Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video,
I'm going to teach you a simple grammar point, and that is how we can use infinitives to
give a reason for something. Okay? So, in this video, I'm going to teach you
what an infinitive is and how we use it in this way. So, let's get started. So, like I said, we use an infinitive verb
to say why someone does something. So, let's look at some examples. I took a shower - why? To relax. I worked - why? What's the reason? I worked to make money. Okay? So, what I'm doing here is I'm showing you
part of a sentence and then, at the end, is an infinitive verb that shows the reason why. So, an infinitive is when you have the preposition
"to" + the base verb. So, what's the base verb? It means it's a verb that's not conjugated,
it's not in any tense, so for example, "to be" is an infinitive verb. Are, is, was, those are not the infinitive
verb, "to be" is the infinitive verb. I have some other examples here. "To eat", "to make", "to do", so an infinitive
verb is the verb before you conjugate it, and again, it has that preposition "to". So, I want you to tell me, what is the infinitive
verb in our first example? "I took a shower to relax." So, the infinitive verb is "to relax". What about in our second example? "I worked to make money." If you said "to make" is the infinitive, you're
correct. I know I put a box around it so it might seem
a little simple, but those are examples of infinitive verbs. So, again, we use infinitive verbs to give
the reason why we do something. So now, let's look at some more examples. Okay, so let's look at another example. She came, why did she come? Well, one example might be, "She came to dance." "She came to see friends." She came to meet people. So notice we have "to" which is the preposition
of an infinitive, and then we have the verb, in this case we can add "meet". Can you think of an example using a verb to
answer why she came? I know there's not a lot of information, so
there's a lot of different answers you could say. Let's look at some other examples. I want you to think about the reason: Why
do you go to the library? Some people might say "You go to the library
to read." Now, I want you to think, what part of the
sentence is the infinitive? That is the part that is giving the reason. What we have here, the preposition "to" and
the base verb "read", so "to read" is the infinitive. And that's also the reason why we go to the
library. Now, I want you to think about the cinema. Why do you go to the cinema, what's the reason? You go to the cinema maybe to watch movies. So, what part is the infinitive verb in this? So again, we have the preposition "to" and
the base verb, which is "watch". This is the infinitive. You go to the cinema to watch movies. Let's look at another example: why do you
go to the gym? Some of you might say you go to the gym to
work out, or to get strong. What's another reason why you might go to
the gym? Maybe to check people out, I don't know, there's
a lot of reasons why you might go to the gym. Maybe you want to train, okay? So, this is just one example. You go to the gym, and what part is the infinitive? Well again, you need the preposition "to",
in this case "work out" is the verb. Okay, now I want you to imagine this: your
grandmother or grandfather or somebody you know has never used the internet before, and
they want to know more about the internet, and so they ask you "Why do you use YouTube?" What can you tell them? Well, one example might be "You use you YouTube
to", so we have the infinitive, maybe "study English". I use YouTube to watch cat videos. Okay? I use YouTube to watch old TV shows. So, you can think about the reasons why you
do something and, again, you use the preposition "to" and the base verb. What about Tinder? I don't know if people are still using Tinder,
but if they are, if you know what Tinder is, why would you use Tinder? You use Tinder to meet people, maybe. Maybe you use Tinder to find a girlfriend
or a boyfriend. Maybe you use Tinder to hook up with people. So, again, this is giving the reason why you
do something. Why do you go to university? You go to university to learn. Why do you go to a restaurant? You go to a restaurant to eat good food. So, these are just some more examples of the
infinitive. Now, let's learn about a way to use this in
a more formal sentence. So, sometimes we might want to make our English
more formal. So, we might want to do this if we're writing
an essay for university or if we're doing a presentation at work. So, more formal is when you use more serious
English. So, how can we explain a reason by using more
serious English? Well, we can use the expression "in order
to". It's similar to what we've just been doing,
but again, this is the more formal way. So, let's look at some examples. "People use EngVid in order to learn for free." So, if you look at this example, we still
have our infinitive verb. Can you tell me what the infinitive verb is
in this? "To learn", okay? So, we have our preposition "to" here and
then we have the base verb "learn". Before we have "to learn", we have the words
"in order", so this again is giving a reason. We could also say "People use EngVid to learn
for free" if we didn't want to use this, but to make it more formal we can add the words
"in order" before. What's another example of this? Maybe "People drink water in order to be less
thirsty.", okay? So, again, this is another example of using
"in order to". Now, if we want to say something in the negative,
okay, we want to prevent something, we can also use "in order not to". So, let's look an example of this. "I walked quietly in order not to wake you." So, the reason that I'm walking quietly, why
are you walking quietly? I don't want to wake you up. So, I've put that in the sentence: I walked
quietly in order not to wake you. So, in this case, it's almost similar to the
structure of this sentence, the only difference is we've added the word "not" here, because
we don't want to wake you up. What's the infinitive in this example? To wake. So again, we have our preposition and the
verb "wake". Let's look at another example: "I stayed up"
I stayed up late, this was true when I was a child, "I stayed up late in order not to
miss Santa Claus." Okay, I was really scared of not seeing Santa
Claus when I was a kid, so I stayed up very late in order not to miss Santa Claus. So, that's the reason I stayed up late. So, we've covered a lot in this video. You've learned what an infinitive is, you've
seen a lot of different examples, and you've also learned how you can use "in order to",
if you want to make something more formal or "in order not to" if you want to make a
negative sentence or to give a negative reason. So, thank you for watching this video. I have some homework for you in order to help
you learn more English. Here is your homework: I want you, in the
comments section, to write why you study English, and I want you to use and infinitive to explain. "I study English to _______." Maybe it could be "I study English to have
a better future." "I study English to meet people." Whatever the reason, or maybe to read English
books, to watch English movies, I want you to think of one reason why you're learning
English and to use the infinitive and write a sentence about it in our comments section. I also invite you to come check out our website
at www.engvid.com and there you can actually find a quiz to practice this information more. You can also subscribe to my channel. I have a lot of different resources on grammar,
on vocabulary, on writing and many more subjects. So, thank you very much for watching and until
next time, take care.
