Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. The things I do for love. There's not a thing... Hi. James from engVid. Today's lesson is about
instantly improving. Now, I know... "Instant", what does that mean? People say it all the time. I want to show you a little trick that will
make your English sound better instantly, and I will give you a technique that you
can use after to help practice this. What I have found are students have a mistake
or make a mistake when they drop these three words, and because of that I know
you're not a native speaker. But today I'm going to address
that, show you the three words... Okay? Explain why, and then I will give you a technique
that you can use at home soon as you go back over this video or any video to practice
it, and you will get instantly better. 10-20%. Okay? Want to know what
I'm talking about? Let's go to the board and look at something you've
learned, but today you're going to understand. You ready? So, Mr. E said: "Which three words can
help you sound like a native speaker?" I'm going to help you a little bit by doing
this, and then we're going to go to the board. The words I'm talking about, and you might
not consider them words but they are words are: "a" or "an"... Okay, and I consider that one word
because it's modified. Right? "The" and "to". Of course you're going to say:
"Yeah, James, we know all these. We learned this at beginner, so how does
that instantly help me improve my English?" The problem is this: When a person knows something
they will talk, when they understand they will change their behaviour or
they will use the information. Many students know about articles and the
preposition "to", but they actually don't use them in sentences. Many times I've heard
students go... Say: "I need to
go work tonight." Soon as you say that I know
you're not a native speaker. Or if they say: "I bought car yesterday"
or "I bought food..." Not "some food". "I bought apple yesterday
at the store." I'm like: "A-... You mean an apple, right?" They don't think to say it, because they
know: "Teacher, you know what I'm saying." And I go: "Yeah, I know what you're saying,
but the way you said it I know English is not your first language." So what I want to do is get you to come back
to understanding, not just knowing why these words are important, the fact that, especially
with the articles we're going to talk about, they are in most
of the sentences. You can almost not get by a
sentence without using them. So let's go to the
board and take a look. First, what is an article? Well, you'll see an article
is the letter "a" or "an". Quickly on that one, "an" is used
when we have a vowel sound, sound... Not a... Not just a vowel. So when you say: "A apple", we know "a" and
"a" make it difficult for us to actually get it out and for you to understand, so we add:
"an" to put a consonant to make it easier for the listener. "I want an apple." Oh, okay, cool. How about "hour"? Teacher, that has an
"h" in front of it. I'm like: "Enh?" But we say: "hour", we don't say: "h-our",
because with "a" we have to say: "an hour", and that once again
tells me one hour. You keep noticing I
keep saying "one". I'll explain in a second. Now, this is what we call
and indefinite article. I.e. it's not special. When I say to you: "I
want a marker", a marker. All right? I'm talking about this. See this? They're all basically the same. I don't care what
type of marker. "A" just means generally
speaking marker. That's why it's indefinite;
it's not special. When we look at the word
"the", "the" is special. In this case, when I say to you: "I want the
marker", which one do you think I'm talking about? Can you see the difference? Clearly. Even if you don't know, you would
look and see four, and see this and go: "He's probably talking
about this one." So with a definite article what's happening
is someone is being very specific. Well, there are two things. They could say something is special
or something is specific. Okay? And here we have definite
article is "the". "Tell the man I like him." Okay? "Tell the man", in this case both of us
have to know what you're talking about, because if there are 10 men
you'll go: "Which man?" But when I said: "Tell the man in the yellow
jacket" or "yellow suit", you know I'm being very specific about who
I'm talking about. If I tell you: "Tell a woman I like her",
you can walk up to any woman and just say: "He likes you", and you
fulfilled my request. So when we say indefinite, it doesn't
matter; it's just general, it's open. When we say definite we
mean something specific. And if you remember the example, when I say:
"Give me a marker", you're going to give me any of these, because generally speaking,
it doesn't matter which one you give me. But when I say: "Give me the marker", you
and I must know I'm talking about this one. I'm being very specific. It is also special
because it is red. Good. Simple lesson, but when we understand something
simple we can use it better and we probably will use it, because now you know when you
talk to somebody, I was talking to... You're going to think
first: "Do I know...? Does my friend know who
I'm talking about? Yes, I was talking about
the man from yesterday." If my friend doesn't know, I have to say:
"I was talking about a man from yesterday." Right away your English has improved
and your friend won't say: "Huh? Which person? I don't know." Okay? So that's just the
use of articles. Now, I'm going to give you a little something
that doesn't usually come up, but something to be aware. Articles are really just a special type of
adjective, because what does an article do, really? It tells you: One. It might be one group... The people of Canada, we are a group,
but we are one group in the world. Or one thing, the
pencil on my desk. Right? It describes one. Now, we're also being very special by saying:
Is this something special that we both know and share, or something general that
I'm just talking about, like apples? Right? "I want an apple for lunch. I don't care if it's green or
red, just get me an apple." But if I say: "Get me the green apple on
my desk", I want that one, no other one. If you get the green apple from Josh's desk I
won't be happy because I said from my desk. Special and specific. Are we good? Good. So remember the article helps describe the noun
that it precedes, so it tells us information; that it is a single thing or a single group,
it could be general or specific, but it is an adjective and it describes. And just like we know, we need sometimes adjectives
because if I say: "I want a pencil", and there are millions, you might
say: "Which one?" I go: "The blue pencil", you
go: -"Oh, that helps me." -"Ah, blue pencil
helps me as well." All right? Now, those two needed to be used
in sentences because 80%... Maybe not, but 70% of the time you'll
find there are articles in a sentence. So, be aware of them and use them if
you're saying a noun, if you're not... Even if you say: "Blue", you will probably
say: "The blue pen" or "A blue pen". Use them. Okay? What about "to", why
am I bringing that up? Well, articles are for nouns, but to have a
sentence or an idea, a full sentence, you need a noun and a verb. There you go. That's where this
bad boy comes in. "To" can be used for direction: I'm
going to the school or go to my house. Okay? In that case you're telling the direction
you are travelling. It's a preposition. Okay? Infinitive, I like to say it this way because basically
an infinitive can be a noun: "I like to eat." Okay? With a subject. That's what I'm talking about. But I like to say it, or some people consider
it base form of the verb, but it's not. The base form of the verb, if I
said "to eat" would be just "eat". I like to make it simple. Remember I said I want
you to understand? So I don't care about
the grammarheads. Please don't get
angry, grammar people. I'm saying it's important, that's why I'm saying
preposition and infinitive, blah, blah, blah. I'm just trying to teach some people to understand,
instead of have knowledge without understanding. An easy way to think of it is
like this: Now, just imagine... Okay? There are two verbs. Okay? I'm just going to put this on
the board, so look carefully. I'm sorry, I'm left-handed,
so I'll be off the screen. Okay? And verbs are angry people. They don't like each other very
much, so they like to fight. Okay? Now, the only way to stop two verbs from
fighting is to put a wall, a magic... A magic wall that's invisible. A Trump wall. There. "To". If you put a "to" between two verbs, they
won't fight anymore and it's easier for us to understand. Right? "I want to go", "I like to eat",
"I have to do", "You need to be". Once again, it's not about
grammar, it's about understanding. So if you have two verbs and they're in the
base form, just put "to" in between and it makes it nicer and proper,
or proper English for us. And future, you go:
"'To' in the future?" Well, we have this word: "go", it becomes
"going", but "going" just means moving on. But when you add "to" on the back
end of it, it becomes future. Oh, it becomes strong
possibility in the future. I'll show you the forms in a second, but I need you
to understand that "to" helps give information. And a lot of times
students drop it off. Right? They go: "I need go.
I need go store." I'm like: "Ohh. 'I need go', you
mean: 'I need to go to the store.'" That's an English sentence. And now that you understand the importance, especially
of how "to" is used, and how infinitives... Sorry, articles are used... All right? Now we can start combining them, we can start
making you sound instantly better by 20% because at the very least "to" will be in at least
every second or third sentences you say, and either the direction form is a preposition, the
infinitive form separating verbs, or future - things you're going to do, or it will be
with articles almost every second sentence, if not every sentence where you have to say:
'a' or 'the' to show that we're on the same wavelength or we
have the same idea. "The man", "the boat", "the car", we
both know what I'm talking about. Or speaking in generalities, or
generally speaking: "It's a nice day." All right? Now you know how important they are because
they occur so often, and I've tried to make you understand the importance
let's look at some of the forms. Okay? Generally put, articles
will go first... Article, then the noun. "He bought the car yesterday." Clearly we both know
what car and who he is. "The machine broke
down on Wednesday." There's only one
specific machine. "I had a pizza last night." You didn't know what I was eating,
so I'm telling you I had a pizza. You don't need to know, you didn't see
it, but you know I had a general pizza. You might ask me a definition, and you
might say: -"What kind of pizza?" -"On the pizza", now you know about
my pizza, "was pepperoni and ham". I don't know, I'm... That's my favourite
kind of pizza. Just forget I said it. But that's what I like. All right? Now, that's the form generally
taken with articles and nouns. Now, when we look at the verb part of the
sentence where you might find the verb and you might find "to", the first one was
preposition "to" and then article. "Go to the store.", "Go
home.", "Going west." Or, sorry: "To go
to tell my friend." Direction I'm going
used as a preposition. Okay? So you'll find that, plus sometimes an
article: "Go to the store.", "Go to the city." Not always. All right? When we have the infinitive form you'll
have verb, plus "to", plus the other verb. "I need to eat.", "We
went...", "We must go..." Sorry. "We must..." No. [Laughs] I can't believe I made that
mistake, and you must not make this mistake. You cannot say "to" with modals. Okay? "Must", "should",
"could", "can". Don't use those with modals. So even though I said verb to verb, a
modal is a different type of verb. So don't say: "Must to",
and I almost did it. Whew. Oh, that would have been bad. But you can say: "Need to go", "Have to go",
"Want to", "Like to help", regular verbs. Okay? Remember what I
said about modals. That's just in case. Don't do this with modal verbs. Okay? And finally: "Going to", a future term
where it's about 80% going to happen. When you say: "will", which is also
a modal, you can't say: "will to". But that's decided now. When you say "going to" it means you made a
plan and you probably wrote it down somewhere. So I'm going to
Jamaica this summer. I bought the tickets,
I have a hotel. I made a plan. My friend, Daniel,
is going with me. I'm going to Jamaica. Okay? I will go. I haven't spoken to Daniel
yet, but I'm going to. 80% going to happen. Cool? And that's where we
have our future. And these are the forms
that they will take. Okay? And when we talk about nouns,
this is the form it will take. These words help define syntax. In English, "syntax" basically mean the word order,
where they should go so that it makes sense. We don't like having the verbs before the
nouns because action without who or what is doing the action, or a
subject confuses us. So, when you put these words in the correct
syntax, and that's why I taught you the form, and you make sure you use them in the sentences,
you will start noticing immediately people will say: "Hey. Your
English is better." And you're going to say: "I didn't learn anything
new, but I understand how to use what I have." Right? It's like being
given a credit card. Don't leave home without it and
you can buy whatever you want. Now, on that note I want to give you, when
I come back, a technique that will... You can use right after this video, and come back and
watch again, and you can learn from this video... Because I've probably done it several times
already using articles and the word "to", you can use immediately
and we'll have our quiz. Are you ready? Let's do it. [Snaps] Okay. So, I might have made a small mistake, and I
hate to do this, but just in case I think I said the noun goes
before the verb. That's not always the case. It is the subject. A subject will
happen to be a noun. Okay? But you have noun clauses and other things, so
I want to make sure you're clear: The subject goes before the verb in a sentence,
which can happen to be a noun. I just want to clear
that up just in case. All right? Now that we've got that out of the way, let's
go back to the board and I want to talk about my #1 technique. You're not allowed to see. No one can know. Well, I lie, I have to tell you. We talked about articles and we talked about
the preposition "to", and how it can be an infinitive and blah, blah, blah. But what's important is telling you that and
you going: "Yes, James, I understand", and saying it with me once or twice is
nice, but in order to make it yours... So you now understand but
you still need to practice. Here's my technique. Technique number
one: Go to YouTube. Surprise, you're there. Unless you're on engVid, and then
you don't have to go to engVid. Surprise, you're there. Okay? So if you're here already, or you know, you can go
to YouTube and watch a video of a movie you like. Okay? Or you can stay and watch me because I've
used a lot of sentences, and I will, and we do the test again and
again to help you. Okay? Find a video or
program you like. Find a few sentences
with articles. "He had a fun time", "a fun time",
"He had a fun time", all right? "They brought an ele-... They brought an
elephant from Africa. They brought an
elephant from Africa.", "Go to my house and get the keys.
Go to my house and get the keys." Okay? So find a few sentences with
articles and the preposition "to". Repeat them until it is natural. It may seem awkward-and "awkward" means difficult
or hard-at first because really your brain isn't programmed for them because sometimes
you use it when a teacher tells you or a book tells you, but
generally you don't. But if you take not more than two or three
sentences, you don't need a million, because really what you want to do is take two sentences
or three that you know people you regularly use and then repeat it with the article,
taking the time to say: "a pen", "a pen", "Give me a pen", "I would like a piece of chocolate",
so your brain gets used to putting it together. Once that happens and you start using other
sentences once you've got this down, maybe you can do three to 10, but at one time no
more than two, three - you will start noticing that you naturally put it in conversation
because you've been practicing and have got your brain to think this way. So not only do you understand what your brain
will now understand the syntax of the sentence, but you have the practice that your brain
automatically wants to throw it out because you've been looking
at regular sentences. That's why I said go to a video or go to YouTube, or
watch me in this video because I'm doing it on purpose. And with that practice that you've
done by thinking and understanding -[snaps]-it will be instant. Okay? I kept my promise. Now let's do a little bit of a test just
to make sure you really understand. Okay? First question is this one: "____ man
who asked you out is my brother." What would that be? You think about it. I'm just going to read my paper. [Whistles]. Oh, you've got the answer? Okay. What would the answer be?
Did you say: "A man"? Well, the fact I said: "my brother" means
I know, and they asked you out - you know them, so it would have to be...
What? "The man", right? Because they asked you out so you know who
it is, it's my brother, we both know - we must use the article "the", not
"a", which is a general man. Okay? Let's try the next one. Oh, you're busy. Okay. Would you let me read the paper? Fine, fine, okay. "It's ____ good day
when I get free money." "It's the good day"? Well, you don't know what's
going to happen, so it's not... It is special and it is specific, but it says
"day" here, and we're going to have to put: "a good day" because you say generally speaking
when I get free money it's a good day. There is no specific day, it's
just generally when this happens. Okay? All right. Let's try number three. Are you going to let
me read this, or...? Okay, okay, I'll put it down. "She is ____ most important
person in my life." Hmm. Are you talking about your mom? Yeah, probably? Right? She is the most important
person in my life, my mom. She's special and specific. Next one: "Can we go
____ the zoo tomorrow?" I don't think an article's
going to work here. We already have an article
telling us or defining this. Probably a preposition because I
want to know what direction. Right? "Can we go to the zoo?" It's not an infinitive, but it is the direction
or my intention of where I want to go. And how about the last one? This one's tricky. Take your time, think about it. "____ letter 'A' is ____ first
letter in the alphabet." Hmm, you are smart. I thought I would trick
you, but you knew... We both know what the letter "A" is and we
both know it's special so we have to use the word "the" twice. Congratulations, you
did a good job. I'm impressed. But anyway, I really need to go to
the washroom and read my paper. You understand. So, what I want to say is I'm going to say
good-bye, but before I do, as always, thank you. I appreciate you coming and
watching, and learning with me. And you don't have to
go to just see me. We have other teachers at the
place I go to, which is engVid, and that's go to www.eng, as in English, vid as
in video.com (www.engvid.com), and subscribe. So, I don't know where the button
is here, but press that button. Go to engVid and you can do the test that's there
as well, and see some other fabulous teachers. Thanks a lot. I'm going to be busy. I'll see ya.
