Hi. James.

Greer.

James Greer.

From engVid.

[Laughs].

Not Bond, and I know you think I was going to say Bond.

I know.

But listen, Bond always has an important mission he's got to do, right?

007.

And so do I.

Today we have a mission.

We're going to learn how to study English.

I know in many places, many websites, they tell you, and to teach you grammar and idioms and phrasal verbs.

But then, there's the big question of you, and: How do you study, and

how do you choose what is important for you at this moment?

Maybe you're advanced.

Maybe you're a beginner.

Maybe you know this, and maybe you don't.

After today's lesson and we do our mission, you'll know exactly what you have to do. Okay?

So, we're going to go to the board in a second, and take a look.

What steps should we take in order to learn?

By the time you're done this video, you'll know exactly...

Or you should know where you are, where you need to go, and when you're going to be done.

Ready? Let's go.

E. E is standing here saying: "Where do I start?

Grammar, vocabulary, or speaking?"

Common, and seems to make sense, I mean, you go to learn a language-right?

-you go on a website, they start throwing things at you.

You go to a school, they say you need this, this, and this.

But you don't really know.

So, I'm going to give you the tools to decide that.

First thing we're going to do is: What's the first thing you need?

Grammar?

No.

What?

Conversation?

No.

Vocabulary.

What?

Well, look.

If you can't say: "bathroom" when you go to a country, you're going to pee yourself. Okay?

"Hungry", you won't get food.

You don't need to know everything to get basic information done.

And that's what we should look at first.

Basic information for a beginner really is vocabulary.

And instead of all the fancy stuff you need, you don't need much.

You need you, and a little bit of time, and to have some fun.

Why?

I'm going to suggest: For basic communication, get vocabulary.

I'm telling you right now if I see you or any English-speaking person sees you, and you see...

You say: "Drink. Thirsty."

There's no grammar, but they'll go: "Oh, the bar is over there."

If you say: "Washroom. Please,"

they'll go: "Oh, toilet is over there."

They use sentence, you use words.

Sometimes you just touch your belly and go: "Ahh!"

They'll go: "Oh, you want food."

You don't need all that stuff.

People will tell you you need to learn grammar, and this and that.

You don't.

And here's how you get your first vocabulary.

Do what you love to do.

Play video games.

I've had...

I don't know how many students play video games, say they learned how to fire, duck,

words that we wouldn't teach them for a while, because they were playing games.

Other people come in: "Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, [sings]," singing.

I go: -"What the hell?"

-"I love to sing," and they sing a song, they sound like they're just, you know, from this country.

Then they speak very terrible accent.

You know what I'm saying, right?

[Laughs] But when they sing, it's like the gods have come down.

I mean, literally, you go: "Are you...? You were born here, right?"

Cool slang.

You know? YOLO, you only live once. Right?

ASAP, as soon as possible.

When you do these things, you're learning because you want to learn.

You're not even realising you're learning, and it's going to make you want to learn more

because...

You know, we'll get to the second one and you'll understand.

But you want to communicate in a much better way. Okay?

So, get the meaning of basic words.

"Hungry," "food," "toilet," "money."

You know that one, right?

You need those things.

If you have those things, you can start your adventure in learning English. Okay?

And you're going to do it by doing things you love.

Video games, music, cool slang.

Right?

Come on.

Now we're making language fun and easy for you, and

that's what we should do, because you'll learn it faster. All right?

And then here's the bad news: Hard work is on its way, so let's move over to the intermediate.

So if you're still on vocabulary and you can't put a sentence together, you're a beginner.

Okay? But at least you're better than other people.

You know words in a foreign language. Cool.

Intermediate is when we start, and I think you should introduce grammar.

This is when your vocabulary is rich enough that you can say things like: "Need water. Where?"

It's not a sentence, so you kind of sound stupid.

I'm saying it right out.

You sound stupid.

Had many students, brilliant people, sounding like...

I called them kids.

And I loved them.

I thought they were great people, but I would call them kids

because they sound like two and five year olds.

"Mommy, water, now."

Understand.

Sentence?

Not really.

Grammar.

Some teachers don't think it's necessary.

It is.

It's like a skeleton in a body. Right?

When you're crawling on the floor, you still need a skeleton, something to hold everything together,

but really it's the muscles and everything else that make you move.

But the skeleton is necessary or needed.

Those are those bones. Right?

These are the bones of the language.

You got, you know, your vocabulary, but these hold everything together, that skeleton.

Now, when you learn grammar, we do this to be understood.

We said basic communication.

To be understood we need grammar.

This is sound...

And you can sound like you understand.

"Oh! I can't have your girlfriend and all of your money?Oh. I didn't know that. I understand."

You sound like you understand someone.

You can communicate an idea.

"I would like to be a millionaire, but I don't want to work."

See?

I've communicated: "I am lazy, but I still want to be rich."

Like everyone in North America.

Okay, but we're going to take our vocabulary...

See, this is when you have the vocabulary, you take it, and you put it with some muscle.

You put vocabulary and function words.

That's what grammar is.

It's the words that function.

It's the verbs. Right?

It's the pronouns.

It's all these things that go together. It's like making a hamburger. Okay?

You got your meat.

Now you need a bun, some lettuce, and everything else.

This is your grammar.

This makes it good. Okay?

So, now you can sound pretty intelligent, not like a child, but

some people have great grammar skills and good vocabulary, but

this is where we go to the advanced-they don't sound like us.

They still haven't got it quite together.

We know you're not from here.

This is change it all.

And this is something that I find interesting.

Some students don't want to do, they think it's a waste of time.

And then I remind them: In your country, are there people who don't know how to read and write?

What do you call them?

Some people say (this is a fancy word): "They are illiterate."

I say: "No. They're stupid."

Because you say: "Hey, read this."

They go: "I cannot read."

You go: "You're stupid. Didn't you go to school, stupid?"

Don't be stupid.

Learn to read and write.

It's not just for that reason, for your ego that people...

It makes you feel good.

It's also because it teaches you how to think in the language. Huh?

Well, when you write something down, you have to remember the author wrote it three years ago.

The author is the writer of the book, could be a male, female, or whoever made it.

They wrote it three or four years ago, and you're not there.

So when they write about it, they have to think

in a way that you would understand it three years later, and not have to ask questions.

Because if you have to say: "I'm confused. What does he mean?

Let me call him up.

Yo, E, on page 47 you wrote this thing.

It's an awkward phrase.

You got a dangling modifier, so I'm not really sure..."

It doesn't work like that.

They have to write it properly so you understand it.

This is when we become advanced, because you learn logical thought, how we put it together.

When we talk about logical thought, we talk about syntax;

how the words go together, how things flow, how we think.

Every language is different, and the syntax is a bit different. Okay?

This will make you think like a native speaker.

You have to put the words and even the sentences in a way that makes sense to us. Okay?

Remember I said you sound...?

Here I meant not stupid.

That was it, you don't sound stupid.

Reading and writing makes you sound intelligent, and there's a difference.

Suddenly, I want to hear what you have to say, because you seem to know what you're

talking about, and you present your ideas in a way I can understand.

It also gives you the time to think about the language, so it goes on in your brain,

so it knows how to analyze and present the language for us.

This is something people skip, because they want to speak, and

don't realize this is a very important part.

Reading gives you an understanding of how we're thinking.

You read, you get that.

When you write, you have to write in a way that we would understand it.

Powerful stuff.

And how does it do that?

Well, we have three components or three parts.

Number one, the grammar.

See? Grammar we talked about.

Grammar has to be in something you write. Okay?

Then it has to be true.

What you say has to make sense to us.

It's logical.

I can't be just:

"I am an alien, and I live in the sea, and I have fins and baby-back ribs."

It doesn't make any sense, even if the sentence is perfectly grammatically correct.

It's like: "This is not true. I will not listen to you."

And then finally we have to connect them, and this is what we talk about syntax,

and when we put all of these things together,

suddenly you're speaking and people understand you.

Accent or no accent, you are an English speaker.

Not quite. Almost.

When we put all these three together, and we go to speaking, and you master speaking,

which will happen if you take these steps -

you will notice you are being understood when you speak.

Not five times: "Sorry? Huh? Sorry? Sor-, sorry? Oh, okay. Oh, I'm sorry. No. Sorry?"

No. You will speak, you will be understood.

When I speak, and some of you think I speak very quickly.

And you're right.

My students actually often laugh go: "You don't speak quickly on those videos.

You speak quickly in real life."

But I like it when people understand me.

You will find that you understand me more.

You will have more understanding what I say, and English people say.

You won't be guessing what they're saying.

You will actually understand them.

Finally, you know that accent that you really don't like, and you wish you could get rid of?

You will.

Speaking and using a practice of speaking helps you with proper pronunciation.

That's what helps you with being understood, and actually helps you with understanding other people,