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  • 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.

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

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