRITISH ENGLISH: youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JUlo0ETZY&index=23&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl74. THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY: youtube.com/watch?v=jSDoxNzFMZwTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at the geography of the United Kingdom and we're also going to look at some culture related to all the different terms we use to describe Great Britain, England... All these different words, when do we use them? So we're going to break it down and look at that.Let's start with the name. The official name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but often we just say "UK" because it's such a long country name, so we just say UK. I drew a map. My map is not to scale. And I tried my best, but it was hard to do it with the pens on the board, so we're going to show you a correct map. We've got England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. And the dotted line shows where Northern Ireland ends. This part is part of the United Kingdom; this part is not. More on that later.So, the UK is a sovereign state or we could say a sovereign country. This means that they make all their own laws, and they govern themselves. So, the UK is a sovereign state or a sovereign country. But the reason that's confusing is that we... When we're talking or when we're describing a place in the world, we talk about Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland as being countries. So, you think: "Is...? If the UK is a country, are Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland also a country?" Well, they are, but they don't make their own laws. So, we have a word for it and we can call them "constituent countries". We can say England is a constituent country of the United Kingdom. We can say Scotland is a constituent country of the United Kingdom, etc. Okay.Now it gets more confusing because when we're talking about the UK, we can say it's made up of those countries - Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We can also say it's made up of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is this land mass, this island shape, here; and Northern Ireland is part of the land mass, the island of Ireland. So, if we put this bit and this bit together, we get the United Kingdom.Great Britain has three constituent countries. Remember, this is Great Britain, Scotland, England, and Wales make up Great Britain. Britain... Now we're getting smaller. This is Britain, England, and Wales. So, I can say: "I'm from Britain", because I'm from... I was born about here in London, so I can say: "I'm from Britain".Now, we have another term called "The British Isles". The British Isles is a geographic term, so we use it to describe a place on the map. And the British Isles would include everything we see here. Actually, perhaps except these islands. These islands are called Jersey and Guernsey, and they're closer to France. But the British Isles could describe everything here in a geographic sense. And I wasn't able to draw all the islands, but there's actually over 6,000 islands up in Scotland, some down here as well. So, many, many islands.But the trouble with that term, to say the British Isles is that some people in Ireland don't like that term to describe... To include them because it makes it sound like Ireland, it's British, even though Ireland is independent. Ireland is a sovereign country by itself. So some people object to calling this the British Isles.If you do object to calling it the British Isles, you can say the North Atlantic-I can never say this word-Archipelago. Archipelago. And this means, like, collection of islands. And the place in the world is in the North Atlantic. Right. […]
REAL ENGLISH: Spiritual Vocabulary English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-11-03 | Meditation? Yoga? Mindfulness? Healing? Psychonauts?! In the UK, US, and Canada, fewer and fewer people strictly follow traditional religions. Instead, many people choose individual elements and activities that they believe in and practice themselves. Together, we can group these together very broadly as “spiritual”. If you visit or live in an English-speaking country, you may be surprised to see how many classes, workshops, and groups exist for spiritual practices such as yoga, meditation, reiki, astrology, tantra, hypnosis, psychedelic exploration, and more. In this vocabulary and culture lesson, I will explain common spiritual vocabulary and also introduce you to the way many people in English-speaking countries today think and speak about their spiritual life and journey.NEXT, watch this video to learn useful English vocabulary to describe people using Chinese Astrology! youtube.com/watch?v=m2IWhm7L-Rg[No official transcript for this lesson, everyone!]
STOP SOUNDING WEAK! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-10-13 | Do you sound weak? In this video, I give you examples of unconfident speaking styles. These are expressions people use when lacking in confidence about themselves and their opinions. We will be looking at indirect language: speaking with disclaimers, evading opinions, making oneself small, being doubtful of oneself, and being afraid to speak one’s mind. While it is sometimes necessary to communicate in an indirect way for the sake of politeness, it’s important to know how to speak in a more confident way too. When you communicate in a confident way, you are able to lead other people and to make a good impression. Learn about unconfident speaking styles in order to stop sounding weak! Next, watch my video about TOXIC LANGUAGE: youtube.com/watch?v=ruLxkg2Jgys&t=0s&index=5&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7TRANSCRIPTi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at ways our language shows that we're not very confident people, and it shows that we're afraid to give our opinions in case we upset someone or they get angry at us, or we offend them because we have a different opinion. And without realizing it, many of us soften and change our language, and use particular phrases so that we seem to agree with more people and we say everything politely. In some situations, this is a good thing because this means using our words with tact; using our words in a way that respects other people, but sometimes if we use this language all the time, it's because that shows us as being weak people who can't give an opinion about anything, and who are afraid to speak their minds. So we're going to look at examples of the kind of language where we... We lack confidence. And we'll go through some examples, starting with speaking with disclaimers. When you speak with disclaimers; before you get to what you really want to say, you go around it slowly first because you're scared to upset someone or disagree with them.So we'll start here. Let's imagine the situation: You want to give your opinion about your friend's shoes. She's decided to wear green shoes, and you just don't think they look good with that outfit she's wearing - that pink dress; it doesn't look the best thing you've ever seen but you want to show that, unlike your friend, you disagree that it's a good thing, you could say: "This is just my opinion but I don't think those green shoes look the best with that pink dress." And when I say it like that, it's a sensitive way to disagree. And for an issue about shoes, it's not a big deal; it's not going to make you sound really weak. So it depends on the situation that you're talking about.The next situation, here: "You might disagree but..." Imagine there's an issue where you think one thing and someone else you know thinks something else; you have opposite opinions. An example could be: You think it's unhealthy for children to eat chocolate every day, and you don't think they should. And, in fact, you've got a son and you don't want him to eat chocolate every day, but the son's grandma might disagree and think it's good for children to eat chocolate all the time. You could say: "You might disagree but I don't think kids should eat chocolate all the time, every day; it's unhealthy for them."Moving on: "I'm not a professional but..." And: "I'm no expert but..." We can use these phrases when we're in a situation where it looks like... It seems like the other person there has got more experience than us. Perhaps it's... They've got a proper job, and perhaps we're just an intern. So we want to say something, but we're also thinking: "Oh, I could be wrong", before I say that. So, here's an example: I'm wearing a microphone, here. Let's imagine this wasn't on the right way, and I'm the intern and I realize that, I could say something like: "I'm no... I'm no expert but shouldn't the microphone be the other way around?"Or the same situation: "I'm not sure if this is always the case, though in my experience, those microphones usually go that way around." And the reason we would say... In this situation I gave then, the reason I would say that very carefully is because in that situation there might be a reason that we don't have a lot of authority there. We might really know everything; we might really know our stuff, but because we don't officially work there or we're not an important person, we have to use our words in more careful ways. And also, we might be afraid about being wrong, so we don't want to say the wrong thing.Here's some other examples: "It might just be me but..." We can say this if we happen to disagree with the other... With the other people around us. We could also say: "Perhaps I misunderstood", and: "Forgive me if I'm wrong but..." All these examples we could use in a situation similar to the microphone example where we... Where we... We think something different, but we're not 100% certain. […]
Improve your accent: Introduction to the IPA and vowel sound training English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-09-23 | Learn the English vowels:engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseI will teach you four phonemes from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You will learn /e/ as in pet, schwa /ə/ as in to (unstressed), /ɜː/ as in bird, and /ɔː/ as in court. This lesson is for beginners who are unfamiliar with IPA (the individual sounds of English). Learn the IPA vowel symbols to greatly improve your pronunciation. This lesson is also for more advanced students who are already familiar with the sounds of English and their IPA phonetic symbols, and who wish to refresh their knowledge as a result of doing some practical pronunciation practice. Do these exercises for some time and you WILL hear a difference.Take the quiz on this lesson at engvid.com/improve-your-accent-ipa-vowelsJoin my Clear Accent course to improve your accent step-by-step: engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson I’m going to teach you four English vowels. Here are the vowels: “e”, “ɜ:”, “ə”, “ɔ:”. The reason to learn these four English vowels in IPA is that these are the actual sounds in English words; and if you know IPA, when you’re learning words, you can get the right pronunciation. The thing about it is these symbols are hard to learn. I know it took me a really, really long time to learn, and that’s because I learn sounds in a practical way. So, me just trying to memorize these sounds didn’t work for me, but doing practical exercises like this was how, after a lot… not… no. It took me a long, long, long time before I did practical exercises to remember these sounds. So I wish I did something like this at the beginning. So aren’t you lucky? Because I’m going to teach you the shortcut to remembering these vowels.What’s… What we should know about these vowels is that they are grouped together, because they are central vowels. The position that our tongue takes when we make these four vowels is central – it’s not high; it’s not low. And the difference between them is we move from a more forward position with our tongue to a more backward position.Now, another thing is that ɜ: and ə (schwa), the position is actually the same in the mouth; nothing changes, except the ɜ: sound is stressed and we can hear it very clearly and notice it; whereas the schwa sound: “uh”, “uh”, it’s hard to say by itself because it’s an unstressed sound, but we do it in exactly the same position. We don’t have to move our tongue for that one; it’s just a difference in the power of the sound.Let’s look at the lip position now. We start with the lips lightly spread. Okay? It’s not as much as “e” which is spread as wide as possible. “E” is not on here. It’s not as wide as “e”; it’s lightly spread: “e”, so a little bit less. “e”. And then the next two are the same position. This I would just call spread, so a little bit wider. “ɜ:”, “ə”, “ɔ:”. You can see the big difference between here, when I go to “ɔ:”. “ɜ:”, “ɔ:”. So, when I get to “ɔ:”, my lips are in the most rounded position.All right, let’s look at some contrasting words now so that we can get more used to these vowels in words. We’ll read like this, starting with: “pet” for “e”; “bird” for “ɜ:”. The way I always remember this symbol is to imagine a bird, flying, and that’s the most perfect word for me to remember that sound. Imagine a bird: “bird”. “Red”, “wa-…” This is “word”, “word”. “Word”. “Red”, “word”; “ten”, “murder”; “head”, “burden”; “said”, “curse”; “many”, “burn”.Now, what can be confusing about this is when we look at the spellings of these words and we think: “What’s going on here?” because if I say… If I say: “head”, and that’s the vowel, “e”, why is it spelt with an “a” in there? That’s just confusing, right? Well, that’s English spelling, unfortunately. Trying to learn too many spelling rules for the IPA isn’t that helpful. It’s helpful sometimes, but it only takes you so far. We can see a pattern in here, though. The “ɜ:” sound is often spelt with “r”. Often “ur” in a lot of words; “murder”, “burden”, “curse”, “burn”.Now let’s look at schwa. When I write schwa, I can write: “uh”. That’s the closest I can get to pronouncing schwa as an unstressed sound. Usually it’s resting in the middle of other sounds. And the way I remember it myself is that in English, a dog goes: “Woof. Woof, woof.” But in Turkish, a dog goes, like: “Uh, uh. Uh, uh.” That’s their sound for “woof”. But, basically, it’s a schwa sound. So it helps me; I don’t know if it helps you. But we’re going to go side to side, here. Schwa: “uh”, “aw”. “Uh”, “paw”; “problem”, “more”; “freedom”, “boring”; “album”, “sword”; “again”, “sure”; “parrot”, “lord”. Okay?What’s hard about schwa is that in these words we’ve got two syllables, so we have to… Which ones got the schwa in it? I don’t know which ones got the schwa in it. I’ve underlined where the schwa is in the word. And the annoying thing about schwa as well is that it sounds slightly different, depending on… […]
10 things people in England say when they argue English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-09-01 | Fighting language: I will teach you slang and British English phrases that people use when arguing or fighting with each other. Most of the examples in this lesson are the kind of English spoken by working class people that you may hear for example on a television talk show. You may also hear some of these phrases in films that feature Cockney gangster characters. Many of these expressions might not make sense to you if you don't already know the meaning, so it's useful to learn the expressions and their meaning. This video will even be useful to North American English speakers who want to understand British shows and writing better. Now go watch the video... you're doing my head in!Take the quiz: engvid.com/10-things-people-in-england-say-when-they-argueWatch these videos next:1. Passive-Aggressive Language: youtube.com/watch?v=vbWOh5xjgg8&index=16&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl72. Learn 35 English phrases for making friends & asking someone out on a date: youtube.com/watch?v=bgyXVELJ7Mc&index=6&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7#relationships#LearnEnglish#engvidTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at things that people say when they're arguing; expressions that actually don't mean a lot; they just show that we're annoyed with someone - and these are all British English phrases; and specifically, I would say I've heard many Londoners say. So, this is the kind of... When things get heated and you're having a big fight, we might hear these expressions.Let's start with: "Having a laugh". So, if you're having an argument with someone, you'd say this when you're in a situation, like an employee shows up for work two hours late. Let's say you work in a really busy store; or even better, you work in a pub. And you can't go home until the other person comes, and you don't hear from them; they don't call or anything. You don't know if they're coming or not coming. Then two hours later, in they come and you say: "You're having a laugh!" That means: "Where have you been? Are you joking? I've been waiting here and waiting to go, and now you just come in." And it has one... One cross, there, because depending on how I say it with the tone, that shows how strong it is. With... "A laugh" is like a joke; it's not as strong as these other examples, which mean something similar.So, in the next example, here: "You're taking the piss! You are taking the piss!" If I say that to you, you've done something really awful. Let's say, for some stupid reason, I let you borrow my car for the weekend. You were going... You were going somewhere with your girlfriend; you're my friend - I let you borrow my car. But you didn't bring the car back nicely - oh, no. When you brought the car back, the tire was flat; it was all dirty - you don't know where they've taken your car to; and worst of all, inside the car there's all these empty condom wrappers and all this empty alcohol in the back. You just... "What have you done? You took my car and you do this to me. You are taking the piss!"Next we've got: "Taking liberties". So, let me think of an example for this one. This could be, like, you've got a YouTube channel and some other teacher comes along and just starts... Just starts copying you, basically. Then: "You are taking liberties! You know you are taking liberties by doing that. You are. You're copying. You're taking liberties."Next one: "You're doing my head in! Can you just stop? Can...? Can you just stop? Stop talking on and on; you're doing my head in." When someone is "doing your head in", it's too much noise; it's too much speaking; they're going on and on and on; you don't want to listen; you feel stressed. "You're doing my head in!" Just: "I'm feeling emotional now; you're doing my head in."Next is: "You're out of order! You're out of order!" Someone would say: "You're out of order" when they would... Oh, yeah. You're having a... This is when things get serious, right? Perhaps you're out in a pub. Things are getting really heated, and it looks like a fight's... Maybe a fight's going to start, and someone pushes you. They actually push you or they get in your face, and they're like... They're like this in your face. You then say: "You're out of order! You pushed me. You got in my face. You're out of order!" So, "out of order"... When something's in order, it's tidy and good and nice, and the way it should be. When something's out of order, it's gone way too far; it's way too far.Okay, so now we can take: "Taking the piss" and "Taking liberties" and put them into nouns. So, we can call people: "piss-takers". "You're a piss-taker. You're an absolute piss-taker." If someone's a piss-taker, they're always taking liberties, pushing a bit, asking for a bit too much, not doing exactly what they say they're going to do; this person, you don't want to deal with them because everything they do is not what they say. […]
Shopping in England: Everything you need to know English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-08-04 | Everything you need to know about shopping in England, both in supermarkets and on the high street. In this video, you will learn the difference between the main English stores and supermarkets so that when you’re next in the UK you will know the best place to do your shopping at the best price for your budget. I’ll also teach you specific vocabulary related to doing your shopping for everyday items in supermarkets and at the corner shop. I have so much to tell you about shopping in England, which may be different to the stores you have or the way of shopping in your home country. That's why I have included plenty of my personal observations about going shopping in my country. This video will be useful to tourists to the UK as well as to people who have moved here or who are planning to move here in the future.Take the quiz about shopping in England at engvid.com/shopping-in-englandNext, watch these other videos about life in England!1. Learn how to say the top 10 British cities correctly: youtube.com/watch?v=IXkFM3TC108&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=32. English Culture: Manners & How to be polite: youtube.com/watch?v=8hV7lJyC3Eg&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=19#shopping#LearnEnglish#engvid
Toxic Language & Violent Communication English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-07-04 | Toxic language is a way of communicating that harms other people. The lesson is based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg, who educated people to express their needs in a compassionate way in order to avoid ‘violent communication’. I will teach you common examples of violent communication, such as threatening, blaming, labelling, diagnosing, and guilt tripping. Many of us often do some or all of these to others without realising. By learning to avoid violent communication, we are able to express our personal needs more effectively and our relationships with others can improve.Next, watch my video about passive aggressive language -- it's also important:youtube.com/watch?v=vbWOh5xjgg8&index=9&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7You can take a quiz on this lesson here: engvid.com/toxic-language-violent-communicationTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In today's lesson we're going to look at the language of toxic people and the things that they say. This is the kind of language we use when... Perhaps we don't realize it, but by saying these things we can start arguments, and we can say these things and people will become angry with us. Another way of explaining toxic language is to say: "Violent communication". I've shortened the word "communication", there. This was an area of study, you could say, by a man called Marshall Rosenberg. So if you're interested in the things I'm talking about in this lesson, you can go search for the area of violent communication, and you can learn more about it, because the whole philosophy, I suppose, is how we can change the language that we use so that we can have more healthy communication with other people, and that way we don't have so many arguments and we have a more peaceful life at home.So I've got different kinds of violent communication, and I'm going to go through them one by one, explaining as I go. First I'll just read you the list of the different kinds of violent communication. Blaming others, threats, shoulds, labelling, black-and-white thinking, guilt-tripping, diagnosing, emasculation, and uncalled-for advice.I'll start with blaming. "Blaming" is when in your life you do not take any responsibility for your problems. Everything that happens to you is always somebody else's fault. So, a person who blames other people would say something like: "You make me so angry." To use the verb "make", and to say: "You make me" is not taking responsibility for ourselves being angry. Another way we could say the... Say a similar thing is to say: "I am angry." But instead, we blame it all on that person. It's not the thing that happened, it's because of you. Next we've got: "It's all your fault." Imagine something goes wrong, there's been a personal crisis going on in your family or something, and your dad says to you: "It's all your fault. Absolutely everything that went wrong here is because of you." All the blame goes on to you." Obviously it's not a very nice thing to experience. We know that in life things are rarely all just caused by one person, especially in a family, there's... The way a family operates is: "You did this and I did this", so we can see it's more complicated in most situations than all being one person's fault. So this expression, saying that to someone is usually an exaggeration as well, because if somebody says that, in most cases, it's not true. It's not all their fault, maybe some of it was. Next we've got: "You're driving me crazy." This is something that perhaps a mother would say if she has some young children, maybe she has a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old and they're all making lots of noise when they're playing, she can say: "Shut up! You're driving me crazy!" And, again, she's not taking responsibility for her own stress and her own feelings of craziness; she's blaming it on them. They are doing the action to her. They are driving her crazy.Let's look at threats now. A "threat" is when you let someone know if they do that something bad will happen, or you will make something bad happen, or there will be a bad consequence if they do that thing. And the reason you give a threat is you want to stop that person doing it. So here's an example: "If you don't get out of bed now, we're going without you." I imagine this situation, a teenage boy who doesn't want to wake up. It's Saturday morning, 11 o'clock, he's happy to sleep in til 1pm, maybe 2pm, and his parents want him to get up so he can go and see the grandparents with them. They might try and threaten him by saying: "If you don't get out of bed now, we're going without you." In the situation I described, maybe he wouldn't care... Maybe the teenage boy wouldn't care that much about that particular threat, it depends. Next example: "If you don't eat your vegetables, you can't have dessert." […]
Pronunciation: Learn how to say the top 10 British cities correctly English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-06-07 | Learn how to pronounce the names of the top 10 biggest cities in Britain. Avoid the embarrassment of saying the name of a famous place incorrectly -- listen and learn how a person from London says the names of these places. I will also teach you and use some IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), so that you can get the exact pronunciation. I’ll teach you how to pronounce London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, Glasgow, Southampton, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield. No more mistakes! Test yourself with the quiz: engvid.com/pronunciation-top-10-british-citiesNext, watch Benjamin's video all about the "RP accent" in English:youtube.com/watch?v=PcIX-U5w5Ws&index=2&list=PLs_glF4TIn5YtEqu0I-8URDr8GT0JyYnITRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at the pronunciation of the ten biggest cities in England. The data comes from the World Urban Areas Report, and this report looks at the size of cities' population according to their urban area, so that's the dense part of the city where most people live. So, if you're looking at this list and you disagree: "Oh, that city is bigger than this city", it's because there's different ways to make the list, depending on the data that you look at. But I thought this way of listing the cities made the most sense so that you don't have a very, very wide city with countryside in it counted as in the top ten.So, let's begin at number one: "London", which is the capital city of England, and which is where I'm from. We pronounce as: "Lundan". The second syllable has a schwa, so we say: "Lundan", not: "LondOn", as a lot of people say and a lot of tourists say when they come. They say: "I'm going to LOndOn", whereas we say: "Lundan".Number two: "Manchester". "Manchester", the second syllable is an "i", sometimes people say : "e". "Manchester", "Manchester", but "Manchister" is the most common pronunciation for people who actually live there. And Manchester is most famous, in my mind, for the band Oasis, and they said things, like: "Mad For It", and they had a song which was called: "You got to roll with it, you got to take your time", sorry.Number three: "Birmingham" is the way I would pronounce it if I imagined I was from there, but how I would say it in my normal accent is: "Birmingum", "Birmingum". The... It's not "HAm". Americans might say: "BirmingHAM", "I'm going to BirmingHAM", whereas locals and other English people are going to say: "Birmingum", "Birmingum".Number four is: "Leeds". Leeds and Bradford are counted as one city in this list, although if you ask the people of Leeds and the people of Bradford whether they think of it as the same city, they'll say no. So, that's why they're written separately on the list. We have Leeds and we have Bradford. Bradford, Bradford.Number five is: "Glasgow". Oh, they're not all in England, I've just realized because we've got Glasgow on the list, Scotland is obviously included also. How we pronounce: "Glasgow", we can say: "Glasgow", that's the pronunciation that someone in the southeast of England would use: "Glasgow", because we make the long A sound: "ah", whereas people from the northern areas of England and also the people in Glasgow itself would say: "Glasgo", "Glasgo".Next one, number six: "Southampton", "Southampton". This one we have the H in the pronunciation, but it's not a very... we... we don't hear it that much. It blends into the A, and sometimes when you hear people say this town, it might sound like there's no H sound there at all, it might be more like: "South... Southampton", "Southampton". Whereas other people you find, they may say it more like two separate words in a way, if they say: "South... South Hampton", "South Hampton". But in my opinion, that's not the most natural pronunciation of that city, and most people would say it like: "Southampton", "Southampton".Next one is: Portsmouth, "Portsmuth". "Portsmuth". "Portsmuth" is the place where the British Navy is based. It's... obviously it's by the sea, the Navy is based there, and I did some English teaching in an English summer school there in Portsmouth. And what I noticed when I was there was that so many people in that town had tattoos. And if you think about it... Well, now... nowadays, so many people have tattoos, but tattoos used to be associated with the people who had been in the Navy and who'd gone to sea and done all that kind of thing, so that's... When I think of Portsmouth, I always think of tattoo shops and seeing loads of people with tattoos.Next we have: "Liverpool", "Liverpool". If you meet someone from Liverpool, the "pool" can have quite a high pitch and can sound quite long. When I say that town, the "pool" part doesn't sound as long. "Liverpool", "Liverpool", "Liverpool". […]
Learn 10 ways to use FROM in English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-05-17 | 'FROM' is such a small, common word in English, but it has so many different uses! In this lesson, I explain 10 different uses of ‘from’. This English lesson will be especially useful to beginners and intermediate-level students, who tend to get prepositions mixed up. I’ll give you plenty of examples showing exactly when ‘from’ should be used. We’ll also look at more advanced uses of ‘from’ as part of expressions such as ‘from dusk till dawn.’ And finally, I’ll mention some examples from popular culture in which ‘from’ appears in the titles of films and songs. There’s also a slightly rude example of when you should be careful about using ‘from’ if you don’t want someone to get the wrong idea!TAKE THE QUIZ: engvid.com/10-ways-to-use-from-in-englishNEXT, watch my lesson on 10 ways to use ALRIGHT & ALL RIGHT:youtube.com/watch?v=f5AEtg6pm6o&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=1TRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're looking at uses of "from". "From" is a really common word in English, you see it all the time, but do you know when to use it? We use "from" as a preposition, and we also use "from" in phrasal verbs, so let's look at all the different situations where we use "from".We'll start with a phrasal verb, which is: "come from". Somebody asks a question to you: "Where do you come from?" That means: "Where were you...? Where were you born and where did you live when you were younger?" So, I come from London. Where do you come from? "Where do aliens come from?" Aliens are the ones with the big eyes and sometimes they're green, or sometimes they're reptiles. "Where do aliens come from?" Aliens come from outer space, out there where the UFOs live.Timespan. "Timespan" means between this time and this time. "Yoga is from 7 to 9am in the pagoda." Yoga pagoda, it rhymes. A "pagoda" is a kind of... A kind of... Imagine the kind of building where some Hippies would go and do some yoga, with a pointy roof, and maybe made from wood or something like that. That's a pagoda, anyway. "The wedding season is from May until September." This means that between May and September that's when most of the weddings happen. We're really busy with weddings between May and September. So, the wedding season is from May until September.Now we're using timespan for an historical event, something that happened a long time before, something that happened in history, something that we know as a fact. "World War I was from 1914 to 1918." And: "Queen Elizabeth 1st", let me say that one again. "Queen Elizabeth 1st reigned from 1558 to 1603". "Reigned" is a word... "To reign" is the word we use to say a queen or a king was in power for that time. So we could say: "Queen Elizabeth 1st was in power from 1558 to 1603", but "reigned" is a specific word that means that.Now we have "made from". This one is also a phrasal verb. When something is made... We use "made from" to say how we get a thing. So, my jumper is made from wool, and wool comes from sheep. Here's some other things: "Plastic is made from oil." You take oil, you do something to it, after you get plastic. "Paper is made from wood." Wood is the first thing you have, and you do something to it in the factory, and after you get paper.Now let's look at distance. We use "from" as a preposition to talk about the distance to a place. "We are 10 minutes from the lake." Here's the lake, we are 10 minutes over here. A lake, if you don't know it, is a natural, large area of water. It's bigger than a pond. A pond... A pond... A pond you would never swim in, and a pond is usually what you see in a person's garden if they have a nice garden. But a lake is much too big for most people to have in their gardens. Maybe if you were Queen Elizabeth 1st, you would have a lake in your garden, but not many other people."The moon is 385,000"-zero, zero, zero-"kilometres from the Earth". Here's the Earth, let's get in our rocket and go 385,000 kilometres, if we survive, we make it to the moon. And the last example here: "How far away is Tom's house from Steve's?" What that sentence means is: How far away is Tom's house from Steve's house? But we don't need to repeat the word "house". So, we could answer the question: "Tom's house is 10 miles from Steve's house." Coming up: More examples of "from".Now we have the origin of something when we're using "from" as a preposition. "Origin" is a more formal way of saying where something begins, where something starts. So: "I have a letter from the bank." Here's my letter, coming from the postman, he puts it in my letterbox, here's my letter from the bank. "I have a present from my Mum." Oh, thank you for my present. What a lovely... What a lovely scarf you gave me. And: "I got a call from Tom", as in phone call. Now, a phone call isn't a real object, like a scarf or a letter that we receive, but we can use "from" in this case. […]
Improve your Vocabulary: Learn 16 new social, political, and internet words English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-04-26 | In this English vocabulary lesson, I will teach you words that are being used a lot right now, and that have to do with current issues in society and politics. You may have heard these words already, but what exactly do terms like "millennial", "trigger warning", and "fake news" mean? Whatever your politics, this lesson will give you a perspective on the social trends and political change that is going on in our age. Test your vocabulary with the quiz: engvid.com/16-new-social-political-internet-wordsNext, watch my video on French words that we use in English!youtube.com/watch?v=yQStFX6SUXs&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=11Or you can watch my vocabulary lesson on current fashion vocabulary and slang:youtube.com/watch?v=UnIwr2vkb94&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7&index=5TRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at new words for our times. These words reflect social movements or new things happening in politics. We're going to start with "millennial". "A millennial" is a person who's between the age of a teenager now and their late 20s. Thankfully I just escaped being a millennial, because millennials are whiny and they are... They're just so weak, and they're like little special snowflakes, very delicate. And millennials are just... They've been so protected all their lives that when it comes to it in the real world they are... They like whine and they shout, and they cry, but they don't do a lot. No offence to any millennials watching. [Laughs].Next word is related to the millennials. The millennials need "safe spaces", because this world out there is... It's so... It's so mean and people say such horrible things that they need to be protected inside their safe spaces. And so, the idea of a safe space would be somewhere on a college campus where you know you can go and be safe, and you don't have to be scared or upset by any of the mean things that old white men and politicians say. Anything that offends you in the safe space, it's all very relaxed there. You can... Maybe you'll manage to, you know, do a bit of studying in that safe space, nobody can get to you.The next word is also related to the millennials in the safe space, they go here because there nothing bad will ever happen to them, but when they go out into the big wide world: "Oh no! Oh no!" They need "trigger warnings". "Trigger warnings" is... You give a trigger warning when something you're going to say could upset someone, it could be offensive to them, and it could create a trauma or a kind of flashback to them, and because they are so weak they can't hear this thing and they need a trigger warning to keep them safe. When someone is triggered, then they're triggered by something they don't want to hear, and sometimes they might scream, like: "No! No! I can't take it! No!" That's when they're triggered. So, because they have such big emotional responses to things they don't like, that's why they need the safe spaces. And I think actually, come to think about it, maybe the safe spaces are a good idea because they could just go in the safe space, and we wouldn't be in there, so they could do all that alone in the safe space.The next word is "social justice warrior", "SJW", also to do with the millennials. One of the things associated with them is that they protest a lot, they're vocal, they like to take a stand against the things they don't like, which they typically do online, they talk about things online or perhaps they go on protesting and things like that. "A social justice warrior" is someone whose main reason to protest is things to do with race issues or gender issues, and they... Or they think that... Or feminist issues. They think that... For whatever group they belong to, they think that life isn't fair for them, so that's the reason they protest. They're warriors, they're fighters, they're warriors.Next we've got "gender non-binary". A person who calls themselves gender... Say: "Oh, I'm gender non-binary", what that means is: "I'm not a man. I'm not a woman. I'm something in between those genders that hasn't... It can't be... Can't be specified as this or that. It's my own identity which is gender non-binary." Not the traditional man, not the traditional woman, but something in between.Next word is a word that's used as an insult or a term of offence to people, is "libtard". The "tard" part reminds us of the word "retard" which means disabled person, and the "lib" part comes from "liberal". When you put it together: "libtard" means somebody who's so liberal in their politics or their ideas or their vision and their view of the world, they've actually become retarded and disabled because of it; used as an insult.The next two terms we have to look at together. We've got "globalism" versus "populism". "Populism" in politics is movements like Brexit in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump in the USA. […]
Learn 35 English phrases for making friends & asking someone out on a date 💃🕺💕💋 English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-04-05 | Learn 35 useful conversational phrases for making friends or asking someone out on a date. Meeting new people can be awkward, especially if you don’t know the language perfectly. In this lesson, I will teach you what to say when you first meet someone new at a class or activity, what to say when you meet someone by chance, and what to say when you want to get to know someone better and to deepen your relationship. Learn these phrases and you will improve your conversational ability in friendship and dating situations.Test your understanding by taking the quiz on this lesson: 35-english-phrases-friends-dating/Next, watch my video on how to sound more interesting by speaking with RHYTHM:youtube.com/watch?v=8XVeMLYiNM0&index=26&list=PL-Q2Xro-OWKe-pXnqtUKfD2Gpsbpu6Gl7TRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In today's lesson we're going to look at phrases you can use when you're dating someone, you want to date someone, when you're making friends, or when you want to make friends. And the way this lesson works is there's... There are two people speaking, one person says something, and the other person replies. So let's start here. And all these examples are things that would... A person would say if they met somebody they didn't know before at some kind of class. I suppose it depends where you live, but in London there are so many different kinds of classes you can go to, from exercise classes, for things that are artistic, dance classes, or photography classes, many classes that are based on interests - and that's a really good way for meeting new people. And it seems like many people date that way, really. They go to the photography class because they want to meet someone to date. They're a little bit interested in photography, but you know, they just want to meet new people. So that's how it works in a place like London. If you... If you live somewhere where there's not so many classes, perhaps these kinds of conversations wouldn't be so common where you live, but these are... These are the kinds of conversations you would hear in London if you went to a dance class, a salsa class, that kind of thing.So, number one: "Is it your first time here?" You've met someone, you want to continue the conversation with them, get to know them a bit, you can say: "Is it your first time here?" And the person replies: "I come most weeks." Or they say: "No. I come once in a while". "Once in a while" means not every week. I come one week, then three weeks later I come in an unpredictable way.Number two: "Do you come here often?" This sentence or phrase, this is an innuendo. So, it is a kind of phrase that many people would avoid using if they didn't want to be really direct and show that they were interested in someone in that kind of way. So, if you just want to be friends with someone, maybe you wouldn't say these exact words: "Do you come here often?" So here are the replies: "Not as much as I'd like to.", "Today's my first time." or "It's my first time today." Or you could say: "I'm a regular". "A regular" is a person who goes to the salsa class every single week, they always go. So that's... Being a regular is the opposite to a person who's just going for the first time today.Number three: -"So, how long have you been coming to this photography class?" -"About a year now."Number four, you could say: "Do you go to any other classes?" Now, this question could mean any other similar classes. If, to use the salsa example again, because salsa's quite a popular hobby I suppose to do, in a city like London there's more than one salsa class, and people really into it, they've probably tried different salsa classes, so they could ask that question to you: "Do you go to any other classes?" It means: "Do you go to any other salsa classes?" But it could also mean in general, depending on how you're asking. So it could be: "Well, I'm at salsa today, but I do... I do embroidery on Wednesday", or whatever else you do. Here are the replies: "Sometimes I go to the other one in ______." So, to use a place name in London, I could say: "Sometimes I go to the other one in Brixton." For me to answer that, it means I'm talking about the same kind of class. And I could also say: "This one is my favourite." I mean: This salsa class that I'm at today is my favourite of all the other salsa classes. Or I could say: "This one is my local", and that one suggests I come here because it's the easiest one for me to go to. Another example of that would be a yoga class, because there are so many different yoga classes, perhaps some people prefer to go to the one closest to their house, so they might say that.Next we've got: "How did you find the class?" Now, when I use the word "find" there, it doesn't mean: How did you find the building? Or: "How did you...? How did you get here?" It means more like: "What did you think of the class? Was it interesting for you?" So we can reply this way: "I really enjoyed it. It was good fun." […]
Learn IRISH slang, vocabulary, and expressions English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-03-17 | Top o’ the morning to ya! In this lesson, I’m going to teach you common Irish vocabulary and expressions. This includes words for the family, insults, drinking expressions, and more. The Irish words in this lesson are part of the Irish English dialect. Many of them are not part of standard English. I am NOT Irish. I am English. This video is for people learning English, to give them an introduction to the Irish English accent and dialect. Please forgive me for my attempt at the Irish accent!Take the quiz: engvid.com/learn-irish-slang-vocabulary-expressionsTRANSCRIPTHello, there. Welcome to the lesson. Today's lesson is an Irish lesson and we're going to learn to speak like Irish people. We're going to learn some expressions that they use over in Ireland and also some slang. And sometimes I'm going to speak like an Irish... Irish clover, not like a real Irish person, but how the clovers over speak there over in Ireland. Okay? So, when you want to begin a conversation, you could say: "What's the craic? What's the craic?" That means: "What's going on?" or "What's the gossip?" A similar phrase is: "What's the sto-...? What's the story? What's the story?" That means: "Hello." You can just... Instead of saying: "How are you?" you just go up to them and say: "What's the story?" it means, like that.Next, our exclamations. Irish is a very... Irish... The character of Irish people, there's so much humour in it that there are so many exclamations that sound very Irish that you can... That you can use. Some of them are clich�s, and I don't think Irish people say them all the time. For example: "Bejesus! Bejesus! Bejesus! Bejesus! Oh, bejesus!" We can say that if we're surprised, or we want to emphasize something. But this is an Irish ism, it doesn't mean they say it all the time, and the same with: "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" If we say that, this is like a stereotypical Irish phrase. And maybe the case... Maybe the whole section here is stereotypical phrases that really brings out the Irish character."Away wit ya! Away with ya! Go away with ya!" That means go... It actually means: "Go away. Go away, you", but we would use that if you... It would be used if you don't believe something. If you don't... If you don't believe what the Irish clover is saying, you can say: "Away with ya! Away with ya!" And if you wanted... If you thought somebody had done something that was offensive or they acted a bit rude or something, you could say: "Oh, the cheek of it! The absolute cheek of it!" That's to show that you're mildly offended about something.Now, this is a Irish phrase that, unlike the other ones isn't stereotypical. This is one that's apparently used now. So it's newer... It's like how the language is evolving and it's a newer kind of expression. If you don't believe what somebody is saying, you think they're being, you know, they're sort of having a joke with you, you don't quite believe them 100% and you may also use this expression if you want the other person to laugh, you can say: "Get out of that garden! Get outta that garden!" And it's just a way of saying... It's a very similar meaning to: "Away with ya!" but a different phrase.Now we've got more phrases, here. For example, if you say: "Fair play to ya. Fair play to ya. Fair play to ya", that means: "Well done." If you think somebody did some... Perhaps something good happened to someone in their life, maybe they got a new job, you could say: "Fair play to ya", it means: "Well done."Irish people are famous for saying: "That's grand. Oh, that's grand." And it means... Well, as an English person if you look at the phrase, you'd think "grand" means something really good, like, brilliant or fantastic, but actually in the Irish use it just means "fine". It's not, like, the most emphatic, enthusiastic. It just means fine. So, if you think something's find or good, you can say: "That's grand. Aye, that's grand."Here's a figure of speech. Whereas over in England people will often say at the end of a sentence: "Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?" in Ireland, they add "like" on the end, so they say: "Do you know what I mean, like? Do you know what I mean, like?" The Irish clover says something, and wants you to agree, will say: "Do you know what I mean, like?"The next, many Irish people are known for having the "gift of the gab". Oh, let's say in terms of the whole world's people, the Irish... The Irish people are known for having the gift of the gab, and that means that they're very good at speaking, very charming when they're speaking. And often when somebody has the gift of the gab then you always want to believe them as well. So, Irish clovers have the gift of the gab, you see? They do. […]
10 ways to use ALRIGHT & ALL RIGHT in English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-02-24 | ‘Alright’ is a simple word with lots of different meanings. We use it in so many ways! I will teach you ten different ways that native English speakers use this word in different situations by varying the tone of voice in speech. I’ll also teach you how Cockneys (Londoners) use this word as a greeting and the unexpected way of replying to it as if you’re a local. Also... what's the difference between ‘alright’ and 'all right'? I'll teach you that too, so you won't have any more confusion. Alright?Test your understanding of this lesson with the quiz: engvid.com/10-ways-to-use-alright-all-rightTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In today's lesson I'm going to show you ten ways to use the word "alright". Let's begin with some grammar, because there are difference between British English and American English in whether you're writing the word "alright". So, in American English, their preference is to write "all right" as two words. That's considered more grammatically correct. In British English, it depends. Some people say it should always be written as two words, and some people it's now acceptable to write "alright" as one word. Personally, I generally write the word as one word. I write it like this. And that is because I consider it quite an informal expression, and most of the time I use it, it feels to me that it has an informal register. But if you wanted to be really, really certain that you weren't making a grammatical mistake, if you're writing something formal, then you can spell it two words in British English.Okay, let's move now to examples of when we use this word: "alright". What's important to know about this word is it has different meanings, depending on how... On the tone that we use when we say it. Let's start with here. Number one, when we want to reassure someone we can say: "Everything's going to be alright. Don't worry, everything's going to be alright." That's also a song. Do you know it? "Everything's Gonna Be Alright." Sorry about my singing, but Bob Marley told us first that everything's going to be alright.Number two we can use the word "alright" to check: Is something satisfactory? That means: Is it okay? I want to check that the thing I want to do is okay. I can say: "Does this soup taste all right? I want you to tell me. Is it delicious? Does the soup taste all right?" Perhaps I'm going out for the evening, I'm not sure what to wear, so I try on my dress and I ask you: "Is my dress alright? Do you think it's alright for the party?"Number three, we say the word "all right" when we're asking people about their health. Perhaps they've not been well lately, so we can say: "Are you all right?" We can also say that... if this would normally happen if you're walking in the street and somebody falls over, maybe they slip because the pavement's wet or they have a bicycle accident, you can say to them: "Are you all right? Are you all right?" And when we say it fast, then it all blends into one: "Are you all right? Are you all right?"Next we have permission. If you want to sit down somewhere and you're not sure if somebody's already sitting there, you can politely say: "Is it alright if I sit here? Is it alright?" And they will say: "Yeah, sure. Sit down."My next examples are mainly British English examples, and these are informal expressions, things we would say when we're just chatting in conversation. So, here I have spelt "alright" as one word every time. In my previous examples I spelt it two ways to show: Yes, this is possible, and this is also possible; depends on your preference. So, number five, in British English in London specifically, but many other areas, especially in the south of England, we can use "alright" as a greeting, so instead of saying: "Hello. How are you?" we just say to each other: "Alright?" And then they say: "Alright." We don't really put a lot of enthusiasm in it. -"Alright?" -"Alright." So the first "alright" sounds like more of a question. "Alright?" And it depends, the other one sometimes doesn't sound like a question. "Alright. Alright." But they might do the question-sounding one back as well. -"Alright?" -"Alright?" It depends. Then you can also add "mate" or "love"; very, very informal and very familiar kind of language to use. A lot of people don't like to be called "mate" or "love" if they don't actually know you. Some people think it's impolite. So you could say: "Alright, mate?" Or you could say: "Alright, love?"Next we've got when you say yes to something but you don't really mean it, you would rather say no, but you don't feel it's possible. So imagine your mom says to you: "Go and tidy your room", or: "Can you tidy your room today?" You'd say: "Alright." Or you'd say: "Alright." You're saying yes, you'd rather not do it today, but you don't have a choice. So it's not like: "Yes!" It's not enthusiastic. […]
Learn 48 adjectives in English to describe people with Chinese astrology English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2018-02-03 | Are you confident and dazzling like a dragon or innocent and humble like a sheep? Loyal as a dog or two-faced like a snake? In Chinese astrology, the years are represented by animals, and each animal has its own positive and negative qualities. Even if you don't care about astrology, it's a great way to learn a lot of vocabulary for describing different types of people. In this video, I'll teach you 48 adjectives using Chinese astrology! Many of these adjectives are quite advanced. 2018 is the Chinese Year of the Dog. Learn the good and bad characteristics associated with the dog, as well as eleven other animals in this video: ox, dragon, sheep, tiger, rabbit, snake, horse, monkey, rooster, boar, and rat. Do you know the animal that represents the year you were born in the Chinese horoscope? I’ll also tell you what animal I am represented by in the Chinese horoscope and tell you my thoughts about it.Take the quiz: engvid.com/48-adjectives-chinese-astrologyTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In today's lesson we're going to look at Chinese astrology, and I'm going to teach you adjectives that you can use to describe a personality. Now, to do this lesson, you don't have to believe in astrology and you don't have to be that much interested in astrology either. If you do like astrology like I do, then it's even better because you'll learn something about astrology and also some really useful vocabulary for you to use. The way this lesson is organized is that the animals in Chinese astrology are like the signs in Western astrology, and people have different animals to represent them. So, in Chinese astrology, what they do is put the animals into different groups, and there are five groups. We start here with the earth signs, then the wood signs, the fire signs, and later we have the water signs, and the metal signs. And what you can do now is check: Which animal represents you in Chinese astrology? So you just check the year that you were born, and that will show you what animal describes your personality.First of all, we'll start with the ox. The ox is my sign in Chinese astrology. And we don't have any oxes here in England, but the closest thing to an ox would be, like, a big cow or a bull, but we don't have them over here. So, what would describe the ox's personality is to say somebody who is reliable, hardworking, strong, and stubborn. If you think about a... If you... If you imagine the picture of an ox in your head, they have a big, strong body, so they're physically strong, they're reliable, you can trust them to do the work that you need them to do. Even if an ox is tired in the field from working, the ox is so strong that it will continue working. And an ox is also stubborn. It will not... If it's decided what it wants to do, it will not change its mind. And one of my mom's dogs is very, very stubborn for a dog. If I take him for a walk, he decides where he wants to go, and he always want to go to the same park so he can play with his ball. If I try to take him somewhere else, he just stands there and he's so heavy to move, he won't move. He's really, really stubborn. He wants to go to the park, and that's it. He'll just stand like that until I take him to the park.Next animal is the dragon. The dragon is... Well, it's not a real animal, or is it? I don't know. It's not a real animal, but it's confident, imaginative, dazzling, and fiery. So, dragon personalities, dragon people have so much charisma and energy in their personality. Other people look at the dragon as someone that's amazing and unusual in lots of ways. And I heard once, but I don't know if it's true-let me know if it is true in the comments-that in China the years that are the dragon years, many parents want to have a child born in a dragon year, so I heard that there are small baby booms every dragon year. Let me know if you know if that's true. So, a confident person is the opposite of shy, they know what they want, they can go for what they want. An imaginative person, they have many ideas and they think of things first before other people. They're dazzling. Usually we say lights are dazzling when they... They're bright, but they move a bit in your eye, we say: "Oh, it's dazzling", and the dragon dazzles us because it's so amazing. And also the dragon is fiery. Obviously a dragon can breathe fire on us, and in that way the dragon is fiery, but people who are fiery, they have quite a strong temper. You don't want to... You don't want that dragon to be angry with you because you might get scared.Next we have the sheep. People who are born in the Year of the Sheep, we could call them innocent, patient, humble, and conformist people. So, if you think in your head, imagine... Imagine a scene with some sheep in the countryside on the farm with the shepherd, their lives are very innocent in the field. […]
How to find the online English tutor for YOU English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-12-22 | Do you want to learn English online? Are you looking for an English teacher who will tutor you on Skype or some other video chat? In this video, I'll give you my top tips about taking private or group English lessons online. How do you find the right tutor for you? How many hours a week should you take? What should you talk about? What about IELTS preparation? I answer these questions and more in this video. I taught privately online for many years, so I know what I'm talking about!Next, watch my video on how to do a Skype interview:youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_mQsWJA_QTake a quiz on this video here: engvid.com/how-to-find-the-online-english-tutor-for-youTRANSCRIPT: Hey, guys. Here are my best tips for finding a really good language teacher who will work with you on Skype in one-to-one appointments, private lessons, so that you can learn a new language.What is the reason that you want to have lessons? Because the kind of teacher you look for will be different, depending on the reason. So, first of all, if you want a conversational teacher because you're going on holiday soon to England and you want to get ready, or you want to wake up your tongue and remember all the English you know, then pick a teacher that you've got good rapport with, so that when you talk to each other on Skype you don't feel really awkward and sort of run out of things to say, and go silent and all those kinds of things. You want to be doing your lessons with a teacher you are happy and comfortable to talk to, especially in a conversational class. Another thing that can help those kind of appointments for conversational practice is for you to prepare before the kind of things that you would like to use the time speaking about. So if you've got a few ideas before the lesson with the teacher, it should mean that you won't run out of things to say or it won't get a bit boring.Now, if your reason for the Skype appointments is because you are taking an exam, for example, IELTS, then you want to pick a teacher who actually knows about that exam, because not all teachers have experience with it. So be sure to check the reviews. And if you're using a website, read carefully your teacher's introduction about themselves so that you know: "Can this teacher actually speak...? Actually teach the exam class I'm looking for?" And don't waste your money on a teacher who's like: "Oh yeah, I don't know about it, but yeah, I'm sure I can do it. I'm sure I can get you ready for your exam." Just be confident that your teacher that you meet on Skype really knows how to do the best for you and help you prepare for your exam.So another thing that you should think about is: How often do you want to meet this teacher? Because consider that it's just going to be the two of you talking over Skype, and sometimes you'll be using PDFs and other things to look at on the screen, but it's just going to be the two of you. So, if you do many, many, many, many hours together, it can be quite intense because you're seeing this teacher so often and spending so much time just together. For a lot of people meeting no more than three times a week, three hours is more than enough to be constantly meeting the same teacher. If you really need to have lots and lots and lots of hours because perhaps now your level's not very high, have a think about whether you should try group online classes. It's a completely different style of teaching, but they can be really good for learning vocabulary, covering basics. If you're quite lazy just to learn something on your own, then doing the group class can be a good way to just get those hours in basically. And then when your level is a lot better, then maybe then you can look into some one-to-one appointments or if you want to work on your accent, you can do so then.So, thank you so much for watching guys. I hope this is going to help you next time you're looking for... Next time or the first time you're looking for a Skype teacher online. Before you go, make sure that you check out our quiz on this lesson. And thanks a lot. See ya later. Bye-bye.
ENGLISH SLANG – 15 trendy fashion words English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-11-24 | Learn new vocabulary about beauty and fashion. Just like fashion trends, the words we use in English to talk about makeup, clothing, hair, and style, change quickly. The words that are used today are not the same as five years ago. There is a whole world of beauty vloggers and fashion hauls on YouTube. If you’re into fashion, you’ll want to look en point when wearing items from your most recent haul. If makeup is your thing, you’ll be wearing a red lip or using a palette to get a smoky eye. You’ll be sporting balayage or ombre hair (don’t worry -- I’ll teach you how to pronounce those new French-origin words too!). Watch and never forget the boyfriends of Instagram. Then take the quiz at engvid.com/english-slang-15-trendy-fashion-wordsTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at trendy fashion words. These are words that I'm hearing used a lot now around our times, so let's have a look through the words and learn them one-by-one so we can sound really cool and fashionable.Let's start with: "en pointe". If something is en pointe, it means perfect, it looks so good. What you're wearing today, that dress, your dress is en pointe. It's so fashionable, it's so, so hot right now. Very similar meaning to something being "on-trend". If we think about the word "trendy", it means fashionable. But to say something is trendy isn't fashionable enough anymore, we have to change it and say: "on-trend". We could also change it and say: "bang-on-trend". If it's bang-on-trend, it's even more now, happening right this minute.Next, if we're talking about makeup... When I was younger we used to talk about wearing lipstick or wearing red lipstick, or a pink lipstick, but now instead of saying the word "lipstick", it's described as: "I'm wearing a red lip today." And the same thing, instead of saying: "eye shadow", "Oh, I bought this eye shadow. It's blue. Look at it on my eyes", you don't say that because it doesn't... Doesn't sound... Doesn't sound fashionable enough, it doesn't sound like you know about makeup. So, what people who know about makeup say is they say: "Oh, today I'm wearing a smokey eye." I'm not wearing a smokey eye, I haven't got anything on, but a smokey eye is when the eye shadow looks grey or dark, and it's most often worn at night when you're going out. You get your eye shadow these days in "palettes". And instead of wearing just one eye shadow, like, wearing a pink eye shadow, the eye shadow palette comes with about... Well, as many as you want I suppose, but from 4 to 12 eye shadows, and what they do is they put on the different eye shadows from the palette. So, they will talk about creating the smokey eye from palette number three, or whatever.Next is a makeup term that's been around for a few years. This makeup term came from when the Kardashians got famous because the kind of makeup Kim Kardashian would use was a kind of makeup that shades her face to give it a certain... To make it look like there's more shadow on the face and a more dramatic kind of foundation, which is done with different brushes. It's a kind of makeup technique called "contouring". Apparently it comes... Apparently it's a makeup technique that's been around for ages, but before, drag queens used to use it, men who... Men who were still men, but dressed up as women mostly for performance and being in shows and things like that. So it originally comes from there. And I did experiment with contouring. I once watched a few too many YouTube videos, and it all went terribly wrong, so moving on from contouring.Next we have "drugstore makeup". In England we don't have drugstores, we have pharmacies where you go and buy your medicine, and you can buy toiletries, but we don't have drugstores. We have chains of drugstores, for example, Boots or Superdrug, and you can go in there and buy makeup, but we never call those places drugstores. Yet, when people talk about makeup now, the younger generation, they will... They will talk about buying drugstore makeup, which means the kind of makeup that only... Only costs you a few pounds to buy, it's not the really, really expensive makeup, and you can... You can buy it easily, close... Close... Close where you live. So, drugstore makeup is the kind of makeup you can do that doesn't cost you so much money as the really expensive brands. So that's an American term, but it's being used a lot here now in England.The next... The next two terms are about hair. These are newer fashionable techniques for dying your hair, and the two words come from French. In the English pronunciation we'd say: "balayage".
Learn all about Guy Fawkes & BONFIRE NIGHT English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-11-04 | What is Bonfire Night in England? Who was Guy Fawkes and why do people wear his mask? In this English culture and history lesson I talk about the traditions of Guy Fawkes night and tell you the story of the Gunpowder Plot, which happened on November 5th 1605. Find out why Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up The Houses of Parliament and what happened to him when the plot was discovered. Find out also about how he was gruesomely tortured in The Tower of London for his attempt to kill King James I. I'll show you how we celebrate Bonfire Night in England today, and how these celebrations have changed even within my own lifetime. And finally, Guy Fawkes himself will perform V’s introductory speech from V for Vendetta.engvid.com/guy-fawkes-bonfire-nightWatch more of my videos about England:Walk with me in London's Covent Garden:youtube.com/watch?v=bpnDAGVEeZgLearn about the London Street Accent:youtube.com/watch?v=PbCiNdAAUM4TRANSCRIPTGood day to you, students. In this lesson I'm going to talk to you about Bonfire Night and a man who once lived, called Guido Fawkes. We start with a story from a long time ago, in the year 1533, the king of England was King Henry VIII. And what King Henry did was he established the Church of England, and he split away from the Church of Rome and created a new religion called Protestantism. Then, in the long history that passed by, there were troubles between Catholics who wanted their religion to stay the same, and Protestants in the long history of England. Sometimes Catholicism was a religion of England, and other times Protestantism was the religion of England. So there were many troubles at that time.We move forward to the year 1605, a different king, a different time. King James I was the king of England. Now, something terrible happened to King James I, and this is where our story gets really exciting. It was the 5th of November, in the year of 1605. It should have been just any other day in the parliament, the Houses of Parliament in London. But this was not just any day in the Houses of Parliament, for this was the day there was a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Pew. But, actually, it did not happen.Why did somebody want to blow up the Houses of Parliament? There was a man, called Guy Fawkes or Guido Fawkes, as he was also known, and he wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and he wanted to kill King James I. And the reason for this terrible act to want to kill the king was because Guy Fawkes was a Catholic, and James I, as the king of England at that time, was a Protestant king. And Guy Fawkes, he wanted more rights for Catholics, so he believed in what he was doing, he thought if he blows up the Houses of Parliament, pew: "I shall get everything that I want and life in England should be good for Catholics."But no, it did not work out that way. It did not happen because an anonymous letter was sent to one of the fine gentlemen who usually sits in the Houses of Parliament who was supposed to be there on that day, the great Lord Monteagle. And he received this letter, and can you imagine his surprise when he opened this letter and it said: "Do not go to the Houses of Parliament on the 5th of November because something might happen. Do not go." Now, of course, Mr. Lord Monteagle thought: "Well, this is... This is strange to receive such a letter. What might happen if I go to the Houses of Parliament on this day?" So he raised the alarm, and they went to search the Houses of Parliament, and that's where they discovered the 36 barrels of gunpowder, but just in time. It did not blow up.So, who...? Who was behind this, this treasonous act, who was it? Who wanted to blow up the king and the Houses of Parliament? Why, it was me, it was me, it was Guy Fawkes. So, what did they do when they caught poor me, Guy Fawkes? Well, it was terrible, more terrible than you could ever imagine. First, they took me to the Tower of London, the terrible Tower of London and there they tortured me, like torture you have never heard so terrible before. More painful than you can ever imagine. They put me on the rack and they stretched out my arms and my legs until I was screaming and crying in pain for them to stop. They stretched my body so long, it was going on forever. I thought I would die, die of the agony. And they told me: "Confess to your... Confess to your terrible crimes. Confess. We will stop torturing you, we will stop stretching your limbs. All you must do is sign this confession. Sign, and we will stop torturing you." So I did what I could. My hands were like jelly, I couldn't hold the pen. I did what I could to sign my name and they did stop torturing me, but that was not the end.
Speed up your English...x5! English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-10-05 | Speed up your English by learning relaxed pronunciation. I will teach you how to say questions with ‘do’ and ‘did’ in a natural, flowing way. The secret to speaking fast is that there are no clear word boundaries. Whole syllables may be missed completely ("elision"), individual sounds may change ("assimilation"), or completely new sounds may appear ("intrusion"). No matter whether you are a beginner or an advanced speaker of English, I’ll break down the pronunciation for you in the clearest possible way. I’ll also teach you a little IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet), so that you can be sure that you are saying each question phrase perfectly. Learn to say all the question phrases in this lesson and you will speak fast -- like a native speaker of English. If you want to improve your accent and speaking ability in English further, take my accent course!LEARN MORE ABOUT MY ACCENT COURSE: engvid.com/out/jadeaccentcourseTRANSCRIPTHi everyone. I'm English Jade and I teach English over here at EngVid. But did you also know that I'm an accent and clear speech teacher? And I have a really important question for you: I want to know if your accent is your weakness. If it is, be sure to watch until the end of todays lesson because that's when I'm going to tell you all about my accent training course, Clear Accent, which teaches you how to speak in a really clear and natural way. But first of all, we've got to do today's lesson, so let's get started.Hi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to teach you how you can speed up your English times five, and I'm also going to teach Ratty, here, Ratty the kangaroo how he can speak much faster because since... Since he's moved over from Australia he's realized that he speaks too slowly, so that's why we're doing this lesson today. You'll get some tips to speed up your English.All right, so we've got some question phrases in this column, and here we've got what those question phrases sound like when native speakers are talking in a relaxed way, and here in this column we've got the IPA transcription. Don't be afraid of this. Ratty... Ratty doesn't know how to read this, so I'm going to explain it as I go, but this column here is important because this tells us exactly the way to say it, whereas using just the English letters I can't write down the exact thing that I'm saying because we don't have letters for all the sounds. So we'll use the two columns, and together we'll speed up your English times five. Does that sound good? Ratty says it sounds good.Okay, let's start with: "How's it going? How's it going?" If I want to say it really slowly, which I don't, I would say: "How is it going?" Take me all day to say that. But when a native speaker says it, it's: -"How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin? How-zit goin?" -"It's going good." -"How-zit goin?" If we look at the transcription here: "How-zit", "How is it" becomes two sounds: "How's it going?" If we look here, where's the "g"? It's not: "How's it going?" because it takes me more time and care to say the "g". When I'm just speaking in a relaxed way, I say: "How's it goin?" And also to notice here is that the "s": "How's" becomes a "z". "How-zit goin? How-zit goin?" And where the "s" would be here at the end of: "How's", it joins the next syllable, it joins "it", "zit": "How-zit goin? How-zit goin?" Does that sound good? He says it's good. He's a little bit faster.Let's look at the next example: -"How's your mum? How's your mum? How is your mum? How's your mum?" -"She's good, she's in Australia. She's having a good time there." -"How's your mum? Howz yuh-mum? Howz yuh-mum?" So what changes in this sentence? "How is your mum?" First thing that stands out is "your" becomes "yuh": "yuh mum". "How is yuh mum? Howz yuh-mum?" We've got a similar thing happening here with the "s" becomes a "z": "Howz", "Howz". "Howz yuh-mum?"Next example: "How's Tom? How's Tom?" "z" instead of "s": "Howz Tom?" And this symbol here is the "?" symbol. It looks like a backwards "a", and I should point out this symbol as well. We've seen it in the previous examples. This is: "?", "owl", "owl", "owl". "Howz Tom?" ? is a diphthong. A diphthong means when two vowel sounds blend one into the other, so this symbol here isn't two separate sounds. It's one sound changing into another quickly: "Howz Tom?" Okay, I need to move you to my other arm. Is that all right? Said: "It's good."Next: "How do you get there? How do you get there?" If I'm speaking really slowly... Really, really slowly like Ratty speaks: "How do you get there?" Ain't got time to listen to that. -"How-jew get there? How-jew get there? How-jew get there?" -"By plane?" -"How-jew get there?"
Drinking tea in England English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-09-14 | England is often called a nation of tea drinkers… Fancy a cuppa? In this English culture lesson, I’m going to teach you about drinking tea in England. We’ll explore the long history of drinking tea in England going back to the eighteenth century when tea was an upper class drink. I’ll also teach you the difference between ‘posh tea’ and ‘builder’s tea’, which has to do with the different preferences for drinking tea that correspond to the different social classes in England. And finally, I’ll teach you some expressions and sentences related to drinking tea so that you know exactly what to say the next time an English person asks you whether you’d ‘like a cuppa’.TAKE THE QUIZ: engvid.com/drinking-tea-in-englandMORE VIDEOS ABOUT ENGLISH CULTURE:English Culture: Manners & How to be polite: youtube.com/watch?v=8hV7lJyC3Eg3 popular slang words in British English: youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JUlo0ETZYWelcome to London - Tour:youtube.com/watch?v=bpnDAGVEeZgTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to talk to you about drinking tea in England. You probably know that we drink a lot of tea over here in England, and we have been drinking tea for a really, really long time. Tea started to come here in the 18th century, and that was the time when the British were exploring the world and trading, and bringing back... Bringing back the things that they found in other countries and selling them to people in England. So tea was once an upper-class drink, and you had to have a lot of money if you wanted to drink tea. And back then there was a place for you to keep your tea, it was called a tea caddy, a box, and often they had locks on them because tea was so expensive back then. Obviously it's a very different story now. It's not like that about tea. And back then when... In these older times when the upper-class people were drinking tea, one of the ways for you to display your wealth, and status, and how much money you had was by investing money in your tea sets, lovely... Lovely little cups that you can drink your tea from, you drink it very, very slowly and drink your tea like this, and pour from the teapot ever so slowly. That's how they... Tea was a whole social event back in the 18th century, and it was a way for women to get together with their friends in the afternoon and spend time talking, so tea was a... Tea was a big change in the upper-class culture back then, and ever since those times we've been drinking tea, but now everybody drinks tea in England. Well, maybe not everybody because it could be the case that the... The golden years of tea drinking in England are over. The years that tea was the most part of English culture, because now lots more people drink coffee. And even when I was younger, like 20 years ago, not so many people drank coffee. And if you go around in London now you'll see lots and lots of coffee shops everywhere. People do still drink tea, but it seems to be changing that they drink tea at home or they drink tea at work, but when they're out walking around or they stop to get a hot drink somewhere, then they drink coffee. So times are changing in England, but yet it's still very useful for us to know about the language of drinking tea, and something about the culture of it.English tea is also an experience that people coming to England like to have as a tourist experience, so they might want to go out for afternoon tea, which means to go to a lovely hotel somewhere and have tea. You know, like the old times when they use the teapot and you drink it all slowly like this, you can still drink like that today in the lovely hotels that we've got in London. They're very posh. Very posh, expensive hotels. You can still drink tea that way and it is a really nice experience that I recommend to anyone if they're coming to England or specifically London on a holiday and you'd like to do something a bit different.Okay, so let's start by talking about posh tea. What is it exactly? Now, I know the English are famous in many countries for ruining their tea, and drinking it in the worst way possible because in many countries they cannot imagine that people would drink tea with milk in it. To them it's a disgusting idea. Why would you do that? Well, that's the way most people drink their tea in England even today. Except if you are very, very posh and you have a very, very, very expensive tea, then it's probably the case that you don't drink it with milk. So, instead of having milk tea or milky tea, you drink your tea black just with the tea leaves, no milk, or you would drink that tea with a slice of lemon. And if you drink it this way without the milk, some people would say you get more of the true flavour of the tea and you're not spoiling it with the milk taste.
Passive-Aggressive Language English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-08-27 | What is passive-aggressive language? In this lesson I talk you through examples of passive-aggressive communication, which happens when a person is angry but their anger is not directly expressed. You’ve probably experienced a situation in which someone tells you that everything is fine, even though that person is actually angry: this is an example of passive aggression. I'm not recommending that you communicate passive-aggressively! This lesson is designed for you to learn the different forms of passive-aggressive communication and typical phrases people use, so that you can improve your own communication and express your needs more directly. It will also help you to recognize when someone's confusing behaviour towards you is being driven by passive aggression.TAKE THE QUIZ ON THIS LESSON: engvid.com/passive-aggressive-languageTRANSCRIPTHey, everyone. In this lesson we're going to talk about passive aggression or being passive aggressive. A passive-aggressive person finds it really hard to say what they really want and what they really need, and sometimes they feel like they can't directly be angry. So their words come out as if their words mean: "That's fine", or "That's okay", or "I'm feeling good", but actually the real meaning of what they're saying is opposite. The words, if we just listen to the words, they're not showing that the person's angry, but the true meaning of what they're trying to say shows that they're not happy about something. And if you wondered why I'm wearing this cape today it's because it protects me from passive-aggressive comments in my videos.So let's have a look at the different kinds of passive aggression. This will help you to get more of an idea what it is. We've got overt passive aggression and covert passive aggression. When something's overt, it's obvious, it's more obvious, we can see it; and when something is covert it's like hidden.So let's start with overt passive aggression, the more obvious kinds. Someone... Someone's not happy with you, they can give you the "silent treatment", that's when they're just like: "Umph." They won't talk to you, they're sort of ignoring you, and they want you to know that you're really pissed off with them, you're really angry with them, and you're so angry you can't talk. So it might be for a few hours, it might be for a few weeks. Sometimes married couples don't speak to each other for weeks if they do this silent treatment thing. When you give someone the "cold shoulder" that's when you're around that person, but you make no effort to be warm to them, to be nice to them. It's a bit like just... It's a big like ignoring them or just showing that: "Oh, I don't... I don't... I don't want to know you. I just don't want to know you." And a very clear, direct way of giving someone the cold shoulder would be if somebody said: "Hi" or maybe wanted to shake your hand, and it would be so direct if you just didn't shake their hand or you're like: "Hi", that sometimes happens.Now let's look at covert passive aggression. This is when it's less obvious and sometimes you have to really think about it: "What is this person doing? Am I...? Am I mad? Am I making this up? Is it true?" Okay, so now I admit that I have been once very skilled in the arts of passive aggression myself, and one of my jobs when I was 17 years old, I worked in a fake Italian restaurant, and I hated this job. And one of the ways I showed how much I hated it was my job was making... Making desserts and serving the drinks, and one of the ways I showed I hated this job was to put the desserts on the plate in a way where they looked as bad as they possibly could, but only just passing. So the... So the waiters would still take them out, or the manager of the restaurant would come and look at it and think: "This looks... This looks bad", and he would be a bit annoyed with me, but he would still take it because there's more things to do. So in my little teenager head, every time I made those desserts look bad, I was like: "Haha, hahahaha. Ha, I hate this job." Right.Moving on to "procrastination", that means taking a really long time before you actually do something or get it done. So, have you ever been in a situation where you ask someone to do something for you and they keep saying: "Yeah, in a minute, yeah, it's just coming, I'm just about to do it", and it still doesn't happen; you have to ask them about 10 times? That can be a form of covert passive aggression. Not every time, obviously. It just... It depends if someone is always doing it."Constantly late" is another one. Sometimes if people just don't really care that much, they'll be late and late and late, and also sometimes they're late because they... They just find it really hard to say: "I don't want to meet you at that time that we arranged." They find it really hard to say: "I'd rather meet at 7."
When to use A or AN in a sentence... and when NOT to! (Indefinite Articles) English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-08-05 | In this grammar lesson, you will learn exactly when to use the indefinite articles "a" and "an" in an English sentence. Using these articles correctly will dramatically improve your English because they are so frequently used. Many English learners make mistakes because indefinite articles don't exist in many languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Polish. But even if your language doesn't have them, don't worry. I'll explain the clear rules for when you must use indefinite articles. You'll also see examples of how indefinite articles are used in common speech, so you get a feel for what is right. Let's get started, so you can master this important part of English grammar!TAKE THE QUIZ: engvid.com/when-to-use-indefinite-articlesTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at when to us "a" or "an". In these sentences if we remove "a" sometimes the sentence is grammatically incorrect or it sounds wrong, or sometimes the sentence is still correct but it changes the meaning. So this lesson is about when we need to use "a" or "an" in the sentence instead of "the" or not having it all so that we get the correct meaning. Let's start with... These are different grammar rules for when to use "a" or "an".Let's start with when something is unspecified or known. Here are some examples, when I say: "He has a cat.", or I say: "I'm going to buy a tent.", or I say: "Do you want a beer?" these are all examples of something unspecified. I know he has a cat, but I don't know this cat personally, so I just say: "a cat". When I say: "He has the cat", I mean that one and you know the one I'm talking about. He has the cat. When I say: "I'm going to buy the tent", the meaning is different because that sentence, "the tent", "I'm going to buy the tent" is as if I've already decided it and talked about, and chosen the tent before. Not a tent. I'll go to the shop, I'll look at them, I'll buy that one. So this one is unspecified and this one is known. For anybody who doesn't know what the word "tent" is, we use a tent when we go camping and we sleep outside. We zip open the tent, we sleep inside there. And the last example, again: "Do you want a beer?" I mean a beer in general, one of these here, here you go. When I say: "Do you want the beer?" there's only one beer there, last one.Moving on, one of something. "I'll have a glass of red wine." That means one. Perhaps you'd say that when you're ordering at a bar: "I'll have a glass of red wine, please." Number two here: "He has a daughter." Means the same as he has one daughter. And the next example: "I've got two apples and an orange." In this sentence we have the number two for two apples, but we only mean one orange, so we say "an orange". I can also say: "I've got two apples and one orange", but this sentence makes sense as well. If you're wondering: "Why is it 'an' here and not 'a'", go and check out Gill's lesson on when to use "a" or "an". So pause this video and come back after.Moving on, looking at jobs now, we say: "She's a teacher.", "Mr. Smith is a police officer.", and we say: "Rachel is a nurse." These sentences are wrong if I remove the "a". "She's teacher", wrong. "Mr. Smith is police officer", wrong. And: "Rachel is nurse", wrong. Depends on your native language, but if you don't use articles... For example, in the Polish language or Arabic, many people speaking English, especially at intermediate level do not use "a" in their sentences. So it's a very common mistake to say something like: "She's teacher." And see if you can hear me saying "a", because if you're not used to those articles you might not even hear it. So listen carefully again this time: "She's a teacher." "a" becomes "e": "She's e teacher.", "Mr. Smith is a police officer.", "e". "Rachel is a nurse." So I say it really quickly. So you might not hear it so easily when I'm saying it, but if you don't say it... If you say: "Rachel is nurse", I can hear that every time, so remember that.Number four, religions or ideologies. We say: "He's a Christian.", "They are Hindus." A quick note here about these capital letters: Because these religions are names, we use a capital letter there. "Karl Marx was a communist.", and "Margaret Thatcher was a conservative."Moving on to number five which is social movements or trends. When we're describing that someone belongs to a group in this way or follows a particular trend, that's when we use "a". "He's a biker." means the same thing as: "He's a Hell's Angel." These are the people that ride the Harley Davidson motorbikes, they wear all leather clothes, beards, and bandanas, and ride around on their bikes in a motorcycle gang. We don't say: "He's the biker", or: "He's the Hell's Angel", because that changes the meaning of the sentence. If I say: "He's the biker", it would be in a situation where somebody said: "Where's the biker? Where is he here?" And I say: "He's the biker."
Formal & Informal Vocabulary: Using French words in English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-07-08 | Have you ever wondered why we have so many words for the same thing in English? It's because we used to speak Anglo-Saxon until the French king William the Conqueror invaded us and brought the French language with him. French never became the language of the peasants and ordinary people; it was only spoken in the court of the king and among the powerful. For this reason, French words in English are more formal than their Anglo-Saxon synonyms. In this lesson, we will look at some English history, and I will give you examples of formal and informal words and where they came from. I am fascinated by the evolution of the English language -- how it has developed, changed, and adapted over time. Perhaps English is the world’s number one language for international communication because it always adapts, incorporating new words from different cultures and bringing these into the English language itself.Striking the right register -- knowing the right word to use in the right situation -- is incredibly important in English. English learners often use vocabulary that is more formal than a native speaker would use, so watch the lesson to learn how to correct this, so you can sound more natural when speaking English. engvid.com/formal-informal-vocabulary-french-anglo-saxonTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is a little bit of a history lesson of the English language. We're going to talk about why English has so many synonyms, why we don't just have one word to things, sometimes there's more than one word for it. I'm also going to talk about informal language and formal language, why there's always so much of a choice in English. And the reason is because we always have this split in English between words that come from an Anglo Saxon origin and words that come from a French origin, and it's said that about 30... 30% of words actually have a... Can't speak today. Have a French origin and we still use those words today. And generally, the ones that come from French, they have a more formal quality to them, and the ones that come from Anglo Saxon are more neutral and they're the ones that native speakers use all time when they're speaking just among each other.But first I'm going to recite a little bit of a poem for you because this poem comes from Middle English, and the English that you'll hear is really different to the English that I'm speaking now. It will be like I'm speaking a different language, but what you will hear is the blend between Anglo Saxon words and French words. Okay? So let's see if I remember it.Whan that Aprill, with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the rooteAnd bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the flour.And I could continue, but I won't. And that comes from a really famous poem in English taken from The Canterbury Tales, and it's the first part of The Canterbury Tales called the general prologue. And it's in Middle English, the time when the peasants spoke Anglo Saxon English-peasants are the poor people-and all the rulers spoke French. And the reason that happened is because in 1066 there was a big battle when a French king of a part of France called Normandy came and defeated the English king at that time, and then he became king of England. So when he became king of England, he brought all his people over and the language of power in England at that time became French. So everybody who was in a position of power spoke French. So in the course the... Every decision-maker in England spoke French. Meanwhile, all the peasants just carried on speaking Anglo Saxon like they did before, and the words that they used and the language they spoke came from Germany and Norway. They were different tribes and before they came over to England. So there were two different languages going on. Plus it was only much later that the two... The two languages blended to become one language that we speak now that we have both, have both Anglo Saxon words and French words in our language.What else is important to say about it? I know there's something I've missed. Hopefully I'll remember what I missed. Oh yes. And because the kings and the ruling people spoke in French and the peasants spoke in Anglo Saxon, I feel like that distinction is still there. So when we're not trying to be formal or official or anything, we use words of Anglo Saxon origin. Only when we're trying to express ourselves in a very elegant way or an official way do we use the French origin words. So even though our language has become one thing, we're still keeping this idea in our language that the French words are sort of higher.
English Culture: Manners & How to be polite English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-06-10 | In this video, you'll learn about English manners. I'll tell you what we in England consider polite and impolite, and then go into detail about how we eat at the table, make and cancel plans, visit friends, and so much more. Some of these cultural aspects of living in England are different even from other English-speaking countries like the USA! Knowing these rules can help you make friends, get jobs, and even get into a romantic relationship. This video is especially important if you're living or travelling in England -- you could offend someone without even knowing it! Watch the video and leave your shoes ON!TAKE THE QUIZ: engvid.com/english-culture-mannersTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at manners in England. Here are the things that are considered polite, and the things that are not considered polite. So this is a talk about the culture, things that people do here in England, and the things that traditionally have been the most acceptable behaviour.Let's start with the things that are very important. So, I'm sure you already know this one: English people and queuing. "Queuing" is when you stand in a line when you don't... When you want something. You don't just, like, run up there to the front or push. You queue in a line. So, we queue up at the bank, for example, or we queue up when we want to get on a bus and there's some other people already there. Now, of course, in London because there are so many people and also not everyone is English so they have their manners from where they came from, you won't always see people queuing to get on the bus or on the tube, but you do generally still see people queuing up in a shop when they need to buy something.Next we have: It's very important to bring a bottle, and that means when you go to somebody's dinner party you take a bottle of wine when you go to the meal there. If you don't want to bring a bottle of wine, you can bring dessert or you can bring some flowers or some chocolates, but the general phrase and the general idea of it is bringing a bottle, as in a bottle of wine.Next we have RSVP. This is a term that comes from French: "R�pondez s'il vous plait", and this is a much more formal invitation that you get. If you're going to something, a special event like somebody's wedding... Because weddings are really expensive and they have to be organized so long in advance, people having the wedding really want to know if you're coming. So when you RSVP to the invitation it means you're definitely going, you will be there. So once you've RSVP'd, it's very, very impolite not to go. You must go if you RSVP.Next, I think that in England it's very important to be on time. We do tend to be punctual people, attend... Attend meetings at the right time, turn up to our jobs at the right time, or meet friends at the right time, most of us. Of course, there are those people who are always late for everything, but most people in general do things on time or even, like me, I always end up being 10 minutes early. I just can't help that. So I waste a lot of time being too early.Now let's look at table manners. Some of the things in the table manners' section are changing as people become more relaxed about eating and eating out. But these were all... These are all manners that people follow in more formal situations. Perhaps at home or with your very close friends it would be different. Now, I don't mean it's different for this first one. I'm not saying it's ever acceptable anywhere to slurp, burp-I can't do a burp noise. Anyway, you know what a burp is-and fart. Fart is noise from the other end. These things are never acceptable at the dinner table. Mm-mm, mm-mm. So, no eating noises or doing that when you eat. It's not acceptable.Elbows on the table, in a formal situation you're not going to do that, but relaxed with friends a lot of people do put their elbows on the table these days, not such a big deal.Drinking before... Just drinking your drink before somebody said: "Cheers" is considered impolite, but it's also a sign of being familiar with people. If you're familiar with them you don't have to go: "Oh, cheers for this drink and opportunity to drink with you." So it depends who it is.Using a mobile in the restaurant or when you're eating socially with people is considered rude, so to be like: "Oh, hold on. Let me just take this call. I'm so important, I've got to, you know, talk business", or something is considered rude, or to be like all the time texting on your phone. Of course it happens, and young people and teenagers are definitely going to do it more than older people, but on the whole it's considered impolite.
3 popular slang words in British English English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-05-13 | Learn the most popular slang used in England! I'll teach you the definitions of these words and how you can use them to sound posh, middle class, or childish! We'll be looking at: "sorted", a trendy word that is often used in advertising; "innit", a very common word that you can use in informal conversations; and "dab", which is most often used by children and usually includes a bit of a dance. You won't learn this slang vocabulary in grammar books, so watch this video, then do the quiz at engvid.com/3-popular-slang-words-in-british-englishTRANSCRIPTHey, everyone. In this lesson we're going to talk about three slang words that I hear around in London all the time. I'm sitting on a bus, someone uses this word; walking down the street in the supermarket, hear these words. These words are just, like, following me around or something because I'm hearing them way too often. So these must be the most well-used, most fashionable slang words at this time. Okay?Let's start with number one: "Sorted". "Sorted" is a word from the 1990s, and it seemed to die for a while and nobody was using it, but now everyone's like: "Sorted. Sorted." You use "sorted" when you have just finished or agreed to something, and now it's done, so you say: "Sorted". "Sorted" as in done or fixed. So someone could say to you: "Have you got...? Have you got the food ready for the dinner party this evening?" You go: "Sorted. Sorted." And people do that kind of enthusiastic movement, like... Or like little proud eye: "Sorted. Sorted." And I always think it looks a bit lame when people say: "Sorted", or I think they're trying to look cool when they say it. But it seems to be... It seems to be said a lot at the moment, it's used in a lot of advertisements. See it, watch it. Sorted. So it must be... Must be really hip and trendy now. When... In my... In my ears this is, like, someone who's trying to hold on really hard to the 1990s and they still think it's cool to say, in my mind. Maybe I missed out on why this is so cool. And I also think it's quite yuppie, kind of yuppie kind of... Yuppie kind of word, so you've got a bit of money. Maybe you're not that cool, but you'd like to think you are and you... Or maybe you've got enough money to buy cool things and go to cool places, but you're still not really that cool. You might be the kind of person who says: "Sorted. Sorted." Okay.Let's move on to the next word which is a classic, an absolute classic, but one that endures is: "Innit". "Do you get what I'm saying, mate? You're having a laugh, aren't ya? You better take that back to your shop. Innit"? "Innit" means "isn't it", but it gets put on the end of when you say something to show that you're finished speaking, but also to emphasize what you said before. It means: "Isn't it". I did a shouting example then, but I can say... If I want you... It's a question type, so I can say: "Oh, the weather's terrible today. Innit?", "The weather's really bad today. Isn't it?" You can put... You can put it at the end of any statement to either emphasize or make someone agree with you. So whereas "sorted" was the... Let's say more upper-class word, "innit" is the more working-class word. And if you wanted... If maybe if you are a bit posh and you didn't want everybody to know, you might use the word "innit" sometimes just so you can, like, look like you're cool with the kids.Next example, really hot right now is: "Dab!" Just dabbing. You say "dab" if you do something that you think is really cool and you were successful at it. So, let's say I thought it was really cool to flip this pen and catch it... I didn't ca-... I can't dab. Right? I'm going to try it again. I've got more pens. Right? As long as I catch... Dab, dab. Dab. I'm dabbing. Okay? So that's what "dab" is. It translates as awesome or really cool, like: "Oh, unbelievable". Like: "Everybody cheer. Dab! Dab!" That's "dab". Dab's really hot right now. "Dab" is said by 12-year-olds and under. They can be of any... Any class. So let's just put "kids" here.They are the three hottest slang words of today in London. Thanks for watching. See you again soon. Bye.
How to talk like a REAL Londoner English Jade · Learn English with engVid 2017-01-29 | Learn about the London street accent! English slang is often very different from grammatically correct English. The London street accent is no exception. This variety of English is called "Multicultural London English" by academics and "Jafaican" by people who dislike the accent. In this video, I explain some of the grammatical features of this way of speaking English and share with you some phrases and expressions. You may not wish to speak this way yourself because it is grammatically incorrect. However, if you visit London, you may encounter people who speak this way or overhear their conversations. It is interesting to compare textbook standard English to the English actually spoken in the real world by Londoners themselves, so watch this lesson to learn all about it!TAKE THE QUIZ: http://www.engvid.com/english-slang-how-to-talk-like-a-real-londonerTRANSCRIPTHi, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is the London accent, and it's called "Multicultural London English" by linguists, but I'm going to call it "Real London English". It's the accent that a lot of people speak... Speak, like, if you come to London and you're just walking around the street, you're going to hear this accent a lot. Yeah? And I made a different video about this accent, all the words that you can use to sound like this, all the slang and stuff. I made... That's a different video. But in this video I'm going to talk about the grammar, because you know what? A lot of people when they hear this kind of accent, they say: "Oh, that's... That's lazy speech or they're not speaking correctly." But actually this is a variety of English. It does has its own rules of pronunciation and grammar. It's not like people just make it up themselves and they're all just sounding a bit wrong. You know, it's a... It's a style of English, like you've probably heard of RP is a particular style, a posh style of English, this also has rules. So I'm going to tell you some of those rules.What I'll mention first is it's a London accent, but the London accent you've probably heard of is Cockney English, and I would say that not so many people speak with a Cockney accent anymore if they're... If they're a youngish person, they don't really speak with a Cockney accent. It's kind of dying or is dead. And this accent has replaced it. But what we see in this accent is a lot of similar details that we have in the Cockney accent, so I'm going to tell you all about those similarities.First I just want to talk generally about the qualities of this accent. What do you actually hear from this accent? So, the pace of the accent is quite slow, you don't really rush what you're saying. Although, if it's in a hip hop track or a grime track and you're listening to music, it can be really, really fast as well. But in general, the pace is slow. If you can, you got to make your voice lower. You got to speak from not high in your throat. You got to low... You got to lower what you're saying, speak from your lungs, speak low. Keep it deep. Also, I'm going to say it's sharply iambic, that means you go up, down, up, down. When you're speaking it's like there's different steps in what you're saying; stress, unstress, stress, unstress, stress, unstress. And I think that altogether it gives this a musical... A musical quality on my ears, anyway, as a native speaker. It's not... It's not a very harsh-sounding accent. It's... Cockney on the... Cockney, on the other... On the other hand is a lot sharper and like spoken higher in the throat. Yeah? And it might be the kind of accent that gets on your nerves. No offence, Cockneys, I'm just making a comparison between the music of the two... Of the two varieties.So, bearing this in mind, what are the actual rules of speaking like this? So, a "t" sound becomes a "d" sound at the beginning of words. So, instead of saying: "that" with a "t" at the end, it's: "dat"; "there", "dere"; "them", "dem"; "then", "den". Also, these words here, I'll say them in proper English: "something", "nothing", "anything". Compare these to Cockney English: "somefink", "nuffink", "anyfink" because in Cockney English you change the "ing" to a "k", and you change the "th" to an "f", so in Cockney English it's like that. "Somefink", "nuffink". But in this accent we're putting a glottal stop in the middle of the word, so instead of saying: "something", "su-in", "nu-in", "anytin". So, it's quite different to Cockney English in this respect, saying those words.But it's the same as Cockney English in that for both varieties, both these different accents we do something called "h" dropping, we don't say the "h" all the time at the beginning of words. So, for example, the word "have" becomes "ave". "Ave you seen dat? Ave you seen dat?" That was the word "that". "Have you seen that?" Not grammatically-sounded English, but something that could be said in this variety.
