2 Hour English Test: How will you do?

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Are you ready to test your English skills? Let's get started. Today, I have a new type of video for you. Over the last three years, I've created a lot of English tests on my YouTube channel. These tests are about vocabulary, grammar, phrasal verbs, listening, fluency, and a lot of other topics. Today, I'm going to compile all of these tests together into one mega test. I challenge you to try to do all of these English tests one time. I know that it's a lot of time to dedicate, but it's a good way to immerse yourself in English and to really challenge yourself to see, can I learn these concepts? Do I know these concepts? I hope you learn a lot of great new things and also you review some things that you've already learnt. Vanessa: I know it's two and a half hours, but it's way more fun than taking a school entrance exam that's for the same amount of time. Let's get started. Today, I'm going to test your listening skills. Do you want to understand fast native speakers in movies and TV shows and in regular daily conversations? Yes. There are countless reductions and linking in spoken English, so the best way to study this is to study real conversations, and that's what we're going to do. You're going to hear five short conversations. For each conversation, you're going to see three words. What I want you to do is I want you to listen carefully for which word is used in that conversation. Are you ready for the first conversation? I want you to listen carefully for the word all right, although, or almost. Vanessa: Which word do you hear in the conversation? Let's listen. Dan: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which word did you hear? Although, all right, almost? I hope that you heard the word although. Dan used the word although to contrast to something that he previously said. He said that, "We have our own phones. We don't share a phone, but in the past we did share a phone." He said, "Although in the past we shared a phone." He's showing that he's contrasting between something that's happening now and something that used to happen before. Let's listen again to that quick conversation and we're going to listen to the key sentence. I want you to listen for the word although. Dan: I have my own phone. We don't share these things, although for a time we did share a smartphone. I have my own phone. We don't share these things, although for a time we did share a smartphone. Vanessa: Did you hear that keyword although? I hope so. Let's move on to the second conversation, and I want you to listen for three keywords, interested, eager, or involved. Which one do you hear? Let's listen. Faith: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which word did you hear? Interested, eager, or involved? I hope you heard the word involved. In this conversation, Faith said this keyword involved pretty quickly. She explains that when she was younger, she was really shy, but her mom wanted to encourage her to participate in events, or we could say to get involved. It means to participate in events. I also used another word, optimum, that I talked about in a recent vocabulary quiz here on my YouTube channel. You can watch it up here if you'd like to learn more about that word. Let's listen to the key sentence again and I want you to listen for the word involved. Faith: I was just really shy and timid, and it was hard for my mom because she wanted to get me involved in things. I was just really shy and timid, and it was hard for my mom because she wanted to get me involved in things. Vanessa: Did you hear that word? I hope so. Let's move on to conversation number three. You're going to be listening for one of these three words, challenge, change, or child. Which one is in the conversation? Let's listen. Brad: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which word did you hear? Challenge, change, or child? I hope you heard the word change. In this conversation, Brad said that he loves to visit family occasionally. Occasionally means maybe three times a year, not every day, because he enjoys seeing how things are different each time when he sees his family. Things have changed each time when he sees his family. Let's listen to that clip one more time. I want you to hear that keyword change. We'll listen to that sentence. All right. Brad: Well, I think visiting family is a wonderful thing and part of what makes it so wonderful is getting to see them change and grow every time you see them. Well, I think visiting family is a wonderful thing and part of what makes it so wonderful is getting to see them change and grow every time you see them. Vanessa: Did you hear the word change? I hope so. Let's go onto the fourth conversation. We're going to be listening for one of these three words, teen, two, or 10. These are number related words, so listen carefully. [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Sarah: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Sarah: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which word did you hear? I hope you heard that Sarah has been a massage therapist, someone who gives massages, for how many years? 10 years. I hope you heard the word 10. Listening for numbers is essential in conversation. If you'd like to practice pronouncing some of the most difficult numbers, you can watch this lesson, which is how to pronounce the top 33 most difficult words. All right. Let's listen to that key sentence again and see if you can hear the word 10. How did you start this? Let's start at the very beginning. How did you get into massage therapy? Sarah: Okay. I became a massage therapist about 10 years ago. Vanessa: How did you start this? Let's start at the very beginning. How did you get into massage therapy? Sarah: Okay. I became a massage therapist about 10 years ago. Vanessa: Did you hear the word 10? I hope so. Let's move on to the fifth and final listening quiz question, which I think is the most tricky. Listen carefully for the word especially, specifically or special. Let's listen. Anna: [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which word did you hear? Did you hear the word especially? This is technically the correct word, but in this conversation, Anna uses a common spoken reduction for the word especially. She cuts off the E at the beginning and she says 'specially. 'Specially. This is pretty common. It might be a little bit tricky to hear the first time around. We'll listen to it again in just a moment so that you can hear it. Listen for especially. In this conversation, Anna mentions that it's expensive to own a horse, so sometimes multiple people will buy one horse and they'll share the expenses. Let's listen to this key sentence again and listen for the word especially that has been reduced to 'specially. Anna: My mom co-owned a horse for a little while. A lot of people go in on one together so that you don't have to pay all of the expenses, especially with any vet calls that might happen. My mom co-owned a horse for a little while. A lot of people go in on one together so that you don't have to pay all of the expenses, especially with any vet calls that might happen. Vanessa: Did you hear the word especially or 'specially? I hope so. Let me know in the comments, what was your score? Did you get all five of these right? Or maybe you got none of them right? Feel free to repeat this lesson as much as you need. Today, I want to test you on 15 advanced English vocabulary words that you'll definitely hear in daily conversation. Not words like convivial that you'll never hear Americans actually say. These are words that you're going to hear in conversation, in movies, in TV shows, and you are welcome to integrate them and add them to your own personal vocabulary. I challenge you to test yourself. Try to guess the correct answer to each sentence. If you don't get the answer correct, no worries. Vanessa: That means that you're ready to add a new word to your vocabulary. You can write it down, make your own sentence with it, read your sentence out loud, and enjoy yourself because adding to your vocabulary can be fu, and also it's super useful. Let's start with the first sentence. I'm going to read you a sentence, and there are going to be two options for you to fill in the blank. I'll give you three seconds, and you can try to guess what the correct answer is before I explain it. Let's get started. Sentence number one is, I need to practice English because we have to _ with the American branch next week. Is the word collaborate or is the word decide? We have to collaborate with the American branch. We have to decide with the American branch. Which word is the best fit for this sentence? Vanessa: I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. The correct answer is collaborate. If you got this correct, congratulations. If not, I want to let you know that the word collaborate means work together. You often use this in project situations. I have to collaborate with my classmates. We have to work together on a project, or I have to collaborate with the marketing department or the American branch. We're working on a project together. We have to collaborate. This is a beautiful advance word. Of course, you can simply say work together. Great. No problem. But this video is all about advanced English expressions that are commonly used. You can say, "I have to collaborate with the American branch." Let's go on to sentence number two. The second sentence is, what do you think is the _ time to go to bed? Vanessa: What do you think is the original time to go to bed? What do you think is the optimum time to go to bed? I'll give you three seconds. What do you think is the optimum time to go to bed? The word optimum is just an advanced, beautiful way to say best. What do you think is the best time to go to bed? Here in this picture you can see... This is not sponsored by this company. I just found this picture online, but this company has decided to use the word optimum to describe their product. When you take their product, you will get the best sleep. You will get the optimum sleep. I hope that you can use this as an advanced way to say best. Let's go to the next one. Sentence number three. When he told me about his experience growing up during the war, I realized how _ kids are. Vanessa: I realized how resistant kids are. I realized how resilient kids are. Both of these words sound similar, so make sure that you choose the correct what I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. I realized how resilient kids are. This is a beautiful word. There's a lovely Z sound in there, resilient. Resilient. this means that you're able to survive even though you have difficult circumstances. You're able to keep going and kids are the perfect example of this. Even though a lot of kids grow up in a difficult situation, they survive. They are resilient. They can adapt to those situations. All right. Let's go on to the next one. Sentence number four. It made me really annoyed when my dad _ at my idea to interview the president. Vanessa: It made me really annoyed when my dad scoffed at my idea to interview the president, or when he scammed at my idea to interview the president. Which one is the best word for this situation? Three, two, one. It made me really annoyed when my dad scoffed at my idea to interview the president. The word scuff is another excellent word, and you can see by my facial expression that the word scoff means you're laughing, you're making fun of, and it's often accompanied by this kind of puff of air. If you are scoffing at someone else, you're kind of laughing or you think their idea is a little stupid or silly, you're going to make that same sound. You think you could interview the president? That is scoffing. When you hear someone scoffing, now you know they are indeed scoffing. Vanessa: Let's go to the next one. The fifth sentence is, In _ I should have bought stock in Google. In _ I should have bought stock in Google. Is it in retrospect, I should have bought stock in Google, or in honesty, I should have bought stock in Google? Which one feels the most right to you? I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. In retrospect, I should have bought stock in Google. This word retrospect is actually a word that we studied in The Fearless Fluency Club a couple months ago. The first part of this word is retro. Retro means in the past and spect means looking. We can imagine we're looking in the past, but there is a slight little nuance about this word. Vanessa: It means we're thinking about the past, but it means that we realized in the past we made a bad decision. But in the past I didn't know it was a bad decision, but now I realize in retrospect, I should have bought stock in Google. I would be really rich right now, but, you know, I didn't do it and probably you didn't either. In retrospect, we can learn a lot. Let's go to the next one. Number six. I asked her to help me move next weekend, but her answer was kind of _. She just said, "I don't know, maybe. We'll see." Was her answer inundated? Was her answer ambiguous? Which is the best word for this situation? Three, two, one. Her answer was ambiguous. This means that it's not certain. I don't actually know what her answer is. It's not clear at all. Vanessa: You can see in this cool image here that it is a little bit ambiguous. Do you see a rabbit or do you see a duck? It's ambiguous. It's not certain. It's a beautiful word. Let's go to the next one. Sentence number seven. Speaking only one language _ me from getting a promotion. Speaking only one language hinders me from getting a promotion, or speaking only one language diverts me from getting a promotion. What's the best word for this situation? Three, two, one. Speaking only one language hinders me from getting a promotion and that's why I'm here with Speak English with Vanessa to improve my English and get a promotion. I hope it works for you. Here, this word hinders means stops or prevents. Vanessa: When you speak only one language, maybe that is preventing you from getting a better job, or it's preventing or hindering you from getting a promotion. This word hinder is a beautiful way to color your vocabulary and sound like an advanced English speaker. Let's go to the next one. Sentence number eight. My ancestors came to the U.S. and tried to _ into the general American culture. They tried to asinine into the culture. The tried to assimilate into the culture. Which word is the best? Three, two, one. My ancestors came to the U.S. and they tried to assimilate to the general American culture. This means they tried to fit in. They tried to be similar to the general American culture. Vanessa: This is something that was quite common, especially in the early 1900s. People who came to the U.S. from Italy, like my ancestors, or Poland or Ireland or from other countries as well, they tried to fit in or lose their native culture and tried to assimilate into the general American culture, which is why American culture nowadays is quite diverse because no one can actually perfectly assimilate. We all keep little bits of our own culture inside of us, but this is the best word to describe this. They tried to assimilate into the general American culture. Let's go to the next one. Number nine. When the teenager hit my car in the parking lot, I couldn't believe how _ he was. I couldn't believe how nonchalant he was. Vanessa: I couldn't believe how immune he was. What is the best word for this sentence? Three, two, one. When the teenager hit my car, I couldn't believe how nonchalant he was. This means not caring, cool. It doesn't bother him. Oh, I hit your car. It's not a big deal. It's, Oh, it's all right. Don't worry about it. Nonchalant. I was quite surprised when the teenager hit my car and he didn't care. He was just nonchalant. It's all right. Let's just go hang out on the beach. Not exactly. That's not exactly how you respond in that situation. Let's go to the next one. Sentence number 10. Last week, I was really busy and didn't get much sleep, but last night I slept for nine glorious hours. This morning I feel _. This morning I feel rejuvenated. This morning I feel modified. Vanessa: What's the best word in this situation? I feel, three, two, one, rejuvenated. Here, we're talking about alive, with energy. I feel like before I was tired and now all of a sudden I have more energy. I feel rejuvenated. What about for you? What makes you feel rejuvenated? Is it when you have a good chat with a friend, or you go for a walk in the woods, or you get a good night's sleep? What makes you feel rejuvenated? Let's go to the next one. Number 11. When he made a remark about her weight, he was _ to the fact that she felt embarrassed. He was obvious to the fact that she felt embarrassed, or he was oblivious to the fact that she felt embarrassed. Vanessa: There is a slight difference between these two words in their spelling, so make sure that you choose the word correctly, especially if you're writing it down. Don't mess up. I'll give you three, two, one seconds. The correct answer is, he was oblivious to the fact that she felt embarrassed. This means that he had no clue. He wasn't paying attention at all. You can see in this fun image, this perfectly describes oblivious. He's looking at his phone, he's telling someone, "I'll see you later. Take care," and then he's about to step in a giant hole. He is oblivious. He's not paying attention. This is a beautiful word to talk about someone who just has no idea. They're just oblivious. They're not knowing what's going on. Let's go to the next one. Vanessa: Number 12. One of the worst types of bullying is to _ someone from the group. Is to fund someone from the group. Is to ostracize someone from the group. Which one of these words is the best? I'll give you three, two, one. The correct answer is, one of the worst types of bullying is to ostracize someone from the group. This means that you push them away. You ignore them. You don't let them be your friend, be part of the group. This is something that is really harsh, especially for teenagers because they really want to have friends and fit in. This is pretty tough. If you were ostracized as a kid or as a teenager, I'm sorry. It's really a difficult situation. Number 13. I was going to rest inside today, but after I saw the sunny weather, I decided to go for a hike _ of the moment. Vanessa: What is that word there? Spur of the moment or top of the moment? Which one of those words fits the best? I'll give you three seconds, two seconds, one second. The answer is, I decided to go for a hike spur of the moment. If you are in The Fearless Fluency Club this month, you know that we have talked about this word, spur of the moment. It means spontaneously. I didn't plan it. I was in fact planning to rest, but instead I saw the weather and thought, "Hey, I'll just go outside and go for a hike. I did it spur of the moment. I did it spontaneously." Let's go to the next one. Number 15. Looking at your phone too much can hurt your eyes, but if you _ your body will hurt as well. Vanessa: If you sling, your body will hurt as well. If you slouch, your body will hurt as well. Which one of these two words? Will you choose? Three, two, one. The answer is, looking at your phone too much can hurt your eyes, but if you slouch, your body will hurt as well. This action of not sitting up straight, but slouching is a common vocabulary word these days because a lot of people are starting to feel concerned about your posture while you're looking at your phone. Especially young people are looking at their phones a lot during their body's formative, so slouching can cause a lot of problems later in life. A lot of parents say, "Don't slouch. Don't slouch. Sit up," or a teacher say that, "Hey, don't slouch. Sit up." Look at your posture right now. Are you slouching or are you sitting up? Vanessa: You can take a moment to correct your posture and don't slouch. Let's go to the next one. Sentence number 15. This is the last one. You got this. The sentence is, someone said it's going to snow tomorrow. I know it's only October, but I guess it's _. But I guess it's plausible. But I guess it's passable. Which one of these two words is the best? Three, two, one. Well, someone said it's going to snow tomorrow. It's only October, but I guess it's plausible. Plausible. Don't forget that L sound there. Plausible. This means that it's possible, but not likely. You can see here in this fun image that I found, I was doing a search for the word plausible because I wanted to show an image to you, and this image is perfect for the word plausible. They're showing how the dinosaurs disappeared. Vanessa: Maybe in the science world there's some controversy about how dinosaurs disappeared. I don't really know. I haven't really researched it that much, but here is a plausible, it's possible, but not likely situation. We have the animals on the ark. This is kind of a Christian idea of the animals getting saved in the flood and they are shooting and killing the dinosaurs. Do you think this happened? Very unlikely, but there's no way to prove it, so it is plausible. That is a fun way to use the word plausible. If someone tells you something that's pretty unbelievable, but it's maybe possible, you could say, "Well, it's plausible. Okay. It's not likely, but it's plausible." Now, I have a challenge for you. We've talked about 15 excellent advanced English vocabulary words. Vanessa: I want you to choose one or more if you'd like and try to make your own sentence in the comments with this word. I have a secret to tell you. Before I became an English teacher, I had never heard the expression phrasal verb. I can bet you $50 that if you went on the street and you asked anyone in the U.S. what's a phrasal verb, I bet that they wouldn't know. I tell you this because sometimes when you try to focus on concepts and put them into little categories like phrasal verbs, flap T, past perfect, present perfect, it can feel really stressful and make you feel a little more stressed about English than you need to. Of course, it's great to have tools in your metaphorical toolbox to know what those concepts are, but don't let them stress you out. Vanessa: When I was living in Paris, my French teacher was the most amazing teacher that I've ever had, and I always try to be like him. Let me give you an example about what he would do. Every English speaker has a fear of the subjunctive tense in French. For some reason, because we don't really use it that often in English, it is just really stressful to learn this in French. My teacher had a unique way to help us learn this without stress. I really remember at the end of that lesson I felt like, "Oh, it's not that bad. Why did I think that the subjunctive tense was that bad?" This is what he did. He went around the room and he asked each student a question. We knew that we needed to answer that question using the subjunctive tense. Vanessa: He didn't give us the rule, you need to use it for desire, will, or wanting these types of things. He just said, "Your answer needs to be in the subjunctive tense. Here's my question." He asked me, "What do you need to do today?" I said [French 00:27:39] blah, blah, blah. This is using the subjunctive tense in French. I didn't know the exact rule behind this yet, but in real life, when someone asked me, "What do you need to do today," I knew I need to use the subjunctive because I already had this real life situation where I used it in the classroom. I hope that today's lesson will be similar. I hope that you'll be able to use these phrasal verbs intuitively before I teach you a rule about it. Vanessa: What I'm going to do is I'm going to show you nine pairs of sentences and I want you to guess should you use the phrasal verb or should you use the simple verb? Let's take a look at a quick example. Here we have two verbs, try and try out. Try out is the phrasal verb and try is the simple verb. Here are two sentences. I need to _ the cake before I buy it. I need to _ the program before I buy it. The only difference here is the cake or the program. Which one is best with just try, the simple verb try, and which one's best with the phrasal verb, try out? Think about it for a moment. Did you say, "I need to try the cake before I buy it and I need to try out the program before I buy it?" Vanessa: ... and I need to try out the program before I buy it. If you said this, you are correct. Did you know that we use "try out" to test some kind of program or experience? Maybe you didn't know that specific rule, but "try out" just intuitively felt right with the word program. That's what I want you to do, I want you to look inside your heart and guess the best answer for these next pairs of sentences. Afterwards, I'll tell you a quick rule about it, but hopefully in the future you'll be able to use these naturally. All right, let's go on to our first pair of sentences. Vanessa: Pair number one: "brings or brings up." Vanessa: "He always ... his wife in conversation." Vanessa: "He always ... some wine to my house." Vanessa: The main difference here is the end of the sentence, of course, so take a look at this and feel in your heart which one is the most correct for each of these sentences. Did you say, "He always brings up his wife in conversation. He always brings some wine to my house"? I hope so. That's the correct answer. We use the phrasal verb to "bring up" something to talk about entering a topic into a conversation. That means that this man often talks about his wife in conversation, hopefully because he loves her so much, so he brings up his wife in conversation. Or you could bring up politics in conversation. You are bringing up a topic in a conversation. And of course, we use the word "bring" to physically give something to someone else. "He brings a bottle of wine to my house." Vanessa: Pair number two: "fill or fill out." Vanessa: "You should ... your mind with facts." Vanessa: "You should ... the form with facts." Vanessa: The only difference is your mind and the form. Think about this for a moment. I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. "You should fill your mind with facts. You should fill out the form with facts." Did you know that we use "fill out a form" to talk about writing some information on a form? I use the simple verb "fill" in this more metaphorical way. Of course, you can "fill a glass of water," but when you "fill your mind with facts," your mind has a lot of factual information in it. It is filled with facts. Vanessa: Pair number three: "found and found out." This is the past tense of "find and find out". Vanessa: "I ... how to avoid the traffic." Vanessa: "I ... a better road to avoid traffic." Vanessa: Which one of these needs the phrasal verb, and which one of these needs the simple verb? Think about it for three seconds. Three, two, one. Did you say, "I found out how to avoid the traffic."? Did you say, "I found a better road to avoid the traffic."? I hope so. We use "find out" to talk about solving a problem, especially when we say "find out how" or "find out why." Those are your keywords, "how and why" when we use "find out". For a longer video about "find out" and "figure out," you can check out this link up here, which is a video that I made about two years ago comparing these two similar and yet different phrasal verbs. Vanessa: Pair number four: "read and read over." Now, this pair of words here looks like "read and read over" but the present and the past tense are spelled exactly the same, they're just pronounced differently. So we need the context here. Let's take a look at the sentences. Vanessa: "She ... the article three times." Vanessa: She ... the newspaper this morning." Vanessa: Which one should have "read" and which one should have "read over"? Think about it for a moment. Three, two, one. It is best to say, "She read over the article three times," and "She read the newspaper this morning." For this one, it's okay to say, "She read the article three times," but if you want to emphasize that she read it in detail, this is "read over," to look at something in detail. Then you can use the phrasal verb, "read over." Vanessa: "She read over the article three times in detail to find out everything." Vanessa: Pair number five: "used or used up". The sentences are: Vanessa: "Dan ... the cream for his coffee?" Vanessa: "Dan ... the cream for his coffee, oh no!" Vanessa: So the only difference here is "Oh no!" Which one evokes the feeling of, "Oh no." Think about it for a moment. Three, two, one. Did you say, "Dan used the cream for his coffee," and "Dan used up the cream for his coffee, oh no!"? I hope so. If Dan uses cream for his coffee, cool. Okay. It doesn't bother me. I don't care. But if Dan uses up the cream for his coffee, this is a problem because it means that I don't get any. "Use up" means to finish something completely. So in the morning when Dan makes his coffee, if he uses up the cream, I might be a little bit upset because then I don't get any in my drink, so that's why I said, "Oh no!" Let's go to the next one. Vanessa: Number six: "call, call on". Let's look at the sentences. Vanessa: "If you don't listen, the teacher will ... your parents after class." Vanessa: "If you don't listen, the teacher will ... you in class." Vanessa: Which one feels the most correct for the phrasal verb? Three, two, one. Did you say, "If you don't listen, the teacher will call your parents after class. If you don't listen, the teacher will call on you in class."? Vanessa: For me, this seems like it's a universal truth that if you're not listening, if you're about to fall asleep, the teacher will always call on you. The teacher knows who sleepy, who is not paying attention, and they'll say, "Vanessa, what's number six?" And then you feel really scared. So when you call on someone, you ask them to answer a question. Have you ever experienced this in school that when you're not paying attention, the teacher always calls on you. But if you call someone, "The teacher called my parents," this means that she's making a phone call. When someone makes a phone call to your parents, it's always a bad thing. So if you're not listening in class, the teacher might call your parents. She's not calling on your parents, that feels a little bit weird. She's just simply calling your parents. Vanessa: Number seven is "got and got into." The verb "got" is the past tense of "get" here. So let's think about which one of these fits into these sentences. Vanessa: "I ... English last year when I found Vanessa's lessons." Vanessa: "I finally ... English last year when I found Vanessa's lessons." Vanessa: The only difference here is the word "finally." Think about which one of these words is correct. Three, two, one. "I got into English last year when I found Vanessa's lessons. I finally got English last year when I found Vanessa's lessons." Why did we say, "I got into English last year."? That means that you started to become interested in English when you found my lessons. Maybe that was true for you, I hope so. So you started to become interested in something, but the word "get", or in the past tense of "got", by itself has a lot of different meetings in this sentence. It means simply understood. Maybe you've never understood another native English speaker before and then you watched my lessons and thought, "I can understand her. This is amazing." So you might say, "I finally got English. It finally made sense to me when I found Vanessa's lessons." So you would say, "I finally got English when I found Vanessa's lessons." Vanessa: Number eight: "keep and keep on". Let's look at the sentences. Vanessa: "Make sure that you ... studying every day." Vanessa: "Make sure that you ... studying every day." Vanessa: Which one of these is correct? Think about it for a moment. Do both of these sentences look exactly the same to you? This is a trick question, I'm sorry. It's because "keep" and "keep on" have exactly the same meaning. "Make sure that you keep studying every day. Make sure that you keep on studying every day." This is exactly the same meaning you could say, "Keep on running, go, go, go," or "Keep running, go, go, go." Same meaning, no problem. You can use "keep" or "keep on" and they're the same. Let's go to the next one and the final question. Number nine. Vanessa: Number nine: "show and show up". Vanessa: "Why does she always ... us pictures of her cats?" Vanessa: "Why does she always ... 10 minutes late?" Vanessa: Which one is best with the simple verb? Which one is best with the phrasal verb? Think about it for just a moment. Three, two, one. "Why does she always show us pictures of her cats?" Probably because they're really cute and she loves them and she wants you to love them too. "Why does she always show up 10 minutes late?" When someone shows up, they appear, they arrive 10 minutes late. This is pretty rude depending on the situation, but if it's at work, do not show up 10 minutes late, not a good idea if you want to keep your job. Vanessa: All right. How did you do? Did you add the phrasal verbs to the right sentence and the simple verbs to the right sentence? I hope you did. I hope you learned something new. Let me know in the comments. What was your score on this test? Vanessa: Do you feel like prepositions are tricky? Should it be, "I'm in the store or I'm at the store. I talked to him or I talked with him." These small words "in, at, with, to" these are called prepositions. The reason why prepositions are so tricky is because we can't translate them from your native language. For example, in Spanish, the words "para" and "por" both mean "for" when you translate it into English, but those two words can be used in a lot of different situations where in English we would say "for, by, during, along." How are Spanish speakers and you supposed to know which is the correct English preposition? It's tricky. Today, we're not going to cover all the rules for all prepositions, but instead we're going to do something, a little fun, a quiz. Over the next 15 questions, you're going to review 15 different prepositions. Of course, we can't talk about every rule for every preposition, but we're going to talk about some of the common uses. Vanessa: Before we get started, I want you to guess how many questions do you think you'll guess correctly. Think about a number one through 15 or maybe zero through 15, how many questions do you think you'll get correct? I want you to think about this number because I have a feeling, I guess that you probably know more about prepositions than you think you do. So I hope that this lesson will help you to realize, "I do know something about prepositions and now I know a little bit more as well." All right, let's get started with question number one. Vanessa: Preposition sentence number one, "Today is beautiful, let's go for a walk ... the park." Vanessa: "Let's go for a walk in the park." Vanessa: "Let's go for a walk at the park." Vanessa: Which one of these is the most common? I'll give you three seconds to guess. Three, two, one. The correct answer is, "It's beautiful today, let's go for a walk in the park." You should use the word "in" because we're talking about being inside or surrounded by the park. If you say, "Let's go for a walk at the park." We're just talking about a specific point. You might say, "Let's meet at the entrance to the park" but here we're talking about going for a walk in the park, we're surrounded by the park. All right, let's go to question number two. Vanessa: Question number two, "Basketball is enjoyable, but ... all I like baseball." Vanessa: "But about all, I like baseball." Vanessa: "But above all, I like baseball." Vanessa: Which preposition is correct? You have three seconds, two, one. "Basketball is enjoyable, but above all, I like baseball." Here we have a fixed expression. You might call this in grammatical terms, a collocation "above all." Here we can imagine physically above your interests are more important, more interesting. Baseball above all is the best. So you could say, "I like learning English all the time, but above all, Vanessa's lessons are my favorite." Vanessa: Sentence number three, "I'm teaching my son to walk ... the sidewalk." Vanessa: "I'm teaching my son to walk by the sidewalk." Vanessa: Or "I'm teaching my son to walk on the sidewalk." Vanessa: Which one is correct? This is true, my son's one and a half and I'm trying to teach him to walk the sidewalk, it's dangerous if you walk the road. All right, let's think about this in three seconds, two, one. The answer is, "I'm teaching my son to walk on the sidewalk." With the word "on" we can imagine a flat surface on the sidewalk. "Don't walk on the road, walk on the sidewalk." Vanessa: Sentence number four, "Walk ... that tall building and you'll find downtown." This is directions. Vanessa: "Walk to that tall building and you'll find downtown." Vanessa: Or, "Walk towards that tall building and you will find downtown." Vanessa: Here we can kind of imagine that in the distance there is a tall building and you're trying to tell your friend how to get to downtown. So let's think about which preposition is correct. Three, two, one. "Walk towards that tall building and you'll find downtown." We use the preposition "towards" to talk about moving in a direction towards something, to something, but you're not exactly going to that spot. "If you want to walk to downtown from my house, you don't need to get to that tall building, you just need to move in the direction of that tall building." Vanessa: Sentence number five, "I'll see you ... the party ... six o'clock." Vanessa: "I'll see you by the party by six o'clock." Vanessa: "I'll see you at the party at six o'clock." Vanessa: Here we're going to use the same preposition for both blanks. Think about it. Three, two, one. "I'll see you at the party at six o'clock." Here we're talking about a specific point in time. Remember question number one, we talked about meeting at the entrance to the park, that's the same thing here. "We're I'm going to meet you at the party at six o'clock." A specific point. Vanessa: Preposition sentence number six, "I don't understand what Vanessa is talking..." Vanessa: "I don't understand what Vanessa is talking with." Vanessa: "I don't understand what Vanessa's talking about." Vanessa: Which one is correct? Three, two, one. We have a key here to help us know what the correct answer is. The key word is the word "what". "I don't understand what Vanessa is talking about." If you know this fixed expression to talk about something, you know that we talk about something, we're not talking about a person. I'm talking about prepositions, I'm talking about the moon, I'm talking about English. What if we wanted to say, "I'm talking with..."? Here, we need to use a person, but in my sentence I'm talking about something because I used the word what. "I'm talking with you about prepositions." Do you see that difference here? Vanessa: Sentence number seven, this one's a little tricky. "We'll try to be home ... 10:00 PM, but probably earlier." You can imagine telling a babysitter this, maybe if you're going out and the babysitter is staying home and watching your kids, you might say, "We'll try to be home by 10:00 PM, but probably earlier." Or, "We'll try to be home at 10:00 PM, but probably earlier." Which one is correct? Three two, one. Well, technically both of these are correct, but the best answer here is, "I'll try to be home by 10:00 PM." Why did I choose "by"? The word "by" means that we're talking about the latest possible time, "Try to be home by 10:00 PM..." And our key here is that final part, "... but probably earlier." I'm imagining that 10:00 PM is the latest that I will be home, so here we need to use the word "by". You might also hear in a classroom, the teacher might say to you, "You need to have your homework finished by the beginning of class." The beginning of class is the latest possible time. Don't finish your homework during the class, it needs to be finished by the beginning of class. Vanessa: Preposition sentence number eight, "After watching the tidying documentary ... I went all of my things." Vanessa: "After watching the tidying documentary, I went into all my things." Or, "I went through all my things". Which preposition is correct? Three, two, one. "After watching the tidying documentary, I went through all of my things." You can imagine a tunnel, you're going through the tunnel, you're surrounded by the tunnel. I'm here in the sentence surrounded by my things, clothes, kitchen things, office supplies. I went through my things, it was thorough, I went through every single thing. It also helps if you know the fixed expression to "go through something." This is one of the best ways to really memorize prepositions is to memorize those full fixed phrases, to "talk about" something. To "go through" something. Vanessa: Sentence number nine, "I was in New York ... two weeks." Vanessa: "I was in New York since two weeks." Vanessa: "I was in New York for two weeks." Vanessa: Which one is the most correct? Three, two, one. "I was in New York for two weeks." I know that the word "for" and "since" can be tricky together and we use "for" when we ask the question, what was the duration of time? The duration of time was two weeks, so I was in New York for two weeks. Vanessa: Sentence number 10, "The cat ran ... the kitchen when he heard the can open." This is true for my cats. When you open a can of cat food, "They run to the kitchen." Or, "They run into the kitchen." These are pretty similar, right? Think about it for just a moment. Three, two, one. "The cat ran into the kitchen when he heard the can open." We use the preposition "into" to talk about a room or a building. If you want to say, "The cat ran to something", we need to use a specific thing. "The cat ran to the bowl. The cat ran to me. The cat ran into the kitchen to the bowl." Beautiful sentence. Vanessa: Sentence number 11, "Oh no, that was the last can of cat food, I need to go ... the store to get more cat food." Is it, "I need to go to the store to get more cat food." Or. "I need to go about the store to get more cat food."? Which one's correct? Three, two, one. "I need to go to the store to get more cat food." Immediately, my cats are going crazy. We use the preposition "to" for a specific destination, "Come to my house. I'm going to the US. I need to go to the store." Vanessa: Number 12, "The museum is full ... tourists in July." Vanessa: "The museum is full of tourists in July." Vanessa: Or, "The museum is full for tourists in July." Vanessa: Which one feels the most correct to you? Three, two, one. "The museum is full of tourists in July." It helps if you know this fixed expression "full of something". "The tree is full of monkeys. The museum is full of tourists." Vanessa: Number 13, "I talked ... the client about the problem. Vanessa: "I talked with the client about the problem." Vanessa: Or, "I talked to the client about the problem." Vanessa: Think about this for a moment. Three, two, one. "I talked with the client about the problem." Or, "I talked to the client about the problem." Oh, both of these can be correct grammatically but they have slightly different meanings in a business situation. If you're talking about a friend, "I talked with my friend, I talked to my friend." No problem, same meaning. But in a business situation with a client they have a slightly different meaning. If you say, "I talked with the client," it has a more friendly, approachable, kind of equal feeling. Both people are speaking, "I spoke with the client, I talked with the client." If you say, "I talked to the client," in a business situation, it kind of feels like one person is doing more speaking. You might say, "My boss talked to me about being late." That means that I was late too much and he was angry with me, he talked to me about being late. So just know that in a business situation it's slightly different but in a casual conversation they're the same. Vanessa: Number 14, "It's been raining ... Saturday." Vanessa: "It's been raining until Saturday." Vanessa: "It's been raining since Saturday." Vanessa: Three, two, one. When is the start date? When did it start raining? Saturday. "It has been raining since Saturday." This is a tricky word. We know the start date, Saturday. "It has been raining since Saturday. I've been learning English since I was eight years old." Eight years old is the start time, "I've been learning since I was eight years old." If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the difference between "until and since" make sure you check out this live lesson that I did quite a while ago so that you can learn that more deeply. Vanessa: And our final preposition quiz sentence is: "I fell asleep ... the movie." Vanessa: "I fell asleep during the movie." Vanessa: Or, "I fell asleep from the movie." Vanessa: Which one of these feels the most correct? It's the last question, you can do it. Three, two, one. "I fell asleep during the movie." The word "during" comes from the word "duration", which means in the middle of the movie I fell asleep. You've heard a lot of prepositions during this lesson. How did you do in this quiz? This was just a quick overview of 15 common prepositions, but I have a feeling that you got more correct than you thought you would at the beginning. Vanessa: "Could I speak English? Where what I speak English? Should I speak English?" "Could, would, should" help. These three verbs "could, would and should" are called modal verbs and they can be tricky for a lot of English learners. Are they tricky for you? Well, I have some good news today. I'd like to challenge you with a "could, would, should" test. Are you ready? I'm going to ask you eight questions using the different forms of "could, would and should" and I want you to try your best, look into your heart and choose the correct answer. You'll have three seconds to choose "could, would or should" and then I'll explain hopefully clearly why that's the correct answer. Vanessa: Number one, let's imagine that you work for an American company and one of your coworkers tells you that she's having trouble making friends in your country, so you want to give her some polite advice. You say, "If you want to meet local people, you ... go to a bar." Vanessa: "You could go to a bar." Vanessa: "You would go to a bar." Vanessa: "You should go to a bar." Vanessa: You have three seconds to choose the best answer. Three, two, one. "If you want to make friends, you could go to a bar." We use "could" to give a polite suggestion. This isn't commanding someone to do something, we'll talk about that with "should" later. To practice this way to use "could" I want to ask you a question, "If I visit your city, where could I get a good view? Sometimes it's nice to go up high and look down on the city. So where could I go to get a good view?" For example, if you came to my city, you could go to a nearby mountain top and look down on the city. You could go to a nearby mountain top. Vanessa: Number two, let's imagine that you're visiting a new country and as you're walking down the street, someone tries to steal your phone. When you go back and tell the hotel receptionist about this, she says, "Well, in the future you ... take your phone outside, it's not safe." What's the best answer? Vanessa: "You couldn't take your phone outside." Vanessa: "You wouldn't take your phone outside." Vanessa: Or, "You shouldn't take your phone outside." Vanessa: Three, two, one. "In the future, you shouldn't take your phone outside." We use "should" to give strong advice. I hope you got this one correct because we just briefly mentioned it during number one. In fact, this situation happened to my sister when she was living in another country, I won't mention where, but it was her first day in the country and she was walking down the street and a lady, kind of crazy lady came up and tried to grab her necklace from around her neck. It wasn't something flashy, just a little tiny chain with a little emblem on it or something. And later when she told her friends about that experience, her friend said, "Oh yeah, you shouldn't wear jewelry, especially on that street because it's too dangerous." Thankfully the lady didn't take her necklace, my sister screamed and the lady ran away, but it was a little bit frightening for her. So her friend's advice is really strong, "You shouldn't wear jewelry, especially on that street." I just want to let you know that the verb "should" is so strong that we don't often use it for other people. You don't want to tell your friends unless it's a dangerous situation, so you don't want to tell them, "You should eat your vegetables." It's a little bit strange, but we often use this to talk about ourselves. If you want to give yourself- Vanessa: We often use this to talk about ourselves. If you want to give yourself advice, it's no problem if it's strong advice. You might say, "I should wake up earlier. I'm sleeping too late. I should go to bed earlier because I'm having trouble waking up. I should." When you give yourself advice, this is perfectly normal, and it's not too strong for someone else because it's about yourself. Vanessa: Let's go to question number three. "Mm you help me with my project?" "Could you help me with my project?" "Would you help me with my project?" "Should you help me with my project?" Which one feels the most correct? Three two, one. Actually, this is a trick question because you have two choices. You can say, "Could you help me with my project?" or, "Would you help me with my project?" Both of these are equally correct, and they both are just a polite request. "Would you help me?" "Could you help me?" The sentence structure is often "could," "would" plus "you," plus a verb, plus "me." "Could you pass me the paper?" "Would you email me when the report is ready?" We use this all the time, so it's really natural. Vanessa: Question number four. Let's imagine that we're talking about our childhood, and we're talking about something that we were capable of doing as kids. You could say, "When I was a child, I... play outside all day." "I could play outside all day." "I would play outside all day." "I should play outside all day." Which one describes a capability? Three, two, one. We could say, "When I was a child, I could play outside all day." Here, we're using "can" in the past. When we turn the verb "can" to conjugate it in the past, it becomes "could." So let's take a look at this sentence in the present and compare it with "could." "I can play outside all day." This is describing now, the present. But if we want to talk about the past, when you were a child, we need to change "can" to "could." "When I was a child, I could play outside all day." It's simply talking about your ability to do something. Vanessa: To practice this possibly new way to use "could," I want to ask you a question. What's something that you could do when you were younger, but you can't do now? Do you see how we're comparing "could do when you were younger" and "can't do now" with that present? Great. You might answer this by saying, "Well, when I was younger, I could stay up all night, but now I can't. I get tired really early," or, "When I was younger, I could eat sweets and never gain weight, but now that's not possible." This is a good chance to practice "could" to talk about your ability in the past. Vanessa: Sentence number five, "When I lived near the beach, I... swim in the water every day." "When I lived near the beach, I could swim in the water every day." "I would swim in the water every day," or, "I should swim in the water every day." Which one feels the most correct? Three, two, one. "When I lived near the beach, I would swim in the water every day." We can use "would" to talk about "will" in the past. This can be a little bit tricky, so my tip for thinking about this version of "would" is to think about an action that happened regularly in the past. If I say, "When I lived at the beach, I would swim in the water every day," this is talking about something that habitually happened. Let's take a look at another example. "My teacher would always give us a quiz on Friday." It happened regularly. "He wouldn't study, so he failed the class." "He wouldn't regularly study," this is something that regularly happened, "so he failed the class." Vanessa: I want to let you know that sometimes native speakers mix verb tenses. We might use the past simple plus a word that means habitually. So for example, you could say, "I swam in the ocean every day." "My teacher always gave us a quiz." "He didn't ever study." These words "every day," "always," "ever," they mean habitually. It's something that happened regularly. So if you want to just use the past simple, make sure that you add one of those words, or you could simply say, "He wouldn't study." "My teacher would give us a quiz." "I would swim." It already encapsulates that idea of something that happened regularly in the past. Vanessa: Question number six. Let's imagine that you're leaving the office to go to lunch with your international coworkers, and you know that it's raining outside. We call that sprinkling, and you see that one of your coworkers isn't bringing her umbrella, so you want to tell her something politely. You could say, "I think it's sprinkling outside. You... bring your umbrella or you can share mine." "You could probably bring your umbrella." "You would probably bring your umbrella." "You should probably bring your umbrella." Which one of these is the best? Vanessa: Three, two, one. "You should probably bring your umbrella." We already talked about how "should" is really strong. So when we add the word "probably," it lessens the intensity. We use "should probably" to give polite advice. You don't want to say, "You should bring your umbrella." Maybe a teacher might say that to a student or a parent might say that to a child. You're giving strong advice, but for your coworkers, you want to be a little more polite. So native speakers will often add these words to lessen the intensity and "probably" is one of the most common. You could say, "We should probably make reservations at that restaurant because it's really busy." Should probably. Vanessa: Sentence number seven, "She didn't want to turn off her phone because she... get an important phone call." "She could get an important phone call," "She would get an important phone call," or, "She should get an important phone call." Three, two, one. "She didn't want to turn off her phone because she could get an important phone call." We use "could" to talk about possibilities in the future. She thinks that it's pretty likely that she will get a phone call, so she doesn't want to turn off her phone. "It could rain on Sunday, so let's go hiking today." It's a possibility that on Sunday, it could rain, so let's enjoy the outdoors today while it's still sunny. I have an important note. You can substitute the word "might" in this sentence, and it has the exact same meaning. Let's take a look at those two sentences again. "She could get an important phone call." "She might get an important phone call." "It could rain on Sunday." "It might rain on Sunday." You've got two choices and both of them are correct. Vanessa: Sentence number eight. This is the final sentence. "If I didn't have air conditioning in my house, it... be very hot." "It could be very hot." "It would be very hot." "It should be very hot." Which one feels the most correct? Three, two, one. "If I didn't have air conditioning in my house, it would be very hot." We often use "would" to talk about hypothetical situations. These are imaginary things. It's not real. It's not happening right now. It's hypothetical. Sometimes these are impossible situations. "If I were a cat, I would sleep a lot." It's not possible for me to become a cat. This is hypothetical. It's imaginary, so we need to use "would." "I would sleep a lot," or you can use "would" for hypothetical situations that are not impossible, but they're just not happening right now, and that's what our sample sentence at the beginning was. "If I didn't have AC, it would be very hot." "The AC might break, and then I wouldn't have air conditioning, and it would be really hot." So here, this is hypothetical. It's imaginary because it's not happening right now, but it's still possible. It could happen in the future. So we need to use "would." It would be very hot. Vanessa: How did you do on this quiz? Let me know in the comments what your score was. But before we go, let's review all of these ways to use "could," "would," and "should." Could. A suggestion, "You could go to a bar." A polite request, "Could you help me?" "Can" in the past, "When I was a child, I could play outside all day." A possibility in the future, "It could rain tomorrow." Would. A polite request, "Would you help me?" "Will" in the past, "When I lived near the beach, I would swim every day." A hypothetical situation, "If I ate fast-food every day, I would gain weight." Should. Strong advice, "I should wake up earlier." Polite advice, "You should probably call him." Now, I have a challenge for you. In the comments. Tell me, if I visited your city, where could I go to get a good view? Give me a polite suggestion with "could," or you could use another modal verb to practice them. Vanessa: Today, we're going to talk about 15 advanced vocabulary words that you'll definitely hear in daily conversation. If you enjoyed my first advanced vocabulary quiz, you can watch it up here. If you haven't enjoyed it yet, watch out because you might see some of these words in this quiz as well. I challenge you to test yourself. If there's a word that you don't know, write it down. Try to make your own sentence with it. Read it out loud. Try to repeat it so that it sticks in your memory. You'll have three seconds to guess each answer before I explain. Let's get started. Vanessa: Number one, "I don't know why it's taking so long to... the house across the street." "I don't know why it's taking so long to renovate the house across the street." "I don't know why it's taking so long to relegate the house across the street." Which one is the correct answer? You have three seconds. Two, one. The correct answer is, "I don't know why it's taking so long to renovate the house across the street." This is a true story. The house across the street has been getting renovated for minimum two years. Renovate means that they're fixing it up. There's already a house. They're not building a new house, but they've repainted it. They put a new porch on it. They painted it again. They fixed up some of the outside of it. They renovated the house. We usually use this word in association with buildings or houses. That's most common way that you'll see it. Vanessa: Number two, "The worst bosses will... everything that you do." "The worst bosses will subjugate everything that you do," or, "The worst bosses will scrutinize everything that you do?" Which one is the correct answer? Three, two, one. "The worst bosses will scrutinize everything that you do." This beautiful word "scrutinize" means to look carefully at something, but it's not just looking carefully. It's a good idea to look carefully at what your employees are doing, but this often means critically or negatively. They're scrutinizing. They're picking apart every little detail of what you do. If you've had a boss like this, you know how annoying it is. The worst bosses scrutinize every little thing. They don't trust their employees at all. They scrutinize their employees. Vanessa: Number three, "Have you ever had a... friend who just won't go home even though you've already done the dishes and brushed your teeth for bed?" "Have you ever had a chatty friend who just won't go home?" "Have you ever had a clingy friend who just won't go home?" Which is the best word, chatty, or clingy? Three, two, one. "Have you ever had a clingy friend who just won't go home no matter what you do?" Clingy is a beautiful adjective, and it means stuck like glue, usually in a negative way. When we're talking about a person, it means that you want them to go away, but they just won't go away. So we could say that she is a clingy person. She's always with you. "How are you doing? What are you doing? Can I get together? Can I come to your house today?" Then, she won't leave. She's clingy. We could also talk about items being clingy. Maybe the skirt was clinging to her tights. It was a clingy skirt. It's sticky, and it's annoying when it's a skirt, but it's not always a negative thing. Maybe the cling wrap or we call this sometimes plastic wrap is clingy. It sticks to the bowl, and that's exactly what you want. So it means sticking. Vanessa: Number four, "When someone is driving poorly, I wonder if honking will... the problem or help." "I wonder if honking will exacerbate the problem or help." "I wonder if honking will examine the problem or help." I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. We have a clue in this sentence because we have the word "or help." We know that the keyword we're looking for is the opposite of help. If you're taking an English exam, this is great to look for these keywords. We have our word that we're going to talk about in just a second "or help," so it needs to be the opposite of help. "Sometimes when I see poor driving, I wonder if honking my horn will exacerbate the problem or help." Can you guess what the word exacerbate means? Vanessa: It means make it worse. It's not helping. Sometimes when someone cuts in front of me and I honk my horn, I wonder if they will drive correctly or if it will just scare them, and all of a sudden, they'll drive even worse. So sometimes I wonder this to myself. It happened last week that someone cut in front of me, and I honked my horn. They got in the correct lane, and it was fine. But sometimes I'm worried that when I honk my horn, it will exacerbate the problem, make it worse because that person will just be surprised and then veer off the road. Vanessa: Number five, "I'm usually... when I walk alone at night." "I'm usually wary when I walk alone at night," or, "I'm usually wiry when I walk alone at night?" There's only one difference between these two words and that's the vowel. Which one is it? Three, two, one. "I'm usually wary when I walk alone at night," and this just means careful, cautious. I'm usually wary. I look around me. I try to stay alert because I want to stay safe. I'm usually wary, cautious of my surroundings when I walk alone at night. Make sure that you pronounce this word correctly, "Wary." It sounds like "wear." "I'm wearing clothes." "Wear," and then you just add E at the end. "Wary." Vanessa: If you're in the Fearless Fluency Club, you already know this word because we talked about it a couple of months ago. If you're not in the Fearless Fluency Club, you can click up here to learn more with me every month and learn great vocabulary expressions like the ones in this lesson. Vanessa: Number six, "I was surprised that she was... about doing the dishes because she seemed so put together in her life." "I was surprised that she was... about the dishes." "I was surprised that she was testy about doing the dishes." "I was surprised that she was negligent about doing the dishes." In this sentence, maybe you don't know what put together meets. That's going to be a key element here, but we can imagine in our heads something that is put together. When you have a puzzle and it's put together, it means it's completed. It's finished. It looks nice. So we can piece together the rest of that sentence to guess what our keyword is here. Let me tell you in three, two, one. "I was surprised she was negligent about doing the dishes." Negligent. What does this word sound like? Do you know the word neglect? This means that you're forgetting something. If you were neglected as a child. This means that your parents didn't pay attention to you. They forgot you. They ignored you. Vanessa: We can imagine that for the dishes that she was negligent about the dishes. The word "negligent" means that you often forget important tasks. In this situation, we have someone who is put together. They're organized. It seems like they always know what's going on. They're never confused, or worried, or uncertain. They are put together, but surprisingly, she is negligent about the dishes. She has tons of dishes in her sink. We can say that she often forgets important tasks. She is negligent. Vanessa: Number seven, "We rented a... house in the English countryside." "We rented up quaint house in the English countryside," or, "We rented a tactful house in the English countryside?" Which of these words feels the most correct? I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. "We rented a quaint house in the English countryside." The word "quaint" means cute in an old-fashioned way, so it makes us think about simple times a long time ago. Maybe our grandparents or hundreds and hundreds of years ago. This beautiful, cute, little house. This is something that seems typical in the English countryside. There are quaint houses. This is a stereotype, but you can use that word "quaint" to talk about somewhere that you went on vacation. "Oh, I love this little village. It's so quaint. It's cute." Vanessa: Number eight, "I often wish that architecture in the US was more... pleasing." "I often wish that architecture in the US was more discreetly pleasing," or, "I often wish that architecture in the US was more aesthetically pleasing?" Which of these two words is correct? Three, two, one. The answer is, "I often wish that architecture in the US was more aesthetically pleasing." Aesthetically means something to do with a beauty. "Oh, it's so aesthetically pleasing to see quaint old houses," or if you've ever visited Europe and you've seen those beautiful buildings that have existed for hundreds of years, it is aesthetically pleasing. That means it's pleasing to your eyes. It looks beautiful. "All those colors together in your dress are so aesthetically pleasing." Vanessa: We often use those two words together as "aesthetically pleasing." But on the other hand, architecture in the US isn't really known for being aesthetically pleasing. Unless you go to some older areas of New York, most places in the US just look like this. Just some big box stores with big parking lots. Some downtown areas are cute, but in general, architecture in the US is not so aesthetically pleasing, and I wish it was. Vanessa: Number nine. I'm sure this is not you. "Sometimes people can be rude online because it's easy to be..." "Sometimes people can be rude online because it's easy to be anonymous," or, "Sometimes people can be rude online because it's easy to be assimilated?" Which of these two words is correct? Three, two, one. Sometimes, unfortunately, people can be rude online because it's easy to be anonymous. Anonymous. This means that your identity is hidden. Maybe you just have a screen name, nobody knows who you are. You can say whatever you want, so it's easy to be rude online. Did you recognize this word "assimilated" from the first vocabulary test? I hope so. If not, make sure you go watch it. Vanessa: Number 10, "Do you think that social media... content that you see?" "Do you think that social media censors content that you see?" or, "Do you think that social media subtracts content that you see?" Which one is correct? Three, two, one. "Do you think that social media censors content that you see?" The word "sensor" means hide something that's unacceptable. Maybe for a music album, they might say, "Censored," or, "Explicit," and this helps parents to know, "Uh, I don't want my five-year-old to listen to this music because there is something in here that needs to be blocked. But when it comes to social media, maybe the people who run social media are blocking certain things so that we don't see it. This is a controversial opinion, and I don't really know what I think about it. I don't really think much about it often, but I want to know for you. Do you think that social media censors the content that we see? Let me know on the comments below and use the word "sensor." Vanessa: Number 11, "The mother gave an... sigh when her son got in trouble at school again." "The mother gave an angelic sigh when her son got in trouble at school again," or, "The mother gave an exasperated sigh when her son got in trouble at school again?" Is it angelic or exasperated? Three, two, one. "The mother gave an exasperated, ugh, sigh when her son got in trouble at school again." Does this word sound familiar? Does it sound like a word we talked about previously? Exacerbate. Oh, it's not the same word. One word has a B, exacerbate. This means to make something worse. "If I honk my horn, will it exacerbate the problem?" or in our sample sentence here, we have a mother who's frustrated. That's what the word "exasperate" with a P means, frustrated. "Oh, son, why are you getting in trouble at school again?" Exasperated. "Ah." The word "exasperate" means to breathe out, so we can imagine the mother going, "Ugh, why are you in trouble again? Ah." She's exasperated. She's blowing air out. She's frustrated. Vanessa: Number 12, "Even though he tries to be... he still can't pay his bills." "Even though he tries to be fair, he still can't pay his bills," or, "Even though he tries to be frugal, he still can't pay his bills?" Which one of these two F words is correct? Fair or frugal? Three, two, one. "Even though he tries to be frugal, he still can't pay his bills." The word "frugal" means careful with your money. It's generally a positive thing. If you want to use it in a negative way, you can say stingy. This means that he never gives money to other people. He never helps other people. He just uses his money for himself. Vanessa: But if you want to say it in a positive way, he's just careful about spending his money. He wants to make sure that it goes to the correct places, to the best people. You can say frugal. This is a term that has often been used to talk about me. I'm a frugal person. That means that I'm careful with my money. If I give money to someone else, I just want to make sure that it's used in the way that they say it will be used. I don't have problems donating, but I just want to make sure that it's in the best way, so I'm careful with my money. I'm frugal. Vanessa: Number 13, "I could see the... anger on his face by looking at his eyes." "I could see the subtle anger on his face by looking at his eyes," or, "I could see this sappy anger on his face by looking at his eyes?" Is it subtle or sappy? Three, two, one. "I could see the subtle anger on his face by looking at his eyes." The word "subtle" means not obvious. Maybe it's a little bit hidden. You have to look carefully at his eyes to see his anger. It's subtle. Do you notice something strange about the pronunciation of this word? There is a B, but it sounds like a D, "subtle, subtle." If you want some more information about how to pronounce the word "subtle," I made a video about some of the most difficult words to pronounce up here, and one of those words is the word "subtle." So click on that video so that you can get some more details about its pronunciation. Vanessa: Number 14, "My baby is the cutest baby in the whole world, but of course, I'm..." "But of course I'm biased?" "But of course, I'm biased?" Which of these B words is the correct word? Well, we could say in three, two, one, "My baby is the cutest baby in the whole world, but I guess I'm biased." Biased. The word "bias" has a specific meaning, and in fact, we use this word a lot in daily conversation. It means that you have a previous notion that affects how you feel about other things. My baby is my child, so I'm going to have a different opinion than someone who doesn't know my child. Of course, all of my feelings about my child are going to be biased. They're going to be affected by some previous idea. Vanessa: I want to take a look at a quick cartoon so that you can get another example for the word "bias." Here we see a courtroom, and there is a lady who's being accused of being a witch. She says, "It makes no difference, what I say. You've already decided that I'm guilty." This man had a previous notion that she is a witch. She's guilty. It doesn't matter what she says. He's going to continue to think that she's guilty, and the man here, he says something that reaffirms his belief. "Ugh, gasp. Witches can read minds. She is a witch." He's just reaffirming what he already thinks, which also affirms what she thinks. Here, this man is biased. He has a previous notion that's affecting how he's currently behaving. Vanessa: Number 15, our final question. This is a question that I often get a lot actually. "How did you learn how to teach?" I might say, "It's just... I guess." "It's just intuitive, I guess," or, "It's just oblivious, I guess?" Which one of these two words is correct, intuitive or oblivious? Three, two, one. "How did you learn how to teach, Vanessa?" "Well, it's just intuitive, I guess." Intuitive means that it came naturally for me. It's something that was already within me and it came out. This is just partially true because I also did try to channel some good teachers that I've had and tried to emulate them, but we can say here it's intuitive. It came from within me. Well, what about that other word, oblivious? Do you recognize this word from the first vocabulary test? I hope so. If not, make sure you check out that video. Oblivious and intuitive or not the same thing. We could say that. "Well, I guess my teaching was just intuitive. I just knew it within my mind without having to study." Vanessa: How did you do on this test? Let me know in the comments. What was your final score? Also, I have a challenge for you. Try to make a sentence with one of these new vocabulary words. Use it in a sentence correctly and read it out loud so that you can test your speaking muscles, and also, try to ingrain it in your memory as easily as... Vanessa: Your speaking muscles and also try to ingrain it in your memory as easily as possible. Vanessa: Today, I have a fun grammar test for you. Fun? Grammar? Test? Is it possible? Yes, it's definitely possible. Just watch it and see. Vanessa: In this lesson, you'll learn seven common English grammar mistakes and how to fix them, but the trick is you have to guess what the mistake is. Fun. I'm going to show you seven sentences and you need to find one change in each sentence. Maybe that's taking something out, maybe that's adding something, maybe it's exchanging something. Let's take a look at a quick example. This sentence, I love dog. There's one mistake here, can you guess what it is? What do we need to change to make this beautifully correct? Well, we need to say I love dogs. You need to add an S at the end. This is a pretty simple example, so are you ready for some more advanced grammar sentences? Let's do it. Vanessa: Let's imagine that we're in a coffee shop together, drinking some coffee. Well, maybe that's not such a good idea because if I had a cup of coffee, I would be running around the coffee shop nonstop. So how about this? I'm drinking some tea, you're drinking some coffee and we're having a lovely conversation together and you say to me, "So, how's it been going lately?" And I say, sentence number one, "I bought the new Ferrari yesterday." Oh, what's one thing that you can change in this sentence to make it correct? This sentence is not correct. There's something that's wrong with this sentence. Can you guess? I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. Vanessa: I bought a new Ferrari yesterday. You have this image in your head of us sitting in the coffee shop. Do you think that we're looking at the car right now? No, we're just kind of imagining this car. It's not something specific, it's something unknown. So we need to use A. Maybe after we have our drinks, we go out to the parking lot and I say, "This is the new Ferrari that I bought." This is the new Ferrari. We're looking at it, we know which one it is, it's right there, so we need to use the to talk about something known and A for something that's less known. Vanessa: Test sentence number two. I wanted a Ferrari because it's too fast. I wanted a Ferrari because it's too fast. What's wrong in this sentence? Three, two, one. I wanted a Ferrari because it's really fast. We only use too in negative situations. The coffee is too hot, I can't drink it. I'm too tired, I can't study. Maybe I could have said, "My old car was too slow." You can see here that in all of these situations, there's something negative. The coffee's too hot. I'm too tired. The car is too slow. There's a problem in all of these sentences, so I probably want to fix it. And in this sentence with the Ferrari, I think that the Ferrari is really fast, so that's why I want it. If you're curious about some differences between too and so, I made a live lesson about this a long time ago, about two years ago, and you can watch that video up here. Vanessa: All right, sentence number three. When I bought the car, it costs $300,000. When I bought the car, it costs $300,000. It's a lot of money. All right. What is one thing that you can do to change in this sentence to make it correct? Three two, one. When I bought the car, notice this is the past tense, bought the car, it costs? This is the present tense, we need to say it cost $300,000. The word cost is an irregular verb and often, these irregular verbs trip up or trick English learners, so we need to make sure that we use the proper past tense. It cost $300,000. Vanessa: Sentence number four, maybe after I told you how much the car cost, you say, "Huh, Vanessa, that's so much money. Why would you do something like that?" And I say, "Well, I think I'm going eating rice and beans for a whole year." I think I'm going eating rice and beans for a whole year. This means, nothing fancy, nothing special, only rice and beans because I spent all my money on the car. What's the problem with this sentence? Three, two, one. I think I'm going to eat rice and beans for a whole year. Often, English learners have problems with ING and to. It depends on a lot of different factors, but specifically, for the verb going, when we're talking about this in the future. I'm going to eat rice and beans. I'm going to study with Vanessa. I'm going to sleep soon. Well, we need to use to plus an unconjugated verb. I'm going to study. I'm going to eat. I'm going to sleep. Great. All right, let's go to the next one. Vanessa: Number five. For my whole life, I always dreamed of owning a Ferrari. For my whole life, I always dreamed of owning a Ferrari. What's the problem in this sentence? Can you guess? Do we need to add something? Take something away? Switch something? I'll give you three seconds. Three, two, one. For my whole life, I had always dreamed of owning a Ferrari. Why did we add had here? This is the past perfect tense and I know it can be tricky for a lot of English learners. We use the past perfect tense to talk about something that was continuing for a long time in the past and now, it has stopped. Do you know why my dream has stopped? Oh, because it came true. I own a Ferrari. Of course, this is a fake situation, just imaginary. Vanessa: But because this dream came true, well, we can say that it has stopped. So we need to make the sentence, for my whole life, I had always dreamed of owning a Ferrari, and now, I do. Now that dream has come true. If you'd like to learn more about how to use the past perfect tense or the future perfect tense, you can click on this live lesson that I made up here a long time ago. There's one full lesson about the past perfect tense and one full lesson about the present perfect tense. These can be tricky, so please take your time, be patient with yourself and study them and take some notes. All right, let's go to the next sentence. Vanessa: Sentence number six. Not only is my Ferrari beautiful, but it is fun to drive. Not only is my Ferrari beautiful, but it is fun to drive. How can we make this sentence better?Huh? Three two, one. Not only is my Ferrari beautiful, but it's also fun to drive. We need to add the word also, and our key here is the first part of that sentence uses not only, and then the second part needs but also. This is an advanced phrase, not only, but also that's going to make your sentences more complex. Instead of just saying simple sentences, my Ferrari's beautiful. It's fun to drive. We can combine those with a beautiful advanced expression like this, not only is my Ferrari beautiful, but it is also fun to drive. We use not only, but also to give some more information about something, but it's really to take it to a higher level, to kind of escalate something. Vanessa: So here, my Ferrari's beautiful. Okay. But the next level is, oh, it's also fun to drive. On top of that, it is also fun to drive. So you might say, not only is this lesson useful, but it is also fun. I hope that this lesson is useful to you, but I hope it's not boring. I hope it's also fun. We're taking it to the next level. All right, let's go to the next one. Vanessa: Sentence number seven. If I crashed the car, I will cry. If I crashed the car, I will cry. Hmm. Can you imagine this situation? Spending so much money on a car and then crashing it? And that's it. That would be terrible. All right. Let's think about what is the best way to fix this sentence. Three, two, one. This is a hypothetical, imaginary situation. If you are listening to my quick little explanation, you might've guessed the correct answer. If I crashed the car, I would cry. We use if plus would to talk about these imaginary, hypothetical situations. It's not happening right now, so we need to use would. If you'd like to learn how to use would in other situations or some more in depth examples about it, make sure you check out another test I made, should, would and could, and how do you use them correctly. How did you do on this test about my Ferrari? I hope you enjoyed it. Now it's time to do a little review. Vanessa: Let's go back and read all of those sentences using the correct words that you can visually see it and also hear it one more time. I bought a new Ferrari yesterday. I wanted a Ferrari because it's really fast. When I bought the car, it cost $300,000. I think I'm going to eat only rice and beans for one year. For my whole life, I had always dreamed of owning a Ferrari. Not only is my Ferrari beautiful, but it's also fun to drive. If I crashed the car, I think I would cry. How did you do on this test? Let me know in the comments what your score was. Vanessa: Do you want to understand movies and TV shows and fast English speakers? Yes, of course you do, but there are countless reductions and linking in English that make it difficult, so the best way to understand fast English conversations is to study fast English conversations, and that's what we're going to do today. We're going to be listening to five quick English conversations and I'm going to give you three sentences for each conversation. I want you to guess which sentence you hear in each conversation. If this exercise is too easy for you, then this is my challenge. I challenge you to not look at the screen, but to try to write every single word that you hear from that conversation. This way, instead of listening for specific words that you already know will happen in that conversation that I give to you, you're going to be trying to write just from your listening skills every word that you hear. Vanessa: These conversations that you're about to hear are all part of the 30-day listening challenge pack four, which is open now until December 31st. If you'd like to join hundreds of other English learners who are deciding to start the new year 2020 by improving your listening skills, great. You can click on the link up here or in the description to find out more about the listening challenge. Vanessa: Are you ready to listen to the first conversation? I'm going to give you three sentences that I want you to listen for. I want you to choose which one is going to be in the conversation. Let's take a look at those sentences. You didn't take it seriously. You didn't take in seriously. You didn't take on seriously. Let's listen to the conversation clip and I want you to choose, did you hear number one, two or three? All right, let's listen a couple of times to the clip. Dan: I had probably kind of poor work ethic. Vanessa: Oh yeah? [Listen carefully!] Dan: But I didn't have to try very hard in high school. Vanessa: As in you could do okay in high school? Dan: I didn't have to study that much to get by in my high school because my high school didn't have very high standards. Vanessa: Oh, I see. Dan: I had probably kind of poor work ethic. Vanessa: Oh yeah? [Listen carefully!] Dan: But I didn't have to try very hard in high school. Vanessa: As in you could do okay and high school? Dan: I didn't have to study that much to get by in my high school because my high school didn't have very high standards. Vanessa: Oh, I see. Vanessa: Which sentence did you hear? Did you hear number one, you didn't take it seriously? I hope so. In this conversation, Dan said that he didn't work really hard in high school and I kind of clarified his statement by saying, "You didn't take it seriously." What is it in this sentence? It's school, you didn't take school seriously. This is a wonderful expression to take something seriously. Let's listen to that clip again and now that you know which sentence you're listening for and you kind of know the general idea of the clip, hopefully, you'll be able to hear it clear. Dan: I had probably kind of poor work ethic. Vanessa: Oh yeah? You didn't take it seriously? Dan: But I didn't have to try very hard in high school. I had probably kind of poor work ethic. Vanessa: Oh yeah? You didn't take it seriously? Dan: But I didn't have to try very hard in high school. Vanessa: Did you hear you didn't take it seriously? I hope so. Let's go on to quiz question number two. While you listen to this clip, I want you to guess which one of these sentences you're actually hearing. Is it number one, you have be like five or six years old. Number two, you have to be like five or six years old. Or number three, you have to been like five or six old. Let's listen to the clip and choose which one you're hearing. Vanessa: So they have it for all ages? James: Yes. Well, I think you have to be a certain age. [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Oh, got you. So at least at that studio, are there quite a few adults who are a part of the program? James: Yes, there are definitely more people there. I'm typically the oldest one in the place for the most part. I'm 45. Vanessa: So they have it for all ages? James: Yes. Well, I think you have to be a certain age. [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Oh, got you. So at least at that studio, are there quite a few adults who are a part of the program? James: Yes, there are definitely more people there. I'm typically the oldest one in the place for the most part. I'm 45. Vanessa: Which sentence did you hear? Did you hear, number two, you have to be like five or six years old? Here in this clip, James is talking about the minimum age to participate in the martial arts club that he's a part of. It's five or six years old. Did you also hear how old he is? Hmm. Did you catch that number? He said 45. All right, we're going to listen to that key sentence a couple times so that you can hear you have to be like five or six years old. Let's listen. Vanessa: So they have it for all ages? James: Yes. Well, I think you have to be a certain age. You have to be like five or six years old. Vanessa: So they have it for all ages? James: Yes. Well, I think you have to be a certain age. You have to be like five or six years old. Vanessa: Did you hear you have to be like five or six years old? I hope so. Let's go on to quiz question number three. I want you to listen for which one of these three sentences you here. Number one, she spent up living with me for seven months. Number two, she went up living with me for seven months. Number three, she ended up living with me for seven months. Let's listen to the clip and I want you to choose which sentence you hear. David: Actually, when I was there, I met a girl from Montreal. Chantelle, her name was. I saw her on the beach and I said, "Oh, she's beautiful. I must meet her." She spoke no English. I spoke no French. Vanessa: Oh, that didn't matter. David: She had a friend that was with her. They had come down from Montreal for a vacation a couple of weeks and [Listen carefully!] David: Actually, when I was there, I met a girl from Montreal. Chantelle, her name was. I saw her on the beach and I said, "Oh, she's beautiful. I must meet her." She spoke no English. I spoke no French. Vanessa: Oh, that didn't matter. David: She had a friend that was with her. They had come down from Montreal for a vacation a couple of weeks and [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which sentence did you hear? Did you hear number three? She ended up living with me for seven months? I hope so. In this quick conversation, David's talking about a special girl who he met and they didn't speak the same language, but it didn't matter. They lived together for seven months. He uses a great phrasal verb to end up. She ended up living with me for seven months. We use this phrasal verb to end up to talk about a conclusion, but it's usually a surprising conclusion. For example, I checked in to my flight to go to New York City and I ended up getting moved to first class. Whoa, this is a surprising conclusion because I didn't pay for first class, I didn't expect to be in first class. Maybe they had some extra seats or they needed to put someone else in the back of the plane, so we could say, "I ended up getting moved to first class." Great. All right. Let's listen to that original clip again so that you can hear a little bit more accurately everything that we say. David: She had a friend that was with her. They had come down from Montreal for a vacation a couple of weeks and she ended up living with me for seven months. David: She had a friend that was with her. They had come down from Montreal for a vacation a couple of weeks and she ended up living with me for seven months. Vanessa: Did you hear ended up? I hope so. Let's go on to quiz question number four. I want you to listen for which one of these three sentences you're about to hear. Number one, I just kind of self got myself the rest. Number two, I just kind of self taught myself the rest. Number three, I just kind of self bought myself the rest. Let's listen. Jesse: It actually started with a friend of mine that was not Cherokee at all. Even though she had no native American heritage, she was still interested in it. She taught me and I make the rooms with different types of sticks, all different types. Vanessa: Yeah, it looks definitely natural. Jesse: All different types. Vanessa: She got into making dream catchers. Jesse: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And she showed me and then [Listen carefully!] Jesse: It actually started with a friend of mine that was not Cherokee at all. Even though she had no native American heritage, she was still interested in it. She taught me and I make the rooms with different types of sticks, all different types. Vanessa: It looks definitely natural. Jesse: All different types. Vanessa: She got into making dream catchers. Jesse: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And she showed me and then [Listen carefully!] Vanessa: Which sentence did you hear? Did you hear number two? I just kind of self taught myself the rest? I hope so. In this quick conversation clip, Jesse is talking about learning a native American craft called dream catchers. She explains that her friend who has no native American heritage taught her some basics about how to make them, but Jessie self-taught. She taught herself the rest. What is this expression, the rest, mean? This means that she learned the remaining part by herself. For example, I cleaned most of my house in the morning and then I cleaned the rest in the afternoon. I cleaned the remaining part of my house in the afternoon. All right. Let's listen to that original clip again so that you can hear and hopefully catch those expressions. Let's listen. Vanessa: She got into making dream catchers. Jesse: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And she showed me and then I just kind of self taught myself the rest. Vanessa: She got into making dream catchers. Jesse: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And she showed me and then I just kind of self taught myself the rest. Vanessa: Did you hear I just kind of self taught myself the rest? I hope so. Let's move on to the final quiz question number five. This one's a little bit tricky because we speak at the same time as each other, but you've got it. Listen carefully. Which one of these three sentences are you going to hear? Number one, they're coming to the restaurant to avoid that. Number two, they come in to the restaurant to avoid that. Number three, they're come to the restaurant to avoid that. Let's listen. Kevin: I'd never got an autograph except one time in all these years and it was from David Bowie, because my chef was in love with David Bowie and it was just a big deal. Vanessa: Yeah, you can't be the paparazzi when [Listen carefully!] Kevin: Right. Vanessa: ... [Listen carefully!] Kevin: I mean, tourists find out where they are. Kevin: I'd never got an autograph except one time in all these years and it was from David Bowie, because my chef was in love with David Bowie and it was just a big deal. Vanessa: Yeah, you can't be the paparazzi when [Listen carefully!] Kevin: Right. Vanessa: . [Listen carefully!] Kevin: I mean, tourists find out where they are. Vanessa: Which sentence did you hear? Did you hear sentence number one? They're coming to the restaurant to avoid that? I hope so. In this conversation clip, Kevin is talking about his experience as a server in one of the most popular restaurants in Hollywood where celebrities like to go to avoid tourists, to avoid paparazzi. It's kind of a hidden spot where they can feel safe. The second sentence that you were listening for, they come in to the restaurant to avoid that, it's grammatically correct, but it's not what I said. So make sure you're listening for exactly what I said. They're coming to the restaurant to avoid that. All right, let's listen to that quick clip again so that you can pick up on this expression. Vanessa: Yeah, you can't be the paparazzi when they're coming to the restaurant- Kevin: Right. Vanessa: ... to avoid that. Kevin: I mean, tourists find out where they are. Vanessa: Yeah, you can't be the paparazzi when they're coming to the restaurant- Kevin: Right. Vanessa: ... to avoid that. Kevin: I mean, tourists find out where they are. Vanessa: How did you do? Did you hear they're coming to the restaurant to avoid that? I hope so. How did you do on this quiz? Let me know in the comments what was your score. Did you get all of them correct, or maybe none? I hope that you can do this quiz again and again so that you can test your listening skills. If the quiz was easy, like I mentioned at the beginning, go back, don't look at those sample sentences, but just listen to the audio and try to write exactly what you hear. See if you can pick up on every single word without any hints from me. Vanessa: So your goal is to be a fluent English speaker, but what does that mean? Today, I want to give you a little fluency test. This isn't going to be like tests that you had in high school with grammar and vocabulary. I know people who have a great degree in English or they get the highest scores on English exams, but they're still not fluent English speakers, so this is a real test to tell if you're really fluent. Vanessa: I'm here in my sunny backyard to share 10 fluency statements with you. If you can say yes to each of these statements, then congratulations, you're a fluent English speaker. But if there are any statements that you can't say yes to, this is what I want you to do. I want you to write down that statement, either on paper or mentally, and I want you to create some specific actions that you can take to increase that statement so that you can say yes to that statement. Throughout today's lesson, I'm going to be giving you some actionable tips so that you can follow through and really increase your overall English fluency. Vanessa: Are you ready to get started with fluency statement number one? Test yourself. I can smoothly have a conversation about almost any topic in English. This is essential. In your native language, you can probably talk about your vacation and then instantly jump to talking about how public transportation is always late. You can easily jump from topic to topic without much hesitation. So this is what you need to do in English as well to be fluent. Of course, there will be topics that you won't be able to talk about smoothly in English, but those should also be topics that you can't talk about smoothly in your native language. Vanessa: For example, last week, I was talking with my friend about a Star Wars movie. I don't know much about Star Wars movies, but I was trying to have a conversation with her about it and I was trying to explain, "You know that guy who wears the white suit, he's kind of like a soldier?" I couldn't remember the word Stormtrooper. And so she said, "Oh, do you mean Stormtrooper?" Great. We continued our conversation even though I didn't know exactly what that word is. So if you don't know a word in your native language or you feel uncomfortable talking about a topic in your native language, it's okay if it's the same in English, but those two should be a balance. Vanessa: Fluency statement number two, I can think in English and not translate in my head. I like to think of it like a light switch. You can turn it on for English or off for English. When someone says a word in my second language, in French, when someone says Paris with a French accent, my brain immediately switches to French because it was kind of triggered by that French sounding word. But if you said Paris with an English accent, well, it doesn't make my brain start to think in French. So this is kind of like the light switch idea. It is on or off, and you need to be able to keep English on so that you're not translating in your head. So when you're speaking in English but you can't remember a word, let's say that you're telling me about a car accident that you had yesterday. You might say, "I was driving and then a bird flew at my car and I drove into a," and you can't remember the word, so you explain it in English. Vanessa: "You know that dip or that hole on the side of the road, usually for water or rain?" And then your friend says, "A ditch?" And you say, "Yes, I drove into a ditch." You explained the word ditch in English instead of immediately saying it in your native language because the light switch was turned on to English. You probably couldn't even remember that word in your native language because you weren't thinking in your native language, you weren't translating in your native language. Instead, your brain was all in English, and you just didn't know that word ditch. So instead, you're trying to explain it in English. Vanessa: If you've ever had this happen to you, it's the strangest sensation. I remember one time, I ripped my shirt and I was trying to ask my French friend if she had a thread to sew it, but I couldn't remember the word thread, [foreign language 01:55:31]. So I just tried to explain it, but do you know what? I couldn't remember the English word for it either. It's as if English was completely turned off and instead, my brain was turned on to the other language. So if you have experienced this, congratulations, you're fluent. Vanessa: The third fluency statement is I can use English all day and not feel tired. Of course, if you have a busy, busy, busy day in your native language, you're going to feel tired. But when you use English normally throughout a normal day, you shouldn't feel tired at the end of the day. This means... Vanessa: ... Day, you shouldn't feel tired at the end of the day. This means that you listened to English radio on the way to work. You spoke with your coworkers in English. You used an English recipe to cook for dinner and in these situations you're not mentally exhausted because it's tough to think in English. Instead, if you feel comfortable and not tired, congratulations, you're fluent. Vanessa: The fourth fluency statement is, "I can speak and other people don't slow down their speaking for me." This is a great way to test your English fluency. When you have a conversation with someone else, if you can tell that they're using different language for you compared with other people in your conversation, it means that they don't see you as a fluent English speaker. But, when someone can speak with you without slowing down because they realize, "Oh, you can understand. It's going to be fine. We're going to be able to have a normal conversation." Great. You're fluent. Vanessa: This is especially true when you're speaking with someone who isn't an English teacher. English teachers tend to slow down when they're speaking with an English learner because it's part of our job. But when you're talking with someone who's not an English teacher... Maybe you're talking to customer service on the phone about a problem that you had with a product, or maybe you're talking with a cashier at the grocery store. If they speak with you at a normal speed, the same speed that they're talking with everyone else at, great. Congratulations, you're fluent. Vanessa: Our fifth fluency statement is, "I can say something but I can't explain the grammar because it just feels right." If you're speaking but you have no idea why you correctly used, "I have eaten," instead of, "I ate," well, great. That means that you've internalized the grammar. Maybe you can't explain why this was correct and why that one's not correct. You've just internalized it. Great. You're fluent. Vanessa: A good way to test this is by writing the same way that you speak. You could just ask yourself the question, "What did you do this weekend?" And as you're writing your answer, try to write exactly in the same way that you would speak. "Well, this weekend, I went to a friend's house and then I decided to leave early because I was feeling a little bit under the weather." And as you're writing this, are you thinking about the specific grammar verb tenses, about the sentence structure, or are you just writing naturally and correctly? And this is the same way that you're speaking. If you have internalized English grammar and you can use it correctly without thinking about the rules, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: The sixth fluency statement is, "I can be myself." I hear a lot of my English students say that they want to accurately express themselves in English. And when I hear them say this, what it makes me think is, "I want to be myself in English." You want to show your same personality in English as you have in your native language. So, if you're clever and humorous in your native language, you want to also be clever and humorous in English. If you're kind and thoughtful in your native language, well, you want to also show those character traits in English as you speak. When you feel like your true self is showing in English, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: A good way to practice this is by following the steps that I mention in this video up here about how to start speaking English without fear. Make sure you check out that lesson. Vanessa: Fluency statement number seven. "I can watch English TV shows and movies without subtitles, just like a native English speaker." In my opinion, I feel like TV shows and movies are a little bit more difficult to understand than just daily conversation because it's scripted. They use sometimes words and humor that's extra clever or extra advanced, but if this is something that you want to do and you can actually watch movies and TV shows without subtitles, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: If you'd like to take it to the next level and be able to understand movies and TV shows, but also be able to talk about them, make sure you check out this lesson I made here about how to talk about movies and TV shows in English. You'll learn a lot of great phrases and expressions so that you can enjoy those activities and then talk about them in English with other people. Vanessa: Fluency statement number eight. "I can understand different accents in English, native and non-native." A lot of you need to use English for your jobs and that's great. That's a great way to be able to use English on a daily basis. Some of you work with Americans, British people, Australians. But a lot of you work with non-native English speakers. People from Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, all places around the world. When you can understand all English accents, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: I remember the first time that I heard someone speaking French from Canada and I realized, "Oh, the way that they speak is different than the way I hear people speaking in France." When I could hear that they had a different accent, I felt so proud of myself because I realized, "I can understand them and I can understand that they have a different accent than what I'm used to hearing in France." Vanessa: This can be a tough skill to master, but with YouTube, there's a great way to do this. If you have some coworkers who are from Germany and you often speak with them in English, you can try to watch videos of Germans speaking English on YouTube. That way you can feel comfortable with the way they speak, the language choice, the accent, the intonation. You can just test yourself with YouTube and kind of train so that when you speak with your German coworker in English, great. You're already prepared. Vanessa: Fluency statement number nine. "I can understand humor and jokes." Of course, the humor and jokes may not be funny to you, but at least you understand why they're supposed to be funny. There's nothing worse than sitting at a dining room table with a lot of English speakers and they're all laughing and having a good time, laughing at jokes, and then you're just sitting there thinking, "I have no idea what's funny. Why are they laughing?" You feel really left out and lonely, but on the other hand, there's nothing better than understanding the humor and laughing with them. It's a great way to bond, to form relationships. When you can understand humor and jokes in English, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: Fluency statement number 10. "I can read an article, listen to a podcast, watch a movie in English, and forget what language it was in." This is such a strange sensation when this happens. I remember one time I was listening to a French podcast while I was cooking dinner, and then during dinner I was asking Dan, my husband, some questions about the podcast. He doesn't speak French. And he looked at me like, "What are you talking about?" And then I realized, "Oh yeah, I forgot. That podcast was in French, so you couldn't understand it." So when you can seamlessly jump from one language to the other, congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: There's one movie called Paris, Je T’aime, and it's a movie about different areas in the city of Paris. And in this movie, a lot of the characters speak in English and then jump immediately to French. And I remember watching that movie and listening to all the different languages that they were speaking and realizing, "I can understand this. I'm so happy. I don't have to use subtitles for part of it, or feel uncomfortable when they switched to French." Because I could easily understand both languages, I felt so happy and so proud of myself. And I want you to have that as well. So, if you can understand a podcast, a movie, a TV show, read an article, and then forget, "Oh yeah, it was an English," congratulations. You're fluent. Vanessa: So now I have a question for you. In the comments, let me know what is your fluency score according to this test? Can you relatively use grammatical structures without thinking, but it's difficult for you to understand all accents in English? I want you to take actionable steps so that you can say, "Yes," to each one of these 10 fluency statements. Vanessa: Do you have good pronunciation? How do you know? The best way to test your pronunciation is to speak with someone else and see if they can understand you, because understanding is the purpose of pronunciation and of speaking. But unfortunately, here on YouTube, I can't listen to you. Maybe YouTube will create that technology someday in the future. So for now, I'd like to give you a different type of pronunciation test. Vanessa: The next best way to test your pronunciation is to shadow or imitate exactly after a native speaker, so that you can see if your pronunciation is similar to mine. Is it different? What are the specific areas that are difficult for you? I'm going to be testing your pronunciation on 16 challenging words. But the best way to test your pronunciation is not with individual words, but with a whole sentence. So this is what we're going to do. I'm going to show you a challenge sentence that uses four difficult words, and this is what I want you to do. I want you to say that sentence out loud before I talk about anything. Vanessa: This is your original pronunciation. I want you to hear your original pronunciation, and then I'm going to read that sentence, but I'm going to mispronounce one word. I want you to guess which word is mispronounced. There are sometimes multiple ways to pronounce each word. But I want you to be listening for what is the most natural way to pronounce each word in fast English. Vanessa: And finally, I'm going to be saying the sentence correctly, and I want you to be able to say it with me. So I want you to repeat the correct sentence with me. Are you ready to get started with sentence number one? Let's do it. Vanessa: This is sentence number one. I want you to say this sentence all by yourself. Test your original pronunciation. Go ahead. Say it out loud. Vanessa: Okay. Now, I'm going to say the sentence and I'm going to mispronounce one word. Can you guess which word I mispronounce? I buy cloth-es through the internet. I buy cloth-es through the internet. Which word did I say incorrectly? Did you hear clothes or cloth-es? You heard the second one, but really that's not correct. Instead, when we speak in fast English, we often pronounce, "clothes" a lot like, "Close the door." I buy clothes through the internet. Vanessa: All right, let's go through each of these challenging words, and I want to help you say them correctly. That first word, buy, buy. It sounds exactly like, "Bye, see you later." Buy. And then we have clothes, which I just mentioned sounds a lot like, "Close the door." Close the door. When native speakers are speaking a little bit slower, they might add a th sound clothes, clothes. You see how my tongue comes out a little bit for that T-H? Clothes, but really when we're speaking quickly, it just sounds like close. Close. Vanessa: And then we have the word through. Oh, this word is lovely. We have a T-H followed by an R. Let's practice it slowly. Your tongue is coming out between your teeth and there's some air. That's a wonderful T-H sound. Through. It sounds like, "I threw the ball." This is the past tense of throw. I threw the ball. So, let's try to say this. Through, through. Vanessa: And then we have our final word, internet. What's happening to that middle T? Internet? You can say internet with a clear T if you're speaking a little bit slower, but when native speakers are speaking quickly, we're going to cut out that T completely, and just say in inner-net, inner-net. Vanessa: Let's go back and try to say this full sentence clearly and naturally together. Are you ready? I buy clothes through the internet. I buy clothes through the internet. Were you repeating with me? I hope so because we've got three more challenge sentences, and I want you to test your pronunciation. Vanessa: Let's go to number two. Here's sentence number two. I'm going to pause and I want you to try to say this sentence all by yourself. Test your original pronunciation. Go ahead. Vanessa: Okay. Now I'm going to say it, but I'm going to mispronounce one word. Can you guess which word is incorrect? A little girl took the recept to the bus. The little girl took the recept to the bus. Which word is wrong? Did you hear receipt or recept? You heard number two, but that's not correct. Instead, the P is silent, so you're going to say receipt, receipt. Just completely forget about that P in there. Vanessa: All right, let's go through each of these challenging words because I want to make sure that you can pronounce them correctly. The first one is little, little. You see there's two T's in the middle of this word, but really in American English, those Ts are going to become D sounds. So it's going to sound like lid-le. Little, like a lid that you put on a container, little. Vanessa: And then we have girl. A lot of these words, girl, world, early. Those words can be a little bit tricky. So, let's break this one down. Grr-l, grr-l. When you want to talk about the sound that an angry dog makes, you could say grr, grr, and then we're going to add le the end. Girl. Girl, girl. Notice that my mouth isn't really moving here. It's all inside my mouth and in my throat. Girl, girl. And with the L, my tongue is coming beside my teeth. Girl. It's right there girl. Girl. Vanessa: All right, and the next word is receipt, receipt. Re-seat receipt. This is the piece of paper you get after you make a purchase. The cashier will give you a receipt. Vanessa: And then our final word is bus. Sometimes this short u sound can be a little bit tricky, so I want to make sure you're not saying boose, boos, boss. Make sure you say, uh, bus. Bus. Bus. Vanessa: All right, let's go back and say this full sentence together. The little girl took the receipt to the bus. The little girl took the receipt to the bus. Did you say that with me? Let's say it one more time. The little girl took the receipt to the bus. Great work. Let's go onto the next challenge sentence. Vanessa: All right, here's sentence number three. I want you to say it all by yourself. Are you ready? Test your original pronunciation. Go ahead. Vanessa: Okay, now it's my turn. I'm going to mispronounce one word. Listen carefully. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warum weather. In the early winner, I didn't miss the warum weather. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warum weather. Which one of these challenge words did I mispronounce? Did you hear warm or warum? You heard that second one, but that's not correct. Instead, the word warm has just one syllable, not warum. Instead warm, warm. Notice how my lips are in an oh shape. Warm, warm with a clear R. Warm. Vanessa: All right, let's go through each of these challenge words so that you can say them correctly. The first one is early. This is similar to what we talked about with girl. Er-lee. Let's break it into two sections. Er, and then lee, lee. Early. Make sure that when you say the L, your tongue is touching the back of your teeth, lee, early, early. Don't add another sound in there. I often hear English learners say earaly, er-a-lee, but that a in the middle isn't natural, so let's make sure you say er-lee and put it together, early. Vanessa: Next, we say winter. What is happening to the T in the middle of this word? You might hear native speakers say winter with a clear T if they're enunciating clearly, and maybe speaking a little slowly. It's fine to do that, but when native speakers speak fast, you're going to hear winner. Winner. When's the Winter Olympics? Winner. This is the same as a winner and a loser. It's the same pronunciation, so make sure that the context helps you to know which word it is. Does this sound familiar? Internet winner. Yeah. We're cutting out that T especially when there's an N-T in the middle of a word internet, internet. Winter, winner. You're going to hear that a lot in fast English. Vanessa: Next we have the word didn't. Didn't. But this is the clear pronunciation. When native speakers are speaking quickly, we do not say didn't with each sound pronounced. Instead you're going to hear did-n. Did-n. There's a lot going on here in your throat. D-n. So that final D is cut short and the final T as well is cut, so it's really going to be just your throat. Can you say that with me? D-n didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't. Vanessa: If you have trouble pronouncing or hearing or understanding contractions, it's probably because we cut off a lot of those sounds. We reduce them. That's something that's natural in English. I made a video about how to pronounce 81 different contractions. You can check it out up here because this happens to a lot of different contractions and I want to make sure you can pronounce them, but also you can understand them. The difference between a positive word, did, and didn't is very important when you're having a conversation. Vanessa: All right, let's go to the last word. Warm, warm, warm. Make sure that this is one syllable. Warm. Warm. Do you think you could put all of these words together? You got it. Let's say it together. Vanessa: In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. Great work. All right, let's go to the final challenge sentence. Vanessa: Here's our final challenge sentence. Can you say this all by yourself? Go ahead. Vanessa: Now it's my turn. I'm going to mispronounce one word. I want you to guess which one it is. I definitely sought the water at the beach was salty. I definitely sought the water at the beach was salty. Which word is incorrect? Did you hear thought or sought? You heard the second one, sought, but does this word start with an S? Nope. Instead it starts with a T-H. So you need to make sure that your tongue is between your teeth and there's that stream of air coming through. Through. We already talked about that word. Thought. Thought. Vanessa: All right, let's go through each of these challenge words so that you can pronounce them correctly. What's happening with this word, definitely? Definitely. I feel like words like definitely, certainly, probably, those words can be a little bit tricky. I talked about some of those in this pronunciation lesson up here, but the word definitely, we use a lot and you probably would like to use a lot, but you need to pronounce it correctly, so let's break it down. Def-in-it-lee. Def-in-it-lee. Definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely. It's definitely a beautiful day. This is definitely a helpful lesson. I hope so. Vanessa: The next word is that lovely word we just talked about thought. Thought. Make sure that your tongue is between your teeth. I often hear English learners switching an S and a T-H sound. Sought instead of thought. And in some situations, this could be a little bit difficult for other English speakers to understand you, so make sure that you say this correctly. Thought, thought. Vanessa: And then we have the word water. Water. What's the sound that you hear in the middle of this word? Wad-er, wad-er? Well, it's not a T sound, water. Instead it's a D. Here we have, again, the T is changing to a D. This is typical in American English. Wad-er. Wad-er I want you to say that with me. Water, water. Vanessa: And finally we have the word beach. Beach. A lot of you are concerned that you might say a rude word instead. So let's practice that vowel sound. It needs to be a long E. Bee-ch. Bee-ch, beach. And really the context here is going to help you a lot. So when we're talking about, "The water at the beach is salty," you're most likely talking about the ocean, the sea. You're not talking about a rude word. So I think the context is going to help you a lot, but make sure that when you pronounce it you say E. Beach. Vanessa: All right, let's go back and say that full sentence. I definitely thought the water the beach was salty. I definitely thought the water at the beach was salty. I definitely thought the water at the beach with salty. Great work. I hope that you had a chance to say that sentence out loud with me and test your pronunciation. Vanessa: Are you ready for a final challenge? We're going to go back and say all four of those sentences and I want you to say them out loud with me. I'm going to say them two times so that you can listen and then you can also repeat. Are you ready? Let's say them together. Vanessa: I buy clothes through the internet. I buy clothes through the internet. The little girl took the receipt to the bus. The little girl took the receipt to the bus. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. In the early winter, I didn't miss the warm weather. I definitely thought the water at the beach was salty. I definitely thought the water at the beach was salty. Vanessa: Great work testing your pronunciation muscles, and now I have a question for you. Let me know in the comments which one of these words is the most difficult for you to pronounce. Let me know. I'm sure that there will be people around the world who have the same feelings as you. It's always good to feel like you're in this together. Vanessa: Wow, you made it. Congratulations. Now I have a question for you. Which English test was the most challenging for you? Let me know in the comments. I look forward to hearing your replies and thanks so much for learning English with me. I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. Vanessa: The next step is to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English Speaker. You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.

Channel: Speak English With Vanessa

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Keywords: learn english, english conversation, speak english, english pronunciation, speak english with vanessa, Speak English With Vanessa, english with vanessa, native english teacher, american english, phrasal verbs, fast english, english test, english vocabulary test, english grammar test, english pronunciation test, english verb test, english fluency test, whats my english level

Id: fZc-i-qanjc

Length: 141min 48sec (8508 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020