Hi. James from engVid. I would like to talk about something
that will help you understand English, and it's two things. Number one are parts of speech. What are the parts of speech
and how do you use them? The second is called syntax, which is a
very complicated word for word order. Where do you put the
words in a sentence? In some languages they have a different word
order, some languages it doesn't really matter, but what my job today is, is to
show you where the words go and: What do they basically
mean-okay-in the parts of speech? As E said: "Words.
Where do they go?" Now, if you're new to English or even if you're
an intermediate student, sometimes this causes you problems. Right? You've heard the terms: "preposition", "determiner",
"syntax", and you're like: "Oh, it's so complicated." Today's lesson will be simple. You can go over this
again and again. It will help you understand
and use English better. So I'm going to start off with the most basic
part of parts of speech, and I want to start with the things part. Things. Not actions, but things. I am a person. My watch is a thing. Okay? An animal, a cat or a dog, or
an apple, these are things. We call these things nouns, because
nouns name people - Hi, I'm James; places - Toronto, Ontario; things - my watch;
animals - a cat, meow; and food - an apple. Okay? These are nouns. Example: boy, dog, apple. Okay? Nouns name these things. But sometimes you don't want to keep
using the same noun again and again. "James ate the apple and James walked his
dog as James talked to his friend, Oliver, and then James..." It gets what we call repetitive and boring, and
it also makes the sentences go really slow. And sometimes we want to use
the noun in a different way. So in this case we introduce
what's called pronouns. Pronouns can replace
nouns in a sentence. So now you could say something like this:
"James ate the apple and he walked his dog." Instead of: "James ate the apple and James
walked his dog", we can use a pronoun to replace it and make it simpler. We still know we're
talking about James. Now, we talked about
word order or syntax. Let me explain this. In order to use a pronoun
first you must use the noun. Okay? You introduce the noun and then you
can replace it with a pronoun. That's why you see number
one then number two. You cannot just start
with a pronoun. If I started a sentence at the
beginning: "He went to the store." The very first thing you will
say to me is: "Who's he?" I go: "Oh, James went to the store
and he bought the apples there." And you go: "Oh, now
I know who he is." So, pronouns kind of number two because you
have to actually introduce first with a noun, then you can replace
it with a pronoun. Now, we have several
types of pronouns. I'm just going to go over and show you
a couple of them so you get an idea. Pronouns include: "I", "we",
which are subject pronouns. Object pronouns when we're talking about something
that's not us, but something on the other side that receives action, as a
subject pronoun I do things. I run. Right? We eat dinner. We're talking to them. Now, when we say "them",
you go: "What?" Well, they are receiving it and
we call those object pronouns. Okay? So the most basic ones are
subject and object pronouns. One is doing something,
one is receiving. There are reflexive pronouns, like: "himself"
where somebody is talking about themselves. "He built the house himself." So he's talking about him as an object,
but reflecting it back to himself. We call it reflexive pronoun. Okay? There are others, but I'm not going to get
into them right now because I want to keep this simple just so you know what the parts
of speech are, and you can always come to engVid to come and see other
lessons in which we go deeply into reflexive pronouns, object
and subject pronouns. Okay? Cool. So we talked about how pronouns can
replace nouns, and we're good with that. Yeah? So let's go to stage number three, because
once you've replaced them, how do you know the difference between them? Apple, apple. I don't know. That's when we have adjectives. Adjectives. The word itself can be broken
into two parts: "ject" and "ad". But remember... Do you remember when I said subject and
object, and I gave you the example? I said, for instance: "I"
is a subject pronoun. Right? Subject, yeah, I'm good at this. I'm going to do
this really well. And I said: "them" is
an object pronoun. Right? You'll notice "ject"
is in both parts. When you look at an adjective, "ad" means to
put on, you add, like two plus two is four, four plus four is eight. So an adjective you add to a pronoun
or a noun to describe them. So if you look here, "ject". Adjectives describe
nouns and pronouns. Now, remember we
talked about syntax? Well, syntax, remember
the word order? Where would you
find an adjective? Well, in some places
it's reversed. If you speak Spanish, for instance, you would
say: "gato negro", which in translation for English is cat's black. And for me who speak English or a person who
speaks English, that doesn't make sense to me because we say black cat. So, word order can vary depending
on the language you speak. We usually put
pronouns before... Sorry, adjectives before our pronouns
and our nouns so we can describe them. And in two seconds I'm going to give you some
ways in which we describe things, and we have a word order for that. Okay? And I'll have to explain
something on that. So, where will you
find an adjective? Before you find your
nouns or pronouns. They will help you describe
your subjects or objects. Okay? The things that
are doing something. Now, we have eight types of adjectives.
All right? And we have a special
order we put it in. Now, depending on your language,
this order may exist. You may have a different order or you may
have no order which means you can put any of these things in
any order you like. You can put... Not... Well, maybe with the exception of numbers,
but the colour can come first, where it comes from, it can come first. Quality can come first. It depends on your culture,
your language, your country. English, however, the order I put it in - one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, that's the order we want it in. Okay? If you change it, it actually
gets really confusing. So, what are these eight? Well, why don't we take a look? Quantity, it's a number. Now, I put "a number", not because I
said a number, but "a" refers to... Or "a" refers to articles. The chair, a chair. Okay? In this case "a" means one, so
that's why I put "a number". Funny guy, I know. Number can be any other number; five,
10, 1,000, 1 million, a billion. This usually comes first to indicate
how many things we're talking about. Okay? So you need a number. Five chairs, okay, we're talking about
five so I have to look for five chairs. Not chair, yellow, five. I'm like: "Is that the name, yellow five?
I'm confused." The next thing we
talk about, quality. Is it good, is it bad? Is it exceptional? Right? Or is it insignificant? That's a big word for
meaning not important. Okay? So we go from quality to... Sorry, quantity to quality. Then we talk about
the size of it. Right? There were five
big, black, cats. So, five big, is it
big, is it small? Age. How old is it? Is it new? Is it old? Is it young? All right? Shape. Is it round? Is it a square or a triangle? What's the shape of it? Oblong. Yeah, that's... Don't. I
don't even know. I do. It's long and kind of
circular, but yeah. Oblong. Colour, what is the colour? Yellow, black, green, red. Red. What's the colour? Origin. Some of you go: "Origin.
Wolverine origin." No. Origin means: Where
did it come from? Was it made in Italy? Was it made in China? China. Sorry. It's my favourite impersonation of somebody,
he goes: "China. I love China. China's good." [Laughs] Anyway, was
it made in China? And what is the material? Is it cotton? This is made of cotton. Is it made of beads, so glass? Is it made of metal? I mean, you might not be
able to see this, but metal. What is it made of? Okay? That is the order that we
follow when we describe things. And I have an example that I've been hiding
from you that we're going to talk about to show you exactly what I mean. So, Mr. E and I wanted to buy some couches,
and Mr. E was very specific on the kind of couch he wanted, so
he gave me a list. And from that list I was able to
get him exactly what he wanted. And how was I able to do that? Well,
I followed the word order chart. So let's go take a look at what Mr.
E wanted. So, Mr. E wanted some
couches, and I said to him: "Hey. I got your couches. I bought five nice, big, old,
long, blue, Italian leather... Well, chairs. Couch." Sorry. And Mr. E said: "Fantastic! Because if you had bought me nice, old,
big, long, five, blue Italian couches, I would be confused
and return it." I said: "No, Mr. E, because I know how we're
supposed to order adjectives in English. So I followed your instructions by
following the word order, these five... Sorry, eight positions order, and I made sure
I put the adjectives before the noun so I would get the exact right
thing you wanted." Okay? So this is the first part of this lesson because
I want to talk about now that you are a person, place, or thing, you
got to do things. Right? Like right now I'm talking which is a
verb, which we're going to go to in a second and talk about verbs
and how they work. Are you ready? [Snaps] Okay. Well, we talked about nouns, pronouns,
adjectives, how they work together. Remember a pronoun can replace a
noun, the order that they come. Right? Or they come in. And now I want to talk about actions because
a noun or a thing that doesn't do anything is rather boring. Right? Wouldn't you say? And what do we mean by actions? Well, right now I'm talking. My mouth is moving, I'm talking,
but I'm also looking at you. I'm breathing. Okay? So let's go to the board and look at this
funny word we call verbs and how they work. Well, with verbs we have... Well, they do actions. We take a pronoun or
a noun and they act. They can sleep... Did I just press
"eat" and "sleep"? [Laughs] They could
eat, sleep, and work. Okay? So that's what a noun can do. And we talked about, you know,
subjects and objects pronouns. The subject pronoun does
it to an object pronoun. Okay? One of these actions. So: "I eat an apple". "I" am the subject, "eating
an apple", object. Cool? So we put this word here, the verb to tell
you how the two things are working together. Here's a funny one, verbs
are a state of being. Huh? Being what? Well, exists. Like right now I exist. If I stop being... I disappear. So being means you are there, you
exist, you're real, you can be touched. But it's not just that. Sometimes I'm happy, and sometimes I'm sad, and
sometimes I'm sick, and sometimes I'm healthy. You'll notice how we use the verb
"to be" to talk about those things. "I am", "she is", "they are".
Okay? And we can use that, this verb "to be" with
an adjective and it tells us how something is right now. Like, right now it is hot in here.
Hot. That's the state of the situation
or how things are right now. And right now I'm a little sick. James is sick. That's my state of being. And I'm very happy when Mr.
E comes to my house. Right? You didn't see him, but I
mentioned him in every video. So I'm happy. That's a state, or how I
am or how I'm feeling. My emotions. You are happy, sad, upset,
exuberant, which means very happy. Okay? So this is what verbs do. They can tell us the action, one
noun is doing to the other noun. In that case we talk about
subject and object pronouns. Right? But we can also talk
about how things are. The world is good, how it is. Cool? Let's move down from
verbs to adverbs. Do you remember when we talked about adjectives
and we said: "ad" to "ject" and that was because you have subject and object? Well, we have the same thing here, we add to
verbs, which means we give more of a description of what the word was doing. It's one thing to run, then to
run quickly, that's different. It's not the same. Or run... Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo, bionic
man style, slowly, but really quickly. Okay? So adverbs describe the action
of verbs, but hold, wait. Unlike an adjective that just describes the
pronouns, adverbs describe verbs. Okay. Adverbs, okay. And adjectives? This adverb is very, very busy. It's got a lot of work to do and it's going to
be my job to show you how it does that work. An adverb is interesting because it adds
information to how things are done. In doing that, first of all we
should talk about its position. Generally, adverbs are found after the verb,
but before the adjective it modifies. So let's do one at a time. Do you remember I was running and I said I'm running slowly,
or I'm running quickly, quick, quick, quick, quickly? In this case I ran, I want to know what the
noun or pronoun is doing, and then how it ran. So in this case, ran quickly. Okay? Notice it follows
after the verbs. This is generally true. Okay? So: "I ran quickly to my house." Now I talked about adjectives. And I don't want it to get too
complicated, but I'll show you here: "That watch is so expensive." Hmm? Well, that watch is the subject we're talking
about and we're saying it is expensive. If I get rid of "so"... Remember we talked
about stative verbs? We're saying the watch is expensive.
Right? But how expensive is it? I don't know. It's so expensive, which
means very expensive. So we actually use an adverb to describe to
tell us the degree or amount of expensiveness. It's very expensive, that
means a lot of expense. You need a lot of money
to get that watch. So adverbs help by noticing it's still following
the rule, following the verb, but it helps to give more information about the adjective
which is telling us about the watch. So adverbs are really cool because
they make everything better. Cool. You like that? Me too. But what I want to let you know is
there's something else about adverbs. There's not just one
type of adverb. Unh-unh-unh-unh. There are four. Now, let's take a quick
look at what the four are. The types of adverbs we can talk about, number
one, we can talk about adverb of manner. Please, thank you. That's so kind of you,
and you're welcome. No, I'm not talking about
adverbs being polite and nice. What I'm saying is when we say adverb
of manner it is how something happens. Some things happen slowly,
some things happen very quick. They happen very quick or fast. Right? So in this case when we
say: "How did it happen? Slowly? Quickly?" Both how it happens over time.
Right? Adverbs of time. This is when something happened. Hmm? Well, it happened yesterday,
or today, or tomorrow. These are adverbs because they're going
to tell you when it happened in time. Or it could happen all day. It rained all day. Right? Rained, and notice it
follows after the verb, all day. Adverbs of place tell
us where it happened. CityGG... [Laughs]
CityTV, everywhere. Where did it happen, here,
there, or everywhere? And finally, adverbs of degree, that one I was talking
about over here was: "so", "very", and "too". People often get confused with "so" and "too",
and we actually have a lesson on that on engVid. Please check it out. I think I've done one
and two other teachers. They're quite enjoyable. You'll like them. But "so", "very", "too"
tell us how much. Was it small or
really, really big? In this case, "so"
means very or a lot. "Very" means very, but "too" is usually negative
or a bad thing, and it means more than I like or more than I want. So when we use adverbs of
degree we can talk about: "It was too hot yesterday so
I didn't go out of my house. Too hot for me.", "It was very hot" means
a high temperature, a lot of temperature. Or: "It was so hot", I
found it to be a lot. Cool? Now, we've talked about adverbs, the
types of adverbs, where they work or how they follow with verbs,
and I'm going to ask you: Did you understand this lesson?
If so, go do the quiz at engVid. But before I go I want to say thanks a lot for watching one
again, and go to www.engvid.com. And don't forget to subscribe by either pressing a
button, pressing your screen, or doing whatever you do these days. All right? Thanks a lot. See you soon.
