English Grammar Complete | All English Sentence Patterns

1. Course Introduction: If it's difficult for you to express exactly what you want to express in English. This is the course for you. This course covers many English sentence patterns. The sentence patterns that you need to be able to say exactly what is in here so that you don't cause any more misunderstandings when you're in English conversations. So that you don't cause any more awkward situations. So that you're able to use English to express yourself in exactly the way that you want to express yourself. In order to do that, you need the tools, you need the sentence patterns. In this course, we're gonna be learning by example, natural examples based on real native English speaker usage. And once you know all of the sentence patterns that you need, once you can actually use them in your daily life, you'll find there are fewer misunderstandings. You'll find fewer awkward situations. You'll feel like you can say what you really want to say. You'll feel like you can write what you really want to write. That what you say, and what you write matches what is in here. And that, that is the focus of this course. That is what you're going to master in this course. So if you want to learn all of the sentence patterns that are going to help you communicate naturally and confidently in English. Sign up for the course, and I will see you there. 2. Course Overview: Hi, welcome to the course. I'm really glad you decided to sign up. Again. My name is Luke. I will be your teacher throughout this course. I hope you are ready and excited to take your ability to express yourself in English to the next level, because that's what this course is all about. I'm really excited to take you along on this journey, to be your guide on this part of your English learning journey. So why take this course? What are you going to get from this course when you reach the end? If you've worked hard, what will you have improved? You're going to get something very important, which native English speakers have because they grew up in the language. They grew up using the language. But many English learners don't have it because they didn't. They learned it as a second language. You learned it as a second language. What is that? It's the ability to use the English language flexibly, to have options when you want to express yourself. Now, what does that really mean? You have a thought. You want to express that thought? Okay, I have a thought. How do I, how do I express that? By the way, I'll be using this blackboard throughout the course. You'll see me just like this throughout the course, writing on the board, I want to express this thought in this conversation. I want to be able to explain this clearly in my daily life, something that's in here. But when I tried to do it, the words that I say in the way that I say them don't quite match my intention. And sometimes that causes awkwardness, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and that affects my relationships, my ability to communicate, whether I'm speaking, explaining something, writing something, writing an e-mail. So my options are limited to limited because the way that you express that thought might be different depending on who you're talking to, your friend, someone you don't know well, what the situation is. Casual that work at school. It's different for each situation. You need to have options. But if you don't know all of the different ways that you could use to express this thing that's in your head. What can you do? You're stuck. This is a feeling that I think you are familiar with and that is what you're going to improve. In this course. We're going to learn sentence patterns, many sentence patterns. But why would we do that? What does that have to do with using the English language in a flexible way? Being flexible with English when you went to express yourself, it has everything to do with it. If you have that thought in here. But you only know two ways to say it. And neither of those two ways quite fit. I know a couple of sentences, but neither of them really express what I want to express. You're stuck. You're stuck. That frustrating feeling. You don't want that. What you want instead is to know and to be able to use all of the different possible ways that you could use to express this thing that you want to express. And then you get to choose who I want to have this impression. I want this person to understand it in this way. I'm in this kind of situation, more formal, less formal. Or I want to make sure I'm not misunderstood. That everything I say is understood exactly as I mean, it because of misunderstanding could cause a lot of problems. I need to be very clear to be able to do these things is to be flexible. To be flexible is to know and be able to use all the possible patterns that you could use to express whatever you want to express in whatever situation you find yourself. That's the focus of this course. That's what you're going to get from this course. But you're not going to learn these patterns with a bunch of boring explanations without examples. Our focus in this course will be to learn by examples. We're going to look at many examples for each of the patterns that we learn, each of the patterns that we talk about. Now, before we get started, I want to say a little bit more about what and how we're going to learn throughout this course. We're going to be focused on learning by example. As I mentioned, real examples, I spent quite a lot of time. Making sure that the examples throughout this course, and we're going to be looking at many, many examples are all natural things that native English speakers actually say real native usage. So all of the examples that you learn in this course, you can trust, you can count on being really natural expressions. And I'll let you know if, for example, something is more often used in written English or spoken English or casual English. We'll talk about all of that for the examples that we go through. Now, we're gonna be talking about examples. Does that mean that we won't learn the names of grammar? Does that mean we won't learn the rules? Well, we'll talk a little bit about grammar rules, but that won't be the main focus. I will explain the grammar that we cover. I'll tell you what it's called. But the focus will be on getting a feeling for it. That means it's important to know how to use it. That's much more important to understand deeply how to use this sentence pattern, how this works, so that you can actually use it in your daily life. Rather than letting me explain this grammar structure and how it works. But I have no idea how to actually use it. Okay. So we'll talk about the rules. Yes, but the focus will be on getting a feel for it. Think about how native English speakers learn language. They learn through immersion. They grow up surrounded by the language. They don't learn grammar rules. I didn't learn grammar rules when I was growing up and because I was surrounded by it, because I used it every day and still use it every day. I am a native English speaker. When I say things, it sounds natural because I know all of the different possibilities, the options that I have, all the things I could say, and I choose the one that I think best fits. What I want you to understand. My goal for this course is to give you that same immersion, that immersion I had. So that you can actually get a feel for the natural usage of everything that you learn. That you can start using it in your daily life naturally and with confidence. Now, the last thing I want to mention before we jump into the course is play. Why play? This is an attitude that I would like you to develop throughout the course. When you're reading something, you see a sentence. It's easy to get stuck in the idea that that sentence is the only way to express that idea. That's not true. There are hundreds, thousands of different ways that you could express that idea more. But you have to have the right way of thinking that you can express something in many different ways that you're free to play around to have a playful attitude. So as you learn sentence patterns throughout this course, as you're making your own examples based on my examples, don't stop there. Try something new. Take two things that you learn and try putting them together. I want you to develop an attitude of play, of trying things out, experimenting, seeing what it would seem like if you try to express this explanation or this description in this way, in that way, in another way, try different things and you'll start to learn things as you explore. But don't stop there as you discover new sentence patterns in books or articles that you're reading. As you hear new expressions from movies or TV shows or conversations, try to use them yourself and do variations of them. If you have this general attitude of playfulness, of trying new things, you are going to improve faster. In fact, I've worked with many very successful English learners were able to naturally express exactly what they want to say. And all of them have that sense of play. So that is my recommendation to carry that with you throughout the course. So that is it for the overview. I hope you're excited to jump into the first lesson. I hope you're excited to start learning. By example. I'm excited that I get to take you along through this stage of your English learning journey. Okay, Let's get into the first lesson. 3. Getting Started: One of the most important things that I want you to get from this course is flexibility. With the English language. That means being able to write and say exactly what you want to express in exactly the way that you feel it or the way that you want it to be understood by others. When someone reads what you wrote or here's what you said, they understand it in exactly the way that you meant it. And you can express exactly what you want to communicate because you're flexible with the language. Flexibility. This is what native English speakers have. This is what you have in your native language. Not only one way to express an idea or a thought, or a description or whatever it may be. But ten or 20 different ways. So we're going to start this course with flexibility in mind. Learning how to play. How to play with the language. If you feel sometimes limited when you went to express herself. I only know how to say it this way. I don't know any other way and that's not exactly what I want to say. If you feel this way, it's probably because you haven't developed this flexibility, this sense of play. And so we're going to spend the first couple of lessons focusing on this, doing something called transformations. And I'm going to explain what that is in a second. Then, once we get used to this, playing with the language, developing flexibility with the language, how we can do that once we get used to that and are no longer locked into one way of saying something. Then when we learn all of the different sentence patterns that we're going to talk about in this course, then you'll have the right way to look at those and you'll be able to start using them right away. This course is all about practical usage. You using what you learn immediately, putting it into practice. But very importantly, holding onto that sense of play, holding onto this flexibility, that these are all things that you can use. All of the patterns that we talk about in this course. All things that you can use to express exactly what you want to express to give a certain feeling. A certain connotation. Connotation is a suggested meaning. Maybe it's not what you see in the dictionary, but maybe how a word or a sentence feels. Okay? So let's start, let's start with transformations. And we're going to talk about what that is first. And then we're going to we're going to do it. 4. Transformations Overview: What does it mean to do a transformation? Well, really, this is an exercise of play with sentences. An exercise of play with sentences. We take a basic sentence alike. Tom likes pizza. I probably should say Luke likes pizza, but whatever, Tom likes pizza. Now let me ask you something. What could you change about this? To make it a little more interesting or to make it different? What could you change about this? To give more detail? How could you play with this so that we know more about Tom, so that we know more about what he likes, so that we know more about the thing he likes or whatever. So when we do this, we're not, we're not trying to be too strict. You must just change this one type of thing. This is not a strict exercise that makes it not play. This transformations is play. Play is essential. Being able to play with language if you don't feel limited and you feel like, oh, I can just kind of relax and try things out. If you develop that, then you have a superpower, then you're able to express things that you didn't know you could express because you feel kind of relaxed. Oh, I can try things out. That's why we're doing this toward the start of the course. I want you to get used to that, to get used to play. So you might have come up with some ideas already. Well, we can say that. We can say that he liked pizza. That means that in the past he liked it but now he doesn't. Okay. Maybe Tom likes pizza, but he doesn't eat it very often. So we can add something about how often he eats it. We can add things about frequency. We can add words of description. We could simply add adjectives. Of course, we could say that he likes, he likes pesto pizza, which is used as an adjective now in front of pizza, Okay, we can add things like but or, and we can give more details with things like which and who, and don't worry if you're not confidence to use these. We're going to talk about these patterns later in the course. All of these things we will cover, but just play around with it by adding things, by changing things. What if he's doing it now? Oh, that's interesting. So he is eating pizza. Oh, okay. Now I know that's pretty basic. But you'll find, the more you play, the more you realize something new you might try. Who would this work? Oh, that's interesting and you'll make discoveries. And as you discover things, you have to learn more. And the more you learn, the more you play, the more you play, the more you learn. So it becomes this positive circle. Where the more you do, the more you practice, the more you play, the better you get, the better you get, the more you learn. Which means you have more stuff that you can use then to play. So it goes around and around and you continue to get better. Now, I know this is a little unusual, talking about play, talking about fun when it comes to using language. But this is not middle-school, this is not high school. This is using real English in your daily life. If you can learn to enjoy that process. If it's, if it's fun for you, if you like it, you're going to improve much faster. So I'd really like you to develop this attitude, this way of seeing things. Because if you do and you find a way to make it part of your lifestyle, you're going to see the benefits because it's going to be a constant process of exploring the language and not to. Now I have to practice English for 20 minutes, sort of thing. You'll like it. It's just part of what you do. You're always playing with the language. And because you do that, you're always discovering new things. It really is a process of discovery. So now that we know what transformation is, it's really just playing around with sentences. Let's look at some examples. Let's explore some transformations for sentences with actions, where actions, sentences. 5. Adding with Transformations: Let's now try doing transformations for real. Just a reminder, since this course is all about using English, I'd like you to really follow along. So write down the sentences that I have written down, write down the transformations and try to make similar ones on your own. Try to transform those and change those in a similar way to how I do it. Okay, so let's go through these. We're starting with a simple sentence. Jesse laughed. Is it a sentence? Yes. How do I know? It's got a subject, Jesse, subject, and it's got a verb about the subject. We'll talk a little bit more about this later in the course, but this is the verb about the subject or the predicate. So if you've got a subject and a verb about the subject, that could be, that could be a sentence by itself. If this is the type of verb that doesn't have to be connected to something. And this one is, okay, so that's good. Maybe I want to add something about frequency, except this isn't really about frequency. This is about quantity. Jesse laughs a lot. This is about quantity. But because it's about quantity, it's also about frequency. The difference would be if it were about frequency, if it were something like often or usually, it could also be here. We could say Jesse often laughed, Jessie often laughs, or Jesse laughs a lot. Now you could say Jesse laughs often and that would be okay too. But you couldn't say Jesse, a lot. Laughs. That doesn't make sense. So a word about quantity is usually not in front of the verb in that way. This is called a quantifier by the way. Now also notice that this is not in the past tense. If we say Jesse laughed a lot, that means something happened. She doesn't really laugh anymore. Oh no, what happened? But this Jessie laughs a lot is a thing about her. It's true in the future, probably. It's true about her now, this is something about her. So we use the simple tense of the verb. You want to make sure that that agrees, agrees with the subject. This is called subject verb agreement. And probably know that just a reminder, subject verb agreement. So if this is they, then it wouldn't be they Laughs. It would be they laugh. I think you probably know that the verb, if it's the simple form, has to agree with the subject. Okay, So that's an interesting one. How about this one? Jesse is always laughing. Well, okay. Is this exactly the same as this written in a different way? Yes. Kind of Kind of because it's always because there's a word of frequency here. Because we have this frequency word than we know this is a kind of general thing. All you're always doing that we use the I-N-G form. We use the I-N-G if we have frequency to say this is how someone usually behaves, someone is always doing that. So in that way, it's very similar to this one. It's just written in a different way. But, but if always were not here, it would be different. If we say Jesse is laughing, that means it's happening right now. That would be the continuous, the present continuous tense. So it's different because of always, just to be clear, always changes the meaning because it's always, it's more like this one. And if it didn't have always, then it would be more like this one. Jesse is laughing at Allen that is happening right now, that is going on now in the present. By the way, that is the present continuous tense. I'm saying this by the way because I'm not trying to focus too much on what all of this grammar is called. There's another course, if you want to learn grammar in-depth, what everything is called a 10 thousand different examples for how to use it. There's another course for that. This is for us to just get a sense for how we can play around with sentences to improve syntax, to improve the ability to express exactly what you want to express, to learn all of the different sentence patterns that we can use in the English language. So Jesse is laughing, et al, that's happening right now. And this is the direction of her laughter or the cause. Now that would be different if we used a word like with one word can make all the difference. The always makes all the difference with that would be different. Now it's not because of Alan that she's laughing. She and Alan they're laughing together. Hahaha, at something else. Not maybe at Allen if it's at Allen than Alan did something or Alan looks like something. It's funny. He's funny. The thing that he's doing is funny, whatever it is. So at, makes a big difference here and width would be together, doing it together. Okay, now we know the direction of her laughter, but what is the exact thing? That she's laughing at. Well, now we know Jesse is laughing at Allen's hair cut. So it's not that Alan is a funny person. It's that there's something that looks funny about him, his haircut. We don't know who gave him the haircut. We could make that up, we could add that, but we're trying to make each of these just a little bit longer when you're doing transformations. That's what I would recommend. Go a little bit longer or a little bit longer, a little bit longer. Notice that it has kind of this, this shape here, a pyramid shape, right? That's because each one is a bit longer. I'm adding something, I'm adding more details. If you do two sentences, It's okay. If you do three sentences, It's okay. Don't be afraid to do that. The key is that you're playing around, you're adding more detail in your exploring and you're having fun. Of course that's important. So he has a stupid haircut. It looks silly for some reason, and she just noticed it. Now we know why she's laughing. Jesse was cracking up at Alan's stupid haircut. So now we're back to using the continuous tense, except this is not the present continuous. This is the past continuous. The past continuous means it's finished, it's over. And often we use it when two things are happening. At the same time. I was watching football and my friend was playing video games, or Wow, My friend was playing video games. Two things going on continuing at the same time. Okay. So Jesse was cracking up. Cracking up is just another way to say laugh. But it's not a small laugh. It's not a giggle. Giggle is a little laugh. It's not a, it's a hahaha, out of control sort of laugh. So this is where we can add vivid details. This is where we can add adjectives, we can add phrasal verbs, we can add common expressions. So good idea to, instead of just saying simple words, think of other words that have the same meaning that express things in a different way. This is where you get to say exactly what you mean rather than just use a general word. And it gives you a lot of power to find the perfect word. Find the perfect phrase. Giggle would be that he, he, he, maybe that's what we want to say. If you giggle, it's a feeling of hiding it. Maybe or not wanting Alan to notice. If it's cracking up, then maybe Jesse and Alan are good friends and she's not afraid to point at him and laugh and say, stupid haircut hahaha, in his face, right? She's not hiding it. We know what kind of person she is now. She's not a very serious person. Probably. She's a fun person. She likes to laugh. This is what kind of person she is. So we've, we've actually added a lot here and it's getting more and more interesting each time. Alright, So Jesse was cracking up at Alan's stupid haircut. Maybe we can add even more. Jesse was bent over laughing at Allen stupid haircut, which his mom had given him. Wow. Now we have a lot more detail, but we haven't really lost anything halfway. So she's bent over laughing. This is her posture. She's laughing so hard that she can't control herself. She's actually bent over. You probably can't even breathe. She's laughing so hard. Alright, we could play around with this. We might say ridiculous, we might say outrageous. We might say dumb. Try different words out, right? So we have the same details we had before. Now we have this a comma followed by a witch. Now this is called a relative clause. This is called a relative clause, and we're using something called a relative pronoun. Here we use, which we could use also WHO and actually some others as well. But the common ones for this type are who, if it's a person and which if it's a thing, it's a thing here, It's not Alan. It's his hair cut. So we're talking about the haircut. So we use which for this one, it's very important that right after the thing you're talking about, you have the comma. That's very important. There are other types and we will don't worry if this is all too fast. I'm just trying to get you used to it. That's why we're doing this. If this is too fast, don't stress out. We're going to go over these things individually. We're going to focus on them one by one in some detail. So don't, don't worry too much. Okay? So we have the relative clause, which allows us to add information. We can add information. What is the information we want to add? Who gave him the haircut? So Alan's mom gave him the haircut. But why does it say had given him the haircut? Because was bent over laughing is the past tense. This is in the past. Had given him, is what we use when we want to say another past thing happened before this past thing. So if this is a timeline, this is when Jesse is laughing at Allen's hair cut. This in the timeline is when Allen got the haircut. So if you say she laughed or she was laughing, if you want to then say a second thing that's before that past of past. Then you say had plus given or had been, had plus w1 or had plus scene. This is called the past participle, special type of verb, past participle, which you can remember or not remember. I'm not too worried about whether or not you remember that, but that's why it looks like this. That's why we don't just use the simple past. But if this is happening now, she is bent over laughing, then we wouldn't use that. Then we would just use the simple past. We've explored this pretty well. And notice that when we transform these, when we add details, when we change things, we have to use all of our knowledge and skills to say it clearly. Like this one. Oh, I have to, oh, I guess I have to use the past perfect tense there too. If I'm going to use that one to say that clearly. Okay? So you have to use everything that you know, when you're doing this. This kind of play forces you to always be right up against the edge of your ability to constantly push yourself. But let's keep going. Let's see if we can make it even more interesting. Let's see if we can add even more. 6. Nuanced Transformations: Now this next transformation is actually similar, but we have to notice the differences. Allen's stupid haircut given to him by his mom made Jesse laugh until she cried. Alright, what's the same? Well, made Jesse laugh until she cried means this is in the past. Still, her laughing is still in the past. But now we're starting with Alan's stupid haircut. So why would we want to do that? Well, maybe we want to focus on that. Maybe we want to give it more focus because we went to say this is the cause of everything that's going on. Why is Jesse laughing? Because of well, look at the haircut. It's so stupid, right? But it's so stupid that maybe it's why I'm talking about this. Maybe it's why I'm describing this. So maybe it makes sense to start with that. Maybe I'm not focusing on Jesse anymore. I'm focusing on the haircut. Okay. Now, look at this one given to him by his mom. That feels pretty similar to that last thing we did where we had the witch, except there's no width here. So this is similar in a couple of ways, but different in others. Notice that this is also extra information, bonus, let's say bonus, bonus information. Could we just take this out? If we take it out? Would the sentence still stand by itself? Alan, stupid haircut made Jesse laugh until she cried. Yeah. That stands by itself. Ah, so this kind of thing, including the which one we talked about. These can just be removed. Their extra, Very interesting. Okay, notice also this one uses the past participle. The past participle at the beginning, given to him by his mom. So it's the same in that way, the same in the timeline. This is a pass thing before another pass thing, Jesse left here and the haircut was given to him by his mom or had been given to him by his mom. And you could put Allen's hair cut, which had been given to him by his mom, made Jesse laugh until she cried. That would be okay too. But we can take out that part and just start with given. And that's okay. But it's important that this is between To commas. If this extra information is at the end of the sentence, Allen's hair cut, which had been given to him by his mom. Then we need the comma before the which if it is after, for example, the subject of the sentence, Allen's stupid haircut. Then we have to have two commas. These two commas kind of mark this thing as extra or bonus information that we can remove. And if we remove it, the sentence still stands by itself. These are the bones of the sentence. Alan, stupid haircut made Jesse laugh. That's what makes the sentence stand. And this is just feathers that we're adding or not adding if we don't want to. I hope that makes sense. Allen's mom gave him a bad haircut. It looked stupid. Jesse laughed when she sought. There's something very simple about this one, right? Very simple. Each sentence is very clear and really only says one thing, balance, mom gave him a bad haircut. That's one thing. That's one action that happened. It looks stupid. Okay. That's one thing. That's a description of the haircut, a sentence by itself. Jesse laughed when she saw it. So it's all about this haircut, but each is a thought by itself separated out. And that gives it this feeling of simplicity. So when you're writing perhaps an email to your colleague or when you want to give someone spoken instructions and you want to make sure they don't misunderstand you, then this may not be the best way to go. Adding this kind of bonus information, Alan, stupid haircut given to him by his mom. That sounds more like spoken English or a creative story or a novel or something. But when we want to make sure nothing is misunderstood, everything is very clear. It cannot be misunderstood, spoken or written. Sometimes simpler sentences are better. One main idea or thought per sentence. Now, if you were to do only that and make only simple statements per sentence, then the person listening to you are reading what you wrote, they're going to start to get bored and they're going to lose their focus on what you're saying. But sometimes it can be very, very useful, especially if you want to make sure what you said is clear and everybody can understand whether it's a 12-year-old or an 80-year-old. No one will misunderstand. When Jesse walked into the living room and saw the haircut Allen's mom had given him, which made him look like a duck. She couldn't contain her laughter. This one is interesting. We're adding some color, we're back to the interesting ones. So what are we doing here? Well, we have another one of these. This is a relative clause. And notice this one's not at the end of the sentence, so it's closed by two commas here, like that, there and there. And that also tells us what, that we could remove it. What would it look like if we removed it? When Jesse walked into the living room and saw the haircut Allen's mom had given him. She couldn't contain her laughter. So we can just remove it. Okay. But do we still need a comma there? Yes. Yes. Why? Because it starts with something called a dependent clause. A dependent clause. Dependent clause is one which would not stand as a sentence by itself. That's what a dependent clause is. And it often starts with a word like when. If the sentence starts with a dependent clause and then it's followed by something called an independent clause. Then there should be a comma after the dependent clause. So this whole thing when Jesse walked into the living room and saw the haircut Allen's mom had given him. That's not a sentence by itself. It doesn't make sense as a complete thought. So it has to be connected to something that does make sense as a complete thought. That can be a sentence by itself, an independent clause. She couldn't contain her laughter. Is that a sentence by itself? Is that a complete thought? Does that have a subject and a verb about the subject? Yeah, yeah. If it starts with the dependent, then you have the comma, then the independent. But if it's the other way, usually, usually you don't need the comma. So let's put Jesse here because we need to say what the subject is or who the subject is. Jesse couldn't contain her laughter when she walked into the living room and saw the haircut Allen's mom had given him. So that's also a sentence that works by itself. The difference is we don't need a comma there because we said this part first. Okay, Again, if that's a little bit confusing, don't worry. We're going to cover it in a bit more detail later on in the course. I'm just trying to introduce this idea to you. Give you a feeling for what play looks like, how these transformations work. Okay, Let's look at one more. As Alan removed his hat to reveal the terrible hair cut his mom had given him. The day before. Milk began to squirt from Jesse's nostrils, she began giggling uncontrollably. This May 1 be my favorite, and it's not my favorite because it's the longest. It's my favorite because it's very vivid. It feels a little bit more like a story. Things are happening in a specific order, a thing happens and then something is revealed. And also, I feel like I'm being shown rather than told. You'll sometimes hear this when it comes to writing creatively. Show, don't tell. So instead of saying, Jesse laughed because of Alan stupid haircut, that's just a basic description of what happened. It's like a statement of what happened. Well, show me make a picture, say what happened and allow me to get the details out of it myself or picture something. In my mind, Alan removed his hat so I can picture him doing that. We don't just say Alan had a stupid haircut. No. Allan removed his hat To reveal. So we have a sense of suspense, action. It's very interesting. The terrible haircut his mom had given him. We now know why we used this one here because removed is in the past his mom had given him the day before. Okay. So this is the action that's happening. I can picture it very clearly. Milk began to squirt from Jesse's nostrils. So is drinking milk and it starts coming out of her nose. That tells me that she's laughing hysterically. She can't control herself. It's hilarious. It tells me that she's the kind of person who would laugh at someone, maybe it's a brother and sister. Right? So it tells me about her and I can picture that very clearly. Now you don't need to tell me that she laughed. You don't have to because I know what milk coming out of someone's nose means. So for this reason, I think it's very, very interesting. Then just to support it, to begin giggling uncontrollably, he, she began to giggle. You actually wouldn't need to add that part. It's just a small way to support this description. So I hope you find these interesting. I hope you've been following along and playing a little bit on your own, doing your own transformations. This is all just playing around with the language. This transformation exercise is all about trying to make things longer, more interesting. You can do several sentences if you want. But the key thing is to have that sense of play and to try things out. What if, what if I used in, even though, what if I started with a dependent clause, that might be interesting to try things as you read, as you learn more, as you get sentenced patterns from this course, to constantly be trying, putting them into practice, playing around, making your own sentences, doing variations of those, transforming them, making them longer and more interesting, this constant process of play is going to give you that sense of flexibility. And if you have that sense of flexibility than you really have a lot of power to say exactly what you want to say and you'll never feel limited. I don't know how to say this thing that I want to express. You'll never have that feeling. Okay, so that's it for this lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. I will see you in the next one. 7. Direct Commands: In this section of the course, we're going to be focusing on patterns and sentences that we can use to do specific things. Like give a command, give instructions, make a request, describe things clearly, ask questions, and more. In this lesson, in particular, we're going to focus on the patterns we use to give commands, to make requests and also also to explain instructions. Actually this fits in here too. Now let's just say very clearly what a command is. What is a command? This is where you tell somebody to do something. Whether you're talking to a person or your dog, you're telling someone to do something. That's what a command is. It's usually quite straight. It's quite direct. It's very clear about what you want to happen, what you want your dog to do, what you want that person to do. And so as a result, it can often come across as a bit rude. It can, it can. But we're going to talk about ways that we can soften commands. I'll show you that in a second. Alright, what about an instruction? And is there a difference between a command and in instruction? Instruction? Well, in form, not really. There are lots of different ways to give instructions. You can suggest them. But when you went to say it very directly, it often is the same form as a command, except based on the situation, it's not as direct, It's not as straight, and it's often not usually seen as rude. So if someone says, for example, where should I put this and I just say put it over there. Well, maybe that's a command, maybe that's an instruction. It's not so clear which one that is when we're putting together a bookshelf together and one person says, because they're looking at the instruction manual, align this piece with that piece. Is that a command or an instruction? Is that a very harsh thing, a very direct thing that's going to insult me. Know, it's very clear now I know what to do. So often the difference between a command and an instruction is just what it's meant to do. Is it meant to show someone what the next thing is? Or is it meant to insist that someone do something and if they don't do it, maybe I'll be angry. That is often the difference. And again, commands often but not always, come across as a bit rude. Whereas instructions are often just use to clarify, to clarify, to make sure that things are very clear. Now, what about a request? How about a request? Well, a request can be a simple question. Like, could you please close the window? Could you please close the window? That's a question asking somebody to do something. So in that way, it's often more polite. We're going to learn requests that are not questions. We're going to learn requests that are more like commands, except they're more gentle. They are more polite and they usually have language in them that expresses that, which we will talk about. But often the form, the basic form of the request and the command are similar. These two are often very similar. Usually the feeling is if I make a request and you say I don't have time or I can't right now. That's okay. That's fine. I just hoped that you would do that, but if not, it's okay. Whereas if I make a command, you must do it. Now, you'll have to do it. And that's the feeling that it gives, okay? But these are generally based on imperative sentences. Now, an imperative sentence is one which gives a request, which makes a command, which explains an instruction or a wish about something. That's what an imperative sentence is. And I want you to notice when you look at these, What's unique about them. Go away, get over there, Stay back. Now we typically learn in school that the ordinary sentence has a subject, and then there's a verb, and then there is an object which is receiving the action of the subject like he. And then eight, and then pizza. Okay? So he ate pizza would be subject verb object. This is the thing that gets the action that he did. Okay? Subject, just write those out. Verb, object. So if that's the normal sentence structure than what's going on over here, go away, get over here, stay back. Starting with verbs. What is going on? So here there is an implied subject. That means there is one, but it's obvious. So we don't say it. Because when I tell someone an instruction, I'm speaking to them. When I ask someone to do something, I'm asking them. So I don't need to include that. Right. But what if there are three people over there? There's Bob, and there's Lily, and there's Alice. And I only want to give a command to Alice, not the other two. Well then what would I say? I would say Alice comma. Stay back. Alice comma stay back. Or I could say Alice comma, you stay back. Or I could point at her and say You stay back. So that's the subject of the sentence. That's the one that would do the action in a way. So it's kind of weird, but if you want to discover what the subject is, you just look at the person that would do the action if they follow the command, if they follow the request, if they follow the instruction, Alice, Alice, stay back. But again, I don't usually do that because the person I'm talking to can see I'm talking to them. Normally when we give a command or given instruction or make a request, we're looking at that person. So it's sort of like you, you, I'm looking at you, you are the subject. So we don't need to say it. But there are some cases when we do like this one, of course this would be a than a lowercase s there, Alice, stay back, so go away, Go away. This could be rude, could be to some birds. To birds think that's rude. I don't know. I'm trying to eat my lunch, go away, birds get over here. Maybe an angry parent get over here. Get over here. Who? You, you get over here. You're in trouble, big trouble. Alice, stay back. Maybe there's some danger. Alice, stay back. This is a giant lava pit. Be careful, stay back. Be careful. Also, stay back. Also, the same thing. Those are imperatives. Are those rude? Again, often labeled as rude. But in those two situations, I'm trying to protect Alice. Alice, be careful. Alice stay back. I want to keep Alice safe. And I need to be very direct and very straight. I can't say, Oh, it would be fantastic Alice, if you wouldn't mind just standing two steps back so that you don't fall into the lava pit, right? That might confuse her and then she might fall in. That would be terrible. So I need to be very clear and very direct. Sometimes that's the best thing to do. Look under the sofa. Is that a command or is that an instruction? I don't know. It could be either one. Could be either one. Tell your brother. I said hello. That's probably a request. We're saying goodbye to each other and as you go away, I say tell your brother, I said hello. That's the common thing we say to each other. When we Say goodbye, tell someone I said hello, someone who's not here. It's not rude at all. It's a request, even if we don't have please. Now, if we want to soften it and we're going to look at some examples. We can simply put in, please. All you have to do is put please here. Please tell your brother. I said hello. Tell your brother, please. That I said hello. Tell your brother. I said hello, please. We'll look at a few more examples of how we can soften these very shortly, but let's continue through these examples. Notice again verb, verb, verb, verb. Tell your brother. I said hello. Ask your dad if you can go out tonight. Hey, Mom, can I go out tonight? Can I borrow the car? Ask your dad. Ask your dad. This is just an instruction. Give your sister this gift for me. Oh, I don't know why I have a gift for your sister. I can't give it to her myself. So I give it to you. And I say give your sister this gift for me. Please. If I want to soften it or if you don't mind, or please give your sister this gift. It doesn't change the grammar to add please in front of these, you can just stick please in front of them and it softens it a little bit. Please go away. Please get over here. Please stay back. All of those gets softer with please buy me something nice for my birthday. Now this could be maybe a girlfriend speaking to her boyfriend, being a little bit rude in a playful way, maybe that's just the relationship they have. So whenever this is labeled as rude, I would just say, pay attention to the situation. Maybe if you're very close to someone, girlfriend, boyfriend, brother, sister, family member, you talk to each other like this. That's kind of a playful thing that you do. Maybe that's the relationship you have, and so that makes it not really rude. The reason that imperatives are often called rude is because they can be, right, if you say to someone very directly, go away. Well, that's often, yeah, that's often seen as rude, but you really have to pay attention to the situation. What is the context? What is my relationship with this person? If this isn't a movie, what is the relationship between those people? Don't immediately decide that all commands are rude, that all instructions are rude. Definitely not, definitely not. 8. Softening Commands: Before we get into requests, specifically, I want to talk about this middle area, this gray area, where we can make commands softer, where we can give instructions in a slightly gentler way if we want to. So, how can we do this? Remember I mentioned the importance of context. Context tells you what's going on, What's happening, What is this situation? So if someone says, helped me find the right one, are they likely to be saying that if it's two people shopping for clothes in an angry way, in a rude way as a command, the exclamation point indicates maybe, but that could indicate either anger or excitement. But if it's two people shopping, I think it's more likely to be excitement. There are a lot of sales in the store. Helped me find the right one. I'm so excited. So this is, this is not rude, this is just excitement and expresses our excitement. The imperative sentence expresses how we feel with the exclamation mark at the end. Okay. Don't ask me about it right now, please. This, as I mentioned before, really softens it. If we put it at the end, notice that there's a comma there, right? If I just say, Don't ask me about it right now, Don't ask me. Maybe it seems like I'm in a bad mood. I'm kind of grumpy. But if I say Don't ask me about it right now, please. And then I explain, I'm a little busy or something like that. Alright, maybe that's not so direct. Maybe that's a little softer. Stop mentioning that if you don't mind. Now the reason that I use these two examples is because by themselves they are likely to be kind of rude a little direct, right? Don't ask me about it. In most situations, if someone says that they're uncomfortable about this topic, they don't want to hear about it. So they have to be a little direct to stop it immediately. And the other person feels angry, Mr. Angry, right? It's not mentioning that. Alright, Mr. Angry, fine. Okay. That's the feeling most of the time. But to really soften it, I could of course use please. I could put please first. I could say please stop mentioning that. I could say please don't ask me about that. I can say Please help me find the right one. But if I say instead, if you don't mind, it really softens it. This makes it very indirect, very indirect. So anytime you want to soften a direct command, add please ad, if you don't mind, add if you want to, something about time, if that fits the situation, there are a lot of different phrases you can use. These are all pretty common. If you don't mind, is extremely polite. So that feels more like Stop mentioning it if you don't mind. Now when I say this, stop mentioning that. If you don't mind. Now, you feel a little guilty for mentioning it. I'm sorry, did I hurt you? Oh, I didn't know. I didn't realize that was a sensitive issue. I'm so sorry. Because I was so polite in my request. I was so polite and what I said, now I sort of flip it around. Now I'm not the rude one. Now you feel like the rude one. So that's an interesting effect weight here, please, while I go look for a place to park. Now if I just say wait here while I go look for a place to park, that's a very simple command or instruction. Very straightforward. Probably not seen as rude, definitely not, right? It's just a thing that I need to do. So this is where you should wait. No emotion there. But if I want to add a little bit more politeness to it, I want to make it a little softer, a little gentler. Then I'll say, Please notice again that I stick the commas in here to make a little pause. Wait here, Please. Wait here. If you don't mind. You could put if you don't mind there you could put please there. You could put if that's okay there or if that's okay with you. They're all of those are okay. Spend a few minutes looking over the form when you get a second and let me know if you have any questions. By itself, spend a few minutes looking over the form and let me know if you have any questions is not rude. It's a clear instruction. Okay. But sometimes I want to allow for each person's individual situation. Don't want to force people to do it now. So I add a time aspect. The time aspect would be when you can, when you get a second, when you free something like that. Often starting with when. And that allows the other person to, hey, actually I have something to do right now. I'll do it later. That allows them to decide to do that instead of feeling rushed. If I say spend a few minutes looking over the form, then it feels like you must do this now. You have to do this right now immediately. And maybe that's what I want to do, but maybe I want to give people a little more freedom in case they don't have time right now. Now I could put other things in there that we talked about. I could say spend a few minutes looking over the form, please let me know. That's okay. Or if you don't mind, That's okay. So for these imperatives, as you can see, there are a lot of different things that we can do to change how it might come across or how it might feel when we say it or when we write it. Now, we've explored clear commands. We've explored this gray area where we can soften those commands. Now let's look at some requests and how we can use different sentence patterns to build requests that are usually even more polite. 9. Making Requests: Making a request means asking someone to do something for you or asking permission from someone to do something yourself. Now, often requests take the form of questions. Right now. We're not talking about questions. Now. Is there any connection to what we've been talking about? We've been talking about imperative sentences. We've been talking about giving instructions, making a command, right? Is there any connection? Well, yes, there is. There is a connection. Basically a request like the ones we're going to look at, is a command with a phrase in front of it that makes it gentle and makes it clear that it's not a command, that it's something the other person could say no to. That's the other important thing about a request. A request means I want this to happen. I hope it happens. I hope I can get permission to do this. But if the other person says No, if they refuse, that's okay. It's not a command. So we usually have a phrase at the start which marks it. And there are some common phrases that we use to indicate, to indicate a request. Often, these phrases almost always are going to include wood. Could, could, hope, CAN, might. These kinds of words, when we use words like would and could, we're often giving a hypothetical. Hypothetical is something that is not real. It, it may be real in the future, but it's not now and we're just kind of imagining if it were real, what would I do? And we use wood to indicate that it's not real. Maybe it won't happen. But if it did, if it were true, if I were a millionaire, I would, what would I do? I don't even know what I would do if I were a millionaire. So we say things like, it would be great if you could. And that's one of the common phrases. It would be great if you could. This may be the most common request phrase. So if you don't remember anything else, remember this one. Practice this one. But then look at the rest of the sentence by a few snacks for me on your way home. Wait a second. Isn't that just a regular old imperative sentence that sounds like a command. Yes. So that's the cool thing about this, really. We're just sticking one of these requests phrases, which includes these would and could words or may and might words. And then we're just making a regular imperative sentence. We're making a regular command, which begins with a verb by a few snacks for the movie on your way home, it would be great if you could buy a few snacks for the movie on your way home. That sounds much more polite. And if you say, Oh, I can't, I don't have time or I'm in a rush or I wish I could, but I've already passed the supermarket or whatever then because it's a request. It's probably okay. Perhaps the second most common one. I wish you could. I wish you could. Same basic function. We're imagining. I wish, I wish this is again a hypothetical. Wouldn't it be great? I wish I were a millionaire. This is the hypothetical. This is the thing which makes it softer. This is the thing which marks it as well. If you don't, that's okay. But then the rest of it sounds just like a command. The rest of it is a regular old imperative. Explain to me why we can't bring our own snacks into the movie theater. Well, that makes me sound a little bit angry. Explain explain to me like I'm pointing at someone, but I wish you could explain to me, at least that sounds respectful. I'm hoping this is true. It would be nice. It would be great. Would be, would be, would be, would be, would be, could be. These are the markers of the hypothetical. Another very common one. I'm wondering if you could, this is very similar to it would be great if you could. I'm wondering, just gives a feeling of me thinking about it and wouldn't this be nice? Again, this feeling of the hypothetical, this is not real thing, which would be great if it were true, if only. So it has this gentle feeling. I'm wondering if you could help me pick a gift for my nephew. Help me pick a gift for my nephew. Oh, okay. Or what are you are you going to kill me if I don't? It's a little scary, right? I hope you can. Now this one could come across the connotation of this one, the feeling of this one could come across as a bit pushy. Even for these context is important. We talked about the commands. We talked about those softer commands. Now it's a little bit flexible. It depends on the relationship with this person. It depends on the situation we're in, depends on a lot of things. It's very contextual. Well. This is two. Because if someone says, I hope, I hope you can spend a few minutes explaining the rules before we actually start the game. Now, maybe I'm saying that because it looks like you just want to start the game, but I don't know how to play. So I feel insulted. I feel like you're you're kind of leaving me out. I don't like this feeling. I hope you can explain the rules. So I'm expressing my emotion there. And even though I'm saying it in a less direct way because I have this phrase. It could still come across as a little bit pushy, but it depends on the situation. That could be a perfectly normal, polite thing to say. I hope you can spend a few minutes explaining the rules before we start the game. Adding actually is one of the things that makes it possibly sound a bit pushy. But again, it really depends on the context. The last one here, you might, you might, you might leave a comment below if there are any sentences you don't completely understand. So for this lesson, there's anything you don't completely understand. You might leave a comment. You might leave a comment. If there's anything you don't completely understand, that means it is an option. An option, this one is great for giving options. You might and then just say leave a comment. If I say leave a comment, if there's anything you don't understand. Well, it's okay because I have the word if there and if also means it's an option. But if I want to emphasize that a little more to make sure that you know and you feel that you have the choice. That you feel like you're the one in charge, that you feel like you're respected and I respect you. I want to make sure that that's clear. Maybe I'll add this phrase. So these are perhaps the most common ways we make requests, but don't get confused by this. All we're doing, all we're doing is adding a phrase in front of irregular imperative sentence, which starts with a verb, which is just the same as an instruction like we talked about, just the same as a command. So I hope these are all clear. One thing I want to make sure that you remember, to make sure that you keep in mind is that context is very important. Context means pay attention to the situation. What may look rude in one situation? May not be rude in another. So there's no way to say this is rude. This is always rude. So I'm trying to give a general sense, a general feeling for how these may feel. But it's really important to be a bit flexible to pay attention to this gray area where we can use maybe one in this situation. And then if we want to make it softer at a word like please, or add one of these phrases or take it away because we have a close relationship with someone. This is all very flexible. This is all stuff that you should play with. So make sure that you're making examples for each of the ones that we looked through. And you might leave a comment below. If there are any sentences you don't completely understand. I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Overview of Closed Questions: We're going to now spend some time talking about questions. This is another type of sentence. Now I know you know what a question is, but there are different types of questions, different ways to use questions. We have to spend some time exploring this so that you can make sure when you need to ask a question, you know how to make it. You know which question is best, you know the different types. And you don't have to think about it too much. You already know, you've already practiced it. Hopefully in this course, along with me, we're going to start this with yes-no questions. Now that's pretty simple. That just means a question which requires a yes or no answer. That's what it is. Sometimes these are called closed questions. Now, you'll see questions in general, sometimes called interrogative sentences. So last time we talked about imperative sentences. Now we're talking about interrogative sentences, also known as questions. Specifically now, yes and no questions, we can answer yes or no to any of these that we're going to look at. But again, how do we make them? By the way, I just want to mention, this is not something that people say, this is not very common. I just mentioned it just so that it's there in the background. I'm not really trying to focus on grammar explanations in this course. That's not really my focus. I'm trying to find the line between explaining enough grammar so that it's clear how you do this, how you make this, how you make questions, without going so far into detail that you kind of forget about what we're really trying to do, which is to give you the hands-on skills that you need to use language creatively. So I'll try not to go too far into detail. That's really for another course. We're mostly going to be focusing on our examples. Now, let's, let's look at these for a second and let's look at these first few. Do you notice anything? Well, r is, okay. This seems to be a form of the verb, be. Alright, We're, was. Oh, well these are, these are the past tense forms of the verb. Be. Do, does, did, oh, okay. These are forms of the verb do. Okay, has, had. These are, these are forms of the verb have. Okay? So these must be common ways to make questions forms of these three verbs. In fact, that's correct for yes or no questions, be do, and have different forms of these three verbs are extremely common. 11. Building Closed Questions: Let's explore how we actually make these. I'm sure you are familiar with this at least, but we have to explore it a bit. Okay? So r, That's a form of this verb. Okay? Are you hungry? Okay. Now, if I wanted to use these words, if I wanted to use these words to make a sentence, what would I do? I would say, you write subject, are hungry. That would be a normal sentence, a standard sentence. There's the subject of the sentence followed by the verb about the subject. You are. Okay. Well, you know that I think that should be pretty familiar to you. But does this answer this question? No, it doesn't. Are you hungry? The answer should be what? The person that's answering this question should be talking about themselves. So they'll say What? I am hungry, I am hungry. But notice that this pattern and this pattern are the same subject verb. Subject verb, okay? But for the question, It's reversed. The verb and the subject are flipped around. Flipped around. Now you have to pay attention to a couple of things here when you're making these questions, okay, you flip the verbs around, but the answer to the question which starts with probably yes because it's a yes, no question. Yes, I am is not the same subject because you're the one answering it. You and when you do that, you'll say, I am agrees with I, right? If it's you than it would be R, But if it's eye than it should be m. But to keep this very, very simple for yes or no questions, for yes-no questions, you just need to flip. That's the general rule. Just flip or if you want to use the word swap or switch or whatever, just flip it around, then, then you have to think about, okay, who's answering the question. But the structure, the structure of the question is just flipped around. Are you going with us tomorrow? What if we wanted to change that into a regular sentence? What would we do? Well, we just switched those two. You are going with us tomorrow. That's a statement. You are going with us tomorrow. If we're asking are you are you switch it around now? What would be the answer to the question? Yes. I am going with you you guys tomorrow. Okay. Is she going with us tomorrow? Now? This one is different from the others because I'm not talking to you. So that part doesn't need to flip. We're talking about someone else. So when you answer the question, you're also talking about someone else. So when we answer this question, then we would say yes, she is. And then the rest is the same going with us tomorrow? Yes. She is going with us tomorrow. So that makes it simpler. You have to do two things. You have to flip it around and you have to think, who's answering the question. When you answer the question, when you ask the question, you have to keep that in mind because I'm asking you about her. She is she when you answer, you're also pointing over there? Since we're both pointing over there, then we say is she she is. She, she is, she, she is. Are you? I am. Oh, different right now. Can we make this negative? Can we ask a question in the negative? Can we say, how do we make is negative? Isn't, isn't. Remember the apostrophe there? Isn't. She going? Same thing. We just have. Isn't isn't she going with us tomorrow? I might use that way to confirm it. I'm pretty sure. I want to double-check. Then you can say Yes, she is. She is. So you can answer in the same way. Now, what if the answer is no? No. She isn't. Is she going with us tomorrow? No. She isn't going with us tomorrow. So you can answer in the negative. If it's a no, this would be the negative if you're answering the question. No, she isn't. So I know this on the surface looks a little complicated, but just keep that one thing in mind. Really what you're doing is just flipping around the verb and the subject. And for these basic types, it's the be verb or the do verb or the have verb. And next we're going to look at some other examples. A different type of verb, modal verbs. Same thing here except this is the past tense. Were you planning to cook dinner for everyone? You were planning to cook dinner for everyone. That would be flipping around the grammar. That would be a correct sentence. Were you planning to cook dinner for everyone? I past tense was I was yes, I was no, I wasn't. What if this is in the negative? Weren't you? Same thing, same basic idea warrant you planning to cook dinner for everyone. Pretty simple, right? Just flipping it around. How about this one? Was there a quick way to send documents before the internet? Was there? Now for this one, what needs to change? Well, this one is very similar to this one. Is she? Yes, she is. Was there? Yes. Yes, there was. There was. Yes. There was a quick way to send documents before the Internet. It was called a fax machine. But it's just flipping these two around to make the statement. Now, I want to be very clear. I'm only saying this so that you can see the flipping, right? Normally, we can just say yes or no. We don't often have to say the whole thing. Are you going with us tomorrow? Yes. Were you planning to cook dinner for everyone? No one. Is there a quick way to send documents before the Internet? Yes. Sometimes, yes. There was followed by an explanation. Then maybe you can tell a story about something or give more detail. But how often Will you say this whole thing? Pretty much. Never, almost never, rarely, very rarely. Is it any different if we change the verb, okay, these are our B examples. Different tenses, different forms, different here. No different. Same thing. Do you want to see a movie later? You do want to see a movie later. Just flipped. Okay. But that's not the answer to the question. Yes. I do. No, I don't Yes, I do know. I don't know. I don't little rude to say no, I don't. Better to say maybe. No, thanks. I'm a little tired today. Maybe next time. Does this water bottle have a filter? Well, if we want to answer yes, then we would say this water bottle. This water bottle does have a filter. So when we say does and we want to point to something, we put that in front of the thing, the noun. This does, this, does this, right? So when we're using does to make a question, we are flipping it around, but we're going to make sure we put the does and then this together before the noun. If it's a question or if it's, for example, the, you could say the you could say My your hips. That's an O her does this water bottle? Does the water bottle does my water bottle does your water bottle does her water bottle. But then if it's a statement, if it's the answer to the question, It's still flipped around. It starts with this. It starts with the it starts with my starts with your, IT starts with her still. That's changed around. But we then say the noun, water bottle, and then does, if we want to focus on it, sometimes we can remove does so. The water bottle does have a filter. My water bottle does have a filter. Her water bottle has a filter. So we can actually take out does when we want to give the answer, the question though, should include that. But in a way that just means making yes or no questions is easier than making regular sentences in a way, in a way. Why? Well, we can have this does later in the sentence if it's a statement, but we're not learning about making statements right now, making declarative sentences right now. We're learning about making yes or no questions. So if you have a yes or no question, it starts with the verb. If the verb is way over here in the statement, the water bottle does have a filter. Okay. Fine. Bring it to the front. Why? Because yes or no questions need to start with the verb. That's why. And it just gets a little bit more complicated because what we call the subject is not always one word. This water bottle is the subject. This water bottle, this whole thing, this water bottle or the water bottle or your water bottle, the whole thing is the subject Just as you is the subject, right? So it keeps the same structure. You've got the verb plus the subject, and it's really that simple. Now, what about past tense? Did you actually think I would agree to this? Yes. No. Did you actually think now how would we answer this? I did. Yes, I did or no, I didn't. No, I didn't. Why don't we change did because I did always agrees no matter which subject it is. I did it did You did she did he did. They're all the same. Did doesn't change. For these, we say I am because am agrees with I did. Did did did did? It's always did. So it's easy. I did. Yes, I did. Alright, Now what about have? What about yes or no sentences with have? Basically the same idea. But let's explore these. Has there been any change since this morning? Maybe someone is ill and we want to know if they're improving, their condition is improving. What would the original sentence B? There has been some or change. So the difference here is any, any is used when we ask a question, right? Or when we say a negative thing, there hasn't been any there hasn't been would be the negative. But we don't say there has been any. There has been any. We don't use that for a positive statement. We only use it for a question. Has there been any yes or no? Or for the negative? There hasn't been any. But even though this one looks a little more complicated, It's still sticks with our basic flip structure. There has been. So we just take that has, and we put it there. And now it's a question, starts with a verb. It starts with a verb because yes or no questions need to start with a verb. So there has been, there has been yes, yes. There has been some change. There has been a change. But remember not there has been any change. Had you been looking anywhere else before? This should be pretty simple. We should be able to just change these around, right? I had been. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. But notice we have any still here. So the question yes. Had you been looking anywhere else? I hadn't I hadn't if it's the answer, I hadn't been looking anywhere else would be okay. Why? Because it's a negative, just like this one. If it is a negative or a question than we use any. But if it's a positive, then we don't. Pretty simple. So I had been, what should we say? Looking in other places, somewhere else, in a few other places, something like that. So I hope this is very clear how we make yes or no questions or closed questions with b verbs, do verbs, and have verbs. Next, we're going to look at some examples of how to make yes or no questions with different types of verbs. But before we do that, One quick thing, sometimes, sometimes we remove this part, this piece here. The whole thing, if it's very simple and a yes or no, especially in ru or a do you, but usually an RU type of question. We can remove that and just say this with a question tone. So hungry, hungry, and you make sure that you have the rising tone. Hungry, hungry? Yes. Ready? Ready. Usually it is with the RU questions. Not all of them, of course, but this RU is often used to talk about an adjective like hungry to talk about a status, right? And for these that are about a status, like, Are you ready? Ready, Are you hungry, hungry. You'll see this without the, the ru and then the answer can still be yes or no. 12. Closed Questions with Modal Verbs: Let's now just look at a few more yes, no question examples. Now the only real difference here is that we're not using be, do and have. Instead, we're using what are called modal verbs. That's what they're called. These verbs indicate a yes or no question, and they're not the main verb of the sentence. That's very important. Now, these examples do not include all the modal verbs because the other ones, they're just not that common for yes or no questions. I mean, starting a question, my tweet might tweak go now it sounds very 19th century English. It's not very modern, so I'm just including the ones that I feel are natural, are very common. But the same basic idea, it's true. We're really just flipping. That's all we're doing. Same basic structure. Can I borrow your car for the weekend? Can I? I can, except the real answer would be yes. You can. Yes, you can. If we were turning this into a statement, I can. Although it would be a little weird to say, I can borrow your car for the weekend. Really. Who told you you could do that? Did I say that? I didn't say that. It's good for questions, but strange as a statement. Yes, you can because you're asking me. Now, remember when you say yes or no questions. Typically the intonation goes up like this data. Can I borrow your car for the weekend? Can I borrow your car for the weekend? The intonation rises, your voice rises at the end. Not all questions are like that. The questions we're going to talk about next are in fact, not like that. There are different ways to say those questions. So for the yes or no questions, the other unique thing is that you have to raise your intonation. It's called The question tone. That's what it's called. Could you take care of my kids on Friday night? Could you take care of my kids on Friday night? Now, what's the difference between can and could? In this case, really, there isn't much difference, right? Can means it's possible. Could means it's possible. This one, this word separately is sometimes used to talk about the past or used to talk about hypothetical things. Remember, we talked about hypotheticals, but in this type of question, they're really the same. Can I could I could you can you basically the same thing, although Could you, or could I sometimes emphasizes the politeness. Sometimes it's a little bit more polite to say, could you please, could you, could you, instead of Kenya, sometimes it's a little more direct. Could you take care of my kids on Friday night? Now, sometimes people will say this in a flat way because maybe they have a good relationship or maybe they want it to sound more conversational. So they'll say it like this. Could take care of my kids Friday night. So sometimes, sometimes yes or no questions have the same intonation as irregular sentence. Although usually it has that rising question tone. Now, what about will, end? Would, will? You know this? It's about the future, right? Something that is going to happen in the future, we use will for that to talk about the future. Would remember wood is usually for hypotheticals, were usually, usually we can still be talking about the future, but usually giving a hypothetical something in our imaginations. It's not true right? Now. We use it for regular requests as well. But it can be very useful for hypothetical things. Would you would you live in a skyscraper if you made a million dollars? No. That's that does not sound fun. Hypothetical. So for these two, will you call me if you hear anything new? Will you call me if you hear anything new, still rising tone, right? You will. Will you just switching around those two? You should feel pretty used to this by now. This should be pretty comfortable by now. Just switching these two around. Will you call me if you hear anything new? I will. Yes, I will. And we can answer that. Yes. Yes, I will. That's not an I that does not want an eye. Looks like I will. Would you give me a hand with these invitations? Now, in this specific case, these are pretty much interchangeable. We could say, Would you call me if you hear anything new and that might make it sound a little bit more gentle. And will you give me a hand with these invitations? Will you give me a hand with these invitations is also okay. So for these two, either one is fine. For these two, either one is fine. But keep in mind, that doesn't mean they're always the same. That doesn't mean they're always the same because wood is often used for unreal things and will is often used for. Certain things in the future. Now, for this one, would you give me a hand with these invitations? That means can you help me write? It is correct grammatically to say you would write. Those two can be switched to make this question. Yes. But but you would give me a hand that doesn't really have a meaning, right? So just because the grammar makes sense doesn't mean it makes sense to say it like that. And we wouldn't even in fact say, I would we could say I would love to, I would love to help if we're excited about it. So there are different ways to respond. We could just say Yes. We could say, sure. It's what I often say when someone asks for help. Sure, no problem. Of course, I would love to help if we want it to say the whole thing. I would love to give you a hand. If we add love, it's okay. But not by itself. I would give you a hand that doesn't make sense. That sounds odd as an answer. So just be careful with that. Just because the grammar makes sense the other way around doesn't mean that's a common thing for people to say. And it doesn't mean that it always makes sense for these last two. Should we tell them what happened? Should we tell them what happened? Shall we leave now? Shall we leave now? Now? Should is often used to push someone. That's a duty. Often used to talk about duty, responsibility, kind of like, kind of like must, but not that strong. And Shell is quite formal. And we talk about our intentions when we use shell. Now, if we were to use should here, should we leave now? That means I'm wondering if other people want us to leave. Like they wish we would write their kind of hoping that we will leave. We have a duty to do that. We must, because if we don't, it will cause an awkward situation. So you can put should there. It just gives it a different feeling, right? Shall we leave now? Maybe means I want to leave. And I just want to say in a very polite, kind of formal way that I want to. So I'm suggesting it very nicely, right? In a way that everyone can accept. Shall we leave now? Yeah. Okay. Let's go. Instead of I want to go. Let's go, let's leave. So they do have a different feeling. Shall we tell them what happened? Again, same thing. You can put shell here, but it has a slightly different feeling. If we say, shall we tell them what happened? That's what I want to do. I'm saying that and I want to know if you agree. Should we do we have a duty and obligation to tell them what happened? So you have to pay attention to these slight differences. They're not exactly the same. They give a different feeling depending on which one you use. And of course, I don't even think we need to talk about it anymore. Of course, these are just flipped around so we should we should would be the answer. So it's just flipped around. Shall we? We we shall. Now, I have to say that, although that's correct, Yes, We show that sounds weirdly formal. I would never say that it's not natural. That's another example like this one, where yes, it's correct when you reverse it, yes, the grammar is correct, but two people actually say, Oh, yes, we shall. It sounds like something from the 19th century. It sounds a little weird to me. So there's a difference between grammatically correct and natural, between grammatically correct and something people actually say. So I hope all of these are clear. We've explored yes or no questions how to make them. Let me know if you have any questions. Next, we're going to go on and talk about how we can make open questions. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 13. Overview of Open Questions: We've talked about yes, no questions or closed questions. How to make them, how we can answer them, how we flip around the subject and the verb. Now we're going to talk about a different type of questions. This type of questions has a couple different names. One name for it is open questions. Open, open questions. These questions are also sometimes called WH questions. Why? Because they start with wh words. That means the beginning of the word is wh. What are those words? By the way, these words are sometimes called question words, question words. Sometimes these are called question word questions, which I think is a little bit weird. I like open questions and WH, questions. So why? I think you know these right? Who, when, say it with me? Where, what, Who's which? When, where, what is just the, just the W sound? Whose has the, has the H in it? And which is just the W sound. But we also include here how this is the odd one out. This is the, this is the weird kid. This is the one that goes with the rest, but is not a W-H word. We include how as well. Now, what's the difference between these questions and the yes, no questions? Well, really we ask these questions to get information. That's why we ask them. We want to get information. That's the reason. Now, I guess you could say for the yes-no questions, we are also getting information, but usually these require someone to explain something, to give some details, to provide a reason, that kind of thing. And they can't just answer yes or no. So we say we ask them to get information. Each of these are different in that they are used to get different kinds of information. I think you know that too. We're going to focus on them one by one with examples so that we can see how they're used, how they're made, how they're answered, so that we can fully understand how to ask open questions. Some of this will probably be review for you. But I want to make sure it's extremely clear that you have the full picture so that you feel empowered to ask any type of question you may need to ask. So let's start with why. 14. Why Questions: Now, when we ask why, what kind of information are we getting? Generally, I think you know this, when we ask why, we are getting the reason and the answer to a why question often starts with because, because so often the answer to a why question is not even a complete sentence. It's a half sentence because I want to because I needed it because I was hungry. Well, those aren't complete sentences. So that's an interesting and unique thing. Often, why questions are not answered with complete sentences. Now, we'll talk about how we could answer these with complete sentences. And that will also tell us a little bit more about the structure of these why questions. Now, let's take a look at the structure. Okay. Why did you put all those torches up in your back yard? Now let's look at this. This, this looks pretty familiar to me. What if I just remove y for a second and forget about that for just 1 second. Does this does this look like anything we've talked about before? Did you put all those torches up in your backyard? That's just a yes, no question. That's pretty familiar. I know about that. Pretty easy right now. How would we answer that if that's a yes, no question? We would say what I did put okay. Or we could say Yes, I put without the did often will take away that did. We'll talk about that in a second. Okay. Now, as we talked about with the yes-no questions, we flip that around. Right. That's how we do it. Did you put that? Yes, I did. Put that, did you? I did. Did you? I did. It's flipped. Okay. Well, what about what about why questions? Now we ask the why question. All we've done here is we've taken the the grammar, or the format, or the structure of a yes-no question. And we've added a question word to it. Why? We're asking the reason, ok. Now, if we were to give an answer, we would say I I'm gonna put did here because I want to explain something about that. I did put all those torches up in my backyard. Imagine all that's there. Because I am having a party. Maybe next week I'm having a party. Okay. Well, why are you putting torches up? Because you're having a party because of mosquitoes. Okay. Let's study this for a second. If we give the real answer, the real answer will probably just start here because I'm having a party, I'm having a party next week because of mosquitoes, right? That's what people will probably normally say. When we answer the why question we often just start with because, okay. But if we want to answer the whole thing or if we want to see the structure and understand that completely, would we actually say it like this? I did. That didn't know if we're giving a reason. We won't say this. So if we did have this, then it would follow the same structure as the yes-no question. Look, still flipped. I did put did you put the dead and the EU is flipped and we use AI because you're asking me. So I, I did put but because we're giving a reason, it's a little strange to say, did these two side-by-side, they're redundant usually. So we'll cross that out. We probably won't say it. We're going to say the action and then say why or not say anything at all. And then just say because I put all those torches in my backyard because I'm having a party like that. And we'll talk about in a moment what we do. If someone asks us a why question and actually they're wrong, they've made an assumption that is incorrect. We'll talk about that in just a second. Why are there so many torches in your backyard? First of all, can we take this is this just a yes-no question without the why? Are there so many torches in your backyard? Yeah, it is. Now. That's a little weird. So just to be clear, the most of the time, the why questions we ask will just be the basic structure of a yes-no question with the question word at the beginning. Right? But that doesn't mean that that basic yes-no question always make sense. It doesn't really make sense to say, are there so many torches? The grammar is right? But that's a weird thing to ask. You could say, are there many torches in your backyard? It's just a strange thing to ask. It's not natural, but grammatically it is. It is correct. Okay. So yes, it does follow the basic structure of a yes-no question. Are there many torches in your backyard? Yes, there are. No there aren't. Flipped. Why are there so many torches in your backyard? Should we flip it? If we answer the question? Yes, that's right. So this would be there It's a capital T. There are so many torches in my backyard because I'm having a party next week or whatever the reason is, notice that this is flipped around. This is the opposite. Are there There are just like the yes-no questions. Then just keep in mind that most people will answer the question because, because, and then say the reason. And most people won't actually say this. We write this out just to remember the structure, just to learn this to make sure you've really got it. But that's not actually the most common way to answer a why question. One thing I should just mention, by the way, is sometimes instead of y, you'll see how come How come you put all those torches in your backyard? I put all those torches in my backyard because when we say how come the unique thing about it is the grammar will not be flipped. When we say How come it will just be a statement, it will be a normal sentence. So how come you put all those torches up in your backyard? How come I should go with you? How come? I can't sit here. How come? It is so cold. So it's not reversed when we ask questions with how come for whatever reason. That's just the way it is. It is the basic structure of the sentence like this, not flipped around in the way that we learned with yes-no questions. I don't want to focus on this one too much because it is not as common and it's something that's more often used in casual everyday English. The most common usage of this one is a simple why somebody does something you don't understand. And you say, how come, how come? I'm moving to Norway? How come a simple why? That's the most common way to use it. Okay. Anyway, let's not get too distracted. Why do you think Beth and fill put all those torches in their backyard? Now, should we say? I do think Beth and fill? No. Again, the same reason we did this here. I think beth and feel put all those torches up in their backyard because and then give the reason. Now, as I mentioned, we don't put the did there or the do there because it's redundant. If you did something, if you put something they're saying you did put it there doesn't make it more clear. That might make it more confusing. Usually, we just say I put it there. Why do you swim without goggles? Why do you swim without goggles? I do swim without goggles. No. No. Because just saying I swim without goggles because is enough because swim means that I do it. So why do I need to add do so for the question, you need it. But for the answer, you usually don't. Unless someone is incorrect. Unless someone has assumed something. Unless someone assumes something that's wrong. So if someone says, Why don't you swim with goggles on, then you would say, I do swim with goggles on. Oh, okay. You are incorrect in what you said. So I say I do swim with goggles on only to correct you and to really emphasize it. But you usually only do that when someone has made an incorrect assumption. Why didn't you put all those torches up? I did. I did put all those torches up. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Why don't you think Beth and Phil? I do think Beth and Phil. Oh, okay. Now this May 1 not be necessary because this is a do you think? But it could be. It could be. So I just wanted to make that point clear. Let's look at the rest of these short ones here. Why should I go with you? Because we're friends. That would be a good answer. You should go with me because we're friends. Flipped around. Okay. Pretty simple. Why can't I sit here? You can't sit here because it's reserved, whatever the reason is. Why is it so cold in here? This should be easy by now. That's why we do a lot of examples. It is so cold in here because I turn the heater off or whatever the reason is. So I hope now you feel pretty confident about using y to make open questions and to answer open questions, the way to answer open questions, the different ways to answer them. Now we're going to be talking about other open questions with these other question words. But don't think that they're all the same exactly. There are some interesting differences here. That's why we're going to look at examples of each of these. It's not like every single one is exactly the same as why. It's kind of unique. We have to explore these in a little bit of detail. So that's what we're going to do. Next. We're going to look at how 15. How Questions to Ask About Means: Remember that we include how questions in the category of open questions. This gets grouped in with a WH question words, as I mentioned. So let's talk about how questions, generally, how questions focus on the way. Sometimes that means method for doing something. But also some questions are about the degree. And somehow questions focus on quality. So you can see that how is pretty diverse? Now, you're familiar with these, probably will talk about these down here. Often the answer to these quality words is good, fine words that you're familiar with. So we'll talk about that in a second. But let's talk about these three. These three, these first three represent perhaps the most common type of how question. Let's spend a little time looking at these examples to try to understand the structure and how we use how questions. So first, how should I prepare for my upcoming job interview? Now, let's look at this. Can we cut off like we did with why? Can we cut off the how or the question word? And can we can we say this by itself as a yes-no question? Should I prepare for my upcoming job interview? Is that a yes? No question? Yes. That's right. So we could say yes, you should or no. You shouldn't prepare for your upcoming job interview. I don't know why someone would say that, but that would be a correct answer. Okay. So how should I is again, just adding the question word in front of the regular yes, no question. Okay. So that's pretty clear, but what does this mean? Does it mean way? Does it mean degree? Is it about quality? This is going to be the way, what way should I use to prepare? How should I do it? What is the method that I should use? You could say what way, but that's a little bit strange. It's better to use how, how should I prepare to answer the question? Again? To answer it, you flip it around. You should. And you could say you should prepare, Bye, and then explain the thing you should do. But most of the time, answering this question, we won't repeat the question. Answering a how question. Often. We're going to just start with an explanation. So most of the time we'll just start with something like this and then say the verb, you should research. You should plan. You should look up, look up possible questions they might ask you, whatever it may be, whenever your advice happens to be. Now, does it have to be, you should know, it doesn't have to be. You can answer this in many different ways. I suggest that you research the culture of the company. Or if I were you, there are so many different ways to actually answer a how question. You don't have to answer it with the word in the question. And in fact, it might be more common to answer it in a different way, like this one or this one, or any other way of giving a suggestion, giving advice, you should, might sound a little bit, a little bit pushy. So this follows our same basic idea from the previous set of examples, the why questions. What about the next one? Does it hold? How are you planning to propose to Gretchen? Gretchen is the person's name. Proposed means ask someone to marry you. How are you planning to do it? Is this degree is this way. This is about the way ask to marry someone, Okay? So that means what's your plan? And it could be, what's your plan? You could say that, but this is a natural way to say the question. Now, can we remove the question word and does this leave us with a regular yes or no question? Are you planning to propose to Gretchen? Yes, I am. No, I'm not. Okay. So that is irregular yes or no question. So we can remember that. How are you planning? However you want to answer that? I am planning to and then maybe surprise her with a vacation. Maybe I'm planning to hide the ring and a piece of cake or whatever it is. However you're going to do it. So there isn't really a clear structure about giving answers. Because there are so many possible things that someone might say to a question like this or a question like this, right? If someone says, give me the way, tell me the way. Well, this person's way might be different than that person's way. And the way that they express that way may be completely different. So when we ask. The why question. Most of the time we're going to start with. Because because that's usually how we start, doesn't have to be all the time. But usually it's going to start like that. But for these, while we can do this to make sure that we understand the grammar in the structure or IM, ru, ru, okay, That's switched and we can make sure that we see that it follows the pattern that we've learned. Actually, we can answer in any kind of way that we like. Actually saying it that way probably isn't as common as starting with, with, with, with a cake, a vacation, but that's just one way of doing it. It could be I want to or she wants to. There are so many different ways. I don't even think it's useful to give more examples of possible answers. It's almost unlimited. So don't worry too much about following a specific structure for answering this type of how question. Let's look at one more. How did you get into the country without a visa? How did you get into the country without a visa? So this thing happened and I'm not sure about the way that you did it. I'm wondering and sometimes we start a how question that way. I'm curious. How did you do that? I'm wondering, How did you do that? I have no idea. Maybe we're expressing amazement, maybe we're expressing curiosity, maybe we're expressing confusion. Someone does a magic trick. How did you, how did you do that? Amazing. I'm so confused. How could you, how could you help? How can that be? How is it possible? How is it possible? Very common question. Now, one thing I would like you to notice here, as we talked about with why I got into, into the country by submarine, kind of an underwater boat. We don't have a visa. How did you get in hope by submarine? Bi. Bi is a word that tells someone that this is the way something happens. Often for transportation, by bus, by car, by bike, by submarine. There are other words that talk about way as well, but this is, this is the common one for transportation. But notice here we've got, did you get? And here we have got God is the past tense. Why don't we say did get. Remember when we talked about why we would only say did get or didn't get or do get or don't get, if we are correcting someone. So for example, we might say here, how did you get into the country without a visa? I didn't get into the country without a visa. I don't know where you heard that. Here's my visa right here. What are you talking about? Right. So I'm correcting you. You got it wrong. You thought I did, but I didn't. Here's my visa. So I am correcting you. 16. How Questions for Degree, Quality, and Amount: Let's take a look at some other how questions for degree and for quality. So let's start with degree. And we could also say amount, amount. You've seen these questions. How long, how far, how much? How old? How many? How many, how questions? When we ask this type of question, we're talking about a degree of something or an amount of something. So if we say how long we're going to be talking about, time. Time, if it's distance than it would be, how far? If it's a noun that we can count, like wine, for example, then that would be an uncountable noun. We can use that, we can use, we can use much for that. If it's something we can count like penguins. Why not penguins? Then we would say, how many, how many penguins? How much wine? So for all of these degree and amount, how long will it take you to read this? This is how many penguins? Penguins. This is a countable noun. This is an uncountable noun. When we say, how long will it take if we're talking about time? What we're really saying is because time is uncountable. How much time, how much time will it take? But we won't usually say how much time will it take? Will usually say, how long does it take now, could we replace will with something else? Yes, We could. How long does it take? How long did put that over here? How long did it take? So other things can go in here. Other types of verbs, other auxiliary verbs can go in this place. Now, this one is a little bit, a little bit odd because if we say, will it take you to read this? That doesn't really make sense grammatically. And if I make something that's even shorter, something like this, How far is it? That's about distance. Can I take this far? Is it Is that a question by itself? No, not quite. So this one doesn't quite work. We would have to change it around and say something like is capital I is it far? Is it far? Yes, it's far. So you'd have to work with it a little bit to change it. So it's not so simple. So for this type of how question, the degree type, the amount type, the best thing to do is just remember the basic structure of the question. How long, how far, how much, how old, how many? And there are others. That word goes right after it. Now, this is an adjective, old as an adjective, far is an adjective, tall is an adjective. But much, many. Those are not adjectives. Those are words called quantifiers. So it will be a quantifier after it, especially much, especially many. Sometimes you'll see how few, for example, but much in many are the most common or, or an adjective like far, like old, like long. Then you'll have this verb. Will, does, did, should. This will be right after that. Then we usually have it and then the main verb, take it and then take its not always it though. For example, if I say, How old is she? How old is she? So this is our question structure. It's the same basic thing, right? How, how Adjective, Adjective, verb, verb, subject, subject. She's the subject. How old is she? So how would we answer it? Well, we flip it around like usual. She is 19, however old she is. She is we flip it around. Pretty straightforward. How long will it take you to read this? How would you answer that? What word does it start with? Well, look how we answered this. She is flip it around. So we start with it will take me it will take me an hour and a half to read this. Okay? So now we know how to translate a sentence into a question and how to answer a question like this. Now, as we've been talking about with many of these questions, the answers are often a lot simpler. We don't actually have to say she is 19. In real life, the answer will be 19. How long will it take you to read this? An hour-and-a-half? I probably won't say it will take me an hour and a half to read this. It will take me I don't need to say it. How many classes are you taking now? Six. Now you can say, I'm taking six, but six is a very, very common way to answer these degree and amount questions. I know we've made we've made a big mess down here, but I hope, I hope it's clear. Now, let's look at this last type of common, how questions. 17. How Questions for Quality: Now this type of question is often pretty short. How are you, how are things? How's it going? How is this? And typically, the answer is going to be related to the quality of that. For this, the common answer is good. Okay? Fine. Not great, fantastic. Right? Now, if you wanted to say the whole answer to this question, It's no different than what we've been doing. You flip it around and you answer the question. I what agrees with I? Not right. I am I am fine. Usually we just say Fine. Okay. How are things? Now we're asking about things. I'm asking you. Yes, that's true. But I didn't say How are you. I said How are things. So for this one, when we flip it, even though I'm asking you, I'm asking about things. What are things? That's things in your life, the things that are happening with you in your life in general. Really, it's another way to ask this question. It's just another way to say this. And this is another way to say this. But the way that we answer the question should match the question. So how are you? I'm fine. By the way, we actually say I'm not IM, or just fine. How are things? If we want to say the whole thing, things are good, things are good. And then maybe you'll give some details, then maybe you'll talk about What's happening in your life, right? But if you want to answer it completely, it's things are because I asked, How are things. So don't answer. I am answer. Things are or you can just say, yeah, good. I've been very busy recently. I got a new boat. Whatever is going on in your life, How's it going? How's it going? It? So the answer to the question has to match the question. So don't say, I'm good. If you want to answer the question. It is or it's going means right now, it's going. Okay. It's going okay. It's going okay. And then you can again talk about your life a little bit. These are very common conversational questions. But now, are these only used in this sort of conversational situation? Well, you might ask for feedback using a question like this. How is this? So I made something and I want your feedback about the thing I made. I hold it up. Maybe you're my teacher, maybe you're my boss or whatever. How's this? And then you might say, oh, it's terrible or it's great. And if you want to answer it, then you would say, that is Whatever, great, terrible, pretty good. Because for you it's this because you have it. But for me, I'm looking at it over there. So it's that unless we're both very close to it, then maybe we can both use this. The point is, you have to think about who's asking and who's answering, and you're still flipping it around. But because of the way that we phrase these, we don't use this idea of is this a yes or no question without the how we stopped doing that for these because saying are things that doesn't really make sense. Is it going? Hey, grammatically, I guess that makes sense but barely. So I don't think it's very helpful to think about that for these two types of questions, my suggestion is to just remember the basic structure, how to make it and don't get lost in wait a second. Can I make sure that that's actually a yes or no question? That might make things a little bit more confusing. Focus on the structure. Make sure you're writing down my examples. Make sure you're making notes, paying attention to the structure, and very importantly, making your own examples. Now we're going to go on and talk about who questions. 18. Who Questions: Let's continue our exploration of open questions with who questions. Now, what are we asking about when we use a who question? I think you know the answer to this. We're asking about a person. We're trying to get information about a person or people doesn't have to be. One person. Will notice something interesting in our h2 questions that you will see in just a moment. But first, the ordinary type, the type that should be pretty easy for you by now. You should be pretty used to this structure. What is our structure? Well, with these open questions, we have a pretty clear structure. The structure seems to be the question word. So in this case, WHO, and then plus, and then we have our verb. Now, this verb is often not the main verb, but a helping verb, also known as an auxiliary verb. Now you might remember from our yes-no questions would wait. I thought would was called a modal verb. What that was called a modal verb. Are you lying to me? No, I'm not lying to you. A modal verb is a specific type of auxiliary verb. If you don't remember this, just remember it's a verb that's not the main verb in the sentence, not the main verb in the question. It's helping out, it's doing something else. It's not the action that the verb is about. And this modal is just a type of that. Remember, we talked about Will and wood, can and could, shall, should. These are modal verbs, just a type, just a type of these. But for example, have, had, did, do b, m are, these are auxiliary verbs? These are auxiliary verbs. Absolutely. Okay. I'm gonna try not to say that word anymore because it's a little boring to say. Okay, we got a little sidetracked. Let's go back to our basic structure, h2 plus the verb or our auxiliary verb. I said I wasn't going to say it anymore, but I did. Okay. Plus plus the subject. Okay. And our subject might be you, it might be she, it might be I. And then maybe we have another verb. But this is probably the main verb. The sentence, for example, who had she planned? Plan is the past tense of the verb. You can remember this general formula to make open questions. In general, of course there are exceptions. But if you just remember that you can make most open questions with question words like who, who would you like to invite to the wedding? Gretchen. This is just talking to a person. So don't get confused that this is a person and this is who these are unrelated. I'm talking to Gretchen. I want Gretchen to give me a name. The name of the person I'm looking for is not Gretchen. Gretchen is right there. I'm talking to her. Right. So we could cross that out if we wanted to. We could just make this who would you like to invite to the wedding? And I'm looking at Gretchen, who, who she could say, how would we do this? This should be easy. By now. I would like to invite Sam and Kenny and Lisa. Okay. All the names that she wants to invite. So when I say, Who would you like to invite to the wedding, Gretchen, this is just a way for gretchen to know I'm talking to her and not anyone else. Alright, so don't get confused there. Now, she could say this, but I think you know what I'm going to say next. I hope you're starting to notice some patterns in the way that we make questions and the way that we answer them. I really hope you're starting to notice these patterns while we could say this, and this is a good way for us to practice to see the flip. Usually we're not going to say it. Usually will just start with the name's Sam and Kenny and Lisa. Are those the names I said I don't remember. So she can just start saying the names directly. So that is a very common way to use the who question, and that is a very common way to answer the who question. You can do this if you want to, but you don't have to. Often we just start with names. Who had she planned to spend the holidays with. The holidays often called the holiday season might include Christmas and Hanukkah. There are many holidays in December. I think Kwanza is in December. So those holidays we call that season. Actually it starts in America where I'm from, starts with thanksgiving and goes to New Year's Day. So that is the holiday season, also known as the holidays. So this period of time, who had she planned? That means maybe the plans changed. We now know that this means that something is now not the same. Something happened in the past that changed it. We know that now remember, okay, So who had she planned? She we do this just for practice. This is a good practice to answer the question, helps you practice your grammar. So let's just do it. She had planned to spend the holidays with Anita or and this would be much more common. We just say Anita, I think Anita, I'm pretty sure it was Anita. Maybe Anita. That would be how we would answer the question. And there are 1000 different ways to answer it. In real life, we do this just for practice. Who should I ask for help with this? Who should I ask for help with this? This follows our structure, the question word and then the auxiliary verb. In this case the modal verb, remember shell and should, set. I wasn't going to say it again, but I said it again. Sorry. So who should I subject, ask main verb. We've got a nice little structure here. It's getting easier to remember how to make these open questions. I hope for help with this, whatever this is, homework project, anything, okay? Now, when we answer it, we don't answer. I write we answer because you're asking me. So I would say you should ask. And then this instead of saying asked for help and then say the name, you should ask and then say the name for help. For help. So this would be whatever the name is Carl, you should ask Karl for help. Or you could ask Karl for help. Or I might just say ask Karl for help or maybe Carl or just say Carl. Carl. How about Carl? Have you thought about Carl? Did you ask Carl yet? Karl really knows a lot about this. So the answers could be almost anything. Okay? So I think you get the idea of these great, pretty clear, pretty straightforward. I hope. 19. Special Who Questions: Now it gets a little more interesting for these next ones. Who ate all my cookies? Who did it? Who directed this movie? What is different here? What is going on? Something's seems different. Different from all the other questions we've talked about so far. Okay. Is it following this structure? Who, who, who, Yucca, we got that. This one is our auxiliary verb. I said I wasn't going to say it. I said it again. 888 would be the main verb, right? The main verb is right after who? Looks a little confusing. Wait a second. What if I just put someone's name here and deleted the question mark? Let me try that. Alex ate all my cookies, period. Well, who did it? Tania did it. Who directed this movie? Luke directed this movie. Whoa. This is totally different. When we say these with the main verb right? After the who, what we're asking is, what is the subject, the person that or who did this action directly? The subject of the action, all we're doing is replacing some person. Some person's name could be a company name with the word who, because we don't know the answer. But the form of it, the structure is exactly the same as irregular sentence except it's a question, right? Oh, that's very interesting. And when we know the person, when we know the name, we can just place that name in the exact same place and remove the question mark and make it a period. Alex ate all my cookies. Who ate all my cookies? I want to say it on my cookies. Who did it? Tania did it. Who directed this movie? Luke directed this movie. So there's no change. So the thing that's missing is the subject, right? For these, I know the subject subject is you, subject is Xi, subject is I. That's the subject about asking, about planning, about inviting, write. The subject is already connected to a verb. We know the subject. And instead we're talking about who this inviting is about. Not the, not the one doing the inviting, but who will be invited, right? When we talk about planning, we know who is doing the planning. She's doing the planning. Alice is doing the planning or whoever this is, this person is doing the planning. I was planning to spend the holidays with a person. Her action is planning. She's planning to do some things. She's planning to spend the holidays with someone who that's what I don't know. That's why I asked the question. What is this related to? Who should I ask? I know that I'm going to ask I'm going to ask for help. I don't know who should receive my ask. That's the mystery. That's why I'm asking. So I have my subject, I have my main verb for these. I don't, I don't know who is doing this. In a way it makes it a lot simpler. This is interesting. It's when the doer of the action, the subject of the verb is unknown. Simply state who regular sentence and then the question mark at the end. And that's it. Pretty simple. So these are the two different ways that we can do who questions. This should be more familiar because we've talked about these, we've talked about the structure. We're going to talk more about this type, not with WHO, but with other question words. This is something really to remember because it's pretty unique. There are some other things like it, but, but it is a pretty unique structure for questions. I hope that makes sense. We're going to keep going. Now. We're going to talk about where questions. 20. Where and When Questions: At this point in our exploration of open questions, I hope you're starting to feel really comfortable with the structure of questions, with how to make them. I want you to almost get a little bit bored with it. That's what I hope so that you can do it with your eyes closed. Well, not with your eyes closed, but automatically. You can do it by habit. It's super easy. We're almost done. We're getting close to the end of our question words. We have a few more to do, but the ones that we still have to talk about are pretty similar. We're going to talk about where and when questions now and then next, talk about what and which questions followed by Whos. But we're going to move through these pretty quickly because there isn't a lot of new information here. We have the basic structure. We know how to make questions, but it's really just a matter of looking through some examples to make sure we've got it. So where and when questions, I think you probably know this, but where questions are related to place. And when questions, of course, this is easy. When questions are related to time. Place could be a physical place, but it doesn't have to be a physical place. It could be something mental, emotional sometimes. So when we say place, we mean that pretty generally, when also pretty general. Because this could be an event in your life and events in the day, like your wedding day. It could be a time of day. It could be a time 10 million years ago. It could be in the far future, it could be in the near future. So all of those things, we have to keep an open mind about these and take them pretty generally. Now, the basic structure for these is pretty much the same as we've been talking about. We have our W-H word and then we have the verb. And this verb is the auxiliary verb or the modal verb, which is a type of auxiliary verb. And then the subject. I don't know why I'm doing minus signs here should do plus minus math problem that wouldn't make sense. And then the subject and then Usually, Usually, Usually, Usually usually the main verb, Alright, MV here, I don't think I did that last time. That helps. Okay. So that's that's generally how we're going to do it. And of course, know if I need to say this, but it ends with a question mark. That's gotta be, that's gotta be there. That's very important. And then if we answer the question, still, if we want to answer it with the beginning part, often questions don't have that. We still swap around that verb and the subject. So where could we go for our school trip in August? Which place we use the subject GO is the main verb. Where could we go? Could is about possibilities. Tell me about possibilities. We could put in here can as well. The difference between can and could hear might be CAN is what is possible, what is available to us in reality, could is what is possible in general. If we could have anything we wanted. So it could be a larger category. It is, as we talked about before, hypothetical. Use your imagination. Well, we could go to Thailand, but can we go to Thailand? No. We don't have the budget to go to Thailand for our school trip, but we could but we can't. So that's sometimes the difference between couldn't Can you could really use either one there and it would probably be okay. Now, we know when it is. It's in August. So if this were a whirlwind question, then this wouldn't be here. If we say, when should we go to Thailand, Then the answer might be in August. Okay, So that would be flipping it around and using when we're going to talk about that in a second, where where could we go? Oh, and then we could just say we could go to Thailand. We don't need to write this anymore, do I? We could go to Thailand or wherever we decide we want to go. Okay. What about this one? Where do you want to go for lunch? Where do you want to go? Same structure here. Where do you want? This is our main verb, this is our subject, this is our auxiliary verb. And there is our question word. Pretty simple, right? For means the purpose. And we could, we could change this out because this is what we're going to do when we get there, right? This is what we're talking about, our desire. But we could say to eat, to stop sometimes to stop. What do you want to stop for lunch? This is what will happen once we arrive. We are talking about the choice there. What do you want? So where do you want to go? I want to go to and then we can talk about different things. I want to go downtown. That could be a place, but probably were talking about the name of the restaurant I want to go to. And then we say that place, that name. I'm not going to say those restaurant names because I don't want to advertise. For them, looks, looks chicken. How about that? Looks looks house of spicy chicken. That's not a real restaurant. Maybe it is. I don't know. But we might say the type of foods sometimes. Where do you want to go? How about sushi? What do you think about sushi? Haven't had sushi in awhile. Sounds good. So take that pretty generally. That could be the place, the location, it could be the name of the restaurant, it could even be the type of food. Where did you get these rare vinyls? Vinyls are records like CDs but bigger black. Play music, right? Records or vinyls. The material is vinyl. Where did is in the past but same, same structure here. This is our auxiliary verb. I'm getting tired of saying that word. This is our subject and this is our main verb. Where did you get these rare, uncommon, Uncommon. Now, that could be a person, so we have to be very flexible about this. Don't be too strict, right? Because usually when I ask about this kind of thing, I want to know if it's a store or location. But if it happens to be a person, that's not a wrong answer, right? And maybe I don't know that person. So you can tell me about that person. And that's not a place. It's a person. But I didn't know I should have asked about a person because I assumed that it would be a place. Right. I assume that you would say, Oh, it's ABC Records downtown. Oh, okay. I'll check that out. Maybe next time I'm downtown. Okay. Cool. I got it from a record dealer. My father knows he's got a lot of old stuff that's really hard to find. So that where is a person and that's totally okay. This where is not about physical location. Be people. It could be a shelf, it could be some very abstract thing. It could be a vintage online store. It could be anything we're here talking about, not location so much as source are really talking about source. So think of these things pretty generally. Alright? So that's where, when is exactly the same thing except now we're talking about or asking about time. When was the first landing on the moon, or when was the first moon landing? Now, this is interesting because this is really like this. When was it? So if this thing happened in time, we often just say when was it, when was that event, right? So this is actually a simpler structure than this one. This one is just this piece. When was that? When was that? It's like saying When did that happen? Right. The whole thing, if we wanted to do it like that would be when did that happen? Which is okay. When did the moon landing happen? When did the first moon landing happen? But often for events and times, we just say, When was it? There was a great party. I can't believe you weren't there at the party. When was it? When was it? Now, can I really replace all of this? The first moon landing on the moon. The first moon landing with it? Yes. Yes. Because I could ask the question twice. When was the first landing on the moon? When was the first moon landing? When was it? This whole thing is considered to be a noun. That's an O, noun phrase. When the whole thing can become a kind of now and with all the words together and a good way to see if something is a noun phrases to ask yourself, could I just replaced this whole thing with that? Or it, or this, that or it or this this one can absolutely be replaced with it or that when was that? When was it? So it is So that one's actually a little simpler. When did you get your invitation in the mail? When did you get it? This one is probably asking about the day. Probably not too specific, probably not the time of the day. That's not really important. Maybe which day or even which week, right? Basic structure, question word, auxiliary verb, subject, and main verb. When did you get an actually this could all be replaced with, well, that's not a very nice line. It or that the whole thing. Okay. When did you get that? When did you get it? Alright. When does this allergy medicine expire? When does this is getting boring? I wanted to start feeling boring. I want you to start feeling okay. I get it. Because that means that it's easy for you. Unless it's easy, then you haven't really got it. Because when you need to make a perfect question, I need to make sure that you feel very comfortable. So I'm starting to feel alright, I got it. Keeps saying the same thing. If I feel it, hopefully you feel it too. When does this allergy medicine now, this is our IT. When does this allergy medicine expire? So don't be confused by several words together. If you say, wait a second, this doesn't follow the structure. Well, maybe it does. Maybe we just have several words together which can be replaced by an IT or that, which can be a noun phrase. When does that with this allergy medicine expire? And this tells you, this tells you maybe that it's a noun phrase. This tells you your, that maybe it's a noun phrase. The can tell you, maybe it's a noun phrase, but you have to test it. You have to see if it can be replaced by it. Or that I think it's pretty interesting. Alright, now that we've got these, Let's go on to talk about which and what. 21. What and Which Questions: Okay, we're getting very close to finishing up our open questions. Very close. Trust me, from here on out. It should be pretty easy where kind of coasting now, we're getting to the bottom of the hill or should I say we're getting to the top of the hill? I don't know. I don't know which way is better. I don't know which shakes simple is better. We're either at the bottom of the hill going down or were at the top of the hill. And we've almost made it one or the other. Regardless, by the end of this, you will feel really great about questions. Okay? So we've talked about where, we've talked about when, where's about place, when it's about time, what, and which are both about things, but usually in a different way. What is a thing? But a thing in the broadest, most general possible way, right? Because if someone says, What do you think than the thought, the opinion is the thing? If someone says, What is this? Then this could be a dream you had. It could be a shellfish, it could be a piece of tuna. It could be a million dollars. It could be some milk, whatever, any kind of thing. And think could certainly be a non-physical thing. Think could be also a time because we say, when are you going? That suggests a time, but often when we want to say times, we instead say, what time are you going when we want to be very specific. So then 738 is a what? 738 is a thing that we're talking about. That is the time, that's the object. So very, very generally, let's consider what's about things. Now, which, which is also for things and can be general, but as often a bit more specific and is often something about options. I'm going to write options here where there's a set of options or choices. Often that's how it's used. Or we have a series of choices in front of us, 12345. And I want you to choose 13 or just one of them. Maybe you have one choice. So often we're talking about options. Both can be things in the broad sense. We could be talking about dreams, we could be talking about physical objects. We could be talking about an amount of money. We could be talking about time. So think of them both very generally, but they do usually have slightly different uses. So let's explore the examples. What do you think? What do you think? This is perhaps the most common way to ask for someone's opinion. What do you think then about very, very common. What's your opinion? Is not as common as what do you think? Ok. Now we can ask opinions by saying, how should we, or in your view, things like that. But we still often say, What do you think even after we say, in your view, in your opinion, in your opinion, what do you think? Sometimes we say both of those. What do you think about the new rules? We still have the same basic structure. The question word, I'm not gonna do this for everyone because now it's by now I think it's pretty, pretty clear. We have our question word. We have our, our auxiliary verb as the last time, no more exhilarated verb. We have our subject. I'm doing this differently each time, just reading in S, The main verb. Then we say about the thing, about what thing write about. And we can call this a thing that we can call it a noun phrase. And we can say, what do you think about that? Or actually, you know what, I shouldn't say that, you know what I should say? What do you think about? I apologize. What do you think about them? What do you think about them? What do you think about the new rules? What do you think about them? Could it could be it would have to depend on the situation. And then I would just say, I think now notice I don't say I do think remember that. I if I if I use do or did, I won't say I do think unless remember, unless I'm correcting someone. So if someone assumes something and they say, you don't, you don't think that the new rules are good, do you don t think the new rules aren't good, do you? And you may be wondering what kind of question is that. Don't worry. We'll talk about that. That's not that's not an open question. That's called a tag question. Don't think the rules are good. Do you know? I do think the rules are good. Then then we would say that most of the time we just say directly, I think I think the rules are good or I don't think the rules are good, like that. What were you planning on doing later? Often when we ask someone what their plans are because we want to invite them to do something. We use war instead of r. R would be right now, we're would be in the past. For some reason. It just feels a little more polite, a little less direct, a little more natural, a little less formal to say, we're, it's a very common thing. What were you planning on doing later? Okay. So we have the basic structure there. And to answer the question, it would be I because it's in the past. Was planning. That's an I-N-G there. I'm planning on maybe going golfing or maybe planning on seeing a movie later, or staying home and drinking hot chocolate, that sort of thing. Okay. These are pretty easy. We're talking about things. What is the what here? The what is the plan? That's the plan. The thing I say, staying home, drinking hot chocolate. That is a thing. Okay. That's a plan. The plan is the thing. What's this? The thing is the opinion. What I think is the opinion. It's an object. It's a what? It's a thing. What will you bring to the wedding? Now we could sandwich in here the word gift. What gift will you bring to the wedding? And that would be okay, that would change our structure a little bit, but often we don't say gift, just leave it like this. What will you bring? Same basic structure. I am planning on bringing AI. We'll bring, again, we don't have to say that. We don't have to say it a certain way. When we're answering a question, we don't have to follow the question unless it's one of those how are you questions? How's it going questions? Then the answer usually follows the question, the style of the question. But for these, we could say, I will bring, more often, would probably be I'm bringing, I'm bringing a toaster, I'm bringing a gigantic Lego set. I will bring, would be okay, or we just say the thing, a huge Lego set, a very expensive toaster. We just say the thing in a toaster is definitely a thing, okay? Which one of these is best? Okay, now, this gets a little bit more complicated. Let's just remove this for 1 second. Okay, let's just take this out. Let me just read this, which is best. So there are three things. 123, which is best. That's really the structure of this one. And we're looking at these three and you say, oh, this one is best. So the answer would be, this is best. Does that look familiar? Remember when we talked about who? Remember that? When we talked about who, that type with who what we're doing is replacing the subject, and that's it. So if I remove this, which is best, this is best. The question and the answer really have the same structure. If these are labeled a, b, and c, then I might say a is best, which is best, a is best, which is best, a is best. So it's the same structure. So this Type in fact, is the same as our h2 question. Who directed this movie? Be directed this movie. Oh, okay. Which is best? A is best. All right. And then we just add a detail here. Which one of these I'm giving a little bit more detail. I'm circling these three and saying, these are the three options and I want you to choose one. If I wanted to make it to, then I would say, which two of these are best? Which two are best? That would be a strange thing to ask, but we could ask it like that. Okay. So don't be confused by that. It's very similar to that specific type of who question. Which road should we take back home? Which road should we take? So again, let's say we have three choices. Road a, road B, and road. These are roads and road C. Okay, so which thing are we talking about? We put the thing that we're talking about after the witch. But here we have the same old structure. If I say, which, that is our question word, should, that is our modal verb or our auxiliary verb, I send it again. And then we have the subject. We then take, take as our main verb. Alright, so our basic structure is pretty clear. Now I want to make it a little more specific. I want to say What thing I'm talking about. Maybe you can't assume the thing I'm talking about, if I say, which should we take back home? Which what which car, which road, which helicopter? Which, which thing are you talking about? So when we offer choices, often we want to clarify. We want to clarify the type of choice. We put that directly after the which we stick it in directly after the which which one of these very clear which road? Which helicopter? Which of these helicopters? And that would be okay. We have three helicopters. A brown one, a pink one, and a yellow one. Which of these helicopters should we take back home? Same thing. It's the same thing. So don't get confused. Just because it looks a little bit longer and it looks different. We're following the same basic structure. Which movie is longer? Oh, this looks familiar, doesn't it? So we have this specific thing that's right after the witch, but we can remove that in our mind for a second. So now we have which is best, which is longer. Oh, okay, so that's just the same thing, which is just replacing the subject, except it's not a person subject. It is a thing subject, but it's not unlimited, right? If we want to ask about any movie, then I won't say this. I'll say this. What is your favorite movie? Out of all the movies in the world, which is your favorite movie, I've maybe given you five choices of these. Maybe I don't say of these, I don't have to. But maybe which movie is your favorite or just which is your favorite? That movie thing, this helicopter thing, the road. One of these, this is actually optional. This is something that you should see as a clarification, something that makes it more clear, which doesn't have to be there. If it's implied. If I know that, you know what I mean, It's totally fine to remove it. It's totally fine to not say it. So see this as an optional thing. Most of the time. I'm going to put this here just to make sure that, you know, I'm not talking about music. I'm not talking about a close. I'm not talking about music videos. I'm talking about movies. Which movie? And I've given you three options. Movie a, movie B, and movie C. I don't know why I'm using a, B, and C, I guess just because it's simple. Okay. So then when I answered the question, if I want to answer it this way, I would say, we don't we don't include that. Movie. B is longer. Movie B is, if it's the question, my favorite, right? Which movie is your favorite? Movie? A is my favorite. The name of the movie, That's the subject. Or movie B is longer. You don t know which one's longer. You want to know which one. All you're trying to do is figure out this missing subject. It's missing a missing space. And all you need to do is fill in the name of that. Put it in that place. Don't change the structure around. Don't move this sentence around. No flipping there, all you do is put it in there and leave it. Movie B is longer. Movie a is my favorite. And you don't need to say, you don't have to say movie. I'm just putting that in place of the title. The fountain. The fountain is my favorite. The fountain is my favorite. Or most of the time, if someone asks a question like this, if someone asks you to say which thing you like, which thing you want, you don't have to do this. You just say it, be a, B, just say that thing. And often you don't need to say anything else, but you can. Alright, so we've talked about now almost all of the question words. We've talked about almost all of the different types of open questions. Only one remains. The last remaining type of open question that we're going to talk about before we get into a different type of question, is whose 22. Whose Questions: Finally, the last of our open questions, I feel like this has been a little course all by itself. These, these open questions. This one is who's, who's, now you might see who in here and think, Is that about a person and be correct? That is correct. This is a possessive pronoun. This is a possessive pronoun. This is about a person, about a person, but it's about a person's thing or a persons belonging something which belongs to that person. For example, that group, that team, that company, who doesn't always have to be an individual. It can be a small group of people. It can be a married couple, it can be a family, it can be a team, a basketball team, a team in a workplace. It could be a small company. It could be a country, I guess. Yes, I suppose it could be. So we're talking about people and their possessions. Okay. Whose whose phone is this? Now, if that sounds similar to this, it's because it's pronounced the same way. We'll talk about that in just a second. So we say, we say the possessive pronoun, and then we have our verb. This is our auxiliary verb, and this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the phone, so it refers back to that. So if you want to know you have a thing and you don't know which person it belongs to, you say, Whose phone is this? Is this the same when we answer it as that type of who question we talked about earlier where we just replace the subject with the name. No. No. If we want to answer this one, then we still do the flip. Flip is still here. So this is closer to our standard structure. This is Brenda's phone. Or if you're holding it and I'm over here, then I would change it to that. Is that is that is Brenda's phone. I think that's Brenda's phone. We could add that or we could just say Brenda's or I don't know, or maybe Brenda's or could be Brenda's phone. Why don't you ask her so many different ways to answer. Whose car should we take? Now, notice something here. This thing, This thing is following the similar structure that we talked about with which, remember, which movie is longer? We could just say, which is longer. For this, we should say, who's, should we take? If we know what we're talking about, right? If we really know exactly what we're talking about, everybody knows we're talking about the car. Nobody is confused. It is okay to take this and remove it. This can be removed. We're just being clear, we're clarifying which thing we're talking about. In case somebody doesn't know. Same for this one. I could take phone and remove it and just say, Whose is this? This is Brenda's that makes it simpler, right? That makes it easier to make these. This would then be the most basic structure. Whose is this? And I'm pointing to this. Whose is this? This is Brenda's. Whose should we take this evening? But usually I'll say car because I just wanted to make sure everyone understands. Whose car should we take this evening? And then what should we say to answer this? We should write flipped, right? You know how to do this. This is easy. Now, we should take your very important to say who we should take your car this evening. We should take your car this evening. We should take my car this evening. We're going to answer with a possessive, whose car? Yours, if it's by itself, or if we say the whole thing, your car, or whose car should we take this evening? Mine if it's by itself or my car? My car. If we say car, Who's phone is this? Brenda's. Brenda's. Make sure that apostrophe is there. Brenda's, Brenda's Brenda's phone. That one is the same if it's Brenda's or Brenda's phone. So that should be pretty simple, right? Hopefully not too hard. The flipping should make it easier. You should be pretty familiar with that by now. Alright. Now, what about this? And this? We've already talked about who? Why are we talking about it again? Who's got the tickets for tonight? Who's sitting in my seat. Don't get confused with these. Let's expand this and see what's going on. Who has got the tickets for tonight? Who has got the tickets for tonight? This is the type of question we talked about. The who question that we talked about. Alex has got the questions for tonight. So why are we talking about it then? Because we don't often write who has. What we often write. And then say, is this, who? Then this which is called an apostrophe. And then an S, WHO has shortened to and pronounced. Who's. This pronunciation and this pronunciation are exactly the same. That's why it can get confusing. That's why. But the grammar is different right? Here, we're flipping it. We're doing the classic question structure. We're flipping it around when we answer the question. But for this one, we're not, we're not, we're just replacing the WHO with the subject. And it happens to have, it happens to have the same pronunciation. But they are not related. Just because they have the same pronunciation. Doesn't mean they're the same, right? They happened to have the same pronunciation. Who's sitting in my seat? Same thing, except this is not who has, this is still another one which has the same pronunciation. I know this may seem ridiculous. Who is sitting? And this is again the apostrophe S instead, who is both, who has and who is our shortened to? Who's both of them? Same pronunciation. Who is sitting in my seat. This is by the way called a contraction. When you link two words together or three words sometimes with an apostrophe. It's called a contraction, shortened to kind of like one word that's an end there. A contraction. So who's sitting in my seat? And this is Luke. We just replace h2 with Luke and it's Lucas sitting in my seat. Who is sitting in my seat. Luke is sitting in your seat, or Lucas sitting in my seat. Okay. So totally different grammar, just like we talked about with who and with a couple of the, which examples, that same sort of thing where we're just replacing this with the subject. And just be careful when you hear those that you're not mixing up this type with this type. Also, since we're talking about pronunciation, I should just mention one thing. Notice for these open questions that I'm not using the question. Tone, that rising intonation. I'm not saying Who's phone is this? Know, whose car should we take this evening? Know who's got the tickets tonight? Now? Maybe for that, maybe I add it, but usually not. Usually for open questions, we have a regular intonation. It is flat, not only for these, but all the other ones we've talked about as well. Where, when, what, which sometimes you will hear the question tone added. Which one? Which one? Sometimes people will say that, but often it's just which one? Which one? And it's flat, just like an ordinary sentence, just like normal speech. So you have to pay attention to intonation. But generally speaking, generally are open. Are open questions. Don't have it. Alright? So that's it for open questions. We're not done with questions in general. I just want to thank you for going on this open question journey with me. I think it's been fun. I hope you feel the same way. I hope you've been practicing along with me. I hope you've been making your own examples. I hope you've been writing them all down and practicing them on your own, practicing your own examples so that you really have got these down so that they are habits so that you can make any kind of question anytime you want. But as I said, we're not done. We're going to continue talking about questions. So I will see you in the next lesson. 23. Statements with Question Words: We've spent quite a lot of time talking about questions. We've talked about closed questions. Yes, no questions. And open questions. Questions with question words at the beginning. Now, there are still a couple of things to talk about. Just so we can be sure that we've really covered questions. I want to be sure that you have the skills and the tools that you need to make any kind of sentence that you want. That's what this course is all about, to give you all the patterns. So we're going to talk about how we use question words to make regular sentences. Not questions. They look like questions at first because they have a question word at the beginning. But in fact, if we look at them more carefully, we find, oh, that's not actually a question. That's a statement. That's just a statement, a regular old declarative sentence. So we've talked about the imperative sentence, which we used to give commands. We've talked about the interrogative sentence questions, and we've talked about and will continue to talk about declarative sentences. This is what we know as the normal sentence structure. That's just what it's called. But we don't need to focus too much on the names. It's about the patterns. Now, let's look at these examples and try to understand what is going on exactly to see if we can see why in the world, who and what and where would be at the beginning of a regular sentence of a declarative sentence, who you dated before you met me is your own business. Okay. Let's just pause for a moment. Is this in our question form? If this were a question, a real question, this would be something like, Who did you date before me? That would be our Did you write and then we would say I dated someone before you. Okay. So that one is no, not quite right. Okay. Well, let's look at this next one here. What she was thinking, if this is a question, shouldn't this be what was she thinking? And then the answer to the question, the statement, the declarative would be she was thinking what was she thinking would be the actual question, right? She was thinking, so this and this, these are in the structure of an ordinary declarative sentence of a normal sentence of a statement. Huh? Interesting. Okay. So we've noticed that that's a thing that we can notice that this is not actually question structure, although we still have a question word at the beginning. Alright, Well, what else can we notice here? This is pretty interesting. We haven't is here. This is something I like to do when I'm just for fun analyzing a sentence and trying to understand the grammar. I'd like to see if I can simplify things. One way to simplify things is to look for things like noun phrases. We talked about this. This is where, for example, you have a word that indicates a noun, right? Like your end that we tried to figure out if, in fact it's just a whole chunk of words or a phrase, a noun phrase that may take the place, that may take the place of a simpler subject, or rather could be replaced by a simpler subject. So this is something to look out for. Let's just try that for a second. I'm going to draw a line through this just for fun. Cross it out. And I'm going to replace it with the word that THE a T. And I'm going to try to read this sentence and we'll see if it makes sense. That is your own business. Oh, wow. Alright. So what's happening here is that we're using a question word to suggest a person. But we're not actually asking about that person, right? We don't want to name that person because we don't know that person. So we need, we need a word that suggests or is about an unknown person. What word do we use for unknown persons? Who? Okay, so this is about that but not trying to actually figure out who it is. Who did you date before me? That would be asking tell me I want to know who you dated before me a statement. This whole thing, this activity connected with this person, this whole thing is considered one subject who you dated before me is your own business. That means you don't need to tell me about it. Maybe it was a criminal. I don't care. Doesn't matter to me, right? None of my business. Alright, so what we've done here is we've used a question word to start a statement about this unknown. And then really it's just acting as a noun phrase or a subject of the sentence. And then the rest of it is very simply just the basic sentence structure. Okay, Interesting what she was thinking when she moved to Iceland. Also pretty long. Can we cross this out? Okay. Just imagine this is all crossed out. All crossed out. Okay. Let's replace it with it or that or whatever. It will always be a mystery to me. Yes. Yes. Okay. So for this type, we're making these statements that aren't actually complete sentences by themselves. What she was thinking when she moved to Iceland. That is not a complete sentence. Okay. But it's a piece, it's a phrase. It's a phrase. What kind of phrase is it? Well, it's a noun phrase, it's a subject phrase. It's a whole phrase that is the subject of the sentence, starting with the unknown thing. We don t know more about, that, we may not want to know more about. And then the verb here we have is classic auxiliary verb. Here we have, we'll classic modal verb, which remember, is a type of auxiliary verb. And then always be a mystery to me. It will always be a mystery to me. Oh, I know how to make that sentence. That's pretty easy, right? So don't get lost when you see something that looks difficult or confusing. Simplify it. Simplify it to understand the parts. You probably already know the parts. Could we make this even simpler? Yeah, probably. It it is a mystery. So that's pretty straightforward. That's not as complicated as it looks at first, right? Okay, so let's see what else we've got here. Where now we have a where question. This is going to be about an unknown place. An unknown place because we know where means place. This is easy stuff by now, right? Where the King defeated the invaders may never actually be discovered. Okay? Can we replace where the King defeated the invaders from right there and say if we were going to repeat it, if someone said what can we say, it may never actually be discovered? Yes, that's right. That's right. So that's kind of a useful trick I use to discover noun phrases. If I had to repeat it again, but not say the whole noun phrase, and instead say just it or that, then what would I say? And would if I said that, would it make sense? So I imagine someone says, Hi, What was that second thing? I didn't hear you. And I say it it may never actually be discovered. Oh, okay. Now I heard you. Thank you. Does it make sense? Yes, it makes sense. Okay. So we understand it. When you do your homework, shouldn't be any of my business. It shouldn't remember when can be a thing. I know it sounds weird that when is a thing. Right. But it's that time, the time that you start that occasion, that event. Right. So it shouldn't be any of my business. All of this is replaced by it or can be replaced by it. And that's how we understand the grammar. So when you're making it, all you're doing is making a statement, a declarative sentence, starting with the unknown thing. And in this case, just forgetting the question part because you don't want to know the answer. I'm trying to say, Don't tell me if I want to know, I'll flip the verb and the subject. I'll ask a question I don't want to know. It will always be a mystery. It will never actually be discovered. So there's no way to know about what. But the time know about the place. Here's about the time. The when the event seven thirty eight thirty. Shouldn't be any of my business. It's your own business. You might be thinking, alright, I've got it. We're done with this. No, no, no, we're not done. We're not done. These last two are a bit different, okay? That's why we have a few more examples to talk about. And it's not that easy. Well, let's just say it's a little more complicated. If you look at these carefully, these next two, you'll notice some differences. Number one, there's a comma here, okay, so that's different. There's a comma. We still have what looks like maybe a noun phrase. But is it replacing a subject like the ones before? Well, there's a subject here. I'll never know. That's a sentence by itself. Remember, we talked about the independent clause. And independent clause can stand by itself as a sentence. You can add things to it. You can have more than one independent clause in a sentence. You can stick a bunch of them together, but each independent clause is or can be a sentence by itself. What about this one? We couldn't have guessed? Yes, Also this one. So this can be a sentence by itself after the comma there. That can be a sentence and we is the subject and I'll, or I rather is the subject. Very interesting. Now, what about these up here? Shouldn't be any of my business. That is not a sentence by itself. It needs the, IT, the subject in order to be complete. So all of this together makes a complete thought, makes an independent clause, makes a full sentence. And without this, if we just remove it, we wouldn't have a full sentence. Shouldn't be any of my business may never actually be discovered. People will be left thinking, what are you talking about? I at least need to know that you don't know something. I need to have a subject, at least even if that subject is an unknown. An unknown subject is at least a subject. So grammatically It's a sentence. Well, so we need that to complete it. But this has a subject. We couldn't have guessed. This has a subject. I'll I'll I'll never know. Oh, there's a difference there. So that means if we removed this beginning piece, this whole thing, if we removed it, it would be okay, at least grammatically, which makes this a dependent clause. This is a dependent, dependent clause. When we're building sentences, we can put something like a prepositional phrase. For example, at the base of the mountain. That would be a prepositional phrase, is a phrase which begins with a preposition at the beginning of a sentence in the same way that we would use a dependent clause. You can use another type of phrase at the beginning. It attaches to the independent clause in front of a comma. That is one way that we can build sentences. So that's kind of what we're doing here. Now. We can still, like we did with the others, take that whole piece and replace it with it or that. So if I say that comma, I'll never know. It's okay. It is correct that comma we couldn't have guessed. And so the basic difference is, the real difference is that it's not replacing the subject. This is the subject. Now, I think it would be more natural to say something like this if we were going to replace it. Say why you did that. Comma I'll never know why you did that. The reason. I'll never know. And you could replace that with just that that thing. I'll never know. It's a little awkward if we just say that, but but it works. Okay. Now, for this one, which car she would end up buying? We couldn't have guessed. Again. We could say that. We couldn't have guessed and it's okay. Or we could say, I'll write this up here. Which one she would get. We couldn't have guessed. You could say which one she got. We couldn't have guessed, but would get makes it still hypothetical. So I think that would be better if we wanted to simplify it. Again. We just do that so that we can understand it a little bit better so that we can see how it's working in the sentence. So now, I hope you're feeling more comfortable to make sentences that start with question words. Make sure you're working on your own examples. Not only writing down mine, making notes with mine, but also practicing your own so that you can get into the habit of using them when you need to, both in writing and in speech. Because in fact, these are probably equally common in written English and spoken English. These two. So practice those. We have one more thing to talk about with questions. Tag questions. 24. Tag Questions: The last type of questions we're going to talk about, I promise, I promise it's the last is tag questions. Now there are couple of interesting points with tag questions. They're very easy to make, so we'll quickly talk about how to make them. But there's another interesting point that I'll bring up about pronunciation. There's two different ways to pronounce them. I know that's not the focus of our course pronunciation, but I feel that I should mention it. So what is a tag question? Very simply, a tag question is a statement followed by a comma, followed by a specific type of question with a question mark. And the verb in the question part is always the opposite of the verb earlier in the statement. You'll see what I mean in a second. It might sound a little complicated. It's not really, it's pretty simple. Now, what type of verbs can we use? Can we use any type of verb to make a tag question? No, no. The verb and its opposite in the question part. These are auxiliary verbs. I know, I know I'm saying it again. Auxiliary verbs like be, like, have, like, do, like, will, like, can, like, could, and couldn't. For example, we know what those are by now, right? If you don't, you can always very easily look up complete lists of auxiliary verbs and the smaller type modal verbs, which we've talked about several times. Now, that doesn't mean we can't use any other verbs in the statement part, because remember, an auxiliary verb is a helping verb. It is there to help, and it is typically not the main verb of the sentence. So we will have another verb probably, but the auxiliary verb will be there to help to form the statement and to make its opposite in what we can call the tag. And I'm going to, I'm going to name this. I'm going to name this the statement. Statement. Okay, So this is a contraction. So actually this is, you are and then the activity going to be there, okay, you're going to be there. Okay. That's pretty simple. That's a statement. Now, this is the one that's going to help out. And so it's opposite will be over here in the tag part, using the same subject word. You, you, you, you, we, it, it, it, it, So that's pretty simple. In the tag part, all we have is the opposite of the auxiliary verb used in the statement, and then the same word after it. So if this is negative, then this will be positive. And if this is positive, then this will be negative. So you are, you are what? You could put anything there. You are, blue, aren't you? And that would be okay. That would be a simple way to do it. But here we've said an action, so that makes it a little bit more complicated, but it's the same thing. It's just a statement. You are going to be there. That's the statement. You are blue, you are going to be there. It's a statement of fact, but I'm not sure about it. So I want to have a little question at the end because I'm not sure. Aren't you aren't you? You're going to be there, aren't you? I'm pretty sure. We'll talk about a slight variation in how we actually say these and what those variations mean. But that's really it. But it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be a form of B. How about will? You will not want, his will not, you will not want is a contraction of wheel naught. So I'm just going to expand this out. You will not be there, Will you? So here I'm stating the negative with not, you will not, you will not be there. This is not the verb that we're going to use. In the opposite, we're going to only use the auxiliary verb that is related to the subject. You will not, you will not be there. Will you? And we say will you, will you? Because this one is negative. If it's this one, you will be there, won't, you, won't you. So this would be then won't if we have will you will be there. That's a statement. Then the opposite, won't you? Okay. We have some statement. We have some we have some don't we we have some don't we wait a second. Wait a second. I'm a little confused. We have some that's clear enough. That's a statement. Okay. I understand that. But why is this don't, shouldn't this be we have some haven't we? And actually, technically, that is correct. But this is something that has come out of common usage. Actually, what we're saying here is we do have some. And you could say that except because we have the tag at the end. We don't usually put the do there. It's there in our imagination. And if someone answers the question, they will say what we do. Yes, we do. We do. So instead of saying we have we have when we went to confirm it, we say we do. So because of this kind of unique situation, when someone wants to confirm something that another person asked. Remember we talked about that. When you want to confirm that I do swim with goggles on instead of just saying I swim with goggles on? I do. I do. Right. That would be the answer to this question. We have some, don't we? We do. We do. So because that's the answer. We can then imagine that there's this do here, except for this question. It's just not common to say it. So we leave it out and we say it instead. Like this. This is an exception. Exceptions are usually not comment, they're not supposed to be common. That's why they're called exceptions. But we have to allow for them because common usage changes things, it makes some things sound unnatural. If someone says, we have some, haven't we? That sounds a little bit 19th century to me. It doesn't sound very natural. So in modern English, we just say it like that. And you can imagine that little do there in your mind to help you with it. But if it's the opposite and you want to confirm the negative, then it makes sense again. We don't have any that's a statement. Okay. That makes sense. Do not we can separate that out. Do not. We don't have any Dewey. Oh, okay. All is right with the world. The world makes sense again, it's not an exception hooray. So this is the opposite of this one. Okay. This is just the, sort of the special, the special case. We don't have any Dewey. And then the answer would be probably know, we don't we don't have any. So you're just asking to confirm it. Why are we saying these things? Usually we're saying tag questions to confirm things. Instead of just saying Do we have any why wouldn't I just say that? If I say Do we have any I have no idea. I don't know, but I use a tag question because I want to confirm I want to confirm something that I think is true, or I want to assert something to say that this should be true. And then just make sure with you that it is, even though maybe I also know that it isn't. Sometimes that's just a tool that we use to convince others to agree with us, right? But often it's because we're pretty sure that it's this way. I'm pretty sure that we don't have any I'm pretty sure we have some. I'm pretty sure you won't be there. I'm pretty sure you're going to be there. Right? Pretty sure. But I wanna make sure. How do I do that? I add the tag. Will you do we? That is the question. Tag. Let's continue. It's too late, isn't it? This is one of the most common tag questions, isn't it? Isn't it extremely common? Let's just separate this out so that we understand it. It is right, it is too late. That is our statement. And then we just make it negative to confirm that the other person agrees with us to confirm that that's true. Sometimes it's not true or false, it's just someone's opinion. I think it's too late. That's what I feel. It's time to go home. It's too late, isn't it? I guess you're right. Yes, I guess so. There isn't a certain way that you have to answer these. It isn't too late, is it? So when would I say this one? It isn't it isn't too late. I would say this one when I'm having a good time. And I'm a little worried, a little bit worried that others might feel tired and maybe you want to go home. But I'm pretty sure that everyone is okay and wants to stay longer because we're having fun. So I just want to confirm this. It isn't too late, is it? Or maybe I know it. I know that it may be, but I want to convince people to just agree with me. This is my way of letting them know that I want to stay longer. So that could be one possible meaning of this. It isn't it isn't too late. Is it? Is it tag question? Is it the opposite of Isn't or is not? I was on fire, was in Thai. Now, if someone is on fire, do they really need to ask a question to confirm it? Well, that's not what fire means here. Being on fire means to have several successes in a row, to do things perfectly. One time after another, after another. Maybe it's related to sports, maybe it's related to a game. You play seven games in a row, and you win seven games in a row, and then you lose one. I won seven games in a row. While you're winning. On the seventh game, you're still winning. You say, I'm on fire. It's almost like you have more power than normal. Maybe so much power that you've caught on fire, like in a video game. In a video game, if your character is doing really, really well, then there's usually some sort of fire or effect that shows that you've done this many things in a row very, very well, right? That's how it works. Sort of like a boost or, or a bonus. So often this is consecutive wins. And this could be more generally feeling, feeling very confident. If someone feels really good, they feel like they're going to do everything perfectly today. Doesn't have to be for sports or video games, could be for your work. Write a meeting, getting a client something at school and exam, all of the exams you have to take today, this sort of thing. You feel great about it. I think I'm on fire today. Usually it's used while it's going on after you've done a few things successfully and you feel really good about it, really confident about it. But you could say it before and if it's not going on anymore. So you play the game and you lose. When you talk about the seven in a row, the seven consecutive games, I was on fire, wasn't die. That's what on fire means. And then the people around you will say, yes, You're doing great. That was amazing. Seven games in a row. Fantastic. I'm very impressed. You have very supportive friends. Your friends are very supportive. So that one's pretty simple. All of these have followed the general pattern except for that one. The interesting exception, I wasn't very well-prepared was I I wasn't very well-prepared. Was I? After an interview, I realized I should have tried harder. I should have put more work into into what I was doing, into the questions they might have asked me where I gave a proposal. And I only worked in our on my slides and they looked a little messy or whatever, any kind of thing that you might do, a class that you may teach, an exam that you may take if you feel that you didn't do a good job and that's maybe due to not preparing well, you might say this, someone else who may have noticed it, someone who was around, someone who was there. I wasn't very well-prepared, was I? Yeah. Maybe maybe next time you should prepare a little bit more. That might be the answer. Yeah. That didn't go very well. I think if next time you spend a few more hours preparing or working on your slides or whatever it may be, preparing for the questions. I think I think you'll do better. So just trying to be supportive, but this wasn't your best performance. I think by now it's pretty clear how to make these, right? But let's talk for a second about intonation. I wasn't very well-prepared was I wasn't very well-prepared was I I was on fire, wasn't I? I was on fire. Wasn't AI it isn't too late, is it? It isn't too late, is it? So what's different between these? If I say it isn't too late, is it? That is, it goes up at the end very clearly. And that means I really want a reply. I don't know exactly what you're going to say for sure. You might say yes. You might say No. I'm not exactly sure what you're going to say. We don't have any Dewey. I really want an answer from you. I really want to know. I think we don't have any that's my opinion. I'm pretty sure about it. But I'm asking you because I want you to confirm. I don't know exactly what you're going to say. We don't have any Dewey. And then I want you to say, we know we have some, it's it's in the cupboard or That's right. We don't have any we need to go buy some later. Okay. I really need your answer. I don't know exactly what you're going to say to me. When you want to express that, when you went to communicate that the tone is a little further up. Then if you want to make sure you have that rising intonation in your voice, you won't be there, will you? Will you, it goes up. You're going to be there, aren't you? You're going to be there, aren't you? Sometimes we use tag questions, not because we really want to know what the other person is going to say, but to just express how we feel, to express something that we're sure is true and we feel a little disappointed about it. To express a feeling of excitement, almost as a rhetorical question. Now, a rhetorical question is one that doesn't always need a reply. Sometimes we ask a question, not because we want people to answer it. We need an answer, but because we want someone to consider it, or because we want to make a statement in a certain way, right? To have a certain effect on others. And if they don't answer, that's totally fine. Because I feel a little disappointed in myself here. I'm going to say because I'm pretty sure that it didn't go very well. I wasn't very well-prepared, was i? Now the other person might say Yeah, maybe not. But I didn't say that because I wanted them to answer me. Probably. I said it because that's how I feel. I wasn't very well-prepared. Was I noticed that when we say it like that the intonation goes down. I don't say was I I wasn't very well-prepared was I I have no idea what you're going to say. I have no idea what do you think? I think this but I don't know. No, I know how I did. I know I wasn't well-prepared. I feel disappointed in myself. I wasn't very well-prepared was I was I then I may get an answer or I might just get an expression like that. But I'm really just getting my idea out my feeling out there. So there is that difference between them. I was on fire, wasn't I? I was on fire wasn't I notice this goes down. I was on fire statement, wasn't I? Both of those go down. Now, other people around me may still say yes you were. But I didn't say it because I really need to hear what you're going to say. I really need to hear your answer. That's not why I said it. It's not like I need the confirmation. I was on fire, wasn't I? That's how I would say it if I wanted confirmation, but that would be a little strange. I feel confident. I know I was on fire. This is how I felt. And so I'm just going to ask it as a rhetorical question. Maybe because I'd like some interaction around that. I'd like to see what you say, but this is how I feel. I feel strongly about it. And so I don't use the rising intonation. Instead it goes down. I was on fire, wasn't I? I was on fire was an I. So you have to pay attention to the situation when you're making these, when you actually say them, think about what your intention is. And your intention will determine which intonation, rising or falling that you decide to use. So make sure to practice building your own tag questions. Make sure you get really good at this. This is meant to be very hands-on. Make sure you're following along with me, writing down my examples. Then writing down your own examples to practice using these questions and the other types of questions we've talked about. We've now talked about many different types of questions. And I hope you now feel very confident to make questions no matter which type they may be. If you have any questions about any of the question types we talked about, please let me know, keep practicing your examples and I will see you in the next lesson. 25. Overview of Descriptions: Now that we've explored questions in-depth, it's time to move on. We're going to talk about sentence patterns that we use to describe things. Now I know that you know what describe means, but let me just say very clearly what it means so that we're on the same page to describe something, is to give details. So that what you're thinking, what you're looking at, what do you feel, what you smell, so that another person listening to what you say, reading what you write has a similar picture or a similar idea to what you have. So a description is really just a way to transfer that information. But we can give good descriptions, clear descriptions, accurate descriptions, or inaccurate descriptions, confusing descriptions. It really matters. So what we're going to do in this section of the course is focused on some of the most useful patterns that we use when we're describing things. We're going to start off with just the basics, some of the most common beginnings. But then we'll get into a little bit more detail to see, for example, how we can add extra details, how we can include more in our description, and how we can give a slightly different feeling to the description. Remember, connotation. This is not just what our words mean in the dictionary. This is the feeling that we create. So for example, if I just tell you what I'm looking at or tell you what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling. That's one thing that might express exactly what I mean. But if I say that same thing with a verb at the beginning, it's going to feel a little different. Now, if that's not clear, don't worry. We're going to go over it and of course, we're going to look at, talk about plenty of examples. I hope as you go along, you're writing down the examples and practicing your own. That is essential. I know I've said it a thousand times and I'm going to say it a thousand more times. This is a hands-on course. So you have to treat it that way. Very important. Okay, so let's explore, let's explore the first of these. We're going to talk about one that you're probably familiar with, one that you probably already know, but we have to we have to cover it, right? We're going to start with there is. Now, what is the use of there is, when should we use it? When should we not use it? Often, there is, is useful for something that's visual. So something that we're looking at, something that we are imagining, something in our minds. We can start with there is, all you're doing is stating that it exists. When you say there is, you're stating that it exists. It exists. And so sometimes you need to start that way in order to say the thing that we're talking about, which then we add a lot of details to, right? So if I look to my right, I actually see a very interesting painting. And there is a large son with many arms coming out of it. The sun is actually in black and white. And there is a face in the center of the Sun. It's an old man's face. So you can see in both of those cases where I used there is there is a black and white sun. There is a face in the middle. I'm stating what's what's there. That's what there is for your you're saying that this exists here is this thing that I want to talk about. It's like you're just holding it up, this thing. Then, then you get to add all the details that you want. And there are lots of different ways for doing that. So this is pretty straight forward. But I should note that there is, is more often used when you're describing something that others cannot see or others cannot notice or don't notice. Often, this is to point out or to bring up things that are not obvious to others, or things that are out of view, or things that are in the mind. Sometimes in the mind actually, there are more common ways to talk about things, things in your mind, in your imagination. And we'll talk about those too. So it's really a way to say, Hey, I know you can't see this, but I'm talking about this. Then build on it. So let's look at some examples of there is. 26. There is...: Now, maybe I went on a vacation and I visited a very cute little town, a little village on my vacation in the mountains. And I wanted to tell you about some of the things that are in that little town that I saw on my vacation. You can't see it. You weren't there. And I'm in the office maybe the next week and I'm describing it. What was the little town like? I saw a picture of it. Tell me more about it. Oh, okay. No problem. Now, why do I say there is instead of there was well, it's still there. So often the difference is past or present. Often the things we describe are still there. Sometimes we can use there was to say it was my past experience and it's not wrong if I said there was. But probably in this case, especially, I'll use the present tense because I'm really just describing this place. And if you go there, you'll see the same thing. There is a little bakery next to the bank that has amazing bagels. Bagels, a type of circular bread. Some people like them. They're okay. So there is and then state the thing. What's the thing? A little bakery. Now notice I have an adjective here. If you've taken one of my other courses, you may remember, This is the place where we can often add more adjectives. So if you wanted to do two adjectives there, three, go crazy for, that's okay. There was a little bakery next to the bank that has amazing Bagels. Now we'll talk about it has later on, this is a great way to add details to a description. We will get into that in a bit. So I'm just stating the thing and I'm giving a little context next to the bank, a little context next to the bank so that I can place it somewhere. Usually when we make a there is sentence, it has a bit more detail and we don't just say one thing. There is a blue car, for example. We usually don't just say that we much more often use, there is as an opportunity to say the first thing in the description to give the big picture. So there's a little bakery, it's next to the bank and it has amazing bagels. This is the first thing that you see in your mind now and I have a good foundation. Build more of my description. I can tell a story. So it's often a great starting point, great place to start. There is a young woman with short hair and red glasses working behind the counter. Now, maybe I'm saying this because I want to tell you which person you should talk to when you go to that place, right? If you go to that town. Right. Except she might you might not have red glasses when you go there. But maybe I still want to say it. If you were to go there today, you would probably probably meet her. Maybe I met her every time I went to the bagel shop. But it's possible that I want to use this to point out someone, to point out something means to identify it because you can't see it now. So who do I talk to? Then I point with my finger. There is there is a young woman with short hair and red glasses working behind the counter. Then I might say, can you see her? Do you see her? And you look and you say, oh, yeah, yeah. I can see her. Go talk to her. She knows. Okay. I will. So in this one, we've used it to start a description that might turn into a story about my vacation in this little village in the mountains. And for this one, I've used it as a way to maybe continue my story or to identify something that you don't see yet, and then maybe add a question. Do you see it? Do you see her? Can you see that? Pay attention to this. Maybe you're looking at some sales numbers, a graph that goes up and down. And we're both looking at the same graph. But I want to point to this little bump here. There's a little increase in sales here that happened on June 28th. Do you see that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I see that. This is what I want to talk about. So it's a way to point it out there as well. There is a very modern yet classic vibe about this place. Vibe is a great word for descriptions. Vibe can help you give an atmosphere, a feeling that you have cool vibe, a warm vibe, an unfriendly vibe, a scary vibe. This is just the feeling that you get as though the place we're giving you some kind of vibrations. Who? But in this case it's just the feeling we have an often, we replaced this with the word atmosphere. Atmosphere. Now, is this doing the same thing? Well, it could be an addition to my story. There is a very classic yet modern vibe about the bagel shop, okay? But if it's this place, then maybe we're here now. And instead of just pointing out. A thing that you haven't noticed yet. Maybe what I want to do is point out something going on in my head, which is an opinion that I would like to share with you to perhaps start a conversation. So here I'm describing something around us. I'm describing something we both see, something were both experiencing. But what I'm pointing out is my insight experience of that. That's a description to descriptions are not only about what you taste, not only about one. You see the physical characteristics, the characteristics, or the quality of the sound. They're also about your subjective, subjective views or opinions. How you feel about that, even though the thing is outside, the place could be outside, could be inside. This is more, this is more objective. If something is objective, what it means is if you go there, you'll see the same thing. The bakery is there, right? It's not like it's my opinion that the bakery is next to the bank. The bakery is next to the bank. That's true. Unless unless the bakery is on wheels and it moves around and I didn't notice the wheels, then maybe maybe not. So then for this one and things like this, I'm trying to describe what's going on in here and then maybe you can make a comment about that. There is a very modern yet classic five about this place where we both are right now. Yeah, I agree. There's something very classic about this place. Totally agree. Or really You think so? I think it looks cheap and not very modern. I don't know what you're thinking about. Well, that doesn't matter so much. And this is a common thing too. When you use this, there is then about this thing. You don't have to say that, but it is really, really common to have this about part. So there is something very unusual about this hot chocolate. I think for usual, I can't put my finger on it. I don't know what it is. Put my finger cannot put my finger on it. That means I can't identify exactly what it is. It nutty or something, the white truffle in here. There's something very odd or very unique about this hot cocoa that were both drinking. Okay, So I think you get the idea there, there is so much to choose from on the menu. Now, what does that mean? Is that my subjective opinion? Because there are many options. Yes, but it's still subjective because to you, many may not be to me. Many, my definition of many may be different from your definition of many. So if I say there's so much to choose from, maybe I'm used to menus with three options. And you're used to menus with 100 options. So to you, it's not many, okay? It doesn't have to be different, but it can be. So then you might say really You think so. I don't think there are that many options based on my opinion about the menu. Now if I change this to too much, There's too much. By the way, this is often contracted and made into There's instead of there is just so you know, there's I should have mentioned that earlier. T-h-e-r-e apostrophe S, there's too much to choose from the menu. What is this about? Definitely not a good thing. Too much means that it's more than what's good, more than enough. Maybe you agree, maybe not. Again, that's my opinion, subjective about this thing we're both looking at. So this is a very common way to, to use various. There is a cozy place to sit and work by the window toward the back of the shop. Now as this one more like subjective or is this one more like this sort of objective type? There's a woman there, there's a cozy place. Well, maybe this is a mix of the two, a bit subjective or objective. The subjective part is that it's cozy. Well, what you think is cozy may not be what I think is cozy, right? Okay. Most people probably agree on what cosy is, but whatever. Now, where is it? By the window toward the back of the shop. Okay. Well, that's the location of the place I'm talking about. So that's very objective. That is exactly where it is. I'm just telling you it's not in my opinion. Okay. So I walk into a coffee shop and I say, I look around. I say, Do you have any places that are quieter because it looks like a pretty busy, noisy coffee shop. Maybe I want to get some work done. Oh, actually, there's a cozy place to sit and work by the window toward the back of the shop. That's what the person working there. Maybe the person with the red glasses, the young woman with short hair and red glasses, maybe it's her, maybe not, I don't know. But she points out to me when I walk in where it is, she's stating its existence, but also giving an opinion about that place, giving an opinion about the existence of the place, and pointing out where it is. So here we're getting directions. It's not only that this thing is there, it exists. Of course it exists, but I also want to tell you it's location, which if I point to it, is a kind of direction. So you can use there is to give directions in this way if you say it's location after. So maybe you come over to my house to visit and you start to feel thirsty. So you say, do you have anything to drink? I'm a little bit thirsty. Could I have something to drink? Now? I don't want to get you something. I want you to go choose. So yeah, make yourself at home. There is some juice in the refrigerator, also, there is some soda in the door and milk on the top shelf. Now notice I didn't say there is twice. There is soda on the door and milk on the top shelf. So I'm kind of giving you directions in the refrigerator to where the different drinks are. Right? But I don't have to say it twice. Once I start a sentence. There is. And then because the milk is there, then it's using the same there is there is soda soda in the door because the door of the refrigerator has a shelf, right. So that's where the soda is and milk on the top shelf. So now you know where everything is and I've used there is to give you directions or give you instructions about how to find what you might want to drink. So that's actually a very common way to use. There is, we've talked about how we use it objectively, how we use it, subjectively, how we use it to give directions or instructions, how to describe things that only we can see, only we can feel, for example, in our minds. And to point out things that other people may not have noticed yet. So that they can notice it, so that they can see it, so that they can recognize it. And perhaps most common as a foundation for a description, often as a foundation for a description in a story. To tell a story. After I tell you about this place, I'm going to go on and describe my experience there. What I did, the people I met. Okay, So I hope this all makes sense. Now we're going to look at a few more examples of this. But instead of there is, we're going to look at there are. 27. There are...: Now that we've talked about using, there is for descriptions we should talk about. There are. Why did I make my H like that? Who knows? There are is exact. I'm going to connect this. This is this is, this is bothering me. That's better. Oh, am I one of these people now has to connect everything. Everything is connected. We're good. There are, is the same as there is exactly, except it's about plural nouns. When we say there is, we state something that exists for whatever purpose, to describe it visually, to say how we feel about it, right? To give an instruction. In this case, we're doing the same thing except we're talking about more than one thing. Plural nouns. We're talking about things, problems, museums, butterflies, people, not peoples, people is the plural form of the noun person, people. I think you know that. So a plural is when you have more than one of a noun. And we just have to be aware that some are simple, this type problem with an S. And some have their own special form, like people, like children instead of child, for example, children. So that's, that's perhaps a different lesson in a different course. Now, what about uncountable nouns? Countable nouns, things that we can count, 12345, uncountable nouns, things like money often is an uncountable noun, right? Like hope. For example. Hope, hope is often an uncountable noun. Now you can have a hope. Sometimes you can use it that way, but it's more often uncountable, something that you cannot count uncountable. We say there is where there are with uncountable nouns. Should I say? There is hope in this room or there is hope in the crowd? There is hope in the crowd, or should I say, there are hope in the crowd? For uncountable nouns, we should say, there is, we use, there is we use, there are four plural nouns. For plural nouns, That's typically how it works. So I want to just state something that's there to state, state what exists as we've talked about, to state something that exists. Now. We can also state how we feel. We can also state something in a way that gives a direction and in that way it's the same as there is. So we don't need to spend too much time on these. There are examples. There are some problems with your plan in my opinion. In my opinion. So I'm stating my opinion and I'm saying that you have a plan and I think that it has some issues, and I want to just state that those are there. Then I'll probably go on to explain them. So I first state that there are some problems in my view, in my opinion. Oh, yes. What do you think those problems are? Well, number one, number two, number three, number four. And then I'll say what the problems are. Then I'll describe the problems in detail. But if there were only one problem, then I would say there is a big problem with your plan. For example, although that might be a little direct, maybe there are a few museums. I can recommend if you ever visit my city. Now we're doing the same thing here. I'm stating that the museums exist. It's not a very clear T there. Let me fix that. We're stating that the museums exist and also that we can recommend them. But we have to imagine this is an invisible that actually in the grammar you would need to have that there. There are a few tips for this structure. You say the thing, right? And then that. And then have the subject there. You should remember. And you can have the if there, if you want it there. But this is a pattern that you can, you can just remember if you want to, you can remove that, that there are a few tips that you should remember. There are a few tips you should remember. There are a few museums that I can recommend. There are a few museums I can recommend. Both are correct, both are fine. So for this one, just remember the basic structure. There are or there were, or there is, or there was. Then the thing you're talking about. Then the subject, i, u, then the verb. You should remember, I can recommend. Just remember that, that basic pattern. There were many happy fluttering butterflies among the garden flowers. Now why would I say we're instead of r? Remember when I said. Is about that bagel shop, that it is there. And so we say that it is there rather than it was there. But if you say was there, it's not always wrong. Why would we say there were instead of there are, there are a couple of different reasons we might do this. One is because we're telling a story in the past. And so all of the actions that we're describing are in the past. And maybe it's not even real, maybe it's fictional. So we use the past tense to tell a story. It keeps it simple, right? We don't have to switch back and forth between the present tense and the past tense. Well, that's one reason. But also it depends on the kind of thing that is going on, the kind of situation or scene that you're describing. In this case, happy fluttering butterflies. There'll be there one moment and not there the next. So it's not like the bagel shop, which will probably still be by the bank in ten years and it's probably there right now, right here, they're butterflies, so they fly away. So you have to think of what is the thing you're talking about? What is the senior trying to describe? If it's likely to still be there and you're talking about your memories, then maybe you can use there are instead of there were, or maybe you can use there is instead of there was. But if it's something that's constantly changing and you had that experience when you walked through the garden? I remember on that day I woke up, I was in a bad mood. I decided to go for a walk. And as I was walking feeling bad for myself, I came across a beautiful botanical garden. There were happy fluttering butterflies among the garden flowers. This is a description of something that was in the moment, a scene that I'm describing that even if I went back there now couldn't be recaptured, wouldn't happen in the same way. So very useful for stories, especially there were in the past and in fact also there was except butterflies plural. So should be there were, there were many people in the shop. I eventually got annoyed and left. So I went to the bagel shop. I wanted to get some work done. So I ordered some coffee and a bagel. I went to the back and I couldn't get any work done because there was so much noise. There was so much noise, past tense. There was because maybe I'm telling you this story at midnight. And if we went to the bagel shop now, it would be totally quiet because it's closed. There were so many people in the shop. Again, I'm capturing that past experience. Think of there was, and there were as ways to capture snapshots, pictures in time, as descriptions of perhaps experiences that you have. It's more about the experience, whether good or bad and less so about what is there, the thing, the object. It's more about my being there and all of the people who are, they're making a lot of noise annoying me, which causes me to leave. Or perhaps the butterflies all around. I want to capture that. I want to take a picture of it with my mind and then tell other people about it later, something that happened to me. And they can then see the picture in their own mind. When I use was or were to describe it in the past tense. The past tense of there was and there were, like me pulling out this picture and showing them. And then just like there are and there is, I can build on that. I can add a lot to it to create my story, to add detail to my description. So that's pretty much it for there is. And there are. Now we're going to go on and talk about some more very interesting sentence patterns that we can use to describe things. 28. Overview of Describing with Senses: Let's continue with our sentence patterns for description. I'm sure you've heard. I can see. Now, what do you imagine when someone says that? Well, I don't know what you imagine. It might be someone's standing on a hill looking out over a landscape, or maybe from your apartment window, looking out of the window to describe what you see. And that's perfectly fine. That's the one that everybody knows. But I can see is not just the physical meaning of seeing things. And in fact it's not just C. So let's explore this a little bit. We'll talk about, I can see the different meanings that, that can have. And we'll also, through example, explore other senses that we can use. What is a sense? A sense. We have five senses, we have smell, we have taste, touch, sight, hearing. Now it's important to note that the noun form and the verb form are not always the same. Taste is also the verb form. Smell is also the verb form. Touch can be, can be the verb form, but most common would be feel. Site is the noun form. The verb form obviously is c. And the verb form for this one is here, not hearing here. So usually it's going to be taste, smell, feel, see, and hear. Now, there are so many different ways to use these that we won't be able to cover all the meanings. That's not what this course is about. All of the meanings of the words that we're talking about. I want to give you a feeling for how to use these for description. But I would recommend that you try to explore how these words are used in other ways for different kinds of descriptions. And we'll look at a few examples as well. It's just important to keep in mind that feel doesn't only mean that you feel something with your finger. To feel how someone else feels is more of an emotional thing, something that happens without touching? Often, more emotional for smell as well? Yes. Usually it is related to the sense I can smell. Yes. Is that Bacon? Right? That's usually connected to the sense, but sometimes we use it in a non literal way. Something is non-literal. Non literal way. Something is non-literal than I don't mean exactly using your nose, but it's kind of like that, but not exactly. So the non-literal one would be something like, I can smell a trap where I can smell something funny about this situation. That doesn't mean that you smell it, but it's kind of like you smell it because you can tell that it's going on or something is there or it's around you in some way. But not only using your nose. Again, you have to explore those a little bit more on your own because they have so many different ways of being used. Okay, but let's talk about and focus on first, I can see, and I'm going to put parentheses around this because we can put in the other senses there. I can smell, I can taste, I can feel, I can hear right. Now. Why would we say I can see instead of just IC, it gives it a broader sense to say I can see is what's possible of being seen. If I focus over there, I focus over there. We're up there or down there. These are all things that I can see. They're able to be seen. But if I just say I see, Then that's what my eyes are pointed at at this moment. So that's the difference. Often using can gives it that broader sense. And when we're giving a description, whether it's a physical thing, something in our imaginations, something that we feel, something that happened to us in the past for whatever thing we often use can, just because it gives us that broader, wider sense. 29. How to Describe with Senses: Let's start with a physical description. I can see a crystal-clear blue sea and puffy white clouds disappearing over the horizon. So this is a great way to talk about what is in front of you. Whether you're on the phone with a family member, you're talking to them on the phone, looking out over the landscape describing this. Or if you see it in your imagination and you're talking about what you see in your mind, in your imagination. For either one, I can see. And then we just say what we see. Very simply describe what you see in your imagination or in front of you. And so we don't need to focus too much on the details. I add a lot of adjectives here, crystal-clear, blue, puffy white because that gives it a more vivid feeling. That makes it more clear. That helps me put it in the other person's mind. But if you look at the next one, I can see a lot of potential in her work. But then look at the next one. I can see a lot of potential in her work. So I hope she keeps taking classes. What is this describing? This isn't describing a scene or even something in my imagination. No, it is describing an opinion I have about something. It's describing a viewpoint that I have. It's describing something that I see in a slightly different way. To be able to see someone's potential means. You think someone is capable or able to do more than they're doing now based on what they're doing at the moment. So you look at what they're doing at the moment and then you kind of imagine what the future might be. And in fact, we often use this when we talk about our opinions, especially our opinions of things going on at the moment, which may change over time. If someone is very good at, for example, investing money and investor, they could say something like this. I can see this company really growing in the next five years. I can see this company. So it's there like imagine. But also you're describing how you feel about it in the present. So it's really actually a useful, a useful thing to talk about this non-physical thing. Now you've also probably heard, I can see your point. I can see what you mean. I can see what you're saying. These are still describing an opinion, but it's more like saying, I understand. I can see what you mean. I can see your point C or point what point? Well, your point is an opinion that you have. And if I understand your opinion, then I can say I can see that. I can see that. Sometimes we just say that I can see that instead of saying I can see your point, I can see where you're coming from. There are a lot of different expressions like this, using these senses, which is why I encourage you to research more, find more, because that's not the focus of, of this lesson. So that's how we use C and there are other ways of using it. We're talking about different kinds of description, but we're still describing something in a way. Now what about the other senses? I can hear water dripping from somewhere, but I can't figure out where. Well, that's what you hear. So this is pretty direct, this is pretty literal. So this is non-literal. Using C to talk about non-physical things, things that are not in front of your eyes. And this would be an example of something. Literally, my ears are actually hearing that sound. So I can hear I can hear water dripping from somewhere. I've looked all over the house. The sound is driving me crazy, drip, drip, drip. But I can't figure out where it's coming from. So very literal, but certainly we can use, I can hear in a non-literal way as well. I can hear what you're thinking. I can hear what you're thinking. I can't actually hear what you're thinking. But I've said something and I know you well enough to know probably what you're thinking when you hear me say things like that. So I say I can hear you thinking, not literal. I can't actually hear you thinking. But it's an expression. And there are so many like it. I can feel something round under the sofa that feels like a tennis ball. I can feel I'm reaching under the sofa. What is that? It's round. So I feel something round. That's a description of what I feel. I can feel something round that feels like, so feels like is also extremely common to make a comparison. This expression feels like to make a comparison. It's actually a very powerful way to say that two things seem similar. In some way. It may not smell like a tennis ball. It may not look like a tennis ball, but it feels like a tennis ball, whatever it is that's round under the sofa. It feels like that. That doesn't mean it is that that means it feels like that It's a comparison. To help another person understand what I'm talking about, sort of feels like a mix between the Beatles and Aerosmith. Well, that would be a description of a band. Feels like, yeah, that's my impression. We often use feel to describe our impressions. But you could certainly say also in that example, Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like a mix between those two bands and sounds like there would be similar to feels like it's a comparison. Looks like sounds like feels like, smells like, tastes like. These are all ways sense plus like to make comparisons that are useful to clarify things and it doesn't have to be perfect. This tastes like a mix between a banana and a mango. Or it tastes like a mango, but it's not a mango, but it tastes like a mango. It tastes like a mango. Doesn't mean it is a mango. That means it just tastes like a mango. Smells like dirty socks. They're not dirty socks, but it smells like dirty socks. I'm making a comparison. Extremely useful, extremely useful for descriptions. But while this is literal, because I actually feel something under the sofa, this one is not quite literal, not as literal. I'm not physically feeling something. This is more related to empathy, emotion. I'm going to write that up here. Empathy and emotion. When we say, I feel bad, I feel great. I feel okay, right? We're talking about not our physical body, perhaps, maybe we are, but also our emotions, our emotional condition. But we say I can feel there's something wrong with him, but I can't figure out what it is there. We're not talking about my emotions there. I'm talking about being able to sense that something is going on with this person, even though we're not quite sure what that is. But this field doesn't mean that I feel their face and then sell something wrong with you. You must be in a bad mood. What's going on? No, maybe I just saw a message and I can tell from the message, I can feel that something is going on with you. So I call you and say, hey, is everything okay? That is empathy. When we have a sense or we call it an intuition. Intuition we often use feel, I feel like something is going on. I feel like today things are just going to go perfectly smoothly. I know things have been rough, tough, bad recently in the past, but today is our lucky day. I hope I can feel it. I can feel it. What do I feel? It's my emotion, it's my intuition, it's my judgment. We use feel for this kind of thing. So feel perhaps is more often used in the non-literal way, or at least non-physical way. And feel physically like a tennis ball under the sofa or something that feels like a tennis ball under the sofa, is probably less common than the empathy usage. The intuition meaning of I can feel, I can feel. Have you ever seen the Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi, the bad guy, Darth cities. He's trying to get Luke Skywalker to become bad. And he says, I can feel your anger. He's using the force to feel it. That is his intuition, his power, but it's not about physical feeling. Well, physical in himself. He's not checking Luke Skywalker's pulse to feel his anger, although that might be one way to do it, I can feel a storm coming in my bones. So this is a physical feeling. Perhaps. Some people say that when there's a rainstorm coming or some kind of storm that they they feel that in their joints that are joints start to ache in their bones. I've heard that. I don't know if it's real. I don't know if it's true. Maybe it is, maybe not. But if they have that feeling, then this would be a common thing to say. So this would be to talk about Physical, just physical sensations. And you would also use that when you're talking to the doctor. So tell me about your hand, what's going on? Well, I can feel when I bend my elbow, I can feel a sharp pain when it's fully extended. So a very common thing to describe your physical sensations would be to use field. And I think that pretty well covers how we use these cents words with can to describe things. Just remember, some of these are non-literal, some of these are literal. And I know we didn't talk about smell and taste, but they really are the same. Again, if you want to learn more of these, there are many expressions and many different ways to use them in different situations. So I would encourage you to continue exploring these cents words. Now, we're going to look at a few more examples, also using C, but in a slightly different way. So let's do that. 30. Using 'You'll See': We've talked about. I can see, I can hear, I can smell, I can feel, I can taste. Is that all of them? I can with a sense. But that's not the only way we use it. Especially when it comes to C. Now, often we use, you'll see. But what does that mean? And how do we use it to describe things? One way it's used to describe things. Another way. It's used not so much to describe things, but to express a certain emotion. So we'll talk about both of them. Focus on how we use it to describe. So you'll see is, you will see and we often shorten it. This is a contraction. We shorten it to yield and we say it like that. Yo, yo. Now they'll see, yes, but usually they'll see, we'll see. These are used in a slightly different way and we'll talk about that other way in a moment very soon, soon. But after we talk about the descriptive way, you'll see us small blue jar in the kitchen next to the toaster. Now, when would I possibly say that? Well, will is about the future, right? We know that Will is all about the future. So it's something about the future. Why are you telling me what I will see you in the future? What about when you're giving directions or giving instructions, telling someone what to do when they get to a certain point and how they can know they're at that right point. So let's focus on this example here you'll see us small blue jar in the kitchen next to the toaster. Toaster is where you toast bread. Now, maybe you've asked me to get your keys. Okay. You've asked me to get your keys for whatever reason, maybe your legs are broken, you can't do it yourself. Or maybe much more likely. Much more likely. We're on the phone. Right. And you need something from me, you need something from the kitchen. And I am your vehicle. So you have to tell me how to get the thing you need. It's like I'm your hands. So you have to be very clear in your description. Because if you don't describe it well, I'm going to wander around the kitchen looking all over the place for the keys, and finally get frustrated and fall asleep on the floor. You have to be very, very clear, especially over the phone. So what we do when we describe things over the phone, when we're giving instructions is we use markers. And of course we say things like next to beside, in front of behind, we use prepositions as markers, of course. But you'll see, you will see sometimes, you can see sometimes not as often. This is a way to say, if you are in the right place, this is the thing that will be there and your eyes will see that in that place that I described. So when I walk into the kitchen, I look around and how do I know I'm in the right place? Well, when I see the toaster and I see the blue jar next to it beside it. I know I'm in the right place because you told me that I would see that before I get there. Probably. You've told me this. You'll see you'll see a blue jar in the kitchen. So I know I need to go to the kitchen first, then look for the blue jar and the toaster. Maybe there are two blue jars. So it's very clear, that's how I know, Hey, I'm at the right spot. At least. I'm standing in the right place. Now what maybe then I can get the next instruction. So often we use this to give instructions ahead of time. Maybe we don't have time to talk now. We give instructions ahead of time so that the other person knows that they're in the right place so that they can do the next thing. So then maybe I open the jar and the keys are inside, or you'll see a small blue jar in the kitchen next to the toaster. Look down on the floor. Okay. Then maybe there's a little box on the floor. On the floor, you'll see a small wooden box with different compartments in it. In the top left compartment, you'll see or you should see the keys. Sometimes it's not yo you should. You will, you can, all of those are okay. You'll see is the most common, by far. So very useful marker for giving directions. It's like mentally you're traveling with that person to tell them, Hey, you're in the right place. You'll see a large gray building on the corner next to a pet store. So this is very useful for directions, walking, driving directions. Very important to have markers. How do I know that it's the right large gray building. How many large gray buildings are there? Lots and lots of large buildings. So it's the one on the corner next to a pet store. That's how I know it's the right one. Okay. What next? Go through the intersection and keep walking down Pine Street for about five minutes. After about five minutes, you'll come to another street called Birch. At the corner of birch and pine. You'll see a music store. Go into the music store and go to the back. You'll see in the back of the store. So I can keep going like this, using, you'll see to create these little markers, it's extremely useful. You should see a list of documents in a folder called Class plans. Okay, so this would be on a computer or maybe a device of some kind, maybe phone or tablet or whatever. I'm looking at the computer desktop and so many folders. There's one, you'll see a list of documents in a folder called Class plans. So find class plans, click Open, hey, list of documents. So we can continue using that. We'll see when we're giving the instructions or when we're giving directions. Now, you might be thinking, well, I thought I wasn't supposed to use the same phrase too many times. Well, this might be an exception because it's so useful. And really the important thing is to make sure that the instructions are clear. Repeating phrases in instructions in directions is often not a bad thing. In fact, there aren't that many phrases that we use, because what we're trying to do is clearly communicate the information. We're not too worried about making sure we have good syntax or we aren't repeating phrases too often. So that is really just a follow up to the C examples we talked about. It's of course related but used in different ways. Now, I said I would mention the other way that you'll see is used that's not really related to descriptions. So let me just do that quickly. If someone says by itself, you'll see this is often expressing an emotion. Let's say, for example, two people were trying to get a certain job. They were competing with each other. One person got the job, the other didn't, the one who didn't get the job. He's very disappointed. And his friends say to him, hey, it's okay, Don't worry, he's so upset. He really wants to get that job. He's still upset. He feels so disappointed in himself for not achieving what he thought he could. So instead of saying, yeah, maybe it's fine. Instead of doing that, he says, you'll see you'll see within two years, I'm going to be two levels higher than the position I was going for. Two levels higher, whatever that means. Vice president. You'll see. So that means yes, you will see that happen. But it's more this emotion of resolving to do something. And everyone else will witness that. And when it happens, I will have my revenge. Now, sometimes it's used for revenge. Sometimes it's used for revenge. Sometimes it's more this feeling of I need to prove myself, to prove myself because I've failed and I'm going to come back even stronger. You'll see, you'll all see here that in movies and TV shows pretty often. Now if someone says, We'll see, we'll see. That's more like, let's wait to see what happens right now. Sometimes parents use that for their kids to not answer a question, Hey, can we please go to the zoo next week? Let's go to the zoo. We'll see. That means I don't want to answer you right now. I don't want to give you an answer. So I'm going to say something. That means next week I'll tell you. I don't know right now, It's a way to delay a decision. Often when you say that to people, they feel like you're not taking their question seriously. And it doesn't have to be only for kids. You know, a friend says something and they want you to decide something and you say, Well, we'll see, Oh, tell me now. I'm kinda busy this week. We will see next week. Let's see. That kind of suggests, I'm going to decide later. Now sometimes that's used when we have a clear plan to decide something later. Or there's something we don't know yet. And we can't make the decision or decide whether or not to do the thing. Because something won't happen until next week or next month or at some point in the future. So there we'll see is we'll see what happens next Thursday. If we get approved, then then we'll make the budget. Let's not spend time making the budget now because we don't know. We will see what happens. We'll see what happens. Let's see, let's see. When you're waiting for a result that hasn't come yet. Well, let's see. Let's see. Don't make your decision now. Don't be too hasty. Don't take action too soon. Let's see, Let's see. Now you might say, well, that doesn't say exactly when. It's not very specific. But you can add that if you want. Let's see next Thursday. If we get approved or not. We'll see now what about using? You'll see in that way, you'll see, you'll see this might be when I know something and you don't know it. But you know, there's something going on. For example, I'm planning a surprise birthday party for you. Me and your friends, and my friends were all planning a surprise party for you. You know, something is going on. You sense it, you feel it, right. What's going on, What's going to happen? You'll see. You'll see. So when there's a surprise coming and I don't want to give you the details. I may say you'll see, you'll see in the future. It's the same kind of idea as let's see and we'll see with a different focus. Often I'm holding some information. I have it. You don't have it yet, but I will reveal it or it will be revealed in the future, probably in the near future. So that's how we use these. Those are really just common phrases, not as clearly connected to our effort to describe things clearly. So let's get back to that. Next. We're going to talk about how to use ING verbs to describe what's happening right now, or perhaps what we're thinking about right now. So let's do that. 31. Picturing and Imagining: We've talked a little bit already about describing things that are in your mind or in your imagination. Now we're going to focus on this for just a little bit. We're going to talk about how we describe things that we imagine. Now often if we're doing it right now, we use the present continuous tense. This is often IM and then an I-N-G verb, or we are. And then in I-N-G verb, or she is an I-N-G verb. Like that. When we're describing something in the imagination, something going on in here. It's happening now, in a way. Now it doesn't have to be a picture of something, an image. It could be a lot of different things. Anything that you might imagine, we might use imagining or picturing. And either one is okay. Usually these two, Picturing and imagining are interchangeable. That means you can use one or the other and it doesn't really matter. So let's just explore this with some, of course, some examples. I'm picturing a lush green meadow with rays of sunshine breaking through the treetops. So we can imagine an opening in a forest. That's what a meadow is. It's lush, It's very rich. And we add a width often to add things to our description is a very useful way to add things. Because you could just say, I'm picturing. I'm picturing a lush green meadow. What does your lush green meadow have? What do you want to add to that? Well, then we would use width to add some details. We would use in, we would use another I-N-G verb to describe something that's happening in the description, the sunshine is breaking through that makes it feel more active. So this might be an interesting way to describe something, but that's kind of a scene. So that's pretty simple. That's like looking at a painting in your mind, right? I'm picturing what I would look like with a shaved head and it isn't good. Does that mean I have a shaved head? No. That just means in my imagination, I'm seeing myself with no hair. If I shaved my head, what would I look like? I'm trying to imagine that. I don't think that would look very good. I don't think I like that. So it's the same as saying, I'm imagining that. I'm picturing that. I'm imagining that the thing that supports that this is not real, that this is just in my imagination, is would look like with a shaved head. I'm picturing what I would look like. Remember, often, wood is used for hypotheticals, could, is used for hypotheticals. Non-real things that are imaginary. Maybe I have no plans to shave my head, but I still want to imagine it. What would it be like? That's a very useful use of the word wood. I'm picturing a week long trip to New Zealand with hiking and lots of red wine. This one is describing an activity, a week long trip to New Zealand. How can you picture that? Does that mean you actually imagine all the details? No, not really. This might mean we just think about the details. Maybe we imagine what we might do. If we did go to New Zealand, we would go hiking. We would have lots of red wine, right? I'm just imagining that that doesn't mean that visually in my mind's eye. I'm seeing myself there. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm just thinking about the details and that's okay. This doesn't have to be very strictly visual when someone says they're picturing something, I'm picturing a very comfortable retirement. Now, what does that mean that you're picturing that? Does that mean that you see yourself at the age of 60 sitting by the beach with a very nice gold watch. Maybe, maybe. But it doesn't have to be. You could just say, comfortable to me, is that I don't have to worry about money. I have a nice house and I live by the beach. But you don't have to actually visualize or see those things in your mind in order to say that you're picturing them. Maybe you're just thinking about them in your own way and that's okay. Imagining is the same. These are not that complicated. I'm imagining what my wife would say if I quit my job and started my own business. Now, could we say I'm picturing? Yeah, sure. Again, they're pretty much the same. Good. We say I'm imagining here, I'm imagining a week long trip to New Zealand. Yes, that's totally fine. That's totally fine. Generally, picturing gives us a bit more of an emphasis on the visual, but of course it doesn't have to be. An imagining is a little more general to imagine something is just two. Hold something in your mind, something that you made, something that you want to think about, you created it. That's imagining. Generally the meaning of imagine is broader than the meaning of picture, because picture makes us think of the visual and imagined as well, whatever, whatever you have in your mind that you made that you're thinking about. Maybe it's a song that you'd like to write someday. Maybe it's a life that you want to have. Maybe it's something that you want to have for lunch. Maybe it's something that you want to do tomorrow. Maybe it's something that you hope for the future, whatever it is, very general. So when I'm imagining what my wife would say again would tells me that what it is. Hypothetical. Remember that would say if I quit my job, suggests that maybe I won't maybe I don't plan to. Maybe I'm just thinking about that. She would be very angry or she would be very supportive, although I probably wouldn't say it if it were that right, or maybe we would have a long conversation, whatever it is, I'm imagining how much fun it would be to take a trip down to Florida for the weekend. How much fun it would be means are we going to Florida? No, that is hypothetical. I'm imagining how much fun. I'm imagining how cool, I'm imagining how nice I'm imagining how easy all of those expressions start with how, when we went to mention the degree, right? How much of something, the degree of interesting ness, the degree of fun. If you want to talk about the degree of fun, especially when you're using your imagination, you can think of whatever you want going to Florida. Wow, that would be really fun. So I'm imagining how fun it would be very fun, very fun. That's how fun, How fun, very fun, right? So this is to talk about degree. You know that? And that's our hypothetical. I'm imagining a leather sofa here across from the TV, which we could put against that wall. Yes. So we go into our new house, our new apartment, and we talk about what we think should be here. Well, when we want to talk about that and describe what could be here now there's no furniture, it's empty, right? So let's imagine what might be here. Well, I'm picturing a lamp over there and I'm imagining a sofa here. It's a great way to talk about what's not here. The hypothetical, the imaginary, to get the other person to share in that imagination. To get the other person to have the same idea or picture or imagination in their minds. So that then we can have a conversation. Because when I say, I'm imagining a leather sofa here, here, right here, here, then you might say, I don't know, maybe, maybe if we put it over there, I'm imagining the sofa over there against that wall. Okay, interesting. So this is a way to create our foundation, to talk about what we are imagining so that then we can discuss it and come to maybe agreement, or maybe come up with a new idea. Okay, So that's how we use, I'm picturing, I'm imagining. Now I want to talk about how we can start with the verbs. Picture and imagine at the beginning of the sentence as an instruction to someone else to get them to picture or imagine something. 32. Instructing and Imperatives: What if you want to give someone else and instruction to imagine something? Well, that's pretty easy. All you do is say, imagine or picture either of those two. Very common as a way to tell someone to do that. And again, as we've been talking about, just like I'm imagining, I'm picturing. We can talk about things that we visualize, but it doesn't have to be. We could talk about events. We could ask someone to put themselves in a hypothetical situation, to imagine themselves being in that situation, to maybe give advice or talk about what they might do. Lots of different uses for this. Okay, Let's go through some examples, starting with picture. Picture yourself sitting by a calm turquoise see, on a sunny day, enjoying a margarita and a good book. Now, why would someone say this? Well, a number of different reasons. Maybe we're trying to sell someone something. I'm trying to sell you a vacation package. I'm a salesperson in a travel agency. Picture yourself. This is a classic line that you hear in sales settings or at least movies about sales situations. When someone is trying to get the other person to hypothetically imagine that they're in that situation to try to get them to, for example, buy something. Oh, yeah. Maybe I do need to take that trip. Oh, that is a pretty good deal. Well, I can picture it very well. And when I do, I like it, I want to do it. Here's my money. Your friend is stressed out, working too hard, too many hours a week. Very, very stressed. So you'd like to help your friend. So you say, Just calm down. Let's try to get some, Let's try to get some perspective here. Let's try to get some perspective. Okay, What I'd like you to do is picture yourself sitting by a calm turquoise Sea. So that might help this person calm down, feel less stressed, remove themselves from constantly thinking about work. I don't know if that actually works, but you could use it for that sort of thing. Picture a pink elephant on roller skates in knee pads skating down Fifth Avenue. That's a very long street, very long and wide street in New York City. Picture that. Why are you asking me to picture that? Well, it doesn't matter. Once I say that. You can't not picture it. You can't knock picture a huge elephant wearing rollerskates and knee pads skating along Fifth Avenue. It's hard not to imagine it when someone says it. That sort of makes this a kind of magic. If you want someone to imagine something, even if it's something crazy or weird or gross, all you have to do is say picture this. That's what we also do when we want to lay out a vision of something. We're trying to get someone to support us to do something together. I have a business idea. I want you to do that with me. I have a plan for our road trip that we can take together. I want you to get on the same page. I want you to get on the same page as me. Now. The elephant one, no, that's not very useful unless you want to make people imagine weird things. But if I want someone to get on the same page, share my vision. Often a vision is the broad view that we have about what could be, right. Whether that's something like a road trip, a trip with friends, or a business partnership. Starting a business together. Picture this and we often start that way. We say picture, picture this. We go around with our idea and we raise a million dollars. Then. Okay, then we hired five employees and whatever we want to do to start our business together. I'm trying to get you excited about that. I'm trying to get you to share my vision. And if we do this, we can really change the world. We can really make things happen. Picture that, picture this. Picture it, picture it to picture that picture this. I want you to see it in your mind's eye. Not only visually, just imagine it. I want you to see it in the same way. I see it so that we can both work hard at this because this is a partnership. This same page idea, this shared vision idea is a very common way to use picture at the start. And you could use Imagine there as well. Picture irregular windmill except it's on a pole way higher in the air with metal blades, a 100 meters long. Now why would I say this? Well, if I say, Do you know what to do you know what a wind turbine is? A wind turbine. It's a very tall thing and it has these big blades, right? And we use this to get electricity, to get wind energy, right? Now, for example, you're talking to someone and they don't know what that is. So what can you do in that situation? We're going to talk about this next. But what you can do is tell them about something they know. Ask them to imagine or picture in both. Both are okay. Could you imagine or picture that thing that they know that you know, they know for sure. And then change something about it to make it a little more clear. You can remove something or you can add something. Often to add something, we'll use width. When we want to remove something we might say Accept and removed doesn't mean we actually remove an object from our imaginary thing. It could mean that, but it could also mean I'm going to change something, something that's different, that's not the same as this thing that you know. So you say a thing that, you know, picture the thing that you know, except or sometimes just, but, you could say, but instead. Or sometimes we use only, or if we want to add something we can say with, and sometimes we say, but with, we're going to explore this a little bit more next. But let's just look at this example. If I say picture irregular windmill, okay, that's an instruction to you. Hold that image in your mind. Sometimes people say that picture, a regular windmill, get European style, very big. It's got big fan. Okay, I've got it in my mind. Got it. Okay. It's like instructions next, except now we're going to do something to that image. Okay? It's on a pole. Okay, so the windmill is more like a house or something but done a poll. It's very thin. Okay. So, so it's that replaces the house sort of structure. Way higher in the air. Whoa, very high, not very short, very high. Got it. With blades. A 100 meters. A 100 meters long. Wow. Okay, I can picture that now that I'm able to visualize that, now that I'm able to picture that. Now we have a common basis or a common foundation. And I can use that common basis or common foundation to start a conversation, to add something, to get you to understand something. Because if you don't know what I'm talking about, and this is not only for visual things, I use the visual example, but for most of these picture and imagine things, it can be visual, but it can be an idea. It can be a trip, it can be a dream. It can be a vision for a company. It can be a pink elephant. In rollerskates. We can use these for all sorts of different things. So I don't want you to feel limited by that. So then we have that basis, that thing that we didn't share before, that now we share now you know what I'm talking about? Now I can explain my point. I don't want you to just picture a wind turbine for fun. I want to explain something to you, but I tried. And you've said What are you talking about? Why don't understand? What do you know what a wind turbine is? No, What's that? Picture? Picture windmill and then you explain that. Okay, Got it. Alright. Now what do you want to say? Well, I think and then you can say your opinion. You can start the conversation. It's so useful. It's very useful. Now for all of these three, we could use imagined as well. Imagine yourself, imagine a pink elephant, imagine a regular windmill. Fine. But sometimes it's just not natural. Imagine if we were able to leave the office and go home whenever we wanted. Picture if we that one doesn't sound very natural. So imagine is better for that sort of hypothetical we start with if, when we start with if generally use imagine instead of picture, picture if we could. Yeah, sometimes people will use that, but it's much better to use. Imagine, imagine a school where kids can design their own study plants. Now this one, we can definitely use picture, picture, and then a noun directly right after it, right? Imagine a pink picture of pink, picture yourself, picture a regular windmill, right? The thing immediately after it. Totally fine to use, picture there. Totally fine to use. Imagine there. It's this one that we usually tend to use. Imagine for much more often. Imagine a school where kids can design their own study plans. Not saying that's real, but I want you to hold it in your mind, okay? So the teachers don't decide what the kids study. The kids decide, okay? Alright, I'm imagining that, That's interesting Now that's not very visual, right? That's just an idea. That's a thing that I'm thinking about. A cool idea that I think is going to be the future or whatever of education. Once you imagine that we can have a conversation, or I can get you to share my vision. And maybe we work on it together or maybe we talk about it together, at least now, we're on the same page. We're on the same page. So in the same way that we talk about what's going on in here right now. I'm imagining, I'm picturing. We use imagine and picture at the start to give that direction or instruction to someone else for different purposes, for many purposes, perhaps to sell them something or just get them to relax or calmed down to change their point of view, to maybe change their perspective. Maybe we just want to do it for fun. Or perhaps we want to share a vision. We want someone to have a common vision so that we can work together or we can have a conversation about something that's interesting. Or perhaps we want to explain something to someone very powerfully to use a point of reference that someone already knows and then add to it using, imagine using picture. And then when we talk about this sort of hypothetical, usually what we're doing is expressing a wish, a desire. Even if that wish or desire will never be met, this will never happen. Will never be able to go home whenever we want. But wouldn't it be great? Imagine if we could, Wow, That would be amazing. Unfortunately, that's never going to happen where I don't think it will happen. So it's just a wish, it's a desire. And I wanted to share that wish or desire with someone else. So I say that just as an expression, wouldn't that be great? Yes, that really would be great. Okay, So now that we know how to do this, we need to talk about how we can change things, how we can use points of references and then add things and take them away when we need to so that we can communicate more clearly like this one, like this one. So let's talk a little bit more about that now. 33. Comparing with Like: Like we talked about with the windmill example, sometimes we need a point of reference that we can then use to build a conversation, to build a more interesting or complicated picture, to get somebody to understand something that they don't yet understand, to use as a foundation for something else most of the time. So we use this basic structure. It's, or it is. And then often we have kind of and that just makes it softer. It's not necessary, but kind of as sort of like saying similar. Although like means similar. So it's really a softer version of similar. It's kind of like and then you say a thing and I mean thing there as generally as possible, because that could be a thing like a windmill, but it could also be a thing like an activity. I could say it's kind of like running and then add something or change something. So we're going to be looking at a few examples. Not only with, only, but with a few other useful words we can use to add, to adjust, to build on some basic point of reference. So if someone says, what is a podcast? Well, you don't know what a podcast is. It's kind of like a radio show. There. I'm not telling you to picture some big picture a radio show. Yeah. That's a little bit straight, it's a little bit direct. In fact, perhaps more common is something like this. It's kind of like a radio show. I know what a radio show is only without live Collins and it's not live. So those are the differences. Those are the things that separate a podcast from a radio show. So adding those two things together, podcast point of reference, thing you know, plus the things that are not the same as a radio show creates a clear picture. I know what that is. That's called a podcast. Yes. That's a podcast. Now I know that you probably know what a podcast is, but but it's just an example. Okay? So that's a great way to, That's a great way to describe things. Sometimes describing from scratch from nothing. We don't know if the other person has a point of reference, they might be lost from the beginning. If you want to make sure that someone gets it, say something you know, they know and you might see them nod. Oh, I know that. Yeah. Okay. And then and then you say the differences only only with only without only it has only it doesn't have only it's not only it is. All of these would be good ways to add things, starting with only it's like a regular warehouse, only with little robots that carry shelves around. So picture a warehouse, okay, big building. Okay. Maybe this is the warehouse for Amazon. Okay. So picture a big warehouse with lots of stuff in it. Lots of items, packages, boxes, shelves. Now picture instead of people walking around getting things, robots. Okay, so we know how to do that with picture and imagine. But if I know, you know what a warehouses that I don't need to do the picture thing, I can just say it's like a regular warehouse. It's the same. It is the same. It's kind of like a regular warehouse that might make it a little bit less the same. Sometimes that weakens it, doesn't make it as strong. That's sort of like saying, if it's like that maybe they're very close together. If it's kind of like that, maybe they're a little farther apart. That's not very strict. That's just my general sense about the difference between It's like that and it's kind of like that. Like is this and kind of as a little bit farther a little bit farther apart. It's like a warehouse. Okay. Only only with little robots. Kerry shelves around. Do most warehouses have little robots that carry shelves around? Well, I don't know. It depends on when you're watching this, maybe. But at the time of me saying this, no, not all warehouses have little robots carrying shelves around, but Amazon's do some other large shipping businesses do. Okay. Now you've got it. Maybe now we can have a conversation. It's kind of like a custard only with a much stronger smell and big seeds in the middle. Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you guess what am I talking about? This is Dorian. If you've ever had Dorian has a strong smell, but the consistency, the texture is really like custard egg, egg tarts or something like that, right? So this is also useful. These are useful when we want someone to guess something, right? We want someone to guess what we're talking about. If you want someone to guess what you're talking about, you can use this expression. I want you to guess duration. In order to do that, I'm going to use it's kind of like this. Oh, is it? Yes. Okay. Maybe I'm talking about a music group. I think you know the group, but I don't want to say it directly for whatever reason. Maybe we're playing a trivia game and I'm not allowed to say the name or maybe I'm just trying to get you to guess something. I don't know what the situation might be, but anytime you want someone to do that, this can be a great tool. They kind of sound like the Beatles only with many more electronic instruments. Who would that be? Like The Beatles anymore? Electronic instruments? Electric light orchestra. Yes, great guess. Oh, awesome guests. So you can use it in all kinds of different ways. Now, let's continue exploring this. Something very similar to this. How we can change a description, how we can add things, remove things to a point of reference. 35. Points of Reference: Let's spend just a little bit more time talking about how we can use reference points to make powerful descriptions. Descriptions which help us connect to others in conversation. That's the power of a reference point. We both know the same thing. We can build on that. So we use often reminds me of one that's less common, would be, makes me think of how are we using. These reminds me of, makes me think of I'm probably going to say something that you know as well. Something we both know. When I consider that thing, when I think about that thing, I think about another thing that's similar. So it's kind of like saying similar to I'm just connecting them in a different way. You remind me of someone I know. That means there's something about you which is similar to someone else. I know whether it's the way you look, your body language, maybe something about your facial expression. Maybe how you talk, your voice, your voice reminds me of my little brother's voice. You have a very similar voice. Your voice is like his. It is like his. It is kind of like his were in the same family of things for all of these reference points with something added to get them to understand something better, to understand something they didn't understand before. You're probably tired of hearing me say that, but I want to make sure it's super clear and you've really, really got it. Okay. Makes me think of, Oh, I should put an S there. Sorry. Makes me think of, makes me think of reminds me of basically the same thing. Although I have to say this one is more common, much more common. It reminds me of the Bahamas, except it's more expensive. Can we replace this with something else with the name? Yeah. Sure, absolutely. So what does oh, I don't know. What's a place that's more expensive than the Bahamas. I've never been to the Bahamas. So Ken Kuhn, Mexico, it's a place that has a lot of resorts. Think it's by the ocean. So Ken Kuhn reminds me of the Bahamas, except it's more expensive. I don't know if that's true. I've never been to either place. He's just an example. Okay. Jerry, this person reminds me of my grandpa, except here of course we could swap in the other ones we've learned only. But although Jerry reminds me of my grandpa, except his sense of humor is a little bit more relevant. That means maybe my grandpa, he's kind of out of touch with the culture. What he says is funny but not very relevant to what's going on, what kids are talking about. But Jerry, similar to my grandpa, the style of humor. But he knows what's going on in the culture. That's the difference. That's the thing I want to add or change. Now, could we just say this by itself to people ever just say, Jerry reminds me of my grandpa. Sure. Sometimes as a comment, we may want to say that. Now for this one, what if someone doesn't know my grandpa? I said Jerry, Jerry is the one that, you know, reminds me of my grandpa. So there's kind of going the other way for this one. It can Kuhn reminds me of the Bahamas. Alright. So you know the Bahamas. And I want to talk about Ken Kuhn. I want to explain something about that place. But for this one, Jerry, you know who Jerry is, you know, Jerry, you know Jerry's sense of humor. So I'm kind of telling you about my grandpa in a way. Maybe I want to tell you that my grandpa is similar to Jerry. And Jerry is someone that you know, that's okay too. It's more often the other way. This is the way that it's usually done, but we can do it this way as well. It depends on which reference we use. This is the point of reference, you know, this is probably the point of reference you don't know. And I still want to state a difference between them. Maybe just because I think that's interesting, maybe it's just a comment and it doesn't really mean anything. Or maybe I want to say, this sense of humor is not something that's just in our generation, right? My grandpa, he has the same sense of humor. The only difference in this sense of humor is the references is that Jerry, he's a little bit more relevant because he's younger and he knows he knows the references. He knows what's what's funny to younger people. Okay, So maybe there I'm talking about both of these people. To compare sense of humor or to make a point about humor. You can use this for all sorts of things and that's totally fine. That smell reminds me of pine trees, although it's a bit sweeter, that's the thing that's different. It's like pine trees. The smell is like pine trees. The smell is kind of like pine trees. The smell is similar to pine trees. All the same thing. This makes it feel a little more personal when we use reminds me of pine trees. Pine trees, you know what that smells like, right? So maybe I'm using this point of reference to tell you what it smells like to make it clear that it's like that but sweeter. Or maybe I'm just remarking on it. Commenting on it where both smelling it now. And I'm just trying to describe what I think it's alike and maybe you disagree. So maybe I wouldn't say that smell. Maybe I would say, well, this smell reminds me of pine trees here. Smell this. You smell it. It reminds me of pine trees, although it's a bit sweeter, but it's a bit sweeter, only a bit sweeter. And then you say, yeah, maybe it's kind of like pine trees, but I'm getting a more tropical smell. A more tropical smell like tropical fruit like mangoes or something. Okay. So we have a difference of opinion. So they're not just getting you to understand something that you don't understand. There were sharing our opinions, our subjective are subjective opinions. It reminds me of pine trees, although it's a bit sweeter. It reminds you of pine trees, although you smell some mango or tropical fruit. Okay. So that's your opinion, That's my opinion. We have those reference points as a way to communicate things which are kind of difficult to communicate. We have to refer to things so that other people kind of know what we're talking about. It's a little bit difficult to describe what wine tastes like. So go into your kitchen and pick up a bottle of red wine. If it's an English, read the label, see what it says. You'll see this kind of language. It's using reference points to make you think of other things like cherries and wood and coffee. Those are the reference points so that you know what It's kind of like. But for taste, for smell, for subjective things, for how we feel like looking at a piece of art. There isn't a clear answer. We use these to build a picture that may not be exactly the way that we feel, but it's as close as we can get. That's often how we use reference points. That's often how we use these phrases. Now, can we ask questions? Yes. This is actually a very useful way to bring up a reference point to ask a question. Have you ever tasted a kiwi? So we use, have you ever? Then we might say tasted, we might say scene. We might say smelled. We might say bin to be heard. And we say that thing. And then we ask a question, it's a question. If someone says no, then we might have to find a different way to describe it. But if someone says, Yeah, yeah, I know that I've smelled that I've tasted that I've been there, I've been to that place, I've heard that. Then we can use it as a point of comparison in the same way, all we're doing is starting with a question, but the function is basically the same. Have you ever tasted kiwi? Yeah. It's almost like that. It's almost like that. It's kind of like that except a bit crunchier. That's the difference. This should be very familiar by now. This is no different. It looks different because it's a question, but it's not it's really the same thing. Have you ever taken the exam? No, I haven't taken it, but I know how it works. I know I know about the aisles exam. Okay. It's similar to that but taken on a computer. Oh, okay. What are we talking about? Oh, maybe the verse and test or the TOEFL test or something like that. So if they say yes to the question, That's good news. That makes your job easier than all you have to do is say, one of the other ways that we've talked about, it's like that except or it's like that. But if they say no, but they know it, that's good, then you can still do it. If they say no, I have no idea about that, then you probably have to find another reference point or you have to find another way to describe it. Either way, essentially, these are accomplishing the same thing. Now, we have one last thing to talk about in this section on descriptions. That is, how we use has to add details to a description. 36. Adding with Have and With: The final thing I want to quickly focus on in our exploration of ways to describe things clearly in English is, has, have, had this meaning, the thing that belongs to something. Now, this is actually pretty simple. I just want to make sure we cover it. You may already know this one when you want to add something or a few things to a thing you're trying to describe. Usually, you can use this. Have, has or had, have, has or had, depending on when it is. For example, if it's in the past it would be had, or also what the subject is. If it's, for example, it would be has, but if it's people than it would be have they, for example, they have Tom and surely have, you know, that that's just subject verb agreement and tenths. So let's quickly go through some examples. It has long teeth, scales, and wings. So this is all about has, I'm adding the teeth. I'm adding the scales. This is probably a dragon, right? This is probably a dragon or some kind of monster who tell me more about the monster? Who will. It has long teeth, scales. Those are those hard things that Dragons have. Well, there are no real dragons, right? But those things that protected like armor, like that, these are scales. These look like scales and wings. And it can fly through the air. So by adding those things, people quickly get a better picture of it. So it's like I've said a thing and then you want to know a little more about it, or I want to tell you more about it. What's the easiest way to do that? Just say it has that. Now of course, we can also use the word with to describe things. As you know. I can say a giant dragon with long teeth, scales, and wings. Yeah, of course, it's basically doing the same thing, same basic function, but phrased in a different way. Often, the dragon has the subject, has my friend has that old man has, you're stating the thing and immediately then saying has, then the things you want to add, that's pretty straightforward. The people in my dream all had long hair with strands of different colors that shimmered. As they moved. Shimmered means the light is changing on their hair. Shimmered. Okay. Now why do I say had well, are these people real? No. No, they're not they're not still here because they were in my dream and I was dreaming, but I'm not dreaming now because I'm telling you about it. So that's why we don't use have. If it's a thing that's still there. A bank, a bank that has two large glass doors. Even if I went to the bank and the past, I might not use the past tense there because the bank is still there. Sitting there. There it is. You can go there right now. You'll see the glass doors. But my dream is not still there. It's my dream. So I'll use the past tense. I'll use had. That bank branch has an area with free coffee and tea, although it's not hot. The area is not hot. Well, we know it means the coffee and tea is not hot because, why would an area needs to be hot? So this one is interesting because we're using both words that are useful for adding things to a description, has and width. For the first one, we're adding the area. The bank branch has an area. You could stop there. The bank branch has an area. But it doesn't really make sense to just say that, well, what kind of area you could put an adjective there? A break area, arrest area, a a waiting area, whatever it is you want to put there. And that's an adjective to describe what kind of area it is. Okay. But that is not enough for me because I wanted to talk about the coffee and the T can I use has again, well, you could that bank branch has an area that has free coffee and tea. But does that sound natural to you to say has so close together, that bank branch has an area that has or which has coffee and tea. Sounds weird to say, has so close together. Luckily. Luckily we have another word, yes, width. Width helps us and we don't need to say that width. We would say that has, because it has is a verb. Width is not a verb. With is a preposition. So we can just say width and then say the things that our width, the area, or the things we want to add to the area. This is so useful, this is extremely useful when you're making descriptions, when you're describing things, to always be adding things but have different words that you can choose. So that it sounds still natural and doesn't sound awkward. Your plan has a few great ideas that could really help us deal with this crisis. Don't pay attention to this use of width. That's different. Deal with something. Okay, we're not talking about adding. Adding details. Has a few great ideas. I'm adding a few great ideas. This is the thing I'm adding to a plan. A plan is not a thing is it? Is, it is a plan is the thing. The word plan is a noun. And just because it's not a physical thing, doesn't mean it's not a thing, it's a thing. And I'm talking about some of the things inside of that thing. So I can say that the plan has ideas. Maybe this plan that I have has nine ideas. And six of the ideas are useful. Six of the ideas will really help us with this crisis. So they're, in my description. I'm not adding things to the plan. They were already there. I just didn't talk about them in a way. I'm diving into the plan, talking about the things that are contained in the plan. The plan contains the ideas. So I want to mention them. Which word should I use has perfect. The songs she played had a mysterious quality that stuck with me for the next few days. Song has certain qualities. Song has a certain sound. The song has an interesting rhythm. All of the things we want to add to the song could be added with have, has or had. But because I want to focus on my experience of it, I saw it live. I was there listening to it. I'm going to use had. And I'm going to use had because the song is not really still there, is it? I mean, it was played live. I heard it. And now it's over like my dream in a way, right? I can't go back and see the song there anywhere. Now, you could talk about a song in general and say that the song has certain things about it that you like write this song in general, I'm not talking about an experience. I had listening to it, but just that song. Yeah, it has, it has a really mysterious quality. But because I said the songs she played, and I'm focusing on the live part, then it makes sense for me to use the past tense because we're not talking about the record. We're not talking about listening to this on headphones. I'm sitting there experiencing it. And the past tense helps me emphasize our focus on the experience part. So these are just a few of the many ways we can use, have, has and had to add things to descriptions. Extremely common, extremely useful if you don't feel comfortable using have, has and had in your descriptions, you've got to practice. You have to get so comfortable with this that you can use them without thinking. Because they are so essential. Just like with how to use these two all the time. They have to be part of your tool belt, have to be habits. All of these ways that we've talked about to describe things clearly, have to be part of your tool belt. Things that you can use whenever you want to talk about something in detail. To explain something, to give an instruction, to describe an image, to describe a thought, an action that you took, tell a story essential to master. So make sure you're practicing, make sure you're making lots of examples based on the ones that we went through together, writing down mine, making your own examples, practice, practice, practice, master these. And I will see you in the next lesson. 37. Overview of Gerunds: What is a gerund? What is an infinitive? And why should you care? Why should you learn this? Well, let's start with definitions. And remember, it's not very important that you remember the names of these things. I say the name so that I have something to call them by, right? But the important thing is that you know how to use it, that you remember how to use it, that you make a habit out of using what you learned. If you remember the name, I don't really care. It doesn't matter that much. So a gerund, very simply, a gerund is an I-N-G verb. That's not actually a verb. In fact, it acts as a noun. So an example might be running. Now, if I say, I love running, I love running. I love running. We're running is the activity, but love is also the verb, right? What is going on here? I know that running is a verb. I-n-g. I am running, for example, that is an action that I'm doing. Alright, I know that. But I also know that if I say I love, usually after that will be a thing, the thing that I love, the person that I love. For example, I love computers. Are these the same? If I say, I love running and I love computers, is that really the same grammar? Well, yeah, it is. In this way, the I-N-G running becomes or works as a noun. It's like a noun, just like computer. Computers, right? A noun. Okay. So that looks weird. It looks strange, but that's how it works. Now, one way that you can use to identify this is something we've already talked about a little bit. Remember we talked about that when we were working on questions. Well, it's the same idea here. I love running. You love running? Yes. I love running. What do you love running? So you love it? Yes, I love it. Now I know that sounds a little silly, but I use that kind of back-and-forth to help me realize that I can just replace running with it. The activity of running. The name of the activity is what running, that's what the name of the activity is. So it's an activity. So it's an, it. I love it. I love computers. I love it. Now that would be of them, right? I love them. What do you love? Computers? Do you love it? What do you love? Running? Oh, okay. So what if I say something like this? I am running. I am running. If I say I'm it, I'm it. Okay? Now that's not an incorrect sentence technically. We could say I am it in different situations, but that it would be the title would be the emotion, would be the condition, would be an actual thing, and it wouldn't work for running in this case. Why? Why does it work here? I love it, but not here I am it. The reason is, this one describes an action that is happening right now. This is the present continuous tense. The present continuous tense is the one we use to describe current action. Or perhaps if it's I was running, then that would be the, you know, this already, the past continuous tense, I am running, I was running. This actually describes my action, right? Either in the past or in the present. Okay. So is this a gerund? No. No. This is a verb tense. This is a verb. This is a verb tense. Just as I will run, is a verb tense, future tense. So this doesn't count as a Jaron, but this does what's different about it? Well, I'm not doing running now. I'm not doing it. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. That's not what this is about. This is about what I love. So the main verb is love. And this is the object of my love. Running here is the object. It's not what I'm doing now. This I'm doing it now. I'm doing it now It's my action. This is the object of the verb love, right? This is the subject. I, subject, verb. Object. I love computers, I love running, I love dinosaurs. I love talking, I love teaching. So I hope you can see the difference. Now to make sure we really understand this, we're going to explore these pretty deeply. I wanted to just give you a quick sense for gerunds, a few examples. Then we'll look at infinitives, and then we'll talk about when they can be both, when they can be one, when they can be the other. Because for example, I could say, I love to run and her hair. That's also the object of love, isn't it? Okay, so that's a little complicated. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. First, I want to show you a few simple examples ways we can use gerunds so that you can start to get a feeling for exactly what this is. 38. Building Gerunds: So let's just quickly talk about a few of the common ways that we use gerunds. Gerunds, okay, so we already know this one. I subject love verb, laughing instead of running, laughing, but the same thing, right? Laughing can replaced by that in this case, or could be replaced by it as well. It maybe this, let's just say that or it. And let's call laughing here, the Direct object. Okay? Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. The gerund with an I-N-G often replaces the direct object, especially if we're talking about an activity. And by the way, it doesn't have to be the verb love. I use that because I think that makes it pretty easy to understand. But we are going to, later on we're going to look at more examples with different verbs so that you can see how that, how that works. Now, this one is a bit different, where the ING is at the beginning of the sentence. Laughing hurts my stomach. Well, let's just test that to see if we can replace it with it or that it hurts my stomach. The thing that hurts my stomach. What hurts your stomach? What what does what does that's the question I'd like to ask myself to identify a gerund. It hurts my stomach. Laughing hurts my stomach. What does laughing? It does? Yes, it does. What does laughing. Okay. So this is a gerund. It is used here not as the object of the sentence, but as the subject. And it's the subject of the sentence. But really it's the same idea as this one. It's an activity. It's a thing that we do. Usually, inactivity in the I-N-G verb is not functioning as a verb in the sentence. Sometimes this ING, turns into a phrase, so it might be laughing. Too much, hurts my stomach. Then this whole thing acts as the subject, still acts as a noun. The noun subject, noun phrase, I love laughing out loud. Laughing out loud would then be the object of the sentence. I love that activity. But it starts note, it starts with the ING. Okay. This is a similar idea. I can't stop. What what can't you stop? Ask that question. What does the question makes sense? Oh, yeah, the question makes sense. What can't you stop? I can't stop laughing. Oh, that's the thing. You can't stop. That's right. I can't stop that. Can't stop what? Laughing. Okay. Alright. Makes sense. It's hard to recover from laughing. So much. Hard to recover from. Well, this is following. What kind of word is this? This is following a preposition. And this is actually very common. If you're wondering, which one should I use? Should I use the to laugh? Or should I use laughing? I'm not sure if I should use to laugh. We'll talk about that in a second. To laugh or laughing? Well, it's after a preposition. And because it's after a preposition is going to be the gerund form, the I-N-G form. That is the general rule. So you have to look out for these, these patterns, using them as, using gerunds as subjects, using them as objects, using them after prepositions, but in the same thing, it's hard to recover from, from what? From that. So this is an example of a noun phrase or a phrase built with a gerund. Gerund starts it, but we're including all of this as one thing. It's hard to recover from it. From what? From laughing so much from it, this activity, from that? From what? From laughing so much? Just from laughing. No, laughing so much. I'm not just talking about laughing. I'm talking about laughing so much. If I were just talking about laughing, I would just say laughing. But I'm talking about this whole piece. And that's what makes it a noun, even though it's a phrase, even though it's several words together, it still acts as a noun. And all of it can be replaced by it, by that. And because it can be replaced by it and that and make sense still. Then we say it's a noun phrase, and I've heard also gerund phrase, but let's just keep it simple and say noun phrase. Okay. Now, what about this next one? She was laughing. She was laughing. Okay. Wait a second. She was laughing. She was it. She was it. Well, if I said that it still makes sense as a sentence, but now it totally changes the meaning. So that doesn't really work. This doesn't change the meaning. I'm just replacing it with it so the meaning stays the same. So I know it's okay. This, remember is the past continuous tense. So we don't call this a gerund, we call this a verb tense. She was laughing. What was she doing? She was laughing. Okay. So this doesn't count. So just be aware of these lookout for these, find more examples like this. Pay attention to how the ING is used, how the gerund is used. Practice identifying gerunds. This is probably the easiest way to do it. This is probably the simplest way to do that little back-and-forth dialogue that I made. That's what I do. It's a good way to figure out if it's a, what a thing, or if it's a verb, or if it's a verb tense. And once you figure that out, then you can actually do it. Of course, the point of learning is to do. Once you understand it, then you can start using it correctly. And you won't mix up these two, this, this, and this, I love to laugh. In this case they're the same. This is also regarded or used as a noun. I love it in the same way. So two infinitives. What is an infinitive? 39. Overview of Infinitives: What is an infinitive? Simply, the infinitive is the verb without any changes to it. No change based on the subject. For example, he walks, we walk. No changes like that. Just the basic, simple form of the verb that never changes. For example, walk, okay, Let's use Walk. And then what we're talking about here most of the time with two in front of it. Now, I say most of the time because there are some situations when we remove the two. There are some situations where we separate the two, the verb and put other stuff in the middle. But let's not get mixed up in that. Let's just say two plus the simple form of the verb. And the most common way that we use this is after another verb. Now, this is not exactly the same as the gerund. This can take the form of a noun, like a gerund does, or an adjective. To be about another noun or an adverb to be about the action. Or for example, to be about an adjective or about another adverb. So it can serve different purposes, different purposes. Now, let's just say to walk, Let's use to walk here for a second. If I say, I love, excuse what we did last time to walk, What are we doing? Well, we can replace this with, like we talked about with gerunds. I love walking and we can take this and we can replace it with it. I love to walk. I love walking. I love it. Okay. That's pretty straightforward. Now I'm not saying it's always that simple, but just to understand the main idea here, that we're using verbs, not quite as verbs. We're using them as activities. We're using them as nouns. We're using them as other things for the gerund, specifically as nouns, or to begin noun phrases. And then for the infinitives, often nouns, but often other things like adverbs and adjectives. Now the most common place that you see this is when this follows a verb. I need, I need to know. Okay, what if we change this? And this is in the past? I needed, should we say to New know, this changes because it's in the past, but this never changes. To know, to know, to know, to know. It's always two. No, it never changes form. That's what makes it the infinitive. The infinitive is perfect, It's clear, nothing can change it in any way, whether it's time or subject. So this is both I I need I needed well, what if it's Shi, Shi, What would it be needs, right? Would this be any different with this beat to knows because she knows that would be right, right? No, this is to know as well. Nothing changes it. No thing can change it. She needs to know. It's always no. Never knew. Never knows. No. No. I always know, always walk, always love. And then most of the time, it's going to have the two in front of it with a few rare exceptions. Now, let's look at a few examples so that we can get a better idea about this. Then we're going to compare gerunds and infinitives. 40. Building Infinitives: The first of these should be very familiar. By now. I love to sleep. I love it. What do you love sleep. You love sleep. Yes, I love sleep. You'll love it. Yes, I love it. Okay. Now, you may be asking yourself, okay, Can the infinitive then, like the gerund, be the subject of the sentence. I see it here as the object. Can it also be the subject? Like walking is fun, right? Can this be to walk? To walk is the joy of my life. It sounds silly, right? So grammatically, we can use infinitives at the start, but it's not common. And often this way of doing it is dated 19th century, 18th century, 17th century. Not particularly common nowadays. And when it was more common, it's more sort of the older English feeling an older way of expressing things. So let's say yes, but also not really, not very often. Do you need do you need to sleep? A question? Do you need that? Do you need to sleep? Do you need that? Or do you need to do that? Sometimes we could replace this with to do that. I know we have to do there. What do you need to sleep? Oh, so you need to sleep? Yes. I need that. You need that? Yes. I need to sleep. Okay. You're probably getting tired of me doing that. Do you need to sleep? Do you need sleeping? Could we say Do you need sleeping? No. Why not? Why not? Well, you have to pay attention to this verb. For some verbs, we use the gerund for others, we use infinitives. For some, we use both. And I think the best way to understand which verbs go with what is to look at examples. I think that's the easiest way. That's the way native English speakers learn. Just to learn by example. Instead of learning rules for things or trying to make rules for things, learning by example is a natural way to learn. So we're going to be looking at examples, but just pay attention to that verb. This one clearly would be one where we could use both this one, no, we use only the infinitive and we cannot say, do you need sleeping? But don't be confused if you hear someone say, Do you need sleeping sleeping pills? Oh, well, that's a different thing because this is now one thing. And this sleeping is the type of pills. So it's an adjective for pills. So that's different. That would just be a different a different case. I have to sleep. I have sleeping. No. I have to sleep. It's like saying I must sleep except by the way, after Must, we don't use too, I must sleep. And we wouldn't say I must to sleep. We wouldn't say I must sleeping. No, just I must sleep. So that's something just to notice. Okay. I have to sleep. I have that. Oh, wait a second. This doesn't quite work in the same way that this does. What do you need? Sleep? What do you love it to sleep? Okay. What do you have to have? Have that like I own that. I have this. If I say I have that, then it belongs to me. But that's not what this means. I have to sleep is like I must sleep. Okay? So this one is not being used in the same way, but it is still very common to say I have two and then say the verb. Now, to understand the half part, by the way, in Y that means must. We can do this, have got to, have got to. This means must. But we often just say have to instead, which also means must. So the full expression is, you have got to go. You must go. You have got to go. You must go. I have got to sleep. I must sleep. But we less often say that we can it's okay. But it can be a little too forceful so we don't say it. It's I have to sleep, which means must. Okay, It's so fun to sleep outside. Often, the infinitive doesn't only follow the verb that follows the verb, follows the verb, follows the verb. Usually it does. Usually it's going to follow. The verb, That's a good way to identify it, right? But it can also follow an adjective, a simple adjective. It's so fun. What's so fun to sleep outside? To do this one, we would ask that question. What's just ask this question? Ask a question about this. What's, what's so fun? What's so fun? Then it's about this whole piece, this activity to sleep outside, because it's after an adjective. We use the infinitive because it's after an adjective. If we were answering just this question, it might be more common to say, what's so fun? Sleeping outside by itself as a phrase that's more common, the gerund and then the whole phrase, the whole noun phrase, sleeping outside. Those two words together as a noun phrase. To sleep outside. Maybe not so common as an answer, but because it's an adjective, we will typically use the infinitive after it. How about this last one? It's too cold to sleep outside. This is the activity we're talking about these two together when you have TOO, and then an adjective, too young, too stupid, too easy. It's excessive in some way, right? It's excessive. What is this about? What is this related to? Too cold to sleep outside today? Too young to get on this ride, too old to get on this ride. So often there's an activity here in two form. And then this is going to say that it can't happen. This activity can't happen for some reason related to this adjective, This is a very common pattern that you will find. And we don't use the ING after this one, the gerund after this one. We don't say it's too cold running today. No. It's too cold to run. It's too hot to run. I'm too fat to wear. These very useful when you want to connect an activity to some condition that is true. Now, make sure you practice this pattern and the others so that you feel very comfortable with it, so that you can use it anytime you need it. There are a lot of situations like this. When you need to connect an adjective to an activity, it happens all the time. Now that we have a pretty general idea for how to use gerunds, how to use infinitives. Let's now explore both of these in a bit more detail so that we can see which verbs they can go with and which verbs they don't go with. 41. When to Use Infinitives: As I've mentioned, the best way to get a feeling for how to use infinitives and gerunds, which ones to use when is to look at examples. That's the best way. Think about it. That's what native English speakers do. When I learned English, no one was telling me any rules about using anything. I just learned from the environment, from people speaking around me and I picked it up. It's interesting actually, as a teacher, you have to learn rules that you never knew when you learn the language the first time. Well, you knew the rules, but you didn't know them as rules. As a native speaker. You know them as Experience. Oh, that just sounds natural to me. You get a feeling for it. So that's really, really important. If you want to speak naturally. If you want to write naturally, you've got to get a feeling for what is natural through exposure, through repetition, practicing it on your own, making your own examples, as we've talked about. So let's start with infinitives. And what I want to do is get you used to seeing which verbs infinitives go with, which cannot go with gerunds. That means next to which verbs should we use? Two followed by another verb rather than the I-N-G form. And there are examples, as I've mentioned, where we can use both, which we're going to look at very soon. But first, the infinitives you have, you have, you have to go with me. You need to find a place to live. This one's interesting. We have two infinitives to find and to live. This one. The most important thing to note is that it is After need. Okay? But what are these doing here? This should be pretty familiar because this is following the verb, okay? But what about this one? What is this about? What is it doing? Okay, so I need something. Why do I need it? I need it to do this. This is answering the question, why? About the verb need? I need blah, blah, blah, anything? I need blah-blah-blah. To make a new life for myself, to save money, to start a family, to buy a car. So this infinitive here is modifying or changing, or doing something to what? It's doing, something to the verb need. It's answering the question. Why? So because it's answering the question why? We consider this one to act like an adverb. Remember that an adverb is a word which modifies a verb. It's an adverb. Adjective modifies a noun, adverb modifies the verb. And of course, LY adverbs are very common, but that's not the only type of adverb. Many things can act as adverbs. You can have a word that's not an LY word. Fast would be a simple example of that, right? To run fast. Fast is the adverb. It's not L-Y, okay? Well, you can have whole phrases which act as an adverb. By the way, in fact, adverbs don't just modify. They don't just modify verbs, but that's a separate conversation. In this case, to live, this infinitive is acting not as a noun. It is acting as an adverb for need because it is answering the question. Why? If it answers the question? When? If it answers the question where, where this verb happens, It's also probably acting as an adverb. Now this is called an adverbial infinitive, but let's not get lost in the words and in the names for things. Just try to pay attention to how infinitives or any, anything that you learned in this course. Pay attention to how it's used in real examples so that you don't just see it and copy it so that you can kinda feel it, kinda understand it in your own way and start using it. If you learn patterns, the more you learn, the more you feel comfortable with the patterns, the more you start using them, the more confident you get, the more natural you sound, right? So I thought I would just mention that. But the key thing here is to find is beside need. And after need we have an infinitive, not a gerund. That was, that was all a side sort of a side point. You want to buy a horse, okay? Once you want buying, we cannot say we you want buying. I want two by two by two by, you seem to have control of the situation. Seem, seem to have this have is the belonging, have that meaning of half? Not the must version to have not seem having. You hope to lose about £20. You hope, you hope to lose, hope. Hope to lose. You appear to need my help up here is very similar to seem. It seems like you need my help. You appear to need my help. It seems you need my help. Yeah, that would be slightly different, but it's a similar meaning. You appear to need a peer. You claim to know everything about me. You claim not a super common verb, but common enough. You claim to know. You tend, you tend to get into trouble. Now, to be very clear, these are not the only ones have need one, seem, hope, appear, claim ten. These are not the only ones. There are plenty of others. I want you to just get used to seeing these side-by-side. You have to look out for other examples. When you find them, write them down, learn them, remember them. The best way to learn is to get exposure and to get into the habit of using them correctly. That's how you know, you shouldn't use I-N-G beside, for example, claim. Why does it sound strange to say you claim knowing, it doesn't matter why it's wrong, just try to get a feeling for it, right. Try to remember it, because that's what native English speakers do when they learn the English language. Now that we've done this, let's look at verbs that go with gerunds. 42. When to Use Gerunds: Okay, It's Jeran time, Jeran time, time for gerunds. Verbs that go with gerunds, but not with Infinitives, not with two plus a verb. Okay? I avoid going to social events, avoid, I keep thinking of new ideas. Keep thinking. We cannot say, keep to think. We cannot say avoid to-go. I resist changing my hairstyle too often. I resist changing my hairstyle too often. I don't want to change it. I miss watching sports. I miss to watch. Is that wrong? Yes, it is. I miss a miss I miss watching sports. We discussed moving the venue. We discussed moving the venue. Disgust. Please consider taking my offer. Please consider consider taking my offer. We enjoy building bird houses. We enjoy enjoy building bird houses. So far so good, right? Hope the last one isn't weird. Over the last one isn't a surprise. I need help moving my stuff. It is a surprise. Oh, no, what is going on here? Help is a noun. This is a verb. Need. I thought I could say, I need, I need to know. I need to know, I need that. I thought this was need. I thought the infinitive was with need. Okay, Now hold on a second. We're going to focus next on ones that can use either. But this is a special case. So we should focus on it for a second. What's going on here? Well, Help, Help is what's called the direct object of the verb. Direct object. That is, the thing directly that the verb is about, that the subject is doing, or the verb that is connected to the subject, right? So it's, I need help. That can be a sentence by itself. What thing do you need? Help I need is the verb help as the object. Okay? This is a different type of object. Moving my stuff. What do you need help with? We have to change the question a little bit. What do you need help with that? What's that? Moving my stuff. What do you need help with that activity? What activity? Moving my stuff. Oh, okay. This is what's called an indirect object. So what makes this one unique? What makes this one special is if it's the direct object, I need, that, I need to know. I need to sleep, right? It's not like I love I love that. I love swimming. I love to swim. Using swimming or to swim interchangeably. Either one, it doesn't matter. Same thing. I love to swim. I love swimming. I love to swim. I love swimming. But here we have a difference. This, I need to know. This is the direct object, the object connected directly to the verb that the verb and the subject are doing. That is getting the action of the verb from the subject. The subject is doing verb, the verb is neat. I need, what? What do you need to know? Okay? This one though, is the indirect object. And so that's what makes it different. If it's a direct object, we would use the infinitive. If it's an indirect object, we could use either one, but the gerund will be much, much more common. Using the I-N-G form will be much more common. After I need I need help doing this. I need help asking someone. I need help sending this. I need help moving that. Much more common than saying I need help to ask someone. You could say it, you can say that. But it's much more common to have the I-N-G. So I just wanted to point that out to you. This is an interesting exception. It doesn't change the meaning. But it's a little weird, right? It's not, It's not the typical difference between them where we're just simply looking at what the verb is. Most of them are like that, okay? So hopefully that makes sense. The last thing we're going to do is look at verbs that go with either the infinitive or the gerund. 43. When to Use Either Gerunds or Infinitives: Finally, in our exploration of gerunds and infinitives, it's time to talk about which verbs go with both. Or we could say either either the gerund or the infinitive. And it doesn't really matter which one we use. Both our common, of course, love is the most common example. I love riding horses. I love to ride horses. I like spending time with my family. I like to spend time with my family. Do you dislike negotiating rent prices? Do you dislike to negotiate rent prices? Now I should mention for this one, negotiating after dislike, that will be much more common. Dislike doing something. I disliked riding my bike in the winter. I dislike eating ice cream in the winter. I dislike driving long distances. Those would all be more common than using the infinitive. But you could dislike to drive long distances. I dislike to negotiate rent prices, Okay. So that one not exactly equal in their usage. They prefer working alone. They prefer to work alone. Okay? If we begin planning now will be done by June. If we begin to plan, now will be done by June. I started looking for a buyer. I started to look for a buyer. These are pretty straightforward, hopefully not too difficult. The key is to remember them. The key is to remember which ones tend to go with which. And that's just a matter, as I said, of exposure, of practice, of making your own examples, of continuing to look out for new ones. There are certainly more than what we've talked about here, but that would be probably a little bit too much to talk about in a course like this. If you have any questions about this, let me know. In the next lesson, we're going to be talking about how we connect pieces of sentences together. It should be very interesting. I'll see you there. 44. Overview of Subordinating Conjunctions: We're going to spend some time talking about words that allow us to stick pieces of sentences together. Why? Because it's necessary to know how to use these words. Well. And naturally, if you want to speak naturally, if you want to write naturally. And in fact, using these words incorrectly is a very common issue among English learners. Now, maybe not for you, maybe some, yes, some no. But we're going to cover this because it is so important. And using them incorrectly can cause all kinds of confusion, all kinds of miscommunication. If you want to write naturally, if you want to speak naturally, you have to know how to use. We're going to try not to focus on the names of things too much. We're going to focus on examples, examples, examples, usage, of course. But I have to just name the things we're talking about so that I have a reference point in case I need to say it in the future, which I will. So we have these things called conjunctions. And there are, there are quite a few of them, but there are really two different types. Two different types. One type is called a coordinating and the other type we're going to talk about is subordinating. Now, don't worry too much. You may have heard this when you learned grammar in school. Don't stress out about this. I just want to say what these are called so that, you know, I didn't grow up knowing these. When I grew up, I just learned things by example. That's how we're going to learn by example, of course, I didn't have to learn words like coordinating conjunction or subordinating conjunction until I became an English teacher when I had to start naming things. What's that called? It's called a coordinating conjunction. What is that? Well, let's look at a 100 examples, okay, then you will understand. So of course, of course the examples are more important. But these are the two things we're going to look at. Now. What are these basically, alright, Very good. What are these basically, if I say or write this, Liz bought a car. Okay? Now what is this? What is it? Ask yourself, what is this? You might say to yourself. It's a sentence and you'd be right, you would be right. Okay. But what if I did this? Liz bought a car and Andrew bought a boat. Okay, So maybe Liz and Andrew are married and they got a bunch of money. For some reason. They inherited it. They won the lottery, whatever. They robbed a bank. Maybe they robbed a bank. Great. Not great. Don't rob banks, that's bad. So what did they do with their, all their money? Well, they saved some of it, but liz bought a car, a new car, could put new in there. And Andrew bought a boat. What's this? And you might say it's a sentence. Well, what's the sentence? Is that a sentence or is that a sentence, or is the whole thing is sentence? Well, a sentence can be a lot of different things. Sentences can take on so many different forms. They can have two different subjects, many actions happening at the same time. They can be a whole page long. A sentence can be all kinds of things, but sentences are made of smaller units. There are many parts to sentences. We have phrases, we have the parts of speech, like nouns and adjectives. We have these units which are called Just so you know, clauses, a clause. And maybe you've heard me talk about this elsewhere in another course. So maybe this is review, but we have to just make sure we're on the same page before we get into these conjunctions. So we have this in the background so you can keep it in mind. Okay? Hopefully this is review for you, I hope. Okay. So this piece, if we take this, you said my imaginary version of you said that's a sentence. And it can be a sentence. But if we make it longer, but it's still the whole thing is a sentence. This could be a sentence by itself. So this smaller unit, this smaller unit, which can stand as a sentence by itself, is a type of clause. This type of clause, which can be a sentence by itself, is called an independent clause. Independent clause. That means if we separate this whole thing out by itself, we have a sentence, but we've decided to stick it together with another thing. And this thing, I don't know why it has this thing down here. I'm going to This is a swimming pool, okay. As they're going to make a swimming pool and there's some kids playing, or this is not this one. This is a lake. This is the Pacific Oceans and people playing by the ocean. And there's a giant shark in the ocean at the bottom of the ocean. Okay. So, sorry. So this is another piece. Can this be a sentence by itself? Andrew bought a boat? Yes. That can be a sentence by itself. So what is this whole big sentence made of two independent clauses? Two independent clauses. Cool. That's simple enough. Since these two pieces can stand together as sentences, they have a subject and a verb about that subject, and they form a complete thought. If I read just that by itself, it makes sense to me if I were to take it out and look at it and say, Does this make sense? Is there a subject, is there a verb? The subject is doing or related to the subject? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. So it's a clause. Good. It's not just a clause, it's an independent clause because it stands by itself. So this sentence is made of two independent clauses, and then there's this and word. This n is the thing which sticks them together. Well, there are words like this, including and, which are called coordinating conjunctions. Words including and, or, but, these are coordinating conjunctions. And what they do is stick together two independent clauses. That's what they do, That's what they are. But there must be another type. What about this? Well, let's make another example. Let's make another example and try to understand the other type before we go into many examples to make sure we can really, really use it. I'm just going to delete this, okay? So you've got independent, right? I'm going to keep, keep clauses here. Okay. Let's try this. Liz bought a car even though she already has one. Okay, Alright, so what is going on here? I'm going to call this our subordinating conjunction. Talk about what that means in a second. Liz bought a car. Is that a complete sentence? Could it be by itself? Yes or no? Liz, subject bought action that she's doing. Okay. A car. So that means it's a complete thought, it makes sense. We can understand what's going on. We could put a period there and that would be a sentence. So the answer is yes. We talked about that. Good. What about this part though? Even though she already has one? What about that? Say that to yourself. Even though she already has one. Do we have a subject? Yes. Is there a verb? Yeah, there's a verb. She has car. Okay. But if I say even though she already has one by itself and you don't know anything else. Do you know what I'm talking about? Is that a complete thought? No. No. That is unnecessary thing. In order to stand by itself as a sentence, it has to make sense. It has to be a complete thought. This does not. Okay? So this is a complete thought that makes it an independent clause. So it can be a sentence. This does not. So we call it a dependent clause. The independent type. The dependent type. What does depend mean? That means it needs something in order to survive, in order to make sense, it needs something. What does it need? Ahhh, it needs the independent clause. In order to make sense. It has to rely on this being here. Now it often doesn't matter which order they go in. You can put this 1 first, even though she already has one lives, bought a car. Or you could start with this, okay? Both of those are usually fine. But the key is that this is dependent because if you say by itself, even though she already has one, you will say what? I don't know what I don't understand that whole thing. It's not a thought by itself. Even though it has the subject and the verb. This piece, this piece then attaches to this piece with what? With the thing at the front of it, with this thing, the subordinating conjunction. I know we're saying a lot of grammar names here and I know that may be a little boring, but I just want to make sure you've got this for sure. Before we go onto, before we go on to our examples. So this is the glue rather than end but, or coordinating conjunctions. We've got another type, this type, subordinating conjunctions. And these are the glue, the glue that stick dependent clauses, two independent clauses. And there are many of them, there are many different types. Some are related to reason, like because some are related to time. Like until there are so many. We're going to talk about, for example, whereas we're going to talk about since, until, and quite a few more, we're not going to talk about every single one. Because I think once we cover quite a few of them with examples, then you're going to start to get a sense for the pattern, how they work. And then when you see others which are less common, when you see others, it will be very easy for you to pick them up and use them naturally. Because we're going to look at and talk through a lot of these, these subordinating conjunctions. And then after that we'll talk about coordinating conjunctions until, until you feel comfortable, comfortable using them. My goal for you for this course is to feel comfortable using many, most, all of the things that you learned so that you can express anything you want to express in exactly the way that you want to express it, exactly the feeling you want to create, exactly the details you want to provide. Just as you think of them in your own mind. Other people understand them. That's the goal here. So after we've talked through these examples, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions will be automatic for you. So with this foundation complete, let's jump into subordinating conjunctions, starting with. Although. 45. Although: Let's talk about our first conjunction. Although, although now you may know what Although means. It's similar to, but it's similar to inspite of that's really what it means. In spite of something normally wouldn't happen. But instead it happens. Somebody normally wouldn't think something. But instead they think that thing. Somebody normally would do something, but instead, they don't do that. Something would normally happen in general. But instead, maybe it doesn't happen or maybe it almost doesn't happen. For some reason. There's something against here that general, the general idea, the most general idea is against, kind of like against. So for this first example, although I really like England, so I like England. Okay, I do like England. So what would you expect if I say I like England? I would expect you to say that you like the weather. I would expect you to say you like the people, you like, the culture, you like the TV shows and you like the food. But yes, I like that. I like all those other things maybe, but I don't like the food. So that is against the thing that someone might expect. And that is a very common way to use. Although, although I really like England, Japan, and China have better food, suggesting that this may be my favorite place in general. Maybe it's not even my favorite, I really like it, But in a specific area, food cuisine, I think that Japan and China, in fact, I think that pretty much every country has better food. Although I've heard, I really like Indian food. So I've heard that England has really good Indian food. So this is using although to talk about preferences. Preferences. And we could flip it around, but I'm not going to, because we're going to look at a couple of examples down here where we do that, although it's a very beautiful city, the air is not clean. Okay, so the air being not clean is a thing which goes against its beauty. You would expect a beautiful city to have also clean air. Maybe. I still think it's beautiful. It's a beautiful city. Yes. Yes, But there's one thing that maybe decreases that a little bit or air quality is not one of my considerations. Other people say that the air quality is not good and that means it's not a good city. But in my opinion, I don't care about air quality. That's not one of the factors in my my appreciation of a city's beauty. The air, okay, it's the air. But I want to know about the architecture, the culture, the food, the transportation, the natural beauty, the parks, the things that I can do there, right? So we don't know the reason for this, but we are recognizing, recognizing a negative. Recognizing a negative, this is a negative, even if I don t think it is, maybe some people do, otherwise, I wouldn't say this. So it's a good way to now recognize that, yes, other people say this, or I think this, but I still think this this doesn't this does not cancel my opinion. That's why I need to recognize it. Although I've never been to India, I have a very strong feeling about the culture. Actually I have been to India, but this is just an example, not real life. Luke, remember that? Oh, okay, great. Although I've never been to India, I have a very strong feeling about the culture. You have a strong feeling about the culture. Normally because you go places, go to Japan, you go to Germany, you go to South America, and you go to Brazil. And you experienced that. And then you have a strong feeling about the culture. I love the culture, but this goes against that expectation. I feel that way, but I haven't been there. So I've received that feeling, that strong feeling in other ways. Maybe I've seen a lot of Bollywood movies. Maybe it's the food, maybe it's people I know friends I have from India. Okay. So this is still, this is still recognizing something. Recognizing something that would maybe prevent me from having a strong feeling which doesn't. Or I want to point out, point out something because you might assume it if I don't, that's, that's really what we're trying to do here. If I say, I love Indian culture so much, you might if I don't mention this first part, I think to yourself, Oh, I wonder when he visited India, I wonder when he went there. You may ask me. Oh yeah, when did you go? Then I have to say I don't know. I've never been there. I've never been there. I just feel that way which is fine. But I want to do that before you think that thought to make sure I avoid any confusion, any misunderstandings, anything that you might think which could cause us to not be on the same page. So I simply pointed out when I'm stating my opinion and this may be the way that I use, although most often, it's a beautiful city, although the air is unclear. Well, wait a second, didn't we talk about that here? He said clean here, clear here, but same same thing. Yes, that's right. So note that we can flip this around. That we can say here, the Although dependent clause, either after or before. The independent clause, It's a very beautiful city. Now you just have to be careful when you do it because sometimes you need to add something just so we know, for example, what the subject is or what we're talking about. If we flip it around or we have to be aware that it might change the meaning slightly. So it's not like you can just blindly always flip around these. Although dependent clauses make sure the meaning is what you want it to be. So for this one, although it's a very beautiful city, the air is not clean. The air is not clean, although it's a very beautiful city. Now, when I say this one, yes, it is the same. But now I'm focusing more on the error is not clean part. So why am I saying that? Maybe that's the topic, maybe that's what we're talking about. So it's the same basic meaning, but my focus, my focus may be completely different and that can give someone else a different feeling. So just be aware of that. Changing this around will change that feeling or how someone might understand it. What about this one? Although I really like England, Japan and China have better food. Japan and China have better food. Although I really like England, that one might confuse people. It might make people think that I don't like Japan and China. If I say it this way, although I really like England, Japan and China have better food. What it means is by just don't really like British food. That's what it means. But if I start with Japan and China have better food and then say, although I really like England, then the feeling is, okay, So you like the food in these places, in China and Japan, but you don't like the countries. You like England. You don't really like China and Japan. Oh, That's pretty different, right? So you just have to be careful because it does sometimes change that meaning. Now, what if we flip this one around? What would it sound like? I have a very strong feeling about the culture, although I've never been to India. What is the culture of what and how is that related to India? It's a little confusing, right? So we have to make a small adjustment there for it to make sense. But the adjustment is not serious. All we have to do is say it like this. I have a very strong feeling about which culture we talking about Indian culture. Although I have never been there, we don't need to say to India anymore because we've already mentioned it. But we should mention it first because if we say the culture at the start, then we ask the question, which culture are you talking about? And then saying India later makes it even more confusing. Because if we say India later than we don t know if we're talking about indian culture or another culture. And India, I don't know what's going on. So we have to do it. We have to do it this way. But the adjustment is not much. There's a general rule if you're going to say the to talk about something specific, that you should say what that specific thing is earlier in the sentence or in the previous sentence. So that when you say the culture, people know which culture you're talking about. So earlier you have to say Indian culture. Now there are some exceptions to that. For example, we often say I'm going to the gym, I'm going to the office. And we don't mention it earlier because people know that the office is my workplace. People know that the gym is the gym that I go to. There are certainly exceptions to this, but generally speaking, we should name it first and then use the. So if I said, I have a very strong feeling about Indian culture, although I don't like the food. The food refers to Indian food because we've already said, we've already established which country we're talking about. So that would be okay. Just to be clear, I love Indian food. It is one of my favourite cuisines. Just an example. Just an example. Okay. So when we say, I've never been there, we know what we're talking about. We know we're talking about India, okay, that is it for although practice your own examples. Practice, practice. Next, we're going to go on and talk about even if an, Even though. 46. Even If and Even Though: Continuing with our subordinate conjunctions, let's talk about even if and even though both extremely common, both extremely useful. Even if and even though same, no, they're not the same. Both of these are, as we've talked about, part of dependent clauses, which are usually connected two independent clauses. But the meaning of each of these are different. Now, It's still similar to, although it's still this idea of inspite, of, inspite of Something, this feeling of being against what you might expect, against what should happen. That same basic idea, right? And often, although and even though are used in exactly the same way. In fact, most of the time. But notice I'm saying even though And although, but not even if so. Okay, let's, let's just talk about these individually starting with, even though, alright, if we replace this with although it would be, although it's freezing outside, I'm going for a run now. What does that mean? Well, if I were to say, although it's freezing, that means it is freezing. But in spite of that, against what you would expect, I'm going outside for a run. You wouldn't expect me to do that because it's very cold outside. Maybe it's snowing. There's ice all over the road. So you wouldn't expect me to go out for a run, but I'm going to, in spite of that, it is freezing. Same thing here, even though the meaning would be the same. But to be clear here, we're talking about reality. That means that's what's happening now. Okay? So what's this? Even if then, well, remember, we talked about if a little bit before. If is used in hypotheticals. Remember hypotheticals. These are things that are not real, things that we're thinking about considering. Things that may be true, but maybe not true. Maybe I'm just thinking about it. It's a hypothetical. So let's look at this. Even if it's freezing outside, I will go out for a run. Even if it's freezing outside, I will go out for a run. Is it freezing outside now, like it is here? No. No. I use if to suggest that it could it's a possibility. Maybe tomorrow. Yeah, I wanna go out for a run tomorrow. Oh, yeah. My hurt. It's going to snow. Don't care. Even if it's freezing outside. Even if there's this much snow outside, I don't care. I'm going for a run. No matter what. I will go out for a run, even if it's freezing outside. Even if it's freezing outside, I'll go out for a run. So nothing nothing can stop me. But I'm not talking about reality. I'm talking about a hypothetical. If it does if it does tomorrow, if it does later today, if it does next week. Okay. Now, if we really want to make this a hypothetical and we're not talking about the future, what would we do? How would we change this, even if it were, then even if it were freezing outside, i what should we say? Should we say, well, no, I would go out for a run even if it were. So when we went to separate, separate it from time, separated from reality, and just say the hypothetical by itself, separated from all time, then we can use work. And what would, where would, if I were the king of Mars, I would build a wonderful underground layer or palace or something like that. So silly example, but I'm able to explore that silly example in the hypothetical using were and wood. That's the power of the if I were, I would if it were it would if it were, I would if it weren't, I wouldn't if it weren't, I would if it were, I wouldn't. All of those things can be done. So it's really, really useful if it were, if it were, okay, now let's explore one like that. But in the negative, I wouldn't do it even if you paid me. Did you offer to pay me? No. No. I'm trying to express how much I don't want to do this. Maybe you've asked me to edit a video or take your wedding photos or, I don t know, clean your shoes, whatever whatever we may be talking about here. I wouldn't do it. How much do you not want to do it? Are you this close to saying yes. Will you please help me with this? Will you please please take the photos at our wedding, please? I think I'd rather just attend and enjoy the food and enjoy myself. So maybe it's better if you hire someone. Maybe the other person thinks, Oh, he must be very close to saying yes, maybe maybe if I offer him some money or if I want to let you know before you offer me money, that this is not just me saying. No. In this situation, there's nothing you could do almost that would make me do that. Make me take the photos at your wedding? I wouldn't do it. Even if you paid me, you haven't offered to pay me whatever you did. If you were to offer that, I would say no. Again, I can switch that around. Even if you paid me comma, make sure you have that comma there. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't take your wedding photos. So sorry. I want to enjoy myself. Not run around taking pictures of drunk people. That doesn't sound like fun to me. If you're a wedding photographer, I admire you. I admire you. See, I like taking photos, but it doesn't seem like a very fun job to me. I always thought it was It's just seemed like kind of a stressful job and you can't really you can't really enjoy yourself because you have to be taking photos of everyone else enjoying themselves. Anyway, whichever way you decide to do this one, I wouldn't do it. Even if you paid me. Even if you paid me, I wouldn't do it. It's fine. Is there a difference between them? Not really in the meaning, but if you want to focus on the payment thing, you might say that first. If you want to focus on the refusal part, you might say that first there isn't much of a difference between them. So let's explore now two examples that show both ways to do this, which are a little bit longer, so that we can see how that works. Even though they had been divorced for years. Dave and Janet still cared deeply about each other. Okay, Now notice here this, Dave and Janet, this is the subject of the sentence, Dave and Janet, or they, right now you might be thinking, wait a second. I thought we couldn't put I thought we couldn't put the pronoun in front of the actual names. I thought we would only do that after we've already named them. Well, this would be an example where you can do that as long as it is, the next thing you talk about, it has to be right after that. So you could remove this part the even though, And then for many years and just say, Dave and Janet still cared deeply about each other. That is a sentence by itself. It's also an independent clause. Independent clause one that stands by itself or can stand by itself as a sentence, okay, now I want to add something to it. I'm going to give it some background for some reason. I like to give IT background before I say that independent clause before I say the subject. So it seems natural to do that afterward, David Janet cared about each other even though they had been divorced for years. But sometimes we want variation, sometimes we want to improve syntax. We have a lot of tools for doing that. In fact, there's another course about specifically about that and improving your writing that you can check out. But if you want to have some variation in your sentences, if you want to make it feels slightly differently. If you want to provide the background first, you can choose to do that. Just because you think it sounds more interesting. You don't have to have a very strong reason. So then you can do it this way and it's totally fine. In fact, I think it sounds better because it makes me wonder as I'm reading the first part, this dependent clause, even though they had been divorced for years, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking Who Who are these people? I'm curious about them. I'm starting with the divorce, I'm starting with the issue they had. It makes me wonder who who are you talking about, what's going on. I'm curious to read the next thing. So I'm not saying it's better, but I think it's a little more interesting. And of course, notice that this one has the comma there and this one has no comma. Why? Because typically when you start with a dependent clause and you have your subordinate conjunction there at the beginning. Then when you connect that to the independent clause, which starts with the subject, you're going to have the comma. And if you do it the other way, starting the normal way with the subject of the sentence. You don't need it Usually. Usually. I hope that's clear. I hope even if and even though makes sense, It's very important that you get this because these two are everywhere in the English language. If you don't know how to use them, it will be difficult for you to bring up or mention hypotheticals. It will be difficult for you to talk about the way that you feel about something even though maybe others don't agree. So it's really important that you've got these. So make sure you're practicing. Alright, let's continue. Let's keep going. Let's now talk about how we use whereas. 47. Whereas: Whereas is a very interesting conjunction. That's my opinion, but you might agree with me once we explore it a little bit, okay? Whereas now the way whereas is often learned can lead to some confusion. Often we're told that whereas is the same as butt. But the problem is, it is sometimes, but not always, certainly not always. Think about this one. For example, let's look at this sentence. He is tall but not handsome. Handsome. Now, what is this saying? He's tall but not handsome. Now, being tall is something that many people consider to be good in terms of looks, right? People want to be, people want to be tall often, okay? So if we had a checklist of attractiveness, a checklist of attractiveness. And we have several things and I'm not saying that this is true, I'm just saying this is a common sort of common idea or perception. Ok, so just go with me on this one. Okay. Good looking checklist. Well, tall or not? I mean, yes. Oh, check, oh, fairness. Okay. I'm funny or not. Check. Check. Then attractive characteristic. For example, handsome. Oh, not very handsome. Okay. So you don't get that check on that checkbox? Sadly, I don't know who we're judging here. It doesn't matter. But the point is the, but is this one. We use the butt to say things in this direction or one or the other. And then another thing that is against that in some way, well, you got to check marks, but not this one, not the third one, not handsome. Okay. So I think you get the idea of that meaning of but, but there are a lot of different ways to use, but could we replace this but with whereas he is tall whereas not handsome? No, no, it wouldn't work here. Why not? When we use whereas Yes, we're saying something is against. But we're talking about two different things to different people. We're comparing things that are separate. This is one thing, one person, he, and we're talking about different characteristics of this one person, whereas isn't useful here. So we have to mention what the other thing would be. We were going to give this example then we might say he is tall whereas his brother is short. So we're now comparing two people, he and his brother. And we're also very importantly talking about a single thing characteristic. So comparing two things about one topic, about one category, that's very important. You wouldn't say he is tall whereas his brother loves lemonade. No, no, no, no. We have to be talking about one category. Usually comparing two things inside of a category. What's the category for this one? Well, the category would be height, right? That's the category. And that's a good way to figure out when. Whereas is okay is can you name the category? And can you point at two separate things where people or groups or whatever? If you can do both of those things, then whereas probably works. So height is a category. It doesn't have to be one word, but that's a simple category. He is tall, whereas his brother is short. In the category of height, he and his brother. But if he is tall, whereas his brother likes lemonade, What's the category? I don't know what category that is. One is about a drink and one is about height. I'm confused. Okay, so that one doesn't work. Now we could also say he is tall, but his brother is short. Fine. That's totally fine. Okay. But you just have to realize that just because button whereas are the same there, that doesn't mean that butt and whereas are always the same because they are definitely not. I hope that makes sense. Now we could also by the way, replaced this with while. While, while his brother is quite short. Now, while is also used to talk about time and we'll get into that as well. I just wanted to mention it. There are a couple of other interesting things about whereas, so hopefully you've got the general idea of the meaning, but see if you can notice anything else. The United States is huge, whereas Japan is quite a small country. Okay. What's the, what's the category? Category would be would be country size. That's the category country size or geographic land area, something like that. Okay. We're talking about two things, two countries, Japan and the United States. Now if we're talking about populations, then maybe they're not so different, right? We're talking about the actual size of the land mass. Okay? Japan is relatively small, whereas the United States is a big country in terms of landmass. So that's to make it clear, we can add this in terms of, in terms of what? In terms of population, in terms of landmass, in terms of GDP, in terms of what, in terms of, is a fantastic way to make sure it's clear which category I'm talking about, which thing I'm measuring exactly in case there's any confusion. It's great for that. And also, by the way, when it comes to when it comes to would also work there. Okay. So you can start with the United States. You could start with Japan, doesn't matter. Now you might be then asking, Oh, I remember, I remember with this sort of thing, we can often flip it around. Could I say? Whereas Japan is quite small, comma, the United States is huge. Could I do that? The answer is yes, but almost nobody does. So I would say than the answer is no. So yes, technically, but no because nobody does. I never hear people start sentences with whereas they do, but it's very rare. Very rare. So generally speaking, this is the way it's done. You start with, you start with one of the things you're going to compare. He is tall, whereas his little brother is quite short. The United States is huge, Japan is relatively small. You start with one state, the adjective that relates to it, usually then say the other after. Whereas, notice we have a comma here, we have a comma here, we have a comma here, we have a comma here. So when you use, whereas even though, even though this clause follows the main independent clause, we still use a comma because we are contrasting these two things. Just something to note that's different from, for example, even though, even if just a small difference, Let's look at our other examples here. People in some countries use forks, whereas chopsticks may be used in others. Okay, So what are we, what are we comparing? Well, it's a little different from this. This is a country. It's the name of a country. It's very clear. He, a man, very clear. People in some countries. Which countries, which people? We don't have to be specific here. It's okay to have something that's not very clearly defined. A general group here. This is a general, this is a general group. And we're comparing another general group, another general group. It's also general, general group. We're not naming them and that's okay. We don't have to name them. So I just wanted to give you an example to show you what that might look like. The form is basically the same. What is the category for our comparison? Well, it would be utensil utensil usage. Eating utensil usage. You can add eating here, eating, eating utensil usage. That's what we're comparing between these two not very clearly defined groups. Looks different. Actually, it's the same. You seem to enjoy a quiet life in the countryside comma. Whereas I would rather have the convenience of the city a little longer. But is it any different? No, it's not really any different at all. Comparing you and me and what is the category? Well, I suppose it would be living preferences, specifically location, living preferences where we prefer to live. That's what we're comparing between you and me. So I hope this makes sense. Now. Really. You have to just practice it so that you can get used to using it so that you can feel it. Look up more examples, find more examples. Really try to get a feel for it. I think this, this one in particular highlights, highlights this interesting thing with words we have here, we have one circle. This circle is the circle. We have another circle and this circle is the, is the while WHI alleles, the wild circle. Then we have a circle that's inside of here. And this is our whereas circle. It's important to note that just because two words are synonyms or have the same meaning, or are used in the same way. Doesn't mean that they always are. Because we have all of these different ways to use the word, but that are not this. We have all these different ways to use the word while I'm not that many actually, that are not this. So that's important to just remember. Yes, sometimes words are the same, but also they might be different. So they're not always the same. Practice. These, Let's go on and talk about because 48. Because: You know, all about because, so this should be very easy, but we should talk about it because it is one of our subordinate conjunctions. Because, because, because gives that to you by the way. Because gives reasons. Now, whereas was a little weird, a little weird in that we don't usually start the sentence with, Whereas a little unusual in that we need a comma In front of Whereas for, because we're back to our normal pattern, back to our pattern for dependent clauses, that we can start the sentence if we need to with a comma. And if we start with the independent clause that we don't need a comma. Nice. Okay. You did well on your exam because you worked so hard. This one is classic. We start with a statement of fact. A thing that happened, this could be an event. This could be a condition or perhaps a state or an absence of a state. If it's not there, it didn't happen. The opposite as well. Then, then we simply state because as our marker, then we actually give the reason. You actually say the reason. What is the reason for this event did well on your exam? The reason is that you worked hard. You can say it like that. You can say the reason I did well on my exam is that I worked hard, but that doesn't sound very natural, does it? No, definitely not. This is an extremely natural type of expression. Of course. Of course we can start with because why would we do that? Maybe we want to focus on the reason. Maybe we want to emphasize the reason because you worked so hard. We went to focus on the hard work and then say the result of the hard work. Because of course, of course that happened. But let's talk about the thing you did. Let's talk about the reasons here. That's more interesting. So we might focus on it. There's no hard right or wrong here. No one can tell you if you put one in front of the other, oh, you're wrong. It's really preference, your creative decision. But I should mention that more often when we start with the because it's because we want to emphasize or focus on the reason because they hadn't been practicing daily. Note the comma. There it is. They were quickly knocked out. Knocked out means eliminated in this case. Knocked out means eliminated. They were quickly knocked out. The water comes out because you didn't shake the bottle. Do you know what that's about? Have you ever used a bottle of mustard or ketchup or something like that? And you immediately squeezed it without shaking it and it's gross water that comes out. In fact, we have a name for that. We call it. I don't know if it's an official name, but my family we call it catch up water. If it's ketchup. Ketchup water. Ketchup water. Oh, you didn't shake the bottle and catch-up water came out because you didn't shake the bottle. What's wrong with you? Because of Lena's connection to the band's drummer. We were able to get great seats. This is not a thing that happens. This is a condition. This is an event. You didn't shake the bottle. That is an absence of an event. If you had shaking the bottle, that would have been an event, a thing that happened. This is not a thing that happened because of this. So when you say because of something, often you're going to state Status, state a condition, state the reality of the situation because of your recklessness, a characteristic of someone. Recklessness because of your stupidity, because of my connections, connections, people you know, you know, someone who's in the band. There's a concert. And because lena knows someone who is in the band, we're able to get great seats. That means that band person, the drummer is able to talk to whoever is in charge of tickets and say, hey, my friend and her friends are coming and I want to make sure they get good seats. Okay. We'll take care of it. Okay. Because of this condition conditions. So it's very broadly used whether we're talking about events or the state of something. This is just the state of something. They have the connection. It's there. I stopped checking my phone during the day because it was hurting my productivity. Productivity means what you get done, your ability to get stuff done, to get stuff done. Okay. What are we talking about? It What is it was hurting? Is it the phone that's hurting my productivity? I suppose you could say that, but often when we say an IT here, this thing is causing it. It's not just the thing that's causing it, but is again. The condition. What is the condition? The fact that I'm using my phone too much or checking my phone too much. The condition is I check my phone too much or perhaps the condition is I am phone addict. That's the condition. So it's just be careful with it. It's not always talking about just the thing. The, it can be talking about the dynamic, the whole thing that's going on as a condition. And you can refer to that as a reason. It was doing something to me. Is it really doing something to me? Well, we talk about it in that way. We talk about things about ourselves or our general activities as though they do things to us. They affect us because they do. So it's just another way to use it. It looks a little different, but it's really the same thing because of the floods, we finally decided to change our travel plans. What is this finally doing here? Well, maybe previously we had other reasons that would have caused us to change our travel plans. Maybe something went wrong, maybe something didn't go according to plan. Maybe the floods were there, but we decided it's not that serious, it'll be fine. Let's not change our plans. But then we realize the floods are serious. So after several things pushing us in that direction, or perhaps one thing pushing us in that direction, getting more and more serious, we did this thing. Finally, we changed our plans. Finally, we finally decided to change our plans because of the floods. That would be just fine. That's just as natural depending on probably if we want to focus on the decision to change our plans or the floods. Everyone knows about the floods there on the news. People are talking about it. Many people are changing their plans and down and let's not change. Alright, well, pretty serious. Because of the floods, we decided to change. Our plans, are going to stay in this hotel for another week. And then hopefully things will be better. And we can, we can go to the city we were originally planning to go to. Great. Now you may have heard due to due to his fine in this case. It is quite formal just to be clear. So when you hear due to, it is usually used formally to talk about reasons in the same way as because we can use it here or, or in this way we could say, due to the floods, we finally decided to change our travel plans. We finally decided to change our travel plans due to the floods. That would be okay if we want to sound a little more serious, if we wanted to sound more formal, there's no place where you have to use it. But often on documents, often if it's something official, It's an announcement that the government is telling you or something like that. It's usually a little bit more serious than you'll hear this do too. But to be clear, it is used in the same way. Basically, the same as because with a different feeling. 49. Once and As Soon As: Let's spend a little time on subordinating conjunctions related to time. And we're going to talk about once. And as soon as, as soon as. Now. At first glance, this may look exactly the same, but we'll see some slight difference between them once we explore the examples. I'm also going to draw a timeline here because I find that to be useful as a way to mark things to give us a better picture of exactly how these, how these subordinating conjunctions work. I know I'm not supposed to say grammarly boring names, but that's what they're called. So once and as soon as are about events that happened in time, things that happen in time, which happened after another thing has happened. So there's one event like this and then the other event which may be like this or maybe over here. But it kind of follows this one. And this one won't happen until this one happens. First. That's the general idea. If it's not clear yet, don't worry about it. We're going to explore it. Okay, so once you're done with these, please start on the next stack. We're doing a task of some kind. Maybe we're answering letters. I'm a famous celebrity and you are helping me answer my fan mail. I'm just sitting back drinking caramel macchiato and you're helping me answer mail from my fans. Okay. So this is the thing that happens. What is the thing that happens? You've finished with one stack. So there's a stack, a large stack of 30 letters from my fans because I'm a celebrity. Take a sip of my caramel macchiato. Now, you answer this entire stack. Now that that's finished, start the next stack. Here's the next stack, right? This is the next stack. And then after you've finished that, there's another one. Once you've finished that, do this. Once you've finished this, do this. But it's this focused on being immediate. Is this focused on exactly when it happens? Maybe you have a day off between maybe you go to the bathroom between maybe you'd take a break for some reason? I don't know. Probably it happens right after, but it doesn't mean that it could be or it could be the next day. It could be the next day. Once you finish this, do this, okay, That's five-minutes after. Once you finish this, do this. Okay. That's the next day. That's a week later, that's after the holiday or whenever. So often were less focused on time, specifically on it being immediate. It's not as immediate. And we're more focused instead on simply the sequence, the sequence of events, this one and then this one and then this 1. First you've finished this. Once you've finished this, finished that. Once you've finished that finished that, I'm planning to quit this stupid job once I save up enough money. Okay. So I saved up enough money. I saved up $20 thousand. Did you check? That's done. Now what? Now I'm going to quit this stupid job. Okay. Do I quit it the next day? Oh, I've got $20 thousand in my bank account. The next day I tell my boss I quit, maybe, but maybe not, maybe I'll wait a month. I save up $20 thousand, wait a month and then put in my two weeks notice. Okay. So we don't know. It doesn't say that it suggests that it just happens after it's the sequence of events, right? That's my plan. Once I do that, once you start, you can never stop. Maybe this is about addiction. Now, if this is about addiction, this is pretty dark. I know, but let's just imagine because that's a very clear example. Okay, So you go along, you spend your life blah, blah, blah. You're living your life, shouldn't say blah, blah, blah. That suggests you have a boring life. Hahaha. Hahaha. You're living your life and everything's fine. And you live to the age of 136 and then you pass away quietly in your sleep. Wonderful. He lived your entire life without any addiction that would cause major problems in your life. But if at the age of 41, you started using a very addictive drug right there. After this. This happens first. Then what happens? Well, it's not a thing that happens, but it's simply something that's true beginning at this point. So it's still a sequence, but it's less focused on a specific event and more just focused on a condition as we've talked about or something that's true, right? So after I start. I can't stop. I tried to stop here. Fail. Try to stop here. Failed, tried to stop here. You can never stop. Okay, Now this might be about a positive thing. Well, what would be positive? Maybe going to the gym, right? Some people say going to the gym once you actually do it, if you're not someone who does once you actually do it a few times, once you start, you can never stop. Well, maybe this never is not a serious for the rest of your life. Never, but it's just an expression to say, you will enjoy it once you begin doing it. Once you begin doing it, you won't want to stop. It's good for you to run on the treadmill and lift some weights. That's good for you and do some yoga that's healthy. And you can never stopped, doesn't suggest a negative in that situation. Although maybe if it were about the gym, then I would say instead, you won't want to stop something like that. Now, this doesn't have to be for an addiction. Some medications, for example, once you start taking those medications, You can't stop taking them because your body than needs that in order to be healthy, in order to stay balanced, in order to continue, in order to make sure that something is functioning properly, whatever it is, right? So that's, that's maybe a negative thing because you depend on that. Now. That suggests some kind of dependence. But it does not suggest addiction. So it can be used to talk about something like addiction. I want to quit but I can't I can never stop once you start taking this medication. Now, what if I said once you stop, well, then what would happen once I stop? Once you stop taking that medication, you may notice some symptoms for a few weeks. Symptoms, some symptoms, things you might experience once you stop taking the medication, you may notice that you're a little sleepy. You may notice a drop in your energy level, things like that. So that could be a once you start and once you stop, the key thing here is that there is a starting point, there is a beginning event that's marking something that's now different, something that has changed, whether it's a continuous condition or state, or whether it's another thing that happens after it. But again, the emphasis is not on it being immediate, although it may be as soon as though does focus on the immediacy, here's the thing that happens. I'm going to draw another, another timeline. Who I have space for another timeline. So luxurious. Okay, So here's the event. That's the thing that happens. Now. This thing that happens after it in the same way doesn't happen at any time after it it happens immediately. They're as close as possible to that. It's after it. But it's right after. We often say right after. When one thing happens and then another happens. It happens right after or immediately after. As soon as you get home, check your email. That means don't take your time. Hurry up. When you get home. It's urgent. There's some urgency. So we can often use this to talk about urgency. I don't want you to go slowly because this is very important. I know that you can't check your email right now. But as soon as you get home, please do please check your e-mail because there's an extremely important message in your inbox. It could we say once you get home, check your email? Yes, it's correct. But it doesn't give that urgent feeling. It doesn't create that urgency of please hurry up. This is very important. Okay, I'll check it. When I get home. Once you get home, please check it. Sure, Sure. I'll get home, take a shower, watch some TV, and open up my computer and now check my email. No. No. As soon as you get home. Oh, okay. Alright. If it's that important, I will. That's the difference in the feeling of these two. I'm going to take a shower as soon as we get back to the hotel room. What does this suggest? By the way, gunna means, if you don't know, very casual feeling. It means going to Ghana means going to I'm going to take a shower as soon as we get home. Suggests that I'm maybe very sweaty, disgusting, gross, I'm dirty. Or on a trip, we've been hiking all day. Oh, I smell really bad, right? I'm covered in mud and bees and poison ivy and all that stuff. I feel terrible, gross, disgusting, hot. And I just want to take a shower, but I'm not going to wait 20 minutes. I'm going to go straight to the shower right after we get home from the fun day, fun camping trip, fun, a fun hike. But I really just wanted to take a shower. So it suggests my sense of urgency that I have. I want to do that. A S, a P, as soon as possible asap. They hired three employees as soon as they could afford it. So we really need three more employees as a small business, maybe a startup, a startup, small, a small business. And they're short staffed. They need more people to grow, but they don't have the budget for it. Okay. You don't have the budget for it. And so they can't hire those three people that they need for marketing or some thing that they need to do, whatever. But then they get some funding, some investments, they get money, they sell more of whatever they make. Maybe they make soft pretzels or something, whatever they make, they now have more money. They can afford more employees. So on the timeline that happens, hey, we can afford it now that's the thing that happens. The event is not an event like someone stands up and screams, we can afford it. It's just a general realization that this can happen now doesn't have to be a sudden, a sudden thing like a flowerpot falling off a desk? It can be. But in this case, no, they realize, Oh, I think we can hire those three employees. So when they describe that in the past, they say they hired three employees as soon as they could afford it. The early days, we didn't have much money, but there was a time when we really needed a few new people. We got we got some early funding and we hired three employees as soon as we can afford it. So just to recap, here, we use once when we don't really need to focus on immediacy urgency time. And we use usually as soon as when we usually want to emphasize timeliness, urgency, these can often be used interchangeably. If you say as soon as you're done with these, please start on the next stack. That's totally fine. It may give that a slightly more urgent sense, a bit of a push rather than a whenever after your lunch break. I don't care. Right? Okay. Practice. These. Make your own examples, work on them. Make sure you really, really feel comfortable making those examples, because you won't have time to think when you're in a real situation. You to write an email to someone, you need to have a conversation and you want to use this stuff. It can't be. What did I learn in that course? It has to be right there. Usually when you're under pressure, you forget things. That's what happens under pressure. You don't have your full range of skills, your full vocabulary, right? So what do you do? You make things habits. The skills needed to be habits. So make these habits by practicing them many, many times. Alright, Next we're going to talk about two more time-related subordinating conjunctions. We're going to talk about since. And until. I'll see you there. 50. Since: Let us continue our journey through conjunctions with since and ever since. Then we're going to talk about until, which also relates to time. Now, since is actually used in a few different ways. Not only as a conjunction, it can be used as an adverb, can be used as a preposition. The most important thing is that we understand the examples ever since, ever since. And if you don't know the difference between them, I'll try my best to explain as we go through the examples. If I say, since you're going out, could you grab me a bag of almonds? Since you're going out? Could you grab me a bag of almonds? What does what does this since mean? Well, I see you leaving. Let's say we're roommates. We live together. Hey, we live together and I see you leaving. And I know because we live together, at some point you're going to return. I hope. Unless unless you're sick of me having my laundry all over the floor or not helping clean or whatever. Okay. So we live together and I don't want to go out. I know you're going out and I'm hoping that you're going to go to the supermarket or be near a supermarket or somewhere where they have bag of almonds, some food, some snacks. Okay. So this is kind of like because, right? But it's not used in all the ways that we would use because that's not what I'm saying. That wouldn't be natural. There are times when it's much more natural to use. Because times when it's much more natural to use since. And we get a feeling for that through exposure, through seeing these words in use, right? But the meaning is pretty close. So let's say it's something like because, but if I was going to actually replace this with another word or phrase, I would replace it with, given that. And that sounds very formal. We would use this in extremely formal situations when we're stating a fact, given that, or sometimes given the fact that given the fact that his leadership has been very weak over the last six months, the board has decided this is very formal, may be business-related sort of sort of thing. So with a roommate situation and that's way too formal, but that would replace it given that you're going out. It's sort of like because you're going out, but also because you're going out. And I have noticed that you're going out. And it's true that you're going out. It's that sort of feeling. Alright, so since it's the perfect word to use for that kind of thing, and it's not particularly formal, it's not particularly informal. It's very, it's very neutral, and it's extremely common. So since you're going out, could you grab or get or by, perhaps get or by? And here we have our standard structure that should feel pretty familiar by now, where we start with the subordinating conjunction, we have the dependent clause followed by the independent clause, in this case, a question. So we could say by itself, could you grab me a bag of almonds? Could you grab me a bag of almonds? Or if we wanted to flip this around, we would say, could you grab me a bag of almonds since you're going out? Could you grab me a bag of almonds since you're going out? And that would be okay, that would be natural. Now this is a small point that's really just for writing. If you start with the independent clause, right? Normally you would not have the comma. But if you have a negative, like didn't or couldn't or won't or don't or something like that. Then you'll probably use a comma there before you say the dependent clause. For example, I didn't buy you almonds comma. Since they were all out, they would be probably the supermarket. I didn't buy you almonds comma since they were all out. Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. So that's just a small point to keep in mind, a smaller punctuation point. Okay, Next example. Since you're still looking for work, would you be interested in doing freelance projects now? Freelance, if you don t know, means it's not full-time. And or you might be working full-time hours, but you're not a full-time employee. And you might you might do one project or one job and then go to another company, do another project and a job. Maybe for developers or designers, that's what freelance is. So we're still talking about here, reason, right? Reason. But it's more like, well, the reason I'm saying this or the reason I want to mention it is that it would be a little weird to say because here, even though it is a similar basic meaning, I don t think because sounds natural there, I wouldn't use it. It's the perfect place for since. And again. 51. Ever Since: Now let's take a look at the next one, and I think you'll find something interesting about it. This is where we start to talk about time. Maybe or maybe not. You'll see what I mean. Since the internet became widely used, finding information has become easier. Alright, let's explore this in two different ways. Let's first ask ourselves if we could use this since two main reason or something like because, let's say this means because, because the internet became widely used, finding information has become easier. Because this happened. This is now true. Information is easier to find because the internet became widely used. If it had not become widely used in the past, it wouldn't be easy to find information now. Okay? So that makes sense. That works, right? We can understand that. Okay? But what if this is not about reason? What if this is on the timeline? What if this, the internet became widely used is an event in time, a mark in time, a thing that happened in the past. Or maybe let's explore that. So I'm going to draw one of my, one of my famous timelines. Please be straight, please be straight. Please be straight. Oh, not too bad. Okay. I'm going to mark it now. I know this doesn't happen on one day, right. Okay. But let's let's name it and let's mark it. I'm going to name this, the internet became widely used. This event in time. I'm going to name this the late nineties. And you can talk about things that happened in a long period of time, like years, as the name of that period of time, as an event, as a thing that happened in the 20th century. That's a 100 years. But we can still talk about it as a thing that happened in the past, like a single event. The late nineties. That's a period of time. We can mark it very clearly like that. Okay, so let's mark it. Now. Since is used to say from some period of time up until the present. If it's not up until the present, if it has stopped some time in the past, it's already done, then we wouldn't use since, since when we're talking about time means up until the present, from a past time. Okay? So this is the late nineties. This is the beginning. And finding information has become easier. That is still true. And it started being true the late 90s. Okay? So now we see two potential meanings. And that might cause a problem. Now if you're okay with people, perhaps misunderstanding you, then I guess it's okay. But I would say it's better to be clear. Right? So if you're going to use just since, It's probably better to say the late nineties and name, name the beginning period rather than using a description. Because if you use a description, then people may be able to understand that in the other way, which may not be what you mean. They may think you mean because of this thing that happened, the Internet becoming widely used, right? But let's try to use because with the late nineties, because of the late 90s, finding information has become easier. That doesn't really work well, that doesn't quite make sense with because of a period of time. Information is easier to find. That that doesn't quite work. So that helps us, it helps us see that since is usually better used with the name of a time, the period of time, the year, the month, the day, the time of the day, for example, since 02:00 PM, I've been sitting here watching the door. Okay. That's when I started. No way to misunderstand that. Right. That was the beginning time and I'm still here I'm still here watching the door. Okay. Since August of 2004, we've been living in Topeka, kansas since August of 2004. So I know the beginning time and that is still true. No confusion there, right? But if I describe that event instead of naming it with since, it often brings in this possibility to misunderstand it, to have the because or given that meaning that we just talked about. Now, what if, what if we want to describe it? We don't want to say the 90s. We don't want to say August of 2004. Then we use Ever since. That's why we use ever since. We use, ever since when we want to say what the event is, describe it like this. Ever since the internet became widely used. Describe the event. We describe the thing that happened. Finding my way home has been a lot easier ever since I started using Google Maps, ever since this thing. So I started using Google Maps. Let's say here, oh, bad timeline. There's a hill. It's a rough year here. Anyway. And then we move forward and that's still true ever since. But ever since used as the beginning of a description to say what thing I started doing ever since I started using Google Maps. If I just wanted to say when it happened, may last May. Finding my way home has been a lot easier since last May. Okay. Well, that makes sense, but it loses the whole point of saying it because I'm saying it to talk about Google Maps. So we may use ever since when we want to have that detail. I'm saying this because I want to mention Google Maps and exactly when it happened, May or June. It doesn't really matter. I don't really care if you know which month I started using it. I want to tell you about the thing that I did. The thing that started. That is still true now. That has improved something or made something worse. But if I want to focus on the time, then I'll say the late 90s, then I'll say may last May 2 thousand for the 20th century. I'll name the time because I want to focus on perhaps this thing. I want to focus on finding information, finding my way home. And it's less important what this is, this doesn't really matter. So I'll just say the time, time is maybe more important. And the thing that's still true, That's more important, not this and not the, since the internet became widely used part. So I hope that makes sense. Let's just look at one more example. I've been drinking Roy bows T Ever since I visited South Africa in 2015. Ah, here I get the best of both worlds. Best of both worlds. The best of both worlds is that I get to say the time and describe the event. If I wanted to just say since then, I probably just say 2015. I've been drinking robust T since 2015. Since 2015. However, I want to connect robust T to South Africa because that's where ROI both T comes from. I don't know if it all comes from South Africa. I think so. But I could be wrong about that. So I would lose something if I just said since 2015 because then you just know when it began and you think, okay, well, he started drinking robust T in 2015. That's interesting. Thanks for telling me. Look, I'm glad to hear that, right. No, no. I want to mention my trip. I want to talk about my experiences. I want to connect the thing that I'm doing with the place where I started doing that. Alright, so there it makes sense to use ever since. But I can still add in 2005, last August at two PM, you can still add the time. You can still add the name in the late nineties if you want to. The name of that time period or the date or whatever it happens to be. I know this is a little complicated and I know we kind of got out of our strict subordinating conjunctions topic, but I felt it was important to explore since and ever since more completely, because these are so common. Since these are so common, I thought it would be important to cover a few extra examples, bonus examples, so that you have a good understanding of how to use these to practice them. Next, we're going to talk about until. 52. Until: Remember how we use since to mark time something which began in the past and has continued up until the present. Well, there are some similarities between that and until, but also some differences. So we're gonna, we're gonna talk about until another conjunction that relates to time. And I think it would help to draw a timeline again. So let me do that with this one is looking very went down. That's not too bad. Not too bad right? Now. With until May instead of starting here and going forward up to the present, we're going to flip it around. Something is going on, and then it stops. And we use until to mark, to mark the end point or mark the stop point. But it doesn't have to be in the past. 53. Unless: Before we talk about coordinating conjunctions and, but, so yet, before we get into that type, we have two more subordinating conjunctions to talk about. I know I said I wouldn't keep saying those words, but I don't know what else to call them. So bear with me, bear with me. I apologize. Again. Let's focus on the examples. And I think unless is a perfect example of why it's so important to focus on examples because it's not very easy to say what Unless means. Not very easy to say what if means. The last two we're going to talk about are unless, unless and if. And I think you know what if means in general. And of course, we'll look at examples after this. But I think you know the general meaning. If is used to bring up possibility to talk about, as we've mentioned several times already, the maybe in your mind that could be real. And if it were real, what would I do? But maybe it's not, or maybe it might be real in the future. And if it is real in the future, then what will I do? These sorts of maybes, exploring possibilities, things that may or may not happen. We use if for these and unless is similar to this but not as broadly used. This is something like except if and that could be, for example, and if you don't, right? So let's say this squiggly line represents what's true. This will be true, this is true. But there's one thing that would make it not true, which would make it's not true. Let's say this is not true. And that one thing that would make it not true is, is this, whatever. But I'm drawing a butterfly. That's my butterfly wing doing. Okay. So there's a butterfly because there's a butterfly this. But in every other situation, this, anything else can happen, anything else can be there. And it's this one. But if there's a butterfly, it's this one. And I know that sounds strange, but I'm trying to just give you something, something visual. Let me try to make that into more of a story to give you a better sense for this. So let's say this represents sadness and this represents a lack of sadness. Or let's say, let's just call it happiness. Okay. Nothing wrong with writing the word happiness. So nice word. I feel sad all the time. Everything makes me sad. I'm sad Every day. Every day I'm sad. And I always feel sad. Unless, unless there is a butterfly fluttering around me, It's the only thing which makes me happy. So the only thing which can take away my sadness is this butterfly. It's the only thing that can change my sadness to happiness. Now this could be about events. This could be about conditions, in this case, the condition of sadness, right? My friends come, they tried to make me happy. I still feel sad. I get a million dollars, I win a million dollars. I still feel sad. Nothing works. But then, but then a butterfly comes and I realize this is the only thing. So unless there's a butterfly flying around my head, I generally feel quite sad. That would be the sentence we would make. And I know it's a little bit silly, but I'm trying to give you a feeling for it. Now to really understand it, we should look at examples. So let's do that. Unless you have any other questions. I'm going to close this ticket. This might be a customer support person or a customer customer service person. And this person is getting a complaint or they have an issue to deal with for a customer. That is often called a ticket in the customer service world. When you get that, when you're done with it, when it's resolved, when it's fixed, you close it. So it seems like it's fixed. They solved this problem for this customer, right? So what's the next thing to do? Close the ticket? That's a good thing. That means this is done. We're finished here, right? But sometimes they want to leave a tiny little door open just in case the customer still has some problem. Just in case there's still something going on. So if you want to leave a small possibility open, you can use unless in this way, this is what I plan to do. This is what I'm going to do. I intend to do this unless, unless there's a butterfly, unless there's some thing that would prevent me from doing that, which is okay. It's fine. It's fine. I'm happy to open the ticket again. If you have any questions. If you have questions, we can talk about it more or whatever. Unless you have any questions, I'm going to do that. So it's a great way to talk about your intentions, but not make them seem final. If I just said I'm going to close the ticket, then what if The customer still has questions. Wait. I still have two questions about this issue. It may make it seem like the customer service person is a little bit rude or to direct or not willing to listen. So it's a great way to open that possibility that something else might need to be done. Okay, next example. I'm planning to take the car tomorrow unless anyone else needs it. So I state my intentions. This may be the most common way to use unless to state your intentions, to state your plans and leave open the possibility for this special case special situation thing that may happen. Well, I was going to use the car tomorrow because I need to pick up my friend from the airport. Can I use the car? Maybe this family has one car and they all share it. Right. And usually usually mom usually mom takes the car. I was planning to take the car tomorrow, but mom doesn't want to seem like a tyrant, accrual mom, that is the only one who can use the car. So maybe her son was planning to or hoping to use the car to pick up his friend at the airport. Well, now this one thing, this thing that would prevent this from happening would happen and he would take the car. So she's leaving that door open, which is really great, usually a good way to communicate. It just makes you sound very, very reasonable and makes you sound very open. And it makes you sound like you care about other people's feelings and what other people may want to do, please don't call me on my vacation unless there is an emergency. This is not the opposite, but it feels the opposite. It's quite direct. And it's saying, don't do anything except in this extreme case. So maybe there instead of the butterfly antennas, we can draw horns on the butterfly and evil butterfly. So horrible thing happens in emergency. Only in that situation should you call me. Okay. That doesn't have to be rude. It could be to my assistant. I'm going on vacation. I want to enjoy my time with my family, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't call me with any business stuff unless there's an emergency that's happening, that could be polite. But if you set it directly, please don't call me. Unless there's an emergency that could sound direct, that could sound rude, rude. But the idea behind it is not different. It's the same thing. This should be true. This this Don't call me, don't call me, don't call me unless the evil butterfly attacks our company. And then do this, call me because I want to deal with that because it's an emergency, but it's unlikely it's not likely to happen. I just want to leave open the possibility that something would happen. And if it happens, then I want to make sure I'm involved. If I just say Please don't call me for any reason while I'm on my vacation. Then my assistant is thinking there's an emergency happening. The company is being attacked by an evil butterfly. What do I do? Well, I want to call my boss, but he said or she said for no reason. Okay, I just won't call and I'll try to deal with it myself. Oh, well then everything goes wrong and things get worse and worse and worse. And this evil butterfly invites his butterfly friends and wow, it's a silly example. It gets worse. So you want to leave open the possibility for that, but make it something that's quite extreme. Make it something that's unlikely. Unlikely, probably won't happen, but still quite useful. And you could change that around unless there's an emergency, please don't call me on my vacation. Unless the weather is awful tomorrow, we'll leave bright and early, brighten early as an expression we use to emphasize the earliness of leaving or going or doing something. We'll go bright and early will leave bright and early. It just means very early. Okay? So it's a common idiom in America, a common expression in America. Okay? So I expect, probably in this case, I expect the weather to be good. I expect a nice whether there is a chance, maybe, maybe this is a 20% chance of heavy rain or maybe a snowstorm or something. If this happens, if this happens, the snowstorm, the heavy rain, then we'll delay a few hours or maybe we'll go the next day. But in all other cases, if the weather is decent, if it's okay, even if the sky is a little gray, unless it's terrible, unless it's awful. Unless it's awful, We are going to accept, if it's awful, We'll leave bright and early tomorrow unless the weather is awful for that, if you're going to reverse it and start with, the subject will leave bright and early. Then you might want to put tomorrow in that one will leave bright and early tomorrow because it just makes more sense to say when it happens first, you want to sort of establish that it's tomorrow, that it's about that time that day, whenever it happens to be. So you can change it around a little bit, you can move that there, you don't have to, but that sounds more natural to me. Okay, last example. Unless you've read all his books, you probably couldn't explain the full range of his views. So maybe we're talking about a famous philosopher. Maybe we're talking about a famous historical writer, Historical author, or some person who writes books and has views and expresses those views in his books. Now, this suggests that this person's views changed throughout his lifetime. When he was writing in his 30s. It was quite different. His views are quite different than in his 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And we want to get across that. If you just read the work in his 30s and 40s, you would be missing the full range of his views, then you wouldn't be able to explain all of his views because, hey, you didn't read the books he wrote in his 60s. Those are very important. You miss those. Now that's one possibility. The other might be that it's not about time and then it's just a wide variety of views. And different books cover different areas and you didn't read all of them. And because you didn't read all of them, you can't explain all of them. So that's a possibility as well. This looks more complicated, but it's just as simple as the others. Starts in the same way unless you've read his books, unless the weather is awful tomorrow. Same exact grammar. You probably couldn't explain. The full range of his views will leave brighten early. This is in the future. This is a hypothetical, right? So it looks quite different, but the idea of unless is exactly the same. Not different at all. The grammar can change. The ideas can change, but the usage of unless it's still pretty much the same, the butterfly in this case is the person who can explain this author's views because they have read all his books. That's what the butterfly represents. I hope the butterfly example helps, but if you have any questions, please let me know. Next. We're going to talk about if 54. If: The last subordinating conjunction and we're going to talk about is if. And I think, you know how it works, I think you know what it means. This should be review, but I feel that we should just cover it. Now I should also mention, we haven't talked about all of this type of conjunction. We haven't covered all of them because I feel like if we spent time on all of them, we would be losing our balance for the course. We will be diving a little too deeply into specifically conjunctions and not focusing enough on learning other sentence patterns. So this is the last subordinating conjunction we're going to talk about. We'll spend some time on coordinating conjunctions because those are so important when you're building sentences, whether you're writing or speaking, it's very important to make sure you've got those right. But let's now quickly, very quickly explore if, as we've talked about before, we use if to explore possibilities. Most of the time. These are often called conditionals. We can say they're maybes. It's exploring, it's exploring a maybe. And we've talked about the hypothetical. So we may use if to imagine something being true. It's not, perhaps it's not now. But we can imagine it. If I were a king or what I do if I were a king. If I were king, we can think about that without it being true or ever needing to become true, right? Easy enough. We can talk about possibilities in the future. We can say, if I pass that exam by moving to Canada. Okay, so we can talk about what will happen if this hypothetical or this conditional is true in the future. So that's more real, That's more concrete. We can also talk about intentions in this way. We often say, if you want to do this, then do this. If this, that, if this, that if you want this, that if you plan to do this, that if you hope for this to happen, that if you want a billion dollars, you need to work very hard. You need to be incredibly intelligent if you want to billion dollars. So this type of thing is what we're exploring with ifs, the conditionals, the hypotheticals, the maybes, the, Wouldn't it be interesting, that sort of thing? And often for these, we will use the word wood, should. And I don't have room for it. I'll put it here. Could we don't have to use those certainly, but we can use those to explore possibilities, to explore maybes, to give advice, or to mention the hypothetical. There's where there's wood were and we'll talk about this. That is also would although it doesn't look like it. So if you need help, just ask that as a possibility. Maybe you do. If you do do this. Now, I might not mention the other possibility. I won't say probably if you don't need my help, don't ask. That would be a little bit strange. I don't usually need to say that. Now, if there are two options, I might, if you need my help, just ask. But if you have questions in general, GoTalk to Carol. So there are two possibilities, and I can mention both of those possibilities. Depending on your situation, depending on what you need using f. So depending depending on what depending on what you need, do you need my help or do you need help with questions in general, what do you need? What's the situation? What is the condition? That one is very simple. You should take online courses if you want to improve your skills. Notice this one has the comma because we're starting with if it should be very familiar with this by now, I shouldn't even need to say it. This one does not, because we're not, we're starting with the subject. You should take online courses if you want to improve your skills. Hey, that's what you're doing right now. Congratulations. So for this one, this is just my advice. And I might have different advice for different people, for different things, right? Another person, if they want to improve their skills, maybe I recommend that they practice in a different way. If you want to do this, do that. But if I want to focus on my advice a little bit more, maybe I'll put that first. You should. And should is actually a pretty strong word for advice to soften it, then you would say you could, you may consider, you might think about taking online courses if you want to improve. Now I'm assuming you want to improve, but I'm leaving open the possibility that you don't. That's why I say if because you may not. And if you don't, then obviously don't take my advice because you don't want to. It's only if this is true. This is false. This take online courses. This well, I have nothing to say to you. Which one, whether it's true or false, whether it's left or right, whether it's yes or no, that depending on which one it is, depending on which one it is, determines, then whether or not you should do the next thing. Whether or not you should follow my advice, you can't hope to be at the top of your class. If you don't apply yourself, if you don't apply yourself, you can't hope to be at the top of your class. What does apply yourself mean? That means work hard. Often used for school. In school, parents say to their kid's teacher, said, You should apply yourself. You should work hard, you should study hard. Okay. If you were serious about losing weight, you wouldn't be eating that. I'm sitting down at lunch with you and you're eating ice cream, and then you go buy another one. You're eating ice cream. But I remember last week you said that you wanted to lose weight. So clearly you're going against what you said you wanted. And I'm remembering that and I'm a good friend. So I wanna, I wanna give you a little bit of tough love. A little tough, little tough love. Tough love is when I say something that I think you need to hear, even though in this moment you don't want to hear it because you're enjoying your ice cream so much. I know you don't want to hear it, but I want to help you achieve your goals. I know that if you continue eating ice cream every day like this, you're never going to lose weight. But I know that also tonight you're gonna call me on the phone and say, I'm not losing weight. I'm going to say, remember the ice cream today. So I'm just going to tell you now as you're eating the ice cream. But I make it a conditional because I want you to remember your goal. I'm bringing up something from the past. If I just say you're never going to lose weight, that sounds too harsh, That's too tough. That's not tough. Love that might be mean, that might be harsh, right? But I'm imagining a hypothetical where you are actually serious in, in my imagination, I'm imagining a serious, you serious about losing weight instead of eating ice cream, having a salad. Someone who just came back from the gym wants to have a salad and have lunch. With that hypothetical in mind, I'm now describing that other version of you. That version of you who loves salads, who lives in my imagination. And I'm mentioning your goal, the thing that you said to me, because that might make it a little easier for you to hear if you were serious. We're means it's not worth suggests the hypothetical. If you were you're not, if you were serious about losing weight, You wouldn't. So just remember that structure, remember that pattern when you want to make a hypothetical. If you, I'm just going to use you. That's the subject there. If you were or weren't, then you make the statement, then comma, you would or wouldn't. And this pattern right here, it is so powerful you can do so many things with this. You can find herself on Mars. You can explore possibilities about the future, about yourself, about the past. There are so many interesting things that you can do with this. So make sure you remember this. Make sure you practice this. You need to avoid sugar and carbs if you're serious about losing weight. Now, what's the difference between this and this? Well, this is exploring the hypothetical and you need to, I'm telling you that now you need to, I'm giving you advice. This is what you should do. Now, if you're serious about this, if you're not, okay. But if you're serious about it, this grounds it, this brings it closer to reality. This makes it feel less hypothetical. If it's true, if it's true that you want to be serious about losing weight, then you need to do this. You should do this. You need to avoid sugar and carbs. It's really getting at the same thing. It's really the same basic thing, but it feels different. And of course, this one has more possibilities, right? This one you can use for more types of possibilities, more hypotheticals. If I were able to speak six languages, I'd get a job at the United Nations. Now, does that mean I can speak six languages? No. It's a hypothetical. Were and would wait a second. Where's the wood? Well, often we abbreviate. I would too. I I apostrophe d or you'd. You apostrophe d or they made they apostrophe d or we'd, we'd apostrophe d. So we can abbreviate these things, but it doesn't change the meaning. This is still a hypothetical, just like this one is, we're still exploring something. I don't speak six languages. I would if I could, but I can't. I would if I could, but I can't and you could hear say instead of if I were able, you could replace that with could. Could. Could is great for hypotheticals as well, if I could, and we don't have to have speak that simplifies it. If I could speak six languages, I'd get a job at the United Nations. But since I can't now that's reality. Since I can't since I can't, I'll just stick with what I'm doing now. I don't speak six languages, sadly. Now, I want to mention one thing before we finish this lesson about if used as a subordinating conjunction. If also means whether I don't know whether she wants to go. I don't know whether she wants to go. I don't know if she wants to go. I don't know if she wants to go. I don't know whether she wants to go. That is not using if as a subordinating conjunction. So just to be clear, sometimes you see if used as weather. And yes, it has the same basic meaning, but that does not mean that it is being used in the same way that we've been learning for this one and for the ones we've been talking about. Like although, like while, like until, like because. So just keep that in mind and maybe do some of your own research about using if. In that way we can't explore absolutely everything because we have to keep moving. But now we have reached the end of our exploration, our discovery of subordinating conjunctions. I hope you've been following along carefully. I hope you've been practicing all along. I hope you've been making your own examples. Next, we're going to talk about another type of conjunctions. 55. Overview of Coordinating Conjunctions: We've been talking about and practicing subordinating conjunctions, words like, although and because, which connect pieces of sentences together. Specifically a dependent clause and an independent clause. So I hope you're very comfortable with that now. But we're not done with conjunctions. We're not done learning how to connect pieces of sentences together. Now, we need to talk about a different type of conjunction. We need to talk about coordinating conjunctions. Coordinating, coordinating conjunctions. Now, just like with subordinating conjunctions, Let's not focus too much on what it's called. Yes, I have to say the name. I have to call these things something. So they're coordinating conjunctions, but really what are they? Well, we're talking about connecting things. That's what we're talking about here before. What were we doing? Taking a piece of a sentence, connecting it to another piece of a sentence. What were the types of pieces? Well, we had an independent clause, which is a clause that can stand by itself as a sentence. And a dependent clause which cannot. And we connect those pieces together with a word like because. We can start with because or not. Often we can flip them around. The difference with these and, or yet. But, so there are a couple others that we're not going to talk about. We're going to talk about the most common. The difference with these is that we use them to connect together two independent clauses. Two independent clauses. That means two things that can stand by themselves as sentences. Now, it's important to keep in mind these conjunctions are not only used to link together two independent clauses. We're going to explore all of the different ways that we use these words. Not only how we use them to connect together two independent clauses, but just to give you a basic idea of this before we explore these, each in more detail, let's, let's do two simple examples. Okay. I went to the coffee shop to buy a muffin and an Americano. It's coffee drink, my favorite. Okay. Now are those two independent clauses. Remember, an independent clause can stand by itself as a sentence. And Americano, no, no, an Americano is not a sentence by itself. So here, n is being used to add something, to list something to give an additional thing. Okay. I'm sure you know that it's used for that. What if it's or I might go to the coffee shop to get a muffin, or let's replace this to get a muffin or an Americano. Well, that changes the meaning. The grammar of this is the same. The meaning is different because now I'm giving a choice between two things, right? A choice. But the grammar is no different, and this is still not an independent clause. This is not an independent clause. I'm just giving two things. I'm providing two things and I'm using or to mention both of those doesn't have to be too. We can talk about three things for things, we'll get into those examples. I just wanted to show you that absolutely these words are used in different ways. Now what about, but here, okay, I'm going to the coffee shop to buy a muffin, but not an Americano muffin. But cross out both of these, but not an Americano. Just to be clear, this is now crossed out. So that's a little weird. But I probably wouldn't say that in real life. Why would I say, I'm going to buy this but not that for the coffee shop example, it's a little strange. But I'm just trying to show you basically how that works. Okay? We're using these conjunctions to talk about nouns, to bring up nouns, to compare nouns, to put them side-by-side in some way. Alright, let's, let's stop that there. Because we're going to explore it more with each one of these one-by-one. Now let's look at another thing here. What about this idea of the coordinating conjunctions used to connect together two independent clauses. Well, there's something we can do here which is actually very simple, which can help us see that in fact, these are two independent clauses. We can start with two sentences. Okay? I bought. I'm going to do an Americano. Americano. Okay. That's one sentence, end of sentence. Now, is that an independent clause? Yes, of course it is. Of course it is. We have the complete thought subject and verb that is related to the subject. She got a muffin. Okay? So we have two separate sentences, which are also independent clauses. Two separate sentences. I bought an Americano, she got a muffin. Now the value then of these is to be able to, when we want to make these one-sentence, to connect them together, to connect them together into a single sentence. Of course, they each have their own meaning. This is something like plus. This is something like an option or a choice. This is something like well often is against, this is often also another type of against. This is often result, sometimes cause, right? So each of these, as we'll explore, has their own general meaning and specific ways to be used in different situations, of course, of course. But basically, they're all in some way doing this when they're used to connect together two independent clauses were taking two thoughts, two ideas, and combining them into a single sentence. Now why would we do that? Well, maybe for the sake of syntax, we feel like saying two short sentences sounds a little weird. Sometimes that's great. Don't say one is always better than the other, but really depends. If you've used many longer sentences in your writing, something using a short sentence like, I bought an Americano can be great. So don't say that. It's bad to make short sentences. It's really not, It's really not. Now the other reason might be more that these two things are actually very closely connected together. In fact, in the story that I'm telling, when I tell you what I'm doing or what I did earlier today, they're so closely connected together. We're talking about what we purchased at the coffee shop, that it actually makes more sense to put them in one sentence. It sounds more natural, right? So then all we do when we want to do this is have a comma here instead of a period. A comma instead of a period. And we use our, we use are coordinating conjunction in this case. And she, and now this is not a big S, This is a lowercase s. I bought an Americano comma and she got a muffin. Okay, well, that might sound more natural. You can use either one. Probably both are okay. I think this one sounds generally more natural, and that's what it is. So in some ways, this is a little easier when we're using it like this to connect these two independent clauses together. In some ways it's easier than what we've been talking about. In some ways. Easier than connecting together two different types of clauses, right? Because all we're doing really is connecting together two sentences. That's it. That's all we're doing. Yes, it gets a little more complicated in real life. Of course, everything does, but simply, simply, if you just keep this in mind and keep this in mind, you'll be able to understand mostly how conjunctions are used and how you can use them. They're great for telling stories. Very important for adding extra information, for making a note or a comment that might be against something, they're extremely useful. You find them in almost every sentence right there. So common in the English language that we must explore them. We must talk about them, of course, with examples. So let's start with specifically coordinating conjunctions used to connect two simple independent clauses. Let's explore a few of those before going on to some of the slightly more complicated uses. 56. Building Sentences with Coordinating Conjunctions: Here we have some simple examples of each of the conjunctions we're going to talk about individually, used to connect together to individual simple sentences. Now, this should be, I hope, review for you, it's important for us to go through these simple examples to set a foundation so that we have the basic understanding, even if it is review for you, which I hope it is. So that then when we explore each of these individually, we can branch out and explore other things without getting lost, without feeling confused. Let's go through all of these sentences quickly and make sure that in fact, each one is made up of two independent clauses. Okay. I've got serious jet lag. That's a sentence. I'm going to go sleep for awhile. That's another sentence I tried to call you. That's a sentence you didn't pick up. That's a sentence. Everyone tried to stop me. That's a sentence I found a way to succeed. That's a sentence. You can book a flight. That's a sentence. Find some other way to get there. That's a sentence. Ethel was imagining a romantic getaway. That's a sentence. Albert was picturing a camping trip. That's a sentence. Alright, so each of these is clearly made up of two independent clauses. Now, we check to make sure that each one has the comma, comma. Comma. Comma. Comma. Comma right there. Oh, there it is, yes. Okay. In front of the coordinating conjunction. So kind of like results just to give a general idea. But we can say against or contradict. Okay. Everyone tried to stop me yet. This is also something like against or inspite of as we've talked about. You can book a flight or alternative, sometimes option, find some other way to get there. Ethel was imagining a romantic getaway, and this could be in addition, at the same time. Sometimes simply plus, plus, well, which is the same as in addition. Okay? So I think this is straightforward right now it's important to note the meaning of each word. And if you feel like you still don't quite understand what each one means, that's okay because they are used in a lot of different ways. And it's not always exactly against it's not always exactly. In addition, I'm just trying to give you the general sense. You have to really explore these through example, which we will do. But I would encourage you to do additional research, do even more research to fully understand or feel like you've fully understand how all of these are used, how each of these is used, because that's where it can get a little difficult. Sometimes you'll see so in a place that you didn't expect to see, it can be used in that way, okay. These sometimes have ways of being used that don't, at first glance seem obviously the meaning of those words and we can only get a sense for that through exposure. So I'm going to try to give you some exposure as we go through the examples of each one of these. But, but still I think it's good to do, do your own research and continue exploring. Alright, I've got serious jet lag. So as a result of that, I'm going to sleep for awhile. I've got serious jet lag means that I've flown to another time zone somewhere else in the world. And now my brain thinks I'm where I started. So I feel very tired. So as a result of what happened, I'm going to sleep. Could we flip that around? Now? I'm going to sleep for awhile. So I've got serious jet lag that doesn't make sense. Often, often, but not always. Things like so and yet. And, but these have to be in a specific order and you can't just flip them around. You can flip them around sometimes. But you have to pay attention. This one you could not. I tried to call you, but you didn't pick up. You didn't pick up. But I tried to call you. That doesn't make sense. Right? I tried to call you. However, you didn't pick up. I was expecting you to pick up. In spite of my expectation, you didn't do that. That surprises me. That's why I use the word, but that's why I use the word but but you cannot flip those around because if you did do that, it wouldn't make sense. What does it mean? You didn't pick up but I tried to call you. I'm not sure. As far as I know, that doesn't have any meaning. Everyone tried to stop me yet I found a way to succeed. Well, this is a perfect example of inspite of right. So you would expect perhaps that because everyone tried to stop me for whatever I'm doing, that I would not succeed because everyone's trying to stop me. Be very reasonable if I didn't succeed. Because everyone is literally against me. Okay, but, and yet however you could use but there as well, that would work. But I still found a way to succeed against everyone else's intentions in spite of their efforts. So in fact, yet and, but are used interchangeably many times, but not always. But is more general. You can use it more broadly, you can use it in more ways. And it's much more common, but often, often they're interchangeable. That means you can use either one. What about for this one I tried to call you yet. You didn't pick up. You could that would be okay. But, but I think but sounds more natural. Much more natural in that case, you can book a flight or find some other way to get there. Now, this one might look different for a second because you might be asking yourself, hey, wait a second. Independent clauses, don't they have a subject as well? Where's the subject of this one? If it stands by itself as a sentence, find some other way to get there. Isn't that I remember the imperative sentence, right? To tell someone to do something, find your own way, find a way to get there. But remember, when we talked about that, we talked about this implied subject. This implied subject means it's there without actually needing to be there. We consider that this has a subject, even though it isn't there. Just think back to our imperative sentences. When we give commands, when we make recommendations, when we give instructions, remember that now this could be an implied, you find, you find some other way to get there. It could be that, or it could be just borrowing this. And we sort of imagine that this piece here is transplanted. And if we were to separate these into two sentences, we would maybe, possibly put it there. So it would be you can book a flight, you can find some other way to get there. That would work, right? That makes sense. Or you can book a flight, you find some other way to get there. Or because we don't actually have to say you because I'm talking to you. It's implied, right? We only say you when there are five people here. And I need to point at someone. You not, you, not, you not you, you, you find some other way to get there. But if I'm only talking to one person, I don't need to do that. I don't need to have that here. So it still works. And we can still say that these are two independent clauses. And I think this is a really cool example of using previous knowledge to gain new knowledge. Whether this is new knowledge or not, you learned something and then you can build on that. And then you learn something more and you can build on that. And you keep building up your knowledge as you're using the knowledge that you learn. And you find that it gets easier and easier, that you learn faster and faster, that when you say something it sounds more and more natural. You are able to access everything that you've learned more easily. It's this relationship between learning constantly and using what you learn constantly. It's this really positive thing and I think it's, I think it's very cool. Okay, this last one here. Ethel was imagining a romantic getaway. This is a sort of a Tripp, small trip, perhaps a little vacation. And Albert was picturing a camping trip. Now, you could use, but here if you wanted to, you could say, but why? Well, because Albert's imagination when he's picturing is different, but they're very different images, He's picturing something totally different from what ethyl is picturing. In a way, his picture is against her picture. So if you said Ethel was imagining a romantic getaway, but Albert was picturing a camping trip. That would work. But if you want to focus on them being just two different things or two things and say one after the other, it would be fine to use and it would be a little awkward to use yet it makes sense in the meaning. Ethel was imagining a romantic getaway. Yet Albert was picturing. So grammatically it works, but it doesn't sound very natural to me. That would be an example where but just sounds better. It's used more often. Okay, now that we've explored specifically how we use these coordinating conjunctions to link together independent clauses. And we've, we've clearly talked about that in disgust. It, we've, we've created our foundation. We can now explore a little bit more widely, different ways to use each of these. And we're going to start with and 57. And: Let's explore our first coordinating conjunction and, and in addition to adding something plus something. So here we have the classic, I know you already know this, the classic list of things, certainly not independent clauses. We need eggs, noun, milk, noun, and cheese, noun. And if we were to have more things than it would be eggs, milk, cheese, and butter. It's the last thing. The last thing gets the end. Now, the reason I mentioned this because I know you probably already know about lists and listing things out. The reason I mentioned this is about this last comma here. You have the end, at the end of the list of things. Okay? And then here you have this comma, which is known as an Oxford comma. In fact, this is kind of optional. So recently it's become, I think, more popular, more common. And it's more and more accepted to have that comma there. But some people will still not use it. If you don't use it, It's okay. But my sense is that it's becoming less and less. Okay. So I tend to use what's called the Oxford comma there. Now, for this list of things, this doesn't have to be a single item. These could be long activities. This is where it gets a little tricky. Because sometimes something looks like, well, there's two independent clauses. But if you really look at it, you realize, oh, okay, that's just a list or that's just two things. That's just something that's being mentioned. There. You may not have a comma. So sometimes the absence of a comma can indicate to you. Oh, okay. Maybe that's maybe that's just listing two things. So if you were to just replace these simple nouns with things you're going to do on your vacation. Maybe the first one is hanging out on the beach. On our vacation, we plan to hang out on the beach. Then you would have a comma there. What's the next thing? Go to a few bars with friends. You can make it even longer. Go to a few bars with friends in the evening, comma, and check out a few of the local tourist destinations. So that sentence would look very different from this, but it wouldn't really be different. It would be the same basic thing. Just replacing single words with activities that can be considered as single things. Next one, you probably need a glass of wine and a good night sleep. What is this? Two separate sentences? A good night sleep. No, no. That's that's just a phrase. A good night sleep. So it's not, we're just listing things, but it's like we talked about here, it looks longer. This whole piece here, this thing, this whole thing. That is a phrase, that is a phrase and we could probably replace it with that. You probably need, Let's take this and call it this. And let's take this and call it that. And that's much easier simplifying things. I like to simplify things because it helps me see, Oh, it's just like this. In fact, we don't have the commons because we don't have three things. If you only have two things in your list, you don't need any commas. We need eggs and milk. We need milk and cheese. If you say milk and cheese, we need milk and cheese to things. We don't use the comma. We use the comma when we have three or more things. We need milk or cheese. I don't know why we would say that. We could go here or there. We could go here or there. That makes more sense, right? We could go to Las Vegas or San Diego. Las Vegas or San Diego, LA or SD. Okay. So we're just listing two things. We don't need the commas. We're doing the same thing here, exactly the same. You probably need this and that. You probably need a glass of wine and a good night sleep. Don't be confused. When you see some words that it must be a more complicated thing. See if you can replace it with this or that. And that can help you get some insight to figure out what's going on. I spend seven months of the year in the UK and the rest in the US. Same thing going on here. It looks a little different. Same thing. I spend seven months of the year there. Oh, that's a bad one there. And the rest I'm in the US here. Oh, that makes it easier. Okay. We knew we were lost and nobody we met spoke English. We knew we were lost, and nobody we met spoke English. Okay, here we have two things going on. These two could be sentences by themselves. We knew we were lost. Nobody we met, spoke English. We could make those two separate sentences. So here we're using our coordinating conjunction to link together two independent clauses, like we've been talking about before. We could separate this out. We knew we were lost. End of sentence. Nobody We met, spoke English. But they're close together. These two things are close together when I'm telling this story about getting lost in another country. And so I want to put them into a single sentence. I don't have to, but I can. Now the question you might ask then is, why don't you use but here, we knew we were lost, but nobody spoke English. Well, just think about the meaning. If you think about the meaning, you should be able to figure out which one is best but would be against this. I'm adding to the problems by saying And, and that's right, We have two problems here. And the second problem makes the first problem even worse. It is added to it. First problem, we're lost. Second problem. Nobody speaks English, which means if I ask someone for help, but they don't understand me. And if they do maybe understand me, they can't explain what I should do or where I should go. It's in addition to my first problem. Now if this is something that actually makes this better than we might use, but we knew we were lost. But a very friendly old lady who spoke perfect English came and helped us. That would make sense. It's a positive thing, but it's going against the problem. If you just think about what's going on and you think about the meaning, you should know which one you should use. Now the next one is a little strange. So pay careful attention when things aren't going well. And it seems like there's nowhere to turn. Find a friend. Now you may look at this and think, wait a second, okay, I see a comma here. So that's kind of suggesting to me that it would be two independent clauses connected together, but hold on a second. This one is not that simple when things aren't going well. Is that an independent clause? Could that be a sentence by itself, yes or no? The answer is no. No. This is not a complete sentence. This is a phrase. Is this a complete sentence? Find a friend, find a friend. Remember the imperative, remember the command or the request or the suggestion, the advice, find a friend. Yeah, it is that implied subject there. You find a friend, right? So yes, it is. This is an independent clause. Now, let's treat this like a dependent clause, like we've talked about. Because in fact, if we have phrases like a prepositional phrase, it's used in the same way, right? Whether it's, whether it's a dependent clause or not, or just a phrase. It doesn't really matter, usually will use it in the same way. So let's treat this like we have been treating dependent clauses. And for a second we'll just forget about this k, I'm going to just cross this out for a second. Just forget this for just a second. Alright, so now let's try it. When things aren't going well. Comma find a friend. Does that make sense? Does that work? Yes, it does. And we have the comma there because it starts with the dependent clause, or in this case it starts with the phrase. Then we have the independent clause after it. So then we should be able to flip this around, right? Find a friend when things aren't going well, no comma, correct? Yes, that's right. Okay. So we already know how to do that. Now let's bring in the other piece with this and we're doing an in addition to we are adding something. Yes. That's true. It seems like there's nowhere to turn. Yes. It's also true that that's a sentence by itself. But because it's not beside a sentence by itself, that's what makes it a little bit tricky. So we consider this inside of the two commas to be extra information. We have the end because this is in addition to, and it seems like there's nowhere to turn. We add that information. But if we remove it, we still maintain the sentence. The basic structure of this sentence is this, when things aren't going well, find a friend. And then if we include this, it should be between the two commas because it is kind of extra information and is not necessary for this whole thing to be a complete sentence. The whole thing, meaning when things aren't going well, comma, find a friend. That's the basic structure of this specific sentence. But we want to add this extra information because it gives it more color. It makes it more detailed, gives us a bit more background perhaps. So we put it in there between the two commas because it is bonus. Bonus. And what I mean by bonus is just that we could remove it and not lose the structure, the basic structure of the sentence. So that one looks a bit more complicated, but should be at least familiar because we already know how to do this. And we're really just sticking an extra piece in it. Okay. Let's look at the last one. Brenda sent out the invitations for months in advance and Ian took charge of booking the venue. The venue is where the event will take place. So let's say this is their wedding, right? So this would be the wedding location, the place where the wedding will be held. Maybe it's a beach side resort. Maybe it's a church. But the important thing is to pay attention to the structure. So Brenda's sent out the invitations for months in advance, period. End of sentence. That's a sentence by itself. Ian took charge of booking the venue, period, end of sentence. That's a sentence by itself. So both of these could work as sentences by themselves. Both of these are independent clauses and this end is just, and in addition to this thing, this is one activity about what about the wedding? This thing? This is another activity about what about the wedding? Because they're both about the wedding. It does make sense to put them into one sentence. If you wanted to separate them, you could. I think it makes more sense to put them together into one sentence, okay, that is it for and make sure you write down in my examples and then make your own examples based on mine. Continue to explore how we use and to make sentences of different types, to list things, to add together independent clauses. And this sort of thing which is a little more complicated. Play with it, explore it until it feels comfortable. Next, we're going to talk about how to use or 58. Or: Now we're going to talk about or how we use it to connect pieces of sentences together. What you'll find is that it's very similar to end and to the other, the other conjunctions that we're going to talk about, but different in meaning. So its basic form is the same and how it works in the sentence. Mostly. It's just different in meaning. So let's talk about, let's talk about, or the basic function of war is usually that we have a thing here and a thing here. And it's hard for me to say this without using the word, or very hard for me to say it. This one question mark, this one question mark. Which one of these. And we would use or to talk about that in different ways. So I would choose this one or this one. Or I can't decide if I want this one or this one. Should I choose this one, or this one, or this one? Which one? So that's one thing that you might see more often or you will see more often than, and if you have this list, you'll see or used for each of them. Often, not often. Let's say it's a mix, more of a mix. They're both fairly common. Whereas with and when we make a list with three things or more than we'll only put and at the end as we've talked about. So for example, I get a free Sunday or a $10 coupon or a hat. Now, you could certainly say just like And just, just like the structure where we make the list. And we have more than two things. And then we use the commas, same, same basic thing here, same thing. And then the word at the end that allows us to add it, right? Okay. I get it free Sunday comma, $10 coupon comma or Hat. Fine, fine. But you'll hear a lot of people say perhaps more than right. Say perhaps more than write an order for each of them. I get every Sunday or a $10 coupon or a hat, or a limousine, or a bunch of bananas. We might say it for all of them, just to be clear, that's one interesting difference. And you won't usually see that with an Although, although sometimes you will see that as well. I'm using and for each of them either now, this is a keyword which Marx often an, or. When we say either often, not always, often we're talking about choices between things. Choices between things. Things of course being not the specifically physical meaning of things but anything, dreams, hopes, cups of water, all kinds of things. Okay, So we're talking about choices. We use this one either to let people know at the beginning. Usually that this is going to be a choice, that we're going to be making a decision between some things and then, or will be there later to then put between the choices similar to how we've used it here. Either we come up with a new strategy or we give up now and cut our losses. Okay? Now we could add another thing. Either we come up with a new strategy or we give up now and cut our losses, or we moved to New Zealand and become sheep farmers. You could add another thing there. Now I would say it's more common to use either to talk about two things between this and that, between this and that. And sometimes we use either simply to answer, I don't care which one, so it doesn't have to be one. We're talking about one, but we don't have to actually say which one because we could say something like this. Either one, you offer me a cupcake. Well, you have two choices as a Strawberry cupcake, a chocolate cupcake. And you say, which one do you want? And I say either one, which means I don't care which one gives me one. Don't give me both. Either still means one of them, not the other. But either one means I don't care which one. Okay. Now, when you asked me the question, how would you ask it? Would you rather have, would you rather? This is a very common way to ask a question about two choices. Would you rather have the strawberry or the chocolate? Either one. I don't care. Either one is okay. Okay. You'll also see either used in this way? I don't either. Which is the same as me, neither me neither I don't either, which is the exact opposite of me too. Me too, I do too. I love chocolate ice cream, me too. Me too. I really don't like strawberry ice cream. Mean either. Mean either. I don't either. I don't either. But that by the way, is when you have that negative won't, don't, can't, isn't you have not in there? If it's I hate chocolate ice cream. Would you say Me neither? Or would you say me too? Which one would you say? Say me too? If I said I hate chocolate ice cream, I hate chocolate ice cream. What do you say? Me neither. Or would you say me too? Would you say I don't either or would you say me too? Should say Me too. Me too. Because we don't have the, don't in there. We don't have the Kant in there. But the structure of this is very simple. And note that because we don't have another subject here, we don't have a comma here. So we don't need to have a comma for that one usually. Okay, so let's look at this next one. I need to decide if I should finish school and get my degree, leave school now and pursue my dream to become a dancer. Now as this one's longer. But is it any different from this one? Or leave school now, we just have two things here. Again, what I like to do when I want to understand the basic structure of something is I like to replace it with the simplest possible thing that I can. So I could say, I need to decide if I will do and you know what I'm gonna do next, right? The classic thing that I do, the loop thing, do this or do than I could use do there or not, that I need to decide if I will do this or do that. That's it. It's not more complicated than that. We're just giving two alternatives. Nothing more. It looks more complicated. It looks like it's more complicated. But that's just because it's longer. Sometimes things are very long, but actually they're very simple. And I think this is a perfect example. I need to decide if I should finish school and get my degree or leaves school now and pursue my dream to become a dancer. Because these ants, It seems like, Oh, is this an and, or, an, or in the same one? Well, what is this? Yes. But finished school and get my degree. That's one piece, right? That's two actions which are connected together. I would finish school and I would get a degree because I finished school or I would leave school now and pursue my dream. So leaving school and then pursue my dream because I left school. So they're connected together. So we can still consider those as one piece. So that makes it easy to do this or that between those two. Now you may be wondering, can I replace if can I replace if with whether the answer is yes? But that's only when we're talking about alternative possibilities. Remember, we can also use if, for the hypothetical, If I were a doctor, well, we wouldn't say whether I were a doctor. So for that one, for the conditional those hypotheticals, No, no, it doesn't work. We couldn't say whether it's sunny tomorrow. I might go for a run. Whether it's sunny tomorrow, I might go for a run. No, that's strange. What does that mean? If it's sunny tomorrow, I might go for a run. Okay. That makes sense. I understand that. Right? So for these though, we have two things, two options, two choices alternatives, then they're usually interchangeable. We could say this though, whether it's sunny tomorrow or not, I'm going for a run, whether it's sunny tomorrow or not. There were talking about two possibilities again. So that makes sense. If it's sunny tomorrow or not, I'm going for a run. But that's a different meaning, That's a different usage. So that is, okay, alright, now let's get into a slightly different way of using this. They may visit friends in North Carolina, or they could just stay home and relax. So what's different about this? Well, you could take this right here. They may visit friends in North Carolina. And you can make that a sentence all by itself. That stands alone. It's an independent clause. It stands by itself as a sentence, all you need to do is replace the comma with a period and boom sentence. They could just stay home and relax this, this sentence all by itself. It could be capital T here, change that, and it is. So these could be two separate sentences and you could decide to do that. Maybe you want to keep them separate because you want people to focus on Each one more. That's a creative decision. If you're speaking or if you're writing, that's a creative decision that you may want to think about depending on what you want to express, based on the situation, based on how you want to express yourself. And no one can tell you that one is right and the other is wrong, and that's it. No. You decide. You decide. Now, again, maybe you want to focus on one and then the other separate sentences. Maybe you think that it's important that these two are set side-by-side. Within or to make it very clear that there's an option here. We're talking about whether this or that. We're focusing on the alternatives. Well, if you want to focus on that, then it makes sense to use or because or emphasizes alternatives, or helps you focus on alternatives. So you make the first sentence, then you do the comma, then you do or, and then start the next sentence. And it's that simple, pretty straightforward. Really. You're just connecting, connecting, connecting the pieces. And again, we call these coordinating conjunctions because especially in this case, they're connecting together. Independent clauses are clauses that can stand by themselves as sentences. That's why they're called coordinating conjunctions, not subordinating conjunctions. Okay, the next one, you need help from one of us, or you've been lying this whole time. Let's say this is a child who contacted his parents and asked for help to borrow money. I'm in a really bad situation. I absolutely need money. Very bad situation. Please, please help. Please help. Maybe the parents don't see the message until the next day. And then they get back to their son who was in college and they say, Okay, we're ready to loan you the money. Okay. Then they get a message back. Oh, never mind. Never mind. It's fine. So what happened? Well, if you explain the situation, how he got into this bad financial situation, and then the next day, it's just fine. And he didn't borrow the money from anyone else. Well, then what's going on? Well, maybe he asked for the money for another reason and said it was because he really, really needed it and it was in a bad situation. And then he felt guilty. He felt like he was doing something wrong. He started listening to his conscience, he started having second thoughts. And then his parents get back to him and say what, you need help from one of us or or you've been lying this whole time. Which one is it? Have you been lying? Or do you really need help? And now you're embarrassed to ask, you've changed your mind. Which one? Which one? So here we have the two sentences. You need help from one of us. You've been lying this whole time. Now, this one is interesting, right? For this one, we could say they may visit friends in North Carolina. They could just stay home and relax. And that would be correct. I would recommend using or are there because we want to focus on the alternatives, the options. But this one, it's very important to note. It changes. Meaning, if we don't have the order, very important to make sure we know which one means. What? If you say you need help from one of us, period, end of sentence. Okay. You've been lying this whole time period. End of sentence and there's no order here. Well, what does that mean? I've made two separate statements that I believe to be true. You need help from one of us. I'm just saying that as a fact, you've asked me many times for help to borrow some money. You've asked me many times, I know this. It's a fact. So I'm just saying, you've been lying this whole time. Maybe the sun is in big financial trouble, but was embarrassed to admit it to his parents, didn't want to say it. Right. And so over the past few weeks when the parents talk to their son on the phone, they would ask how's everything in California, how's life and the sun would say everything's great, everything's fine. I loved my job. In reality, he lost his job and he's getting kicked out of his apartment and he's going to be homeless. But he's embarrassed to admit it. So they find out about this from someone else. You need help from one of us, you need help from us. That's a statement of fact. I know it because I heard it from someone else. You've been lying this whole time. You've been lying about not needing help. You actually need help. We want to help you. But you're too proud, you're too embarrassed to mention it. So we're going to send you some money so that you can pay your rent. No. No, it's fine. I'll be okay. I know you've been lying this whole time. How could you lie to us? Okay. Maybe my example is getting a little, a little too realistic, but I just wanted to highlight, I want to make it clear that if we use the or it has one meaning and if we don't use the or, it has another two separate sentences would be what I just mentioned. The or might be. I don't know which one is true. Either you need help or you're lying and I'm not sure which one is right, but one of them is maybe you're lying to us. Maybe you need help. One of those is right. So that's the difference. And so you have to be careful. Make sure you pay attention to the meaning. And that should help you decide which way to do it, which way to say it. So sometimes to be clear, sometimes it doesn't really matter in either one is okay. And sometimes it really does matter and the meaning can change depending on whether it is two separate sentences or two independent clauses connected by the coordinating conjunction. Or make sure you're building your own examples. Make sure you're playing around. And next, we're going to talk about yet. 59. Yet: Let's now spend some time talking about yet. Yet. And of course, we're going to be focused on yet as a conjunction. Because yet has some other meanings as well, especially related to time. We'll look at one example of those. Just so I mentioned it just so you know, you may already know, but we're going to be focused on the conjunction because we're talking about connecting pieces of sentences together. Now, when it's used as a conjunction yet really is the same as, but. The meaning is the same as but or however, or inspite of something against something when they're being used as conjunctions, when they're being used as conjunctions. Because it's important to remember, if I say this means the same as that. It's easy to get sucked into the idea of that always being true, but that's not true. Remember the two circles, remember the two circles. So we have most of the examples that we're going to look at here. The shared usage, yes, you can use both but, or yet here. But is over here by itself, ways that we can use but, but which we can't use yet, yet over here. For those of you who are a little OCD, let me just complete that for you. Good. Yet over here, there are ways to use yet which you could not replace with bud. So that's important to always keep in mind. Always keep that in mind. Never say, haha, They're the same, They're the same, They're the same, They're the same. Well, maybe, maybe they have other meetings, probably they have other meanings. And very likely they have even if they do have the same meaning in the dictionary. Other connotations or meanings that people understand in different ways, the feeling, the usage, right? So you have to be very careful with that kind of thing. Okay. I have been dieting for two months yet, still haven't lost the weight. The weight. What is the weight? Well, this is the fact that I have too much fat, too much weight. We often refer to it as the weight. I'm trying to lose the weight. I'm trying to lose weight. You don't have to have there. That's okay too. Okay. Now, for this one, this is going against this. I have been dying for two months. We talked about this. What is the expectation? Oh, you've been dieting for two months. You've been very careful with what you eat. That must mean you've lost weight, but no, in spite of your expectation against your expectation, right? I've done this. However, I still haven't lost weight. I've done this but I still haven't lost weight. Now, we could say it this way or we could put eye right there. We could put eye right there. And if we did that, we would probably use a comma to separate them out. Because we have now two independent clauses, and these could be sentences by themselves were talking about coordinating conjunctions. I have been dying for two months. I still haven't lost the weight. Okay. So we know how to do that already. This should be getting easier and more comfortable because it's really close to the same, the same pattern with some interesting differences, of course, like we talked about with, or how the meaning changes depending on whether it's two sentences or one sentence. Okay. Let's look at this one. Your wife has threatened to divorce you for your gaming addiction, yet you refuse to give it up. Now in addition to this being too separate, or possibly separate sentences, two independent clauses, your wife has threatened to divorce you for your gaming addiction. You refuse to give it up. It helps to pause before the yet, however, but it helps to have that pause. For emphasis. We emphasize this thing by using this comment as a point to pause at. We can pause there and stop for a moment because if it's like this, your wife has threatened to divorce you for your gaming addiction yet you refuse to give it up, then it feels like there's no break. It feels like I've heard it too quickly and I can't really concentrate on the important thing. Well, what's the important thing? Well, this is the thing. This is background information. Your wife has threatened to divorce you. And I'm saying, even with that situation going on, you continue to play video games for six hours a day yet, yet, and we would increase the volume a little bit there yet. Yet you refuse to give it up. You refuse to give it up, adds emphasis, and that's what's great about commas in a sentence. Commas help us emphasize things. They help for pausing, but when we want to still keep it in one sentence, they're actually very useful for that reason, for putting the voice more strongly on one thing, for dropping the voice sometimes so that we can. Ups and downs, the comma is a very important part of the intonation of a sentence. When it's there. I care desperately about animals, yet I'm not sure what I can do to help reduce animal suffering. So I care very much desperately as almost too much, right? I care so much. So what would you expect? If someone cares desperately about animals? You would expect that they would be doing many things. But this person doesn't know how to begin. Or maybe they've taken some actions. They've worked at animal shelters. But they feel like they're not really helping. They're not doing anything to really make a difference. Okay, So this is a thing that goes against what you would expect. I'm not sure what I can do to help reduce animal suffering. And I think it's really important to have the yet there or a bot there. Because if you don't have it, then you don't have this thing that goes against what you would expect and it's just two statements. I'm not sure if they're connected. Are they connected? You care desperately about animals, okay. You're not sure what you can do to help them. So now I just feel a little confused. Why wouldn't you be doing something? Well, maybe you are trying to do things. The yet here is emphasizing or focusing on your struggle. Your struggle tells me you want to do something, but you just can't figure out the most impactful, useful thing, okay? So it's very useful in that situation. These are all the same, right? In structure, the same as, the same as or same basic structure. In many ways, these coordinating conjunctions are simpler than the subordinating type. Okay, It's wonderful to give advice. Yet you may want to work on your bedside manner. So you gave advice and that's a good thing. I think you should do that. But there's something that goes against your advice and that is your tone, the way that you say it, your tone, style of your advice. So if you say someone asks you for advice, well, if I weren't as stupid as you are, I would. Okay. Well, hold on. That's not a very good bedside manner. We use bedside manner for doctors to say when they have to give some bad news that they should do it in a very gentle, indirect way. And quite often they have to, have to say things that patients don't want to hear. If you just say, Hey, you have a horrible disease. Well, see you tomorrow. Oh, that's not a good way to hear it. So the bedside manner is to be gentle, to be carrying, to be empathetic, to be considerate of the other person's feelings. So we use this generally when someone is to direct to straight, perhaps rude, they sound rude or they come across as rude. Your bedside manner needs a little work. You may want to work on your bedside manner, your manners, your speaking style, giving advice, and maybe being a little bit more polite, That's something for you to work on. And it goes against it. It is like but there and we can replace that with But but you may want to work on your bedside manner. No difference there between butt and yet. My grandfather's 94 years old. Yet his mind is as sharp as an ax. Now, why would I say yet here or but here? Why would I say those? Well, what do you expect when you talk to someone who's 94? Well, maybe they forget things. Maybe their mind is slowing down. That's what you might expect. But in spite of the fact that my grandfather is 90 for his mind is very sharp and we use as sharp as an ax to mean that he's, maybe, he's very quick, he's very witty. Perhaps he has a clear mind. Is a clear mind, unlike me in the morning, before I have my coffee. I'm like a 130 five-year-old when I wake up and haven't had my coffee yet. Who's good with what happened? That's me. That's an impression of me in the morning and the evening. I'm okay because I've had a 130 cups of coffee. Okay. So we get it. It's getting easier, right? This is almost, it's almost boring, right? I wanted to almost be, okay, I got it. I understand. Pretty simple. I can do that. Practice examples like this though. Remember, make it a habit. Now there's this one. This is not being used as a coordinating conjunction, is it? This is related to time. This is an adverb. This is what I said. Sometimes we use yet where we would not use but we couldn't say Have you met David, but I don't know what that means. Have you met David yet? Means Has it happened? Has this thing occurred up until the present moment, at some point in the past, from now into the past. Has it happened? I'm just asking if it has happened at any point, then you would say, yes, I have. Yes, I have. But if it hasn't happened, you would say no, not yet. But there's another important piece there. The important pieces that there's an expectation that it will. In other words, at some points on your timeline, there is an event meeting David meeting David and had happened here and I'm talking to you here. And I say, Have you met David yet? That is the feeling of, well, you're going to meet him if you haven't yet, you will. And I want to know if you have already because it's very important that you do for some reason, okay? Yes, I did. Now you wouldn't say yes, I have yet. To be very clear. You wouldn't say it in the positive. I have yet. You would just say yes, I have. Yes, I have. But if it's not yet, Then the meeting of David is still here. Probably. It's just in the future. It hasn't happened yet. So that's the suggested meaning of yet that it's very important. And then if it hasn't happened yet, we feel that it will happen. It must happen. It should happen. Whereas if I say Have you been to Delaware, I might not say Have you been to Delaware yet because it's just a place. And if you haven't been there, it's kind of okay. And I'm not saying you must go there. I'm not putting any stress on that. Well, you haven't been a Delaware and you must go. But if I feel differently about it, if I want to kinda push you or makes sure that you know, it's important that you do that or assume that it will happen in the future, that it's inevitable, then I will use yet. But to be clear, this is separate from our conversation about coordinating conjunctions. I just wanted to mention it because it's part of this idea of there being another way to use. Yet this is a common one, a very common one. But we're not focusing on it here because we're focused on sentence patterns. Okay? Now, since we've talked about yet, we can go to the slightly broader word. Now, we can talk about, but 60. But: We've already talked about yet and its similarity to, but it only makes sense for us to talk about, but to be fair to yet because I put but beside yet. I'm gonna put yet beside, but that's fair, right? Give it some credit. Now, remember, there are times, there are times when we use, but not yet. There are also many times, especially when we're talking about coordinating conjunctions. I'm sure you're sick of me saying that. I wish there I wish there were a better way to call them. There are other ways, but I don't like those either. Anyway, we're almost done with our conjunctions. So we're going to move on and talk about more interesting stuff after this, it's just so important to know how to link things together correctly, to be able to do it easily by habit so that you don't have to think about it because so many learners make mistakes when it comes to conjunctions, It's really common, really common in writing and speaking. So this is also the against idea. In spite of, we could say often. Let's also add, Let's do opposed. Opposed, opposed to, okay, we need eggs and rice, but I think we have plenty of asparagus. So someone is communicating with another person about their shopping list. What should I get? I'm out to me at the supermarket. What should I buy? Tell me, please. Please tell me, Well, we need eggs and rice. How about asparagus? Know, so to put that altogether, we need eggs and rice, but I think we have plenty of asparagus. Now, this is interesting because we have the end here. But this is the other function of n where we use it just to make lists. Remember we only have two things, so we don't need the commas, we need eggs and rice and you could stop there. That's a sentence by itself. But I think that's a sentence by itself too. I think we have plenty of asparagus. Perfect example of the coordinating conjunction. Two independent clauses connected together with a delicious little comma right there. You say you love me, but you never do anything to show it. You say you love me, but you never do anything to show it. Now, this one is interesting because of the meaning. If someone says, you say you love me, and then a new sentence, second sentence, independent clause, you never do anything to show it two separate sentences. That almost doesn't have the same meaning because it loses the entire impact of what we're trying to say, right? If I just say these two things separately, you say you love me, you never do anything to show it. I understand what you're saying. But but if you really loved me, you would do something to show it. And this is against or opposed to or in spite of that, I would expect you to have some actions related to your feeling about me, whatever that may be. Different ways to express love, right, with action. I think in this case, but is essential while technically grammatically, yeah, of course you can separate them into two separate sentences, but it loses the entire reason for it being said. Then if you don't do that, why would you say it then? So but is necessary. I feel for that one, grammatically, no. Meaning yes. They paid their employees higher than average, but didn't allow them to unionize. Okay, Now this one, note, note that we don't have an I here. And if we put an I there, we'd probably also add the comma. So but didn't allow them to unionize. We don't consider to be an independent clause, so we don't need to have the comma there. They paid their employees higher than average. Okay, we can understand that maybe the average salary is $20 an hour and they're paying them 30. Okay. Now you would expect then that a generous company would allow other benefits? Well, maybe, maybe there's a catch. If something seems a really good deal. Sometimes we say, what's the catch? A catches, what's the thing that I'm giving up? Because I'm getting this good deal. Well, in this case they're giving up the right to unionize, to collect together people to bargain with or negotiate with their employers. That's what a union is. And the verb is to unionize. So this thing is going against our expectation. We would expect the company to allow them to unionize. Why? Well, because this pay suggests higher pay suggests that they're very generous, very reasonable, really care about their workers. And yet something goes against that expectation. That is, that they don't allow this. And maybe that is the catch. What's the catch? Oh, no unions here. Higher salary. No unions. Oh, I don't know how I feel about that. I know you're tired, but if we don't attend, will never forgive ourselves. Now for this one, we would not use yet. Here. I know you're tired, but if we don't attend, is that a sentence by itself? I know you're tired, but if we don't attend. No, it isn't. I know you're tired. Is that a sentence by itself? Yes, it is. If we don't attend, will never forgive ourselves. Is that a sentence by itself? Yes, it is. And this one, if we don't attend, will never forgive ourselves. This one is something you are familiar with. We start with the dependent clause and then we have the independent clause. So we're sticking together more pieces here. So this is a little bit more complicated, right? This independent clause is being connected to this whole sentence here. This whole sentence here, which is made up of two pieces on its own one-piece, the dependent clause, which starts with if then a comma. Of course, because you know, we need that if it starts with a dependent clause, then the independent clause. But we want to make that against the other thing that we've said at the other independent clause. So now we treat these, this piece, try and draw a line here around this. We treat now this piece and this piece as we would two independent clauses. This is a sentence by itself, not including the, but this is a sentence by itself. So even though this is made up of more pieces, the dependent and the independent and its own comma. Even though it's made up of those pieces, we still treat these two bigger pieces or these two pieces in the same way as with these, as with these. So don't let yourself get sucked into complexity. Don't say, oh, that's too hard, I don't understand. Study it. Maybe you learned this in that course. You took wait a second. I learned how to put sentences together in different ways. If I really study this, yes, that makes sense. If we don t, I remember starting with if. And then what we do with that, we have the comma and then we have the independent clause. I remember that. Well, then why is this comma? But here, what is going on here? I see this as being connected to something else. So it's a higher level of structure. Just because something is at this level of structure doesn't mean it can't also have its own parts as this one does. So I hope that makes sense practice making one of these on your own. It looks complicated, not as difficult as you might think. Just try it out for yourself. Mom always understands how I feel. Dad tends to assume everything is my fault. What's the difference between those two? Making them one sentence or separating them out as to well, I would say the thing that makes them different is of course, their emphasis. The emphasis of putting them like this in one sentence would be to say, I like this. And there's another thing against that that I don't like, which is how my dad treats me. My dad assumes that I did everything wrong and my mom understands me. This is good, but this is bad. I'm trying to contrast them to emphasize the contrast. But if I say two separate sentences, mom always understands how I feel. Dad tends to assume everything is my fault. Yes, The meaning is the same, but the focus there might be more about the differences between my mom and my dad and not necessarily labeling them as good. I like it bad. I don't like it. I'm just stating a fact. I'm saying two things about my parents and maybe there isn't as much judgment on that. This is connotation. This is when we understand it based on how it feels. The butt really helps us to contrast and label things and say one thing is against another. To talk about our experience, to talk about how we feel about something. And that's just, that's just a feeling when we say it that way. I'm not saying you have to. I'm not saying that's correct and the other way is wrong. I'm trying to express that the way you express yourself, the way you put your sentences together, really matters. Really matters. Because if you do it one way instead of another way, you're going to give people a different impression. And I know that might be scary as you're improving your English. Oh no, are you saying a slight difference deciding to make something two sentences instead of one? Are you saying it can have a difference in the way it feels? When I say it to others. Yes, I'm saying that, but I don't want you to stress about it. I want you to take it as interesting information to play with it, to continue reading so that you can explore these kinds of connotations on your own. To dive into the language like it's a swimming pool and just swim around in it. And you'll get the feeling for it automatically. As you get used to swimming around in that swimming pool, watching movies, listening to podcasts, exposing yourself as much as you can to the language. It's not something that has to be hard study that I do for 20 minutes every day. It can be an ease for many learners. Something that is enjoyable, just part of your lifestyle. If you can make English learning English part of your lifestyle, something that you just do, something that's just part of your daily routine that you don't even have to think about. You're going to improve a lot faster. And of course, sitting down and studying is important. You wouldn't have taken this course if it weren't. I wouldn't have made this course if it weren't. But this has to be combined with or paired with that lifestyle English. That getting a feel for it. English, which comes with swimming around. That's all there is to it. Okay, let's look at these last two here. You don't have to study, but you probably should. You don't have to study. You probably should. That one is similar to this one in that this one is almost essential. I would say it's essential because if someone says, you don't have to study, you probably should. Yes, grammatically two separate sentences. But why, why? The only reason to say this is that I want to mention that this is important and that it's something that I recommend strongly. Even though, even though no one is telling you that you must. But there's no reason to say it as two separate statements. The only reason I want to mention it is to say that this is against this. In spite of this fact, which is true that no one is forcing you to do it in spite of that, opposed to that fact, this is a very strong recommendation. Okay, So think about that whenever you want to say something and it doesn't even make sense to say it or write it. Unless you have this peace. Not only for butts, but very often for, but then maybe you shouldn't even think about making two separate sentences. Maybe you shouldn't even consider it. But it's very useful for this kind of thing. There are times, of course, when it doesn't matter, say it as two separate ones. Each one has its own connotation, it's own feeling and that is fine to just read what you wrote. Listen to what you said or what you're going to say, and think about what it really means and whether it makes sense at all to say it without the coordinating conjunction. Last one. Thai food is great, but Japanese is better. And you could put food there if you wanted to, but it's not necessary. It is optional. Thai food is great. Japanese food is better to separate statements. That would be okay if I were going to do that one, since they're so closely connected, instead of doing two separate sentences, I would do, I would do a semicolon like that because these are so close in meaning because they're about the same thing. Probably wouldn't make them two separate sentences, although it's okay. Makes more sense to me to use the semicolon if I'm not going to use, but if I'm going to use but then I will just have the comma. Thai food is great, Japanese food is better. Now that's not my real opinion by the way, I actually love Thai food. I order it maybe twice a week, but I also love Japanese food. Might order that twice a week. Two, if you asked me to choose which one do you like? Thai food or Japanese food, I could not choose. Not possible. So now you know the ways that we use, but especially when we're talking about coordinating conjunctions, how we use it to connect pieces of sentences together. Make sure you're practicing your own examples. Very important. Make sure you're swimming around in the language. Make sure you're reading, make sure you're watching tv shows. That's very important. Next, we're going to talk about the last coordinating conjunction that we're going to focus on in this course. So. 62. So That: We're talking about intention. That means what we want to happen. What we think will happen if we do this, or what we thought would happen if we would have done that or if we did that, even if that wasn't the real result. So what's the difference between intention and consequence? Often when we're talking about consequence, we're talking about what really happened. This thing is connected to another thing. I did this because of this. This is the cause I'm feeling a little sick. So I took a day off. That's what happened. I'm feeling a little sick, so I'm going to take a day off. I will do that for sure. I'm just talking about my actions. That's all. That's the consequence of the way that I feel. So that is about intention, what we expect to happen based on what we plan to do, right? So that's a little bit different. The focus is a little bit different because you can expect to make a million dollars if you invest in this new product. That was your intention. But maybe something is out of your control. Maybe it doesn't work out like that. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. So that doesn't tell you usually whether it does or doesn't. It tells you simply what your intention is. What's your intention was? That's all. We're not really focusing on the real outcome. We're focusing on our intention. Don't tell me what happened. Don't tell me about the consequence. Tell me about why you did it. So we're often answering the question, why, why that? Why you did that? Perhaps, I think the weight-loss example is pretty good. I go to the gym six times a day so that I can lose weight. So that I can lose weight. Does that mean I will lose weight? Maybe, yes. If I don't know how to work out, maybe no. Maybe yes, maybe no. That's not the focus here. Our focus is on what is going on in my head when I decide to go to the gym going so that I can lose weight, that is what I plan to happen. That is my intention to be very clear. It doesn't mean it does happen and it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, means that's my intention. That's what I hope. Perhaps we could say that two, we get insights from interviewing our customers so that we can make better products. Maybe you do make better products. Maybe not. The focus is on why do you get insights from interviewing your customers? Why do you talk to your customers and ask them questions so that we can so that we can make better products, okay? It could be something else so that we can maybe learn about their preferences so that we can make better products. Okay, now, notice here that there's no comma when we use so that we don't need a comma. So it's pretty simple. We're talking about intention. And all we do is put that the reason right after we make the statement about perhaps the thing that we do. And it is often about action. Action, then intention. Reason. Why, why we get insights from interviewing our customers. Because then they can say something like that if we want to use because, but it's a little more complicated because we want to make better products so that we can make better products is a little simpler. It's a little cleaner, I think, in this case, when we're talking about intention. So that to be clear and because they're not always exactly the same, I read simple statement. Very short. I read. So that why do you read? Why do you read? Why do I read so that I can better understand myself and the world around me so that I can impress other people and make them feel like I'm smarter than them so that I can fall asleep. You could simply say that I read so that I can fall asleep. It usually helps me. That's my intention. We're not saying whether it does or not, but that's why I do it. That's the reason I do it. The box comes with a labels so you can send it back if you aren't satisfied. This is where you have to really pay attention to meaning because it sounds like there this so is being used like we've just talked about, to talk about the result, the consequence. But actually there's an invisible that here. And we can often remove that from this. You'll hear it quite often. But it's still talking about intention, right? The intended usage of this box with the label is for customers to send it back if they aren't satisfied. That's the intended usage. That's why it was included if we were using so in the other way, we couldn't say it like this. We would have to say, I wasn't satisfied. So I sent it back with the label that came came in the box. That's what we've just been talking about. This one is closer to the reverse, closer to because, except if we want to use because we usually have to change a few things around like this one I read because I want to better understand myself and the world around me. Because I can doesn't sound right because I want to because I want to better understand myself. Okay. So it's similar to because except it looks like it's so you'd have to have this that, that's added to it which tells us this is about intention, not consequence, but sometimes it's missing. So we have to pay very careful attention. Which thing is being mentioned first? Are we talking about a consequence? Are we talking about reasons? Pay very careful attention to these. And you should be able to decide which one you should use. You should be able to think about it, look at it, and figure it out based on these examples. Now, let's see if we can replace it here. Could we take out this that I read so I can better understand myself and the world around me. Yes. It's okay, although I think it sounds a little odd, but it's okay. I would recommend having that there. I usually use that all the time. So if you're not sure, go ahead and just use that. That makes it simpler. I think We get insights from interviewing our customers so we can make better products. That is totally fine. That is okay, sounds natural to me. So practice these examples. Continue practicing all of the conjunctions we've talked about. So far. We have now finished talking about conjunctions. So, great job. Congratulations. You should be proud of yourself. Make sure you're continuing to practice and play around with these. Next, we're going to talk about how we use active and passive voice. 63. Active and Passive Structure: Up to this point in the course, we've covered a lot of things. And if you've been going through each lesson, seriously, putting in the work, you should be proud of yourself. I'm proud of you. Now, we have some really interesting and important stuff coming up in the course. So hold on. Keep your enthusiasm, keep working hard. Because the stuff we're going to talk about in the next few lessons and in the next few sections. Very, very important. We're going to be working on some essential exercises you can do to improve your flexibility. Going to talk about quite a few of those. And also very importantly, I know I keep saying that word. Very importantly, sentence beginning patterns or sentence opening patterns. There are many different ways to begin a sentence. And once you understand these beginning patterns, building out a very interesting paragraph is easy. Explaining something in a very interesting way is no problem, but you need the tools. You need to know all of the different possibilities. So we're going to be focusing on that as well. But first, but first, we're going to talk about hypotheticals so that it's clear exactly how you make hypotheticals. I know you know the general idea, but we're going to go into a little bit more detail. And before that, we're going to talk about active and passive voice. Now, you may know what this is, but I want to make sure you absolutely know how to make it. How do you make passive voice? How do you make active voice? Also, very importantly, when would you choose to do one rather than the other? So we're going to look at that. Let's first start with the basic structure, how we make each of these. And then of course, we'll look at a bunch of examples. Let's just keep this very simple. Let's simplify this so that we can understand the difference in structure. We start with a subject. Usually, this is the standard sentence pattern that you learn when you learn English, right? So you have the subject and then you have the verb, and then the object. Now of course, that's very simplified. There are so many different ways to make sentences. We've talked about many of them. But just to keep things very simple. Now, what is each of these? Well, this is review, but let's say this is Tina. Tina is the subject. That could be SHE that could be Dave. That could be they that could be the company. That could be a lot of different things. But just be aware that the subject and the object are different. If it's a pronoun. For example, she, her, her if it's an object. So Tina helped verb. Okay, Tina helped. So this is gonna be past tense, okay, now we need an object. Helped. Let's say, let's just say Dan. Okay, Tina helped Dan. Now if we wanted to replace these, we could say she helped. That wouldn't change, right? And then what would it be for a man? If it's an object? It would be, you know, him. She helped him. She helped him. Okay. Now, Dan is the object of the verb. Tina is the subject of the verb. So when we're talking about the verb, this is the sort of recipient, the thing that gets the action. This is the one doing the action. The one that's connected to the action. Okay? So this is the standard structure that we learn in school. It makes sense to start with who did it or what did it, and then whom it was done to, or what it was done too. So this is very simple stuff. Now, this is active voice, okay? This is what we call active voice. And we'll talk about why we would use it rather than passive voice. But first, we just need to talk about the structure here. Okay, So now let's explore the basic structure of the other one. Let's start instead with the object of the verb. Then we do have the verb itself, then the subject of the verb. But it's not quite that simple. Then we've got, now I don't want to confuse you. Then we've got in the middle here, I'm just going to write it in the middle. Was or were, was or were. Okay. So object was or were. And then the verb, but hold on. The verb is going to be the past participle. Remember that one, eat, so that'd be eight or Eaten. Eaten. Do, W did, done, done, it's done. Go, should be went. No. Gone. What about walk? Walked? So it's weird and a little bit confusing because you have these two categories. You have verbs that are the same in the simple past tense and in the past participle form, like walk, being walked in the simple past and walked in the past participle. Then you have this other type, which is irregular verbs. Irregular verbs, and these are different. They have their own form for the past participle. Alright, that to past participle, boring grammar words. The only thing I can recommend you do for these is finalists. And just remember them. Which ones are regular, which ones are irregular? Which ones have this different past participle form? And which ones are the same as the past tense form, you just have to remember. So this might be a little confusing. So let's make it clear. Now if I'm if I'm going to flip this around, I'll start with Dan, right? Because Dan is now the object of the verb, but I'm putting Dan first, he's still the object of the verb. Still the object of the verb is still the one getting the action. But now first, Dan, and actually you know what? Let me move this a little earlier. I need a little bit more room here. Dan. Now, should we use was or were? Well, it's one person or one thing. So it should be was it's more than one. They, for example, it would be wir Dann was, they were wie, wir Dann was. Then we have the verb, but we need the past participle form. Remember, now what is the past participle of helped? Well, this is irregular verb. Helped is helped. Okay? So Dan was helped. Now what do we have? Well, the basic form of the passive voice would be by, and then we say the subject of the verb, Tina. Tina, Dan was helped by Tina. Now you might say, well, that sounds a little strange. Why would I ever want to say it this way? I learned, I think I learned in middle school, I was never supposed to use the passive voice. Hold on. Okay. I'm just teaching you the structure, how to make it basically. Then we'll talk about when does it make sense and when doesn't it make sense? I agree. This sounds a little strange. I'm not saying, Hey, you should do it this way. Or 5050, flip a coin and decide, no, you have to think about it. So this is the passive, passive voice. Now, what if we want to replace? This is the last thing. Then we're gonna get into our examples and really talk about this. What if we want to replace these with pronouns? We did that here. She helped him, right? How do we do that? Would this be him was helped by xi? Well, I think you know that that doesn't sound right. So even though Dan is the object of the verb, and even though Tina is still the subject of the verb, I keep saying that of the verb related to the verb in the same way as this one, right? It's just in a different order. Even though we're switching that order around, we have to maintain if it's at the beginning of the sentence in the subject position, it's still going to be our basic, he going to be this form because it starts, because it's the beginning. At the start, we always do it this way, even if it's passive voice. So this would be, he was helped by and this would be her. Her, because it's in the object position at the end of the sentence. It's after the verb. Because of that, we're still going to use her. So don't change that around. Keep that change around which one it is, which one it starts with object of the verb, subject of the verb. Now then the question is, okay, great, I got it. That's actually pretty simple. But how do I use it and when do I use it? Well, if that's your question, That is a great question. Let us now take some time to explore active and passive voice. 64. When to Use Passive Voice: Less important than how to make passive voice is the question of when to use it. So I hope now you feel pretty comfortable with the basic idea of putting together a passive voice sentence. And then you could take an active voice sentence and flip it around and make it passive voice. It's not that complicated. Now, let's explore some examples for two reasons. Number one, I want to make sure that you have the examples you need to really understand the difference between active and passive voice so that you can make your own. Number two, I want you to see when we might use one rather than another. And this is also very important. Someone took my leftover pumpkin pie. Okay, so let's just label this first one so that it's clear. We have the subject, we have the verb. And then let's call this whole piece here, this whole thing. Let's call that the object because that makes it simpler, right? This whole piece we can consider to be one thing, my leftover pumpkin pie. We can consider it one big piece that makes it easy. Okay. So the subject did something, I don't know who the subject is. Someone someone? A person. Okay. Took something. Okay. Now, how do we flip this around? Well, if we're going to take this as our object, we would put that first. So there it is, my leftover pumpkin pie. Okay, now lets the object still, but remember when it's in this position, if it's something like They versus them, make sure you use they. If it's HE versus him, make sure you use heat here, even if it's the object of the verb. Now, we have was, this is following our structure that we learned perfectly. Now we have was, then we have our past participle Taken because take is an irregular verb. So past participle, Taken great. By someone, by someone, I don't know who took it. I don't know who took it, but someone took it. This person took it, whoever it was. Now, you can think about just before we talk about it. I want you to think about which one is better. Should put my verb here, and there we go. So think about which one you prefer. Let's get into the next one. My leftover pumpkin pie was taken by some nefarious unknown food thief. Now, you might think, oh, that's longer, harder. No, it's not harder. It's longer. I hope this is now something you're getting used to. Something being longer, not necessarily being more difficult just because it's longer. It doesn't mean it's more complicated. Something can be very long and very simple. My leftover pumpkin pie was taken. That part's the same BY, and then instead of saying by Shelley or by someone, we say by some nefarious, unknown food thief. Just to make it more interesting, nefarious means evil. They have bad intentions, unknown. I don't know who they are. Food def well, if they took my pumpkin pie, they must be a food thief. I'm labeling them to show my anger. So this one is interesting and I want you to again think about it. Would I use this one? Would I use this one? Would I use this one? And when would I use each of these? If you don't have an answer to that, let's just hold off and we're going to look at the last one and then then we'll explore it. My leftover pumpkin pie was taken. Notice here. We don't have any more by someone. We've just eliminated it. But if you look at it, everything else is the same as we learned for passive voice. My leftover pumpkin pie. There is the object of the verb. Then was taken. There is our verb. Okay? And then we've just eliminated the thing after it. Now the question is, maybe you've answered this for yourself already. The question is, when would I do any of these? Someone took my leftover pumpkin pie. I'm describing what happened on letting someone know, this is very efficient. This is when perhaps we're not trying to put any special focus on anything. We're just simply saying this thing happened. We're doing the basic structure. We're starting with the subject and the verb and the object. This happened and then this happened, then this happened. Now, we would sometimes start with the subject when the subject is more important. This someone is the person I want to focus on. I want to emphasize or focus on this someone, because I want to find out who it is. Someone took my apple pie. Was it you was it you was it use it you it was one of you. I want to focus on the person who did it, finding out who did it. Because once I find out, I'm going to be really angry at you and I'm going to take your pumpkin pie or your apple pie right? There. I could just be making a basic sentence with a normal structure. Or I could be intentionally, deliberately trying to focus on who did it or what caused this to happen. My leftover pi was taken by someone for this one. And we might sometimes say it this way. I'm trying to focus on mostly this event that happened. And there's much less focus on this. There's less focus on this piece. In a way it's not so important, although it's still there. Clearly someone took it, but I'm not trying to find out who it is. I'm just really upset that my pumpkin pie is gone. I'm really upset that my pumpkin pie is missing. Where is it? Right? So I want to focus on the object of the verb because that's the thing I'm upset about. And I wouldn't mention it otherwise, if I didn't really care, I probably wouldn't say it. So I want to draw attention, draw your attention to the pumpkin pie. The classic example I always give when people asked me about this is a bank robbery. The bank was robbed. Well, when we say the bank was robbed, What are we saying? We're focusing on the bank. And then we say by, if we went to the bank was robbed by someone. But think about it. Is this possibly redundant? Is this possibly not necessary? Do I even care about this? If it's not necessary at all and you don't care about it at all. It doesn't matter who did it. You really don't want to focus on that. The bank was robbed. The bank was robbed. Oh, no. That's the that's the news story. My leftover pi was taken. My leftover pi was taken. My phone was smashed. No. I'm not trying to focus on the cause. I'm just trying to say it happened. So it makes a lot of sense, in that case to use the passive voice. It makes it a lot of sense. So that's why we would say it like this. My leftover pumpkin pie was taken. Don't even care about the subject of the sentence there. It's not important. I'm focusing on this thing happening and you can absolutely do that. Often. When passive voice is used, it removes, you would remove the subject because it's so unnecessary, because it's maybe redundant or so obvious if someone says The bank was robbed, well, obviously it was robbed by people, right? Unless there's something unique about the people, like where they're from, for example. Or maybe they're in clowns suits or there's something unique about them that you want to point out, the bank was robbed by five men in clowns suits. Okay, then it makes sense, I think. Then it makes sense to mention it. But just as often, don't don't mention it at all because it's not necessary and we can assume it. I know that banks tend to be robbed by people and not zebras or tomatoes. So if there's nothing unique about the subject of the verb, probably okay to remove it. Now, how about this one? My leftover pumpkin pie was taken by some nefarious unknown food thief. Well, that would be an example where I want to mention some details or description about the person who did this, about the thing which caused this. I want to give a bit more description. I assumed that if someone took my pumpkin pie, they must be evil or nefarious. I don't know who they are, but clearly they are some kind of food thief. And I'm not really focusing on them in the same way that I want to focus on what happened. But I do want to give some labels to this person. So if someone knows who that is, then maybe they can help me find them and point them out and maybe they'll feel guilty if it's one of you for people. If I say I know one of you for did it. My leftover pumpkin pie was taken by some nefarious unknown food thief. So it can't be anyone other than U4. One of you is feeling very guilty right now if I'm calling you nefarious and I'm calling you a food thief. Like that's your thing. Like you're obsessed with stealing people's food. That might encourage you to step forward and say, I'm sorry, it was me. Buy you a new a new pumpkin pie. I apologize. It's a way to maybe change the situation, make someone feel guilty, give a bit more description. So that would be a very good reason to add the subject of the verb inside of your passive voice sentence. So this is just an exploration of it, but I hope now you have a better sense for how to use or when to use the passive voice. 65. Intensive Active and Passive Review: I'd like to do now is just quickly run through some more examples of active and passive voice. These are transformations. So I'm starting with one and then transforming them into another to play around with it a little bit. I want to go through these because I don't want you to just have an understanding of active and passive voice. I want you to feel these pretty deeply, so we have to explore more examples. And it's really important that you take each of these and play around yourself. What I'd like you to do is make a sentence and then transform it into its opposite. If you wrote down an active voice sentence, transform it into passive voice, and ask yourself which one is better in this situation, if I were to use this sentence in passive voice in another situation, would that be better? Or when could I use this in the passive form? That would sound very natural. So in addition to your practice, ask yourself these questions. It can be a great way to become a better writer, a more creative writer, a more accurate writer, and to become a better communicator if you're speaking, we use passive voice as well. Okay. So I cleaned the kitchen. The kitchen was cleaned by me. The kitchen was cleaned. Now if we really want to focus on the kitchen, then we could say the kitchen was cleaned by me. But is that really special? Unless there's something really interesting or really special about the kitchen being cleaned. This is probably not that common and wouldn't be that natural. I mentioned the bank robbery. Well, that's a very special thing. My pumpkin pie being stolen. That's kind of a unique thing. That doesn't happen often. Hopefully you clean your kitchen pretty often, maybe three times a week or more. So that might not be that might not be very natural, but there might be a few situations where you could use that The kitchen was clean. That though, would be natural when we want to just focus on what happened. This thing happened, and it's not important at all who did it. So that would be very natural when we want to focus on What what happened and the who is totally unimportant. I cleaned the kitchen. That would then just be the simple. I'm telling a story, I'm telling you what happened, way of expressing it. I'm not really focusing on myself. If I say it that way, in some situations, in many situations I would be. But this one is a very common thing. It's a very daily life things. So we probably wouldn't say that we're putting a lot of focus on the subject for this one, l enclosed her bookshop for good. Alan's bookshop was closed for good. The bookshop was closed for good by the owner, Ellen Galinsky. Now, let's explore this for a second. It would be a little bit strange to say Ellen's bookshop was closed for good by Ellen. We've already said Who's bookshop? It is, It's Ellen's bookshop. So this one is quite interesting because we get to include the subject or the person involved in the object, right? Alan closed her bookshop. Ellen closed Allen's bookshop. Well, we couldn't say L enclosed Ellen's bookshop. That sounds very strange. So we wouldn't say that one. This one, I think is the best one because we can just say what happened. Because the important event is that the bookshop closed. That's a big event. That's a special thing. That's like the bank being robbed, or at least it's more like that than the kitchen being cleaned, write an ordinary thing, sort of unique special events. So we're focusing on that, but we still get to find out who owns the shop. We still know who is involved. But we've included it in the object here at the beginning by naming it Ellen's bookshop. So I think that's very interesting. This would be my personal favorite one. But if you say Alan closed her bookshop for good, that is that is totally fine. This may be focuses on her decision. She was deciding whether or not she should. The business wasn't going very well. Going through the process of deciding the bookshop was closed for good by the owner, Ellen Galinsky. So this still focuses on the bookshop being closed, that event, the thing that happened, the what It's still focuses on the what except we're not naming it Ellen's bookshop. We would say Ellen's bookshop when you know who Ellen is and I know who Ellen is and we know who we're talking about. But if this is a story in the newspaper, in the news, you don't know Ellen? I don t know ellen. So we're hearing about this Elon person and her bookshop being closed. It still makes sense because it's a new story for it to be the passive voice because the event, the closing, is the reason that the article is being written. The article is being written is the reason for that. Otherwise, if the bookshop is fine, it won't be in the news, right? And so it makes sense to start with that. And in fact, many times in news articles, you'll see the passive voice used in this way. But when you want to name the owner, you put it after a comma like this. We can say two things in one, we can say what this is or who the person is, that it belongs to the bookshop. The owner, okay, so that's a title, sort of like the CEO, the boss, the executive producer. We can put any title here. Then we can say the person's name. We can introduce their name after that later on in future sentences, we can say Ms. Berlin, ski misspell Linsky, misspell Linsky or L and L and Ellen or she, she sheet. We've introduced this person in this way. So this is a very common way to say things, especially important events that we want to talk about in the past tense. Very often used for, for example, the news. Several teenagers painted the bell in front of City Hall, pink. The bell in front of City Hall was painted pink. Now, I would say this is my favorite one. I think this is the one that will grab people's attention. Most were talking about the bell, the teenagers. Yeah, of course. If someone's going to paint the bell in front of City Hall, pink, it's probably going to be teenagers, not people in their fifties or sixties. Probably. So when we find out that it's teenagers, we don't say teenagers did it. Oh my goodness. We're not shocked. Remember, I said it was robbed by several clowns. There's something unique about that. If it's just several men, well, I can probably just remove that. I don't even need to say it. You can assume it. We may not even need to say that it was painted by teenagers. But if it's painted by people in their late seventies, a bunch of people from the local retirement home in their late 70s. Well, that would be a little surprising. It's not the sort of thing you would expect people in their late seventies to do, right? Paint the bell in front of City Hall pink. That's a little bit odd. So then we'd say it, we would say several vandals in their late 70s from the local retirement home painted the bell in front of City Hall pink. Because we really want to focus on that. Well, that's interesting. That's out of the ordinary. Often, often we mentioned things because they're not assumed, because they're a little out of the ordinary because they catch our attention. Then we may choose to mention them either in a passive voice sentence like this, or, or in the active voice for these two, the teenagers? Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. But if it's something unique, then yes, that would be good. The bell in front of City Hall was painted pink by several teenagers. You can do it. It's not wrong, but why is it necessary? Is it important to note that several teenagers did this? Maybe, maybe you want to add it, maybe you think it's interesting and that's okay. The reason I think this one is better is because when you tell me that teenagers did it, I say, Yeah, of course. Yeah. I could have assumed that. I don't need to know. But the bell in front of City Hall was painted pink by several vandals in their late 70s from the local retirement home. Then I ask more about these vandals. Okay. We'll stop. Hold on. Let me ask some questions here. That's very interesting. It's out of my expectation and that's why I mentioned it. Or that's why I say it in the active voice. For this last one, Alan Watts brought many Eastern ideas to the West. Many Eastern ideas were brought to the West by Alan Watts. Many Eastern ideas were brought to the West. Here I would say this one is best the active voice because Alan Watts is the important figure who did this. Well, many ideas came to the West from the East in many different ways, of course. So this is kind of yada. I know that many ideas go all over the place. But if you want it to say at time period than this one might make sense. Many Eastern ideas were brought to the West in the 1960s. Oh, okay, alright, so that would be good. We want to say when it happened and we don't want to focus on who did it, because many different people did it. We want to talk about the general trend. We want to talk about the movement. Oops. We're going to talk about the movement of ideas and not focus on any individual. Okay? So that one would be good if we want to say that. If we want to mention Alan Watts specifically and then say what he did first, because this is very important, we could certainly do that. But if we're going to mention Alan Watts, if we're going to focus on one person, why wouldn't we start with the one who did it, Alan Watts, and then say what this person did and then talk about their contribution. Say what happened because of them. Alan Watts brought many Eastern ideas back to the West as part of a broader movement in the 160s. That would be a way to both focus on Alan Watts and mentioned that this is a very big important thing that happened in this period of time. So actually all of these are okay. It just depends on what you're trying to say. What I'd like you to take away from this is not only how to make the active and the passive voice, I want you to get very comfortable with that, of course. But I also want you to feel more deeply when you should use this one and when it's more natural to use the other one. By thinking about the situation, by thinking about what it really means and what it feels like if you say it this way or that way. So take sentences from what you're reading, whether it's a book or an article. Then do transformations on those. Change active voice too, passive voice, try variations just like I did. And then ask yourself the question. Ask yourself the question. Which one of these is best in which kind of situation? And just thinking about that will give you a lot of insight into how to use these naturally. And when you need to use any of them, it will be more natural for you to do that without thinking about it. I want these two, of course become habits. Okay, next we're going to talk about the hypothetical future and the hypothetical past. 66. Using Hypotheticals: We've already talked about hypotheticals, but I would like to spend one lesson really focusing on them because I want to make sure you know how to use them. It's very important to know how to talk about the future that might be or could be. And what you might do if something does or doesn't happen in the future and the past. And what might be now based on what may have happened in the past or may not have happened in the past. And again, we've talked about it a little bit already. So some of this will be review. I just want to make sure we really cover it, that we really explore some examples so that you feel very comfortable with it. Now, the easier part of this, I think, is the future, is the future. So let's focus a little bit on the future. Will stop by this afternoon if we have time. Now, this should feel pretty familiar, right? What are we doing when we say this wheel? We will write, we will. But, but this depends on something. So usually when you hear we will, this is a certain thing that's going to happen, right? But then we've added another piece. We've added the if. This, if, if is used to talk about conditionals. This is a statement that uses if to talk about possibilities, what's possible. But we can explore different possibilities. If we have time. We'll stop by tomorrow afternoon. But the other possibility is that we will not have time. It depends on whether we have time or not. If we have time, we'll stop by tomorrow. If we don't, we won't. That's pretty simple. So just because we have this wheel here and we usually think of will as a very certain thing, doesn't mean that it will happen. We can attach it to an if. And when we attach it to an If, we might be talking about two different possibilities or three different possibilities or more. And it's very useful because we can explore that without saying for sure, yes, I will definitely stop by this afternoon. Well, maybe I will, but it depends on this thing. And you could say it like that. If someone says, Will you stop by this afternoon? You could answer. It depends on if we have time. It depends on whether we have time. Or you could simply say, yeah, if we have time, we will. If I have time, I will. So that's pretty simple. And if it's very useful for this sort of thing, like in this example. If I don't call tomorrow, please just assume I'm okay. Maybe someone who's very worried about another person and always always calling them to make sure are you safe? Are you okay? You save everything, okay. I'm gonna be very busy tomorrow. I know I usually call you, but I'm not going to call you tomorrow. Well, I might not. I might not. It's possible it's one possible outcome. And right now it's unknown. I don't know. But if I don't, you don't need to call me because I'm going to be very busy. I might not answer the phone. Please just assume. I'm okay. I'm letting you know in advance. Now. I might call you. I may call you. I may call you, but I might not have time. So I want to cover that possibility by managing your expectations. This is a great way to manage expectations. If you let someone know in advance what might happen, that could be scary, that could be dangerous, that they might worry about. And you let them know that that's a possibility using IF and then you say something, some advice, some recommendation about what they should or shouldn't do based on that possibility, then hopefully they will be okay. Right. Hopefully there'll be comfortable. Hopefully. Then if that happens, they won't be surprised. They won't be upset. Usually it's for this sort of thing. Hey, don't worry about me. If I don't call you. If I don't call you, let's look at the next example. Kyle and I are going to buy a house in Nevada if I get that job. Two possibilities. Possibility a possibility be possibility a is that I get that job. Yes. Possibility B is that I don't get that job. So this is what I want to talk about. I'm making plans, but my plans depend on whether I get the job or not. My plans are conditional on whether I get the job or not. They're not certain. If it were certain I already got the job. We have the plan, we're going to do it. I have no reason to talk about the hypothetical future. This idea of the hypothetical is to imagine what might be, to explore things that aren't sure yet or aren't certain in some way, or are completely imaginary, are living in your head a thousand different possibilities. Whether it's a possible future, a hypothetical past, or something completely unrelated to time. Just in my imagination. Just something that I want to consider, something I want to think about. That's what we're talking about here. So if it is certain, then I'll just say Kyle and I are going to buy a house in Nevada. Boom. And the sentence right there, that's the end. Going to Being going to being the same as will we will we will buy a house in Nevada. We are going to buy a house in Nevada. We will we are going to those are the same thing. Okay. Those are the same thing. Now, going to, can have another meaning, I'm going to the supermarket that's different. Going to is used in both ways. One to talk about the future, like will, the other to talk about movement. I'm going to school. So I'm on my bicycle. Oh, okay. Okay. So it's conditional on that and otherwise, if it's certain, I'll say Kyle and I are going to buy a house in Nevada or Kyle and I will buy a house in Nevada if I wanted to start with, if certainly. Okay. Just like this one, put the comma there. If I get that job, comma, Kyle and I are going to buy a house in Nevada. Now do we have to say the alternative? Do we have to say B? But probably not. Usually you don't need to. Because usually the knot option or the one that doesn't have a change, right? It is the same as the current state or condition. And so you can assume it well, if we don't buy a house and Nevada, then you can assume that we will stay here and live here where we already live, that you already know about. So we don't need to mention it. Now, sometimes there are two different results or possible outcomes which are different than what's going on now, then what I'm doing now. Then you might mention the other one. So maybe Nevada is more expensive. Maybe utah is cheaper. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just I'm just saying it might be. I don't know. Just for the example. Okay. So we're going to move. We don't want to stay here in New York City. We really don't want to stay here too cold in the winter. We want beautiful landscape. We want beautiful scenery. We want different, whether we want blue skies every day. That's what we want. Okay. But the outcome still depends on whether or not I get that job. So to talk about both of those outcomes, to talk about both possibilities. I'll probably say if first if I get that job, Kyle and I are going to buy a house and Nevada, period. If I don't comma, we'll probably move to Utah. So I mentioned both because both are different than what we're doing now. That's why. Now you could say, Kyle and I are going to buy a house in Nevada if I get that job. We're going to get a house in Utah. If I don't, it's okay. But I think it's more clear if you would start with the if there if you're going to mention both of them, start with the if, then make two separate sentences to explain both possibilities. I hope that's clear. If I can get a 6.5 on the eyelids exam, I'll apply to an art school in England. Now for this one, you could mention another possibility. If I get lower than a 6.5. If I get lower than a 6.5, I may go to a local school instead. I haven't decided. But maybe I don't want to mention the other possibility. Because what I'm most excited about is this one going to an art school in England. That's what I want to mention, that's what I focus on. So let's not even talk about the other possibility. So we might not mention the other side of the, if. If it's either not very interesting, not important in some way, not something we want to focus on or answer questions about. Or perhaps if. That is the same as what we're doing already. And you can assume what that would be. And this is really the only reason I'm mentioning it to begin with. So I hope this is clear. Now, what if it's not one of those things That's a yes or no in the future. What if we just want to talk about possibilities in general? But it's not a clear yes or no because we have no idea. We just have no clue. It's not even an option at the moment to think about as a clear yes or no thing in the future. Okay, that's very interesting. So let's, let's talk about daycare. Some city governments provide free daycare and some don't take cares where you can send your kids to a center and they're taking care of while you go to work. Okay. So I can talk about it in this way. I could say if the city has free daycare, I will and I can talk about my plan, what I will do. But if it's not something people are talking about and I just want to consider it. I just want to play with it in my mind. There are a couple of different ways I could do it. I could say if the government provided free daycare, Okay, now you might think that's really weird because I'm using this past tense, but that does not mean it is in the past. We're still just living in our imaginations. We talk about it like it's in the past, because we're using our imaginations. In our imaginations. It happens, it happened, it's done. It's in the past. So that's okay, we can use the past tense, but to make sure it's clear that hey, this is just a hypothetical. It's not really something that happened in the past. Then we use wood. We use would or could. If the government provided free daycare, we would. We could. So the wood and the could what that tells you is this is a hypothetical. Okay. Yes. I've said this in the past tense. That's okay. We can get away with that. It's alright. We don't have to do it that way, but we can, except we don't use will because we're not talking about clear certain things. Clear outcomes of an exam, or whether or not we gotta job. Now we're just talking about the topic of daycare, which is not even something that might happen in our example. It's not one of these types of things. We want to make it clear, hey, hey, hypothetical, imagination. We would save $300 a month. I can't write out that whole thing here. We could we could buy a new car because we saved $300 a month. That sort of thing, Right? Could is the same as CAN, what is the same as well? But we use could and would in the hypothetical to talk about things that are not real. That is one way we use would and could very, very useful. So just remember could is CAN in wood is like Will, what is like imaginary will and could is like imaginary, can. Now, to be clear, those can be used in other ways. I'm just talking about this example. But let's, let's try this another time. And instead of using the past tense, Let's try it in a slightly different way. Okay, let's try it like this. If the government were to provide free, free daycare, We could buy a new car. We would buy a new car. Now, this is classic. When we're talking about these hypothetical things that we have were earlier in the sentence and then could or would later in the sentence. Not only for possible futures, but also just something that's in our imagination that's not even a possible future. For example, as I think I've mentioned, if I were a doctor, if I were a doctor, then I would say I could or I would those go together? They're paired together. If we were we would if there were, we, could those all go together when you're imagining these things? So remember that these often go together. I've said you can use the past tense to talk about something that may be will happen in the future. But it's not this kind of thing. That's a planned thing that we'll have a clear outcome. Just a thing that maybe will happen that I want to think about. That would be interesting. That would be great. I could buy a new car, right? So yes, we can do that. This is maybe less common in this situation, but very common in the other one that I mentioned. Where I'm imagining things about my life or perhaps in the past. Very, very common for the future, maybe a little bit less. In this example, it sounds a bit formal to me. If the government were to provide, were to provide free daycare, We could buy a new car. I think it sounds more natural to say if the government provided free daycare, we would, or we could buy a new car. That's the one that I think is better using the past tense. Then followed by would or could. Now, what's the difference in meaning here? Could buy a new car, would buy a new car. Well, would buy a new car means that if that were to ever happen, this thing would be certain. This would be a certainty. So we're connecting this to this action of providing free daycare. This is totally in my imagination. But as a hypothetical possibility, this is directly connected to this. This will always happen. If this happens, this one is a little different because it's a possibility we would be able if we wanted to, to buy a new car. Why? Because now we don't have to pay for daycare. Now the city pays for daycare. The government pays for daycare. So we don't need to. So we have 300 extra dollar a month. So if we wanted to buy a new car, we could buy a new car. Remember that means can, but we may not do that. It suggests that we would, because otherwise why would we say buy a new car, right? It suggests that that would happen, but it gives us a little more distance from that to say that is now a possibility, then we can decide which way to go. Okay, Now, what about using provides government? Is it a thing? So if we remove were to, let's remove that. If the government provides free daycare, we could we would was that the same? Well, yes. But there's less distance from it. So saying provides, if the government provides, is closer to this one, but we can still use the code or the wood. And that's kind of a gray area, right? I think it's a little less common to say it that way. If the government provides free daycare, we could, that's getting so close to this one that it might be more common to just say, if the government provides free daycare, we can buy a new car. We will buy a new car. Because maybe that's a real possibility. Maybe people are going to vote on this issue next month and we'll have a clear outcome. So I would say this one is more often going to be used in this way rather than the hypothetical. If it's the hypothetical, it's going to be more often in the past tense, provided or using were, two, were two. But that makes it sound more formal. I think, for these things that are mostly in our imaginations that we don't want to give a probability or likelihood or really talk about as possibilities in the future for these sorts of things, I think it's probably most natural to use the simple past tense, which makes it easier, right? Followed by one of these two, then make it clear, hey, just using my imagination here. Now, we've talked about the future. What we're going to do next is build on this foundation and talk about the hypothetical past. 67. Exploring Past Hypotheticals: Part 1: Now that we've explored the hypothetical future, let's explore the hypothetical past. This in some ways, in most ways perhaps is more complicated. Why is it more complicated? Well, I think we can, I think we can explain it with our classic timeline. So here's our timeline. And unfortunately not very straight, but that's okay. Now I'm drawing this dotted line here because this line is parallel. And you'll see why that's important in a second. Now I'm going to place right here, this dots and one right here. And this is going to represent, now, this is going to represent, let's say the unreal. Now. The now that's not true, that I'm wondering about, that is not real because it's not true, but I can still think about it. Right. Am I a doctor? No, I'm not. But I can imagine what my life would be like if I were if I were a doctor, I'm not, but I can still use my imagination and explore hypotheticals. That hypothetical if I say if I were a doctor is now, well, not really now, but I'm imagining another version of myself, an imaginary version of myself on this imaginary line here in this now place. But notice I use were. So when we talk about these hypotheticals, we're often going to use were and as you know, we're often going to use wood, are often going to use would and could. Now those aren't the only possibilities. I think the best way to really get a sense for this is to explore examples, but just keep these two timelines in mind to be clear. This is the real timeline. This is really me. Now, Luke, sitting here today talking to you. This is my real past, what I did five years ago, what I did ten years ago. It's real. It really happened. And this is my imagination. This is hypothetical. Luke land. Okay. This is where we're going to explore, but we have to be able to go between them. Things aren't just here or here. We want to be able to talk about what would be true now if something hadn't happened, meaning that it did happen. So we're trying to imagine if it hadn't happened. So those are kind of interacting with each other. Okay, Now this is a little confusing, really. I think we just have to try to explore examples. That's the best thing we can do. That's the best way to get a feeling for this. This is not super simple, and I don't want to explore the grammar of this in a lot of detail. What I want to explore here is simply, what are the structures that we use? What are the patterns that we use? What are the kinds of sentences we can make when we want to think about the past. Wonder about possibilities that didn't happen, or possibilities based on things that did happen. All of these things we can talk about. So let's try this first example. The whole business would have gone under if you hadn't found that business card. Okay, so what's going on here? Well, let's pay attention to wood. Wood is telling us, okay, this is hypothetical, that is often an indication. This is not real. We are talking about something hypothetical. Great. The whole business would have gone under what does gun undermine? Well, let's just say that gone under. We could put it in the past tense as failed. The whole business would have failed. Okay? Now, if, if we have this, would have, after this, we're going to use the past participle. Remember that past participle. That is why this is gone. Now if we use failed, that's irregular verb. Remember this. So we would use would have failed. That would be okay because this is not an irregular verb. Would have gone, not would have went, would have gone. If you use this structure, you're going to use the past participle. But what does that mean that it would have gone under? Well, I know that we're talking about something in the past. Okay. I know we're talking about something in the past, but are we talking about a thing that happened in the real past or are we talking about a thing that would have happened in the imaginary past? Did the business fail or not? No, it didn't fail. It would have it would have gone under but it didn't. Okay. So actually we're gonna be talking about this, the non-real thing if you hadn't found that business card. Okay. So I'm imagining now. That this thing that happened here, in reality, I'm imagining this real thing that happened in the real past that actually saved the business. The business was struggling. Things were not going well, but I found an agency that helped us save our business, that business card, if I hadn't found it, we would have failed. So in reality, this is what happened. This is what happened. We continued and now we have a business, now we have succeeded. That's the reality. That's the real thing that happened. But if this event that happened had not happened, if you hadn't found it. Now we pop up to the imaginary line. If I'm just imagining, if here, then, then we wouldn't have made these changes or we wouldn't have marketed in this way and we would have failed, we would have gone under. Now, when would that have happened? Well, I'm not sure because we're just using our imaginations. It might have happened here. It might have happened here in might've happened here. It might've happened here. I don't know, but it would have happened. I think. So. I'm imagining things here, but it's based on this key thing that happened here in the real past. And that's the interesting thing about this one. Okay, well, how could we play around with this? Could we say the whole business wouldn't wouldn't have gone under if you hadn't found that business card, what would that possibly mean? That means I found the business card and it was really bad company and we wasted all of our money on this marketing agency. And as a result, three months later, in reality, the business failed because we spent all of our money. That's what really happened. Then after that, now, there is no business we're not talking about now. We failed. The business went under. So you would say there if you hadn't found that business card, we wouldn't have gone under. If you hadn't found that business card. We wouldn't have gone under. Or if you hadn't found that business card. That's the thing that happened here. We did find it. Then we can imagine that this unreal thing would be true. We would still have a business. We would still be running the business. I think it's not true. In fact, the business is not running. It has failed. But we would we would be running the business still if you hadn't made this very terrible decision, which you really did make. Now I know that's confusing. But if you look through it carefully, if you think about this and you look at these two lines, the real line and the line of imagination, I think you can get it. It just takes a little bit of thought, maybe a little bit of practice to write down my example, and then to try your own to play with it. But we can't just play with one example. Of course we have to play with a few. I'm going to now draw another one of my famous, straight, beautiful, my famous, alright, I'm going to try this. Try one more time. My famous straight, That's not too bad, beautiful lines. Then we have this one. This one which is the imagination. The imagination line, I'm going to call it the imagination line, could also call it the hypothetical line. Okay? And let's say that this is the real now and this is the unreal. Unreal now, what I'm calling, It's just what I'm calling it. Now, pay attention to this would pay attention to using the past participle. Got to pay attention to the form of these. If the internet had been around when I was a kid, I wouldn't have played outside as much. So what you have to ask yourself is, was the Internet around when I was a kid, if it had been, had been. Now, you might say, well, wait a second. This looks like the past perfect. The past perfect tense. You're right. It is the past perfect tense. We have had, plus, we have usually the subject, and then plus had, and then we have the past participle been, for example. Okay? Now, this is used when you have a past thing, before a past thing. But that could be a real thing in the past here. A past thing before another pass thing. This had been around, or an unreal pass thing before. An unreal pass thing, because it's hypothetical. But we probably need to have wood here somewhere, right? Where is it? There? It is. There it is our wood or wood or hour could usually we're going to have these. So if the Internet Had been past perfect around that means it was there when I was a kid. Does that mean it was there or it wasn't there? That means it wasn't there. Okay. So I'm imagining I'm imagining, yes. That it's there. In fact. In reality, no, it was not there. This is when I was a kid, maybe six or seven years old. Okay. Now, I wouldn't have played outside as much. So what does that mean? I wouldn't have done something. So that means really something did happen. What happened? Because there was no internet, least not that I remember because there was no Internet. I did for this period of time. I did really play outside a lot. That's true. I always played outside when I was a kid, I would have played. Now, this would tell us that it's hypothetical, and this is the present perfect, the present perfect tense. That's where we have the subject plus, have, or has plus, the past participle. So if this is the word go here instead of played, then this would be gone. Not went, I wouldn't have gone, wouldn't have gone outside as much and that would be okay. That would be exactly the same thing I use played because that tells you what action I did. Not just that I left the indoors and went into the outdoors. Know, I played, That's what I did. So that's a little bit better, but it's still the past participle. Again, wood is telling you, would is telling you that this is hypothetical. So what's the reality? There was no Internet. What's the reality? I played outside a lot as a kid. Am I still a kid? No, I'm not doing this now. This is all in the past. So this is a period of time where I was playing outside a lot because, or one of the reasons at least there was no internet. Now I like to imagine, I like to imagine if the answer is yes, this wouldn't have happened. This instead would be empty, something else would be here. Maybe a lot of video games, maybe chatting online. I don't know. I don't know something else would be there but it's not there. So I use wouldn't have, wouldn't have. But that is also in a way finished. Why? Because I'm not a child anymore. That's why I say when I was a kid. So here I'm imagining on this unreal line in the past, this hypothetical of a world with the Internet in which I didn't go outside because I would have been using the internet constantly. And I could instead replace that with the thing I would have done. How would I do that? Can you guess what would I put here instead of saying wouldn't have played outside, I could say I would have played more video games. So I can put something in here. I can talk about this one, or I can talk about this one. And if I'm talking about this one, then I say, wood wouldn't have played outside, would have always been online playing video games or chatting or watching movies or whatever whatever kids do on the Internet these days. I don't even know. So I hope that is clear. I know it's a little weird. I know it's confusing. And because it's a little weird and confusing, we have to look at some more examples. 68. Exploring Past Hypotheticals: Part 2: Another one of my classic straight lines, that one is actually not too bad. And here is, you're getting used to this now, right? Best way to learn is by example. Always learn by example. Okay? Now we have our unreal. Now. Okay? This is now, we're used to this by now, getting easier, I hope. Now it's a little bit harder. Alright? This is a little bit more complicated. You may be struggling from PTSD as so many others do. If you hadn't been emotionally ready for what you saw. Okay. Well, let's start with the things that are clear, ready for what you saw. There's a thing in the past. Let's just mark it. What well, you saw something, okay. Now what is PTSD? But this is something that happens for people who experience trauma. Maybe they go to war, maybe they experienced a car crash, something really horrible happens. And as a result, afterward there are some bad emotional effects. So this is a, let's say a traumatic event and it's real, it really happened or working backwards. Now, if you hadn't been emotionally ready, well, wouldn't have played outside. I remember that. That means I did play outside. So hadn't been, hadn't been. Okay, Very interesting. I know that's the past perfect tense there. But I also know that if I say that in the opposite, That's the hypothetical. That means I I I had been that really happened. So there's something about me That's true around here. What is that? Emotionally ready? Oh, wait a second. It doesn't go this way. It goes the other way. It goes this way. There's something true about me before this traumatic event. That's why I use hadn't, because remember, hadn't been, or the past perfect tense is used to talk about, as I like to say, past. Oops, that's a p, past of past. When you have a past thing, whether it's a period of time or an event that happens before another period of time or event. You use the past perfect tense. Usually. Usually there are many situations in which you don't. But let's keep it simple. Let's say if you talk about something that happened before another thing that happened, and both of those are in the past. The one that happened before. The past event is going to be past perfect and we're not including anything about now. Okay? So this is true about me. Well, what's true about me? This is a state of me. This is something that's true about this period of time. I was at this time emotionally ready. Emotionally ready. Okay. And that is my state that is my condition for this period of time leading up to this traumatic event, you may be struggling from PTSD. Well, this may be is talking about this now, the unreal. Now, you may be if when you hear that, you may be if that's talking about your current state. When you hear this, Mei, Mei is used to talk about other things. We can talk about the future using MAY, You could say might hear, You might be, you could say could hear if you wanted to, that would be okay as well. You could say Would here. You could say Would here, except a little different in meaning, that is a certain thing you certainly would be. So let's talk about that in a second. So we're talking about something that maybe would be, which is what MAY means here. Maybe would be really were saying, maybe would be, except that's really long and sound strange. So we just say, maybe, maybe we're talking about this. That's not true. And we're imagining that if this were not true, if this had not happened, if this whole thing had not happened, which it did, it instead had been different, I'm not emotionally ready. And this thing happens, then I would be here. I would be struggling from PTSD. I would be dealing with this problem, this emotional problem. Because many people who have very terrible traumatic experiences who are not emotionally ready, who are not tough, people who don't have this thing that I have. They are dealing with PTSD. That's something they really struggle with. So you're talking about a hypothetical. Now for me, If this thing. That was true. Hadn't been true. That's what you're talking about. That's all it is. Now, again, if you said would hear, the difference is that's a little more forceful. If you say wood here, It's a certainty. It sounds like a 100% saying May means it's possible, right? I want to say there's a possibility. I don't want to say if you hadn't been emotionally ready, that would have happened. 100% would in this case, it just sounds to certain, It sounds like there's no chance for it to be another way. So I don't think it's better to use wood. I think using could or using MAY would be a lot better. You could be struggling from PTSD. You may be struggling from PTSD. And you could also say, You might be, you might be, that would be fine too. You might be struggling from or with PTSD if you hadn't been emotionally tough, emotionally ready, which you were which you were. Okay. I hope now it's getting a little more clear, but still we have one more example, one more beautiful timeline. There is the real. Then we have are equally beautiful hypothetical. And then we have our, we have our now and are unreal now. If I had pursued my PhD, I never would have met my wife. And I'd probably be a professor at some university. Now. A lot of things going on here, right? Not that these things are all very complicated. It's just that I'm mentioning many things and kind of jumping back and forth between these hypothetical and real. And that's what makes it complicated. But if you look at each piece individually, it's really not that complicated. So let's take each piece individually. If I had pursued my PhD, did I pursue my PhD or not? This is a thing in the past. This is, this is what tense. This is the past perfect tense. I know that because this is had and if this work go, then this would be gone. Okay, if I had gone to university to get my PhD. Same thing, exactly the same. Okay. So I know there's some packets thing, but I'm talking about it happening, but it didn't happen. Okay? So this is a thing which didn't happen. No, I'm gonna write no. And this is a thing which did happen, which is not real because this is our hypothetical line. This is an event in the past that didn't really happen, but I want to think about it. Okay? So what is this thing? Let's just say, let's just call this PhD. I didn't pursue my PhD. I'm wondering, what would things be like? How would my life have been up to this point? If I had okay. I never would have met my wife. Never would have would have. So there's the thing that tells me this is hypothetical. I've got my Wood and I've got it here as well. But we changed it to we changed it to May instead because of well, the reason we talked about certainty. I never would have. Now, that means something happened. What happened? I met my wife, ah, now this is the present perfect. How do we know that this is present perfect tense? Because this is, have, had pursued past perfect tense, have or has would be present perfect. And this is met, which is also the same as the simple past. But if this were go, then it would be gone because that is the past participle because it is irregular. I never would have met my wife on this timeline because I did really I really did. Here it is. This is when I met my wife. Maybe this is three years. Maybe this is three years after I decided not to get my PhD. I was thinking about it. I had a moment of decision here. Could have gone this way. I could have gone this way. In fact, I went this way. And then three years later I met the person who would become my wife. Okay. And I'd probably be a professor at some university now. Oh, wait a second. So now we're talking about now, but which now are we talking about? Well, look at this. I, now what is, I'd short for? Ide is a contraction which is short for, I. Would, I would. Remember what is the thing which tells us IS we're talking about at least some things that aren't real. We're using our imaginations here. Hopefully you're getting more comfortable with this contraction. Like don't and isn't. These are contractions, several words put together with the, with this little mark here, which is called an apostrophe. Little mark, very long name. Okay. So to be clear again, if I had pursued my PhD, I didn't. That one goes here. Okay. I never would have met my wife. I guess that would be right here. This is when I did meet my wife, in fact, in the past, but I wouldn't have done that at this point because I would have been on this imaginary line, the line that would have been me going to university again to get a PhD. And I'd probably be a professor at some university now, meaning that's now we're talking about this unreal now. Right now, I would be a professor at a university here. Am I am Professor? No, I'm not. Now, I'm an English teacher. I'm an English teacher. That's real. So we have these real events. I decided not to get my PhD then the next real event because I decided not to. I eventually met the person who would become my wife. And then now here I am a married man with a wife who is an English teacher. Okay? But if I imagine, I can imagine getting my PhD, not meeting that person and now being a professor. Now, we could mean that in two different ways. One way would be, thank goodness, I didn't get my PhD. Thank goodness. I actually did meet my wife and I didn't miss this opportunity. And thank goodness, I'm not a professor at a university, or I could look at it the other way. I wish I had done this. I wish I had done this. So you can use this way to talk about alternative possibilities when you want to focus on regret or a sense of being glad that things turned out the way they did. Either one you can focus on, maybe you're very, very glad all of this happened. And you would say something like, and I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it any other way. Well, I did imagine it using this description, but not really. I can't feel like I would be enjoying my life if this had happened. So it's very interesting. And depending on what you want to focus on, what you want to mention, you just change these around. You use different phrases, but the common features are the past perfect, the present perfect, and somewhere would, or at least something that can replace it. Like may or might. Because MAY here means maybe could be, except that doesn't sound natural. I know this is a little complicated. But I think if you really focus on these and study these and think about my examples, you'll start to get a sense for how you can explore the hypothetical passed in your own life. How could things be? Now if you hadn't done certain things, what would be different now? If you had done certain things, you can explore all kinds of things. You can talk about regret. You can talk about being very happy about how things turned out. I want you to really explore this. So my challenge to you is to make four examples, just like mine, except make them about your own life. If it helps you do the timeline just like I did it. That helps me to explain it. It helps me understand it a little bit. It helps me map it out so that it's more clear. And then make some variations. Try to say things in different ways. Focus on different things. Instead of saying, I would be about the imaginary present, the present of your imagination. Try saying I wouldn't be, and then say the truth about now. Say what's true about your life. Actually, now on this real timeline, you have to think through this stuff. You have to play around with it and practice to really get a feeling for it. Now, it is useful to write these down. That's great. But if you really want to challenge yourself, go beyond writing down examples. Tell a story about the last 15 years of your life. Focus on some things you'll regret. Focus on some things you're really glad about. Explore these things. By speaking. This is another level of challenge and it'll help you push yourself. I would recommend if you do that, record yourself, listen back to it, and then give yourself a little feedback so that you can improve. So that when you get that feedback from yourself, you can then use it for the next speaking exercise you do, or the next writing exercise you do. Very important. So good luck with that. Next, we're going to go on and do some exercises. We're going to talk about some things you can do to improve your flexibility, to express yourself, in more ways. To express yourself creatively so that you can say exactly what you want to say. So if you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 69. Slapping and Breaking: We're going to spend a little time in this course, in this section on exercises. Things you can do to improve your flexibility with the language. And this is for speaking or writing. Now when we think of syntax, we usually think of writing. We say, Oh, your syntax needs to be improved. But think about it when you speak, when you talk about something, the ability to be interesting, to hold your listener's attention, to make a point clearly is the ability to express yourself in different ways depending on what you want to say and exactly how you want to say it. That's really what syntax is. So when we say good syntax, what exactly do we mean? Good syntax? We mean variation. So not every sentence is the same. Not every sentence starts with he is, she is, it is they are, right, That's part of it. But also length, also the patterns that we choose to use. So all of the patterns that we learn in this course are going to help you improve your syntax and your flexibility. But really, finally, it's about the ability to express what you want to express in exactly the way you want to express it, so that it has the impact that you want it to have, so that it makes the impression that you want it to make. Because if you're translating very complicated, interesting, creative thoughts into a few sentence types, into very limited grammar. Not very interesting vocabulary, right? Is the person listening to you or reading what you wrote going to understand you in the way that you understand yourself. Going to understand exactly what you mean, a subtlety of it. Maybe not, Probably not. That's why syntax is so important. That's why you have to be very flexible with the English language. But now how can you practice that? Well, that's what this section is all about. So let's work on it. We're going to start with something that I'm calling, slapping and breaking. We could just call it playing around. But it's not just playing around, It's playing around in a certain way for a certain purpose. And the purpose is clarity. So we're learning how to play with text. This is going to improve your writing of course, but also indirectly, your ability to express yourself and communicate. If you're describing something, if you're having a conversation. So useful either way, okay. We do it usually as a writing exercise. So what do we do? We start with one chunk, chunk of text. Now, you can get this from different places. I'm going to give you one to work on. You can do this one if you like. I'm gonna give you another one to practice with. But you can choose one from a book you're reading. You can find some examples online. Just find a paragraph that you think is a little, a little wordy that could be more clear, that could be simplified. That doesn't have to be as long as it is. And you're going to give yourself the task of making it more clear, of trying to simplify it. But you're not going to sit there and think about it. Instead you're going to do versions. Now I would recommend doing three versions because I think that's a pretty good number. Three tries. But if you want, you can do more. I suppose you could do fewer. But we're not trying to do this in one step. Because doing it in several steps gives us a sense for what we could do differently after we look at what we just created. And this is also increasing awareness. This is really increasing your flexibility, your creativity, right? So you don't need to have the perfect solution the first time. I want you to get out of that way of thinking. It doesn't have to be perfect the first time you do it, it's not going to be perfect. The first time you do it. All you're trying to do with each step is simplify and clarify, but not too much. Now I want you to look at these. This is my original and this is my V1, V2 version one, version two, and V3, okay? And I want you to note that v1 is shorter than original, and V2 is shorter than V1 and V3 is shorter than V2. And V1 stands for. V stands for where can I put this version? So let's just read it and then we'll go through the exercise. There is a tree standing in a field. The tree is tall and it's a sunny day. It has been there for many years. A man is sitting under the tree. He is taking a nap in the shade to cool down. Now, is there anything directly, obviously wrong about this? No. Does it sound good? Do you feel it's natural? I think you can probably feel that it's just not that natural. Too much has been said to many words have been used to say something that's. Pretty simple. So why not just say it's simpler? Why not just make it easier? Why not just clarify it? Why not? Yes. So let's do that. So you make sure you understand the whole thing. If you need to go through it, look up any words you're unfamiliar with, that's fine. Make sure you understand those words when you learn a word and make sure you understand it in context. So you go find the word, you look at a few example sentences, and then you go back to the original. And you look at that in the context where you found it, right? In context, whenever you learn a word or phrase, always, always, always, always, always. Learn in contexts very important. Don't just remember words. Can't tell me that you know a word if you don't know how to use it. Oh great. You know the word. Congratulations. You know 10 million words. I don't care. Can you use 10 million words? Probably not. So in my opinion, you don't know a word unless you know how to use it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to understand this and then forget about it. That's what you should do when you're doing your first version. I don't want you looking at the original. This is a mistake. Why is it a mistake? Because we get into this thought pattern of the original says this and I'm just making small variations. So there is a tree that is in the middle of the field that's too close. You're just making small variations by sentence. For each sentence, you're not unlocking your creativity. You're not thinking about it from a totally different point of view. To really use language flexibly, the English language, to really write and speak creatively and say what you mean. You have to unlock that. Don't allow yourself to get sucked into or pulled into what you see here. You know the basic idea, but don't focus on the words anymore. Forget about it. Don't look at it. You know the meaning. Why do you need to look at the words, right? Who cares? Block it out of your mind. Next step, write a version of it. Version one that you think is at least more clear and don't worry if it's not perfect. My first version here, I didn't spend much time on it. And I think it's in fact, not that good. But I think it's simpler. I think it's a little more clear. Let's read it. The tree in the middle of the field has stood there for many years. Beneath it sits a man who is taking a nap in the shade to cool down. It's a sunny day. Now. Are there a couple of weird things going on? Yes. Saying shade first and then it's a sunny day. That's a little odd. Saying the tree first and not talking about the man. I think that's a little strange, but I'm not too worried about that now. That's not what we're working on. What we're working on is trying to look at it from a different point of view, a different angle, trying to say it in a different way. We're playing around doing it with a purpose, with a point for a reason. We're not just randomly playing. I don't want you to just randomly play. I want you to have an idea in mind. Something you're trying to do, something you're trying to accomplish. You're doing an exercise. I'm simplifying. I want it to be more clear. Okay, so now I have this version, version one. Now, forget that I have my version one. I remember it, I know what it's about. Forget about it, make it simpler, make it more clear. Use some of the things you've been learning in that course I took by Luke, that course Luke taught me and taught me a lot of different patterns or from the books or articles that you read, from the movies you watch. You're going to pick things up. Try using them. Think about what would be more clear and use what you've learned. Well, I remember that I learned that I could start a sentence with a preposition. And if I did that at the end of that phrase or that piece, I would need a comma. And then I could start my independent clause, my regular sentence, and that all of that would be background information, details, description, but it couldn't stand by itself as a sentence. What if I did a few of those in a row without work? Is that weird? Try it out. Why not? Beneath an old tree in the middle of a field. Okay. That's another one. On a hot day. Wait a second, beneath an old tree in the middle of a field. On a hot day. Instead of 31233 pieces of background information, context, prepositional phrases all mixed together in 12. Then give you some details to think about a picture in your mind before saying what's really happening. Well, yeah, It's okay. Now I think it's a little strange to put all of them together like that, right? But they're in the right order. And so it's not wrong beneath an old tree in the middle of a field on a hot day. Okay, it's not wrong. Not particularly common, but not wrong. Okay. A man is taking a nap. Oh, man is taking a nap. How's my independent clause? Yes, I remember that. Ah, guys flip it around and then there would be no comment. Yes. Amanda is taking a nap beneath and old tree in the middle of a field on a hot day. Oh, nice. Remember what you learned and practice it. He is enjoying the shade. So I add that as a sentence by itself, a short sentence. Again, not the best thing in the world, but I'm just playing around. I have the goal of being more clear of simplifying each one so that each one is shorter, right? If it's longer, you failed. Try again. Make it a little shorter, make it more clear, Okay? And experiment. Do things you haven't done before. Use what you've learned. Alright? Now, cross that one out. Don't look at it. I don't want you looking at the previous version. Because if you look at the previous version, you're going to get stuck there. It's going to suck you in. And you're going to say, Oh, I'm going to make it like that. No, no, start fresh. Each time. Beginner's mind, a blank slate. Clean the board. Okay, Version three, in the shade of an old tree in a sunny field, a man is resting. This is starting to sound nice. I'm still saying pretty much everything. Now, is there anything weird going on here? Well, in the shade of an old tree, in a sunny field, you have two ends. They're not ideal to have two ends like that in the same sentence, so close together, it's certainly clear. You can see the picture in your mind very clearly, and it's simpler. It's shorter. So we've said the same thing with fewer words, but we didn't just do it in one giant step. We went through a journey. And that journey is really the important thing. But it's also important that each time you're looking at it from a different perspective, each time you're trying something different, I'm just going to end with a man as arresting. I'm going to suggest that he might be sleeping in the shade of an old tall tree. So I'm starting with shade. That's interesting. Well, where's the shade coming from? It's coming from the tree. So the shade of the tree, the source of the shade is the tree. Where is all this happening? Soon as Sonny field, that's where. Okay. Okay, Interesting. And then what's happening? A man is resting. Could this go by itself in the shade of an old tree in a sunny field? No, it could not have to have this piece. A man is resting. That is your independent clause. So you could keep going if you wanted to. But I think doing three versions is a pretty good number. So how do you do this? Again? Find your source, find a big block of texts that you think could be better, could be more clear than do your versions. For each version makes sure you're not looking at the original. Your goal is to make it as clear as you can and to simplify so that each one is shorter, that each one is simpler than the previous one. Without looking at the last one, I'm going to very quickly give you one of these that you can play with. But go out there and find your own from books, especially from articles online. Maybe ask your friend to write one. That's okay to use it as a starting point. And don't say to yourself, Oh, this is in a book. I guess that's the only way that this idea can be said. I guess that's the only way that this thing that this is describing can be described. No, no, no. If there's one thing you take away from this course, It's that, that there are many ways to say exactly what you want to say. There are many ways to say anything. 70. Practicing Slapping and Breaking: So for play practice, try this one. I bought a new computer. It was quite expensive. I used my credit card. My old computer was old and slow. I'm planning to use it for work. Maybe video games too. I'm excited to start using it. I intentionally gave you something that needs a lot of work so that you wouldn't get pulled into making it look anything like this. I hope so just to pull out a couple of examples, my old computer was old and slow. You have course it was old and slow. It's your old computer. Okay. I'm excited to start using it. Well, that's a thought by itself. It could be there, but we could include that in some other part of the description. Notice that each of these is a very short sentence. This has terrible syntax. I bought, it was, I used, my computer, was I, it's so boring. The syntax is not interesting. There's no variation in length. There's very little variation in the patterns or the grammar that's being used here. So there's a lot that can be done to make this much, much better. So you want to try then a version one, version two, version three. Version three. And let me know how it goes if you have any questions also, let me know. Let's look at another way to practice. 71. Really Long Sentences: When I was a child up until about high school, I was home-schooled. I went to school at home with my two brothers, was a very interesting experience. And I think I got to learn things in a different way, a more creative way than what a lot of schools would teach, than how a lot of schools would teach students. Very interesting. And I got to learn based on my interests, based on what I was good at or not good at. It was great. And one of the things that was very important to me as a child was becoming a better writer. I was very interested in that. So my father, who is a writer professionally, he gave me an interesting exercise to do and I want to share it with you because I think it is a really great creative exercise. He said, what do you wanna do is push yourself to the limit. If you want to get comfortable with something, if you want to really see what you can do, do the extreme. So do gymnastics, stretch yourself. See how far you can stretch. Let's call this gymnastics. And for the next exercise we talk about, we'll focus on something we can do equally written, spoken. For this one, this is more meant as a writing exercise, but that can help your flexibility, your creativity in general. Now what is it? You want to try to make a really long sentence. That does not mean that really long sentences are good. That you should make really long sentences. That that's somehow better. The longer the sentence, the better. Know. If that were true, then the best books would all be one giant sentence and they're not, right. Good authors use good syntax. They have a lot of variety. They use longer sentences, they use shorter sentences. They use lots of different structures and patterns to express the story that they're writing. The point, trying to make whatever is best for whatever they're trying to say. But to get there, sometimes you have to do exercises. Exercises aren't always matched up with what is really best in daily life. So the way we do this is come up with a basic topic, think of a basic topic and write it down. So let's say my basic topic is when I visit my uncle and aunt, I say ant, lot of people say, Why do you say and instead of font? Because I am from a place where people say, and that's why. But you can say on, that's fine. Okay, that's my basic topic. Now if you want to, you can create a basic outline. If you want to, you don't have to. We can just go for it. Just try create a basic outline. And this is what are you going to talk about? I'm going to mention I'm going to mention that it's nearby. This is just for myself. This is just so that I can make the structure clearly. I'm going to mention that we eat, talk, watch TV. I'm going to mention that we watch boats by the river and I'm going to write down, never catch fish. Now, this is just for me, that's fish. Just for, that doesn't look like fish at all. We're going to fix this. Okay, there we go. This is only for me, so I know what I'm going to talk about. This is optional as well. So do it or don't do it. Again. The activity is extremely simple. You have a thing you're going to talk about or describe. And all you do is try to make a sentence that's much longer than you would normally make a sentence to see if you can, to always see, oh, can I add a little more? Could I add a little more? So that's the basic question that you want to ask yourself. Could I, could I add a little more? Could I add a little more? Again? I want to be very clear. I know I've said this. I am not saying this is good. I'm not saying you should make long sentences normally when you're writing. No, no, no. Maybe sometimes once in awhile, if it's the right thing to do. But the reason we do this exercise is to see if we can to stretch our abilities, to push ourselves to do things that are a little difficult, to practice, that flexibility, to work on syntax, to incorporate new things. We've been learning to try out new things because pretty soon you're going to run out of patterns that you've already learned and you need to try something new, right? So you have to be very, very creative, okay? I won't say anymore about it except to say, this is just an exercise. Just an exercise. Here we go. My aunt and uncle live with their kids near a river not far from my mother's home. Boom. You could end the sentence there, but know and continue whenever they invite the whole family over for a get-together. We spend the afternoon eating, talking, watching TV, and playing games, could end it there. But my favorite thing to do is stand beside the river and watch the old fishermen float by in their boats. Could end it there. No. I'm going to add something else. Why are they doing it? Trying to catch catfish could end it there. No. Keep going. No. Okay. Keep going. Although I've never actually seen them catch one and I could keep going. But it would get a little bit ridiculous if I did. Okay, that's it. That's the exercise. If to use all of your creativity, you have to really push yourself. But I would encourage you to have fun with it. I would encourage you to share it with a friend, ask someone to take a look at it. And one other thing you can do is check it in some grammar software are a lot of applications out there, programs out there you can use to check your grammar for free. There's a good one that I use. Maybe when you're watching this, it won't be popular, but there's one that I use right now called Grammarly. That one's pretty cool. At the time I'm saying this, it is free. If I were to put this in there right now, it would say too long or unclear or something like that. That's the feedback I would get, but I could use it to check on smaller things. Maybe I used some incorrect punctuation. Maybe something is mixed up. Maybe there's a confusing subject or some wording is not clear, it would help me identify those things. So I would encourage you to do it in a program that can give you some feedback, that can help you correct small things. That's great. Then you can learn those things and improve for next time. And each time you do it, you're pushing yourself a little bit more. I think it's fun. I think it's an interesting exercise. Okay, so practice. And we're going to look at one more, one more exercise we can do to improve creativity and flexibility. And it's one you can do, either spoken or written. 72. Limits Are Your Friend: Have you ever watched a really good chess player play speed chess? So there's a game that you probably know called Chess. Very strategic. You have to think carefully. You need time to make the right decision. You have to think about all your moves ahead of time, what could happen, what might not happen, right? Well, there's another form of chess known as speed chess, which means exactly what it sounds like. It means there's a timer and you have to finish the match within a certain period of time, so you have to be fast, okay? Now if you've ever watched a very good chess player play speed chess, you might notice that they make more mistakes, or they may make more mistakes when they do that. So then, why would they ever play speed chess? Why would they practice playing speed chess? The answer is simple. Well, I think it's simple. I'm not a chess master, but I think if you ask them, why do you practice speed chess? Why not play very slow game so that you can think about every single move. I think they would probably tell you, it improves my instincts. I wanted to be able to make the right decision in a snap judgment very quickly. And so what I do is I place beat chess, speed chess has rules which limit. What you would normally be able to do was just to sit there and think for two hours if you want to, and then make your next move, right? There's a limitation. And that limitation could be seen as a negative thing. It could be seen as a bad thing, right? I'm not as good when I play speed chess. But it could also be seen as a positive thing. Because if you improve your instincts as a chess player, because you played a lot of speed chess, then you might be a better chess player overall. Why am I saying all this? What does this have to do with improving your English and learning how to express yourself in a more flexible, creative way. Being able to say exactly what you want to say when you want to say it. The reason I mentioned it is the exercise we're going to talk about next. And it's the last exercise we're going to focus on before we get into some really, really interesting stuff that I can't wait to talk about. Maybe the main reason you took this course, maybe. Okay. So what is this? Well, we need to do this. We need to do this with our practice as well when we're practicing English, whether we're practicing writing or practicing spoken fluency, it can be a very good idea to limit yourself, just like speed chess, because limiting yourself is going to push you to do things that you wouldn't do otherwise. So we're going to create some limits, some limits, and we're going to do that by creating specifically some rules, okay? Now, this can be done either spoken or written depending on what you want to focus on. And I'm not going to tell you what the rules have to be. You have to think carefully about the rules. Which rules are the right rules? How many rules should there be? One rule may not be enough to rules may not be enough. Set some rules. You're going to do a task. You're going to give yourself a task or a topic following the rules, you have to stick with them, okay? I have here five rules, a, B, C, D, and E. I made five rules. I'm going to then give myself a task or a topic. I'm gonna give myself something to speak about or write about. And I'm going to make sure that all of these rules are followed. These are my limits. These rules limit me in some way. The things either must do or things that I maybe can't do. Now, why do I have these limits? Well, maybe I have some weak areas. For example, I know that I use too many be verbs and it can be a little distracting, right? Maybe I want to improve my syntax when I'm writing. And I know that I have too many. They are, we were, she is, right, I am sentences. So I'm going to say no be verbs in any form. Wow, that's a tough rule. Okay, I'm going to say that it must be in the past tense, so on in practice, the past tense, Oh, my role is it must be in the past tense. Speed, chest time, use toss and confusing. These are two words maybe I don't feel comfortable using, and maybe I'm going to allow myself to use these in different forms. So if that's confused, That's okay. Tossing, tossed, tosses, okay? Okay. But I'm going to use these words in some form. Now there must be at least four sentences. I know I have a tendency, for example, if this has spoken, I have a tendency to just say a little bit and then I don't know what else to say. No. My rule is I must have at least four sentences. Now, that's actually not very much if it's a spoken exercise, not much at all. Maybe give yourself a time limit. That could be I'm going to speak for two minutes. I'm going to speak for five minutes. I'm going to speak for ten minutes. Get crazy. Push yourself. Think about what's difficult, okay? I'm not going to use there was anywhere not allowed to use it. So these are my hard rules and I'm going to follow them no matter what. Now, I'm not saying these should be your rules. You have to think carefully about what your rules should be. Which rules are going to push you to do things that you're not used to doing, to play speed chess, so that you can improve your instincts. Your instincts for what? Well, your instinct to express yourself naturally and creatively, your creativity with the English language. These limitations, just like speed chess, are going to help you become more flexible, become more creative to think more abstractly. Well, how often have you not had these things available to you put never before. Wow, that's tough. I really need to think about exactly what I'm trying to say here. I really have to think carefully about it. That's a tough one. Okay? So you want to make the rules so that when you look at them, when you read through them, you say, oh, oh, oh, that's gonna be tough. That's what you want. That's what you want. Now, it shouldn't be so hard or so crazy that you don't know what to do. You can't do anything. You need to find the perfect balance Between difficult, tough, pushing yourself and too difficult, overwhelming. Way more than you can handle. Wait, you mean I can't use the letter T or the letter j. Those are pretty common. I don't know what to do. Okay, maybe that's too strict, maybe that's too tough. Find the balance. Find what's right for you, and think carefully about those rules, okay? So you've got your list of rules. Now give yourself a question, prompt, a task. You could ask yourself an open question that could be interesting or simply give yourself a topic. And the topic could be a story, something you remember from the past. For example. Maybe you could give yourself a basic theme or Word where you just say something like wildlife and then you have to talk about that or you have to describe that. Okay? So give yourself something. Basically the point is, give yourself something to write about our speak about, then give yourself a mode. What are you practicing? Are you practicing writing? Or are you practicing speaking? When you're practicing writing, you may want to make a simple outline so that you know which idea is next. That's okay. You don't have to. You can do that for speaking as well. You're going to do it spoken. I would really strongly recommend that you record it in some way. Take out a recording device of some kind. Use your phone, whatever you want to use, record yourself so that you can listen back to it and see how you did give yourself a little bit of feedback. Okay, Though, choose the mode. I'm going to do this as a writing exercise. I'm going to do this as a speaking exercise, either one, okay, so you've got your rules, you've got your topic or your open question, or your main theme. You've got your mode, whether you're writing or speaking. Now the only thing you can do is start, just do it, but makes sure after you do it, That's you look at it carefully, listened to the recording or check what you wrote, and be honest with yourself. Try to be objective. Number one, did I follow all the rules? Number two, could I have done it better? Maybe I can do a revision. Maybe I could try again. Maybe I could record another answer. Now, I'm going to show you an example of a writing task just so you can see what it looks like. I'm going to read it for you. I'm going to talk about a story from a long time ago, a memory when my sister had this very strange injury with her wrist. Very weird. And I'm going to describe it following my rules. So let's take a look. 73. Limits Are Your Friend: Example: Here we go. My example, following the rules that I've made. My sister had taken piano lessons for a few years before stopping because of a wrist injury. She even got surgery a few weeks after the operation, after tossing a Frisbee around for a few hours, she complained that her whole hand felt extremely sore. She went back to the hospital for x-rays. The doctor said it looked totally fine, Confused. We took her home. My mother put some ice on her wrist to help with the pain. Okay. So that's my example. Is it a very interesting example? I don't know, maybe not that interesting. Does it have a very satisfying conclusion? Not really. That's not what we're practicing here. I'm just describing something. And in fact, this isn't even a real memory. It's a memory I made up. I don't even have a sister. This is just an example. Okay. Now, did I follow the rules? Do I have any b verbs in here? The answer is no. You can check there are no b verbs in here. Is this in the past tense? Yes. My sister had taken confused. We took her my mother put yes. This is in the past tense. Did I use toss? Yes. Tossing a Frisbee around the I-N-G form. Confusing? Yes, We've got confused here, confused. We took her home for sentence minimum. Yes. It is at least four sentences. That's one, that's two, that's three. So it's definitely more than four sentences. And did I use? There was anywhere did I use there was no I didn't use there was so I followed my rules. I completed the activity, I completed the exercise. I've played around with speed chess. I'm a little more flexible, I'm a little more creative. I really pushed myself. And to be clear, this is also very effective as a speaking exercise. So work on this. Follow the steps just like I said, and let me know how it goes. If you have any questions, also, let me know in the next section, we're going to be getting into something very interesting. We're going to be talking about the beginnings of sentences, and I'm very excited to talk about that. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 74. Beginnings with Adverbs: We're going to now spend some time talking about different ways that you can begin sentences. And we're going to focus on quite a few of these. But why would we talk about this if you know many different ways to start a sentence, many different ways to begin a sentence. Your syntax is going to naturally improve almost automatically. You know, many different ways to start a sentence. That means there are many different kinds of sentences you can use to express yourself as you want to express yourself. It's like having a superpower. Imagine you're a painter and you only have three colors to work with. Black, red, and green, and you only have one shade of each of those. You're very limited. Now, maybe that's great for practice. We talked about having limits, that's good. But to be so limited means, syntax is not going to be great. You're not going to be able to say what you want to say really and give the impression you want to give. So I want to give you more colors of paint to paint with. To do that, we're going to explore these sentence beginnings. Now. We're focusing on the beginnings, but I'm going to give you the rest of the sentence as well. Of course, I'm going to teach you how to complete a sentence that starts this way. Yes, but the focus will be on how to start it because that's really the hard part. How can I start my next sentence? How can I start this paragraph? If I'm explaining something, how can I begin doing that often once you get past that beginning, once you go over that little bump, the rest is much easier. So we're going to start with adverbs first. One way to start a sentence is to use an adverb. Adverbs. Now please don't think that adverbs are only LY words like quickly and slowly, to be very clear, that is not true, okay, I know that some people have that idea. That's not accurate. That's not right. There are many different things that we can call adverbs. What are adverbs? Adverbs tell you something about the verb. They tell you something about the action that's going on. It could be a single word, but we can also consider an adverb as a phrase. If it's a phrase that is about the action or about the verb hay, It's an adverb. Some words are both adverbs and adjectives depending on how they're used. That's okay too. We're going to focus on adverbs and then we're going to talk about adjectives and how we can begin with these. Okay, so let's start with the classic one quietly. Okay? Well, you know that this means to do something in a quiet way, right? Yes. Of course. I slipped through the window hoping my parents wouldn't notice. Now, what if we just take this away? Just cancel it. Okay. I slipped through the window hoping my parents wouldn't notice. Okay. That's okay. That's just a description of an action. So there's nothing special about this. We're just describing an action. And we add this here hoping my parents wouldn't notice as the thought I was thinking as I was doing this. So this is in the past tense, noticed I slipped through the window. Quietly, moved through the window. Slipped kind of means quietly. So actually you could get rid of that. Okay. Hoping then is ING because that's what's going on in my mind as I do that thing in the past. So we can say an I-N-G there because the whole time I'm trying to get into the house secretly without being noticed. This is on my mind, so we would use an ING for that. Okay. Now this quietly, while it's not absolutely necessary in this case, does help, I think, does make it more clear, a little bit more vivid when you imagine it. We could put quietly here, I quietly slipped. I quietly slipped to the window and that would be totally fine. But I think you already know that you can put quietly there. I don't think that's a surprise to you. Okay. I think that's not new information. What might be new for you is putting it here and notice we have a comma. Why would we do this? Well, number one, we want to emphasize it. We want to say this whole thing that happens, happens in this way, right? This whole action happens in this way. And I want to give you that impression right from the beginning of the sentence, because I want you to have it in your mind throughout as you read this sentence, I want you to keep in mind that I'm being sneaky, that I don't want to be heard to emphasize it a little bit more. So in that case, it can be a very useful way to begin. Again, if you cut it out, slips suggests quietly, by itself, it is implied, implied by the word slipped. Sometimes we just want to give it that extra push, make it a little bit more vivid. So that can be good. It can make it more interesting, especially if you want to switch up your syntax, if you want to have more variation in the sentences that you use, okay? Now, this does not have to be a single word and absolutely not, not an LY. What about this with natural ease? Ah, ah, with her head held high in the air. Well, this whole phrase is still about the action. So often you see these adverb phrases starting with width, with natural ease, with a calm tone, with a calm tone. Then what are you going to say with a calm tone? Alexander explained. Also the calm tone is about explained. Well explained is the verb. So this phrase is, since it's about explaining, it is about the action, it is acting as an adverb. It's that simple, with natural ease. With natural ease, the dancer floated across the stage. Now, could we say the dancer floated across the stage with natural ease? Yes, you already know this. This is also a prepositional phrase because it starts with width. So you already know how that works grammatically. If you put it here, then you have the comma, then you have your independent clause. You already know about that. If you put it here, the dancer floated across the stage with natural ease. It's still about floating across the stage. It's still about floating. So it's still acting as an adverb, except it's, it happens to be a prepositional phrase because it starts with width. Now let's not get bogged down or stuck in the grammar stuff. The point being that we can have a phrase before the comma acting as an adverb connected to the main, usually the main action of the sentence. This is going to be the action of this or the action unrelated to this, in this case, the dancer. Now why would we do this? Well, it's the same idea. We want to focus on the way the action happens before we say the action, because we want the person listening to it or reading it to have that way in their mind as they read through the action. Which is interesting, right? Sometimes having something in your mind as you experienced something, as you hear it, as you read it, can improve the experience, can make it more interesting, can make it more impactful, Right? So this can be, so, this can be very powerful, but of course you don't want to use it too much. Now let's look at this one downstairs. Someone was cooking something that smelled like banana pancakes. Okay. Now, this this is an adverb? Yes. Absolutely. How can this be an adverb downstairs? That's a place, right? Think about it. Think about it. Yes, it's a place. It is a place, but it is where it is the place that this is happening. Someone is cooking something. That thing that they're cooking smells like banana pancakes. So why would I say an adverb of location? What would be the reason for doing that first? Rather than just saying someone was cooking something downstairs that smelled like banana pancakes, but that would be okay too. Might not be okay to say someone was cooking something that smelled like banana pancakes downstairs. That's okay. I mean, I know what you mean there, but there are too many things between the verb and where it's happening. Okay? It's okay. Why put it first? I'm setting the scene. Have you ever heard of set the scene first, you must set the scene. Set the C means, where is this taking place? Whereas this happening, Give me the general idea and then I can place everything you say after it there in my mind, right? That's very useful if I say in a sunny field, cows grazed and birds chirp. Well, now you have a scene. You can place the cows and the birds in the scene. And that helps because if you're trying to picture the cows and then the birds, and then after you hear about both of those things, then you have to place those things in the sunny field. Cows grazed and birds chirping in a sunny field. It's not wrong, it's fine. But the person listening, the person reading has to do a little more work. It's a little more natural in some ways to say, well, what's the scene? Okay, I have some background information about the action. I have something in my mind, a place to put all the actions, a time to put all the actions. Uh, how about the actions? Then tell me about the actions. Very natural. I think this is actually better than putting it anywhere else. My opinion, just my opinion, I think it's better. Nearby three monkeys were smoking cigarettes. I've seen this happen. I can't remember where I was when I saw maybe I didn't see it in person. Maybe I saw it on the Internet somewhere. I saw monkeys smoking cigarettes, and it was a crazy thing. So this is a similar idea to this one really nearby is not a specific place, but it is in your area, right? I know that they're not on TV. I know that they're not at the zoo unless unless the person who is nearby is also at the zoo, right? So maybe I'm telling a story. Maybe I'm talking about something I experienced, whatever it may be nearby. The main character of the story, nearby me, nearby where I was staying nearby, something. Okay. This is implied will know this because of other sentences in the description. We're just saying this is the scene. They're not far away. This is what they're doing. Now, we could certainly say three monkeys were nearby. Put it there, right? But it right there. Three monkeys were nearby smoking cigarettes. Three monkeys were smoking cigarettes nearby. Not far away. Well, that's fine. And I don't want to tell you which one you should use, but just think about it. I want you to get used to this idea of making creative decisions with language. I'm trying to give you a feeling for which creates which feeling, right? If you say this first, we have a bit more context. If you say this, maybe you focus a bit more on the subject, the three monkeys in this case, if you put it here and say three monkeys were smoking cigarettes nearby, maybe there's a little bit less focus on where it's happening. Maybe that's not so relevant and you want to focus on this very interesting action, okay? Fine. I want you to think about all this stuff and make your own decision based on what you want to say, what you want to express. And it's the same for adjectives. So now let's take a look at how we can start a sentence with adjectives. 75. Beginning with Adjectives: Why would we ever start a sentence with an adjective? Why in the world? What is an additive? You know, an adjective is a word that describes a noun, doesn't have to be one word, can certainly be a phrase like we talked about with adverbs. Why would we do this? Well, maybe we should just look at an example and then talk about when we might decide to use it, why we might decide to start with an adjective? First, notice by the way, that it's used in the same way as the adverbs. You have adjectives to adjectives, comma independent clause. Adjectives, comma independent clause, adjective phrase comma independent clause. And notice very importantly, the subject is right after that, right after it, we, the bear I, she immediately after that comma. Because we have to know which noun this adjective is about, or this phrase that is acting as an adjective is about, we have to know these things. Okay? So hungry, the bear searched for food. What's the difference between that and saying the LY adverb, hunger really the bare searched for food. Okay, So let's just put those side-by-side. So hungry the bear search for food. Hunger really the bare search for food. If you say hunger really the bare searched for food, then we're talking about searched. Of course we're talking about the verb and we're emphasizing the bears action. But if you say hungry, the bear search for food. Yes, you mentioned the action and it's very important of course. But we're focusing on the state of the bear, the condition of the bear, in a sense, we're saying that the bear is what kind of barriers are hungry bear. Now, you could put that here if you wanted to. You could say the hungry bear search for food. The hungry bear searched for food. But we might move past that very quickly and focus on the action. It might be very interesting to start with hungry and then have the comma and then the bear. And then we know, oh, okay, this is, this is a story about hunger. It really emphasizes it. And I think it's very interesting to do it this way. Hungry, the bear searched for food. Who is this bear? I want to know more about this bear. Is this bear live in a cave. See you happy bear, a mama bear. Papa bear. What kind of bear? I want to know more about the bear. Yes. Yes, I know the bears searching for food, but tell me more about the bear. It kinda makes it more personal about the bear. It makes us empathize with the bear a little more. I think. I think starting with the adjective like that allows you to get inside a little bit of the person, of the animal, of whatever is being described. Even if it's not a person to jump in at a little bit, to empathize, to have empathy, to have empathy. And I think this next example shows that perfectly sweating and tired, we arrived at the hotel. Now, this one, yes, this is an ING. Okay. Now you could put two in a row here and that's fine. For example, excited and nervous, right? That's okay. That's okay. So we're saying sweating and then we have an adjective, tired. So you can do it either way. I think both of these are interesting and I think both of them are equally useful. But what does this allow me to do? It allows me to immediately create a picture and empathize with whoever this happens to be. All you must have had a long journey. It must have been a long flight. You must be carrying your bags. Maybe you had to run to the taxi. It's probably very stressful. And after this long journey, you finally arrived and you can rest. You're exhausted. I can almost feel it myself, even though this is a very short sentence, I'm starting to already care about these two people. Are these three people? I didn't even know how many people it is. We could be three, could be four. I don't know, but I already feel bad for you, but I'm interested in knowing more. So if you want to grab people, make them empathize, pull them in. You can start with an adjective to adjectives, one adjective and an I-N-G verb to say what they're doing, right? Sweating, sweating, and tired. And I think it's pretty powerful, excited and a bit nervous. So now notice this could just be excited and nervous. That would be okay. That would be like this one, sweating and tired. It's two things that I want you to know. Before I mentioned the subject. Excited and nervous, fine, excited and nervous. I walked on stage to accept the award. But I want to add a little bit more. I want to make it a little bit more detail. Okay. How about excited and a bit nervous? I don't want to say that I was too nervous. Alright, That's interesting. Okay. Now what if we wanted to make this like this one? If we wanted to do that, we could do something like this. Shaking with. Excitement, shaking with excitement and a bit nervous. I walked on stage to accept the award. These beginnings are very flexible. There are a lot of things you can play around with here. I would encourage you to play around and try different things. Try different combinations, make three or four slightly different examples, and ask yourself, which one do I like better? Which one feels right? Because we're now in the territory of what feels right, creative decisions, that kind of thing. This is not about right or wrong. You don't have to say at any certain way what feels right to you. How do you want to express yourself? Now you have the tools. What are you going to do? Bursting with joy, she ran into her husband's arms. I think you can see the power of this as opposed to she ran into her husband's arms, or even she ran into her husband's arms bursting with joy. That's also fine. I think bursting with joy. She ran into her husband's arms, gives us that impact, that sense of empathy that she's been waiting to see her husband. She hasn't seen him in eight months because he was doing something overseas for a long time. And this is a very special reunion. These adjectives are adjective phrases really helped me feel empathy for whatever the subject is. And if it's a thing and not a person, than it at least pulls me in. It pulls me into the story, it pulls me into the description, whatever is being said, it makes me feel like I'm part of it somehow. So this is starting with an I-N-G, but this whole thing, this whole phrase, is acting as an adjective. This whole phrase can be replaced with the adjective, for example, joyful, right? So if you could replace it with a single adjective, you know that even though it's a phrase, it is acting as an adjective. Bursting with joy. She ran into her husband's arms. Joyful. She ran into her husband's arms. Even though Joy is a noun, even though bursting is an I-N-G verb, It's still acting as an adjective. And which one is better? Well, I think this one is definitely better. Bursting with joy is much better than just saying joyful. Although you could certainly do that. You can always just do this style where you have one simple adjective and that goes before the subject. Or you could have two simple adjectives, nervous and excited in front of the comma, in front of the subject. Of course that's always going to be okay. Don't be afraid to try other things as well. Don't be afraid to mix them together. Don't be afraid to do combinations to build a phrase that acts as an adjective. But if you look at each word, none of them are adjectives. Don't be afraid to try that too. Can be, I think, very powerful and can certainly improve your syntax. So write down my examples and practice your own based on them. Practice two or three examples for each of these and for each of the examples we talked about for adverbs, practice them until you feel very comfortable making these sentences. Remember, you can't just learn it. You have to make it a habit, okay, that's it for this lesson. I'll see you in the next one. 76. Beginning with To + Verb: We've already talked about how to begin sentences with adverbs and adjectives. Now we're going to spend a little time talking about beginning sentences with two verbs and ING verbs. Now, this should be pretty familiar and not too difficult for a couple of reasons. Number one, we've already talked about a little two verbs, right? And we've looked at some examples where I believe one example of how we can begin a sentence with an ING verb if it's part of a phrase that is acting as, for example, an adjective, I believe we said sweating. So we're going to start with two to plus the verb, okay? And usually when we're starting a sentence with two and a verb, usually we're going to be talking about intention. Remember that meaning what we plan to do, what we intend and what we want to happen, right? We can make this longer and say, in order to, in order to do something, you have to do something else. This is shortened. So it starts with this two here. We don't say this part and then it goes at the beginning in front of a comma. Then, just like with the others, we would begin the full sentence. We would begin the independent clause, beginning with the subject. So to calm down, I drank a cup of camomile tea. Now let's just remove this for a second and say I drank a cup of camomile tea. Fine. Sentence. Yes, of course. But but if we want to focus on the reason we do that, the intention, why we decided to do this, then we'll probably put this here. Now you could say, I drank a cup of camomile tea in order to calm down. I drank a cup of camomile tea to calm down just like that and that would be fine. No comma there. But but I wanted to talk about my intention first to say why I'm doing what I'm doing, and then say what the action is because of my focus. My focus is on the reason I do it. Now, does this mean it happens? Now remember when we do this, when we use this, we're talking about our goal, our purpose, our intention. We're not talking about the outcome. Not necessarily. Okay. So to calm down, I drank a cup of camomile tea, to wake up in the morning, I drank a cup of coffee. So try to make a couple of examples like that. Think about a beverage that you enjoy. Think about a food you enjoy and why you might eat that or why you might drink that, okay? Or something similar to this. Try to make a similar example. To live without worry, you must give up desire and attachment. Oh, this sounds very spiritual right now I think for this one, it is absolutely best to put the two live without worry here. Rather than to say you must give up desire and attachment in order to live without worry or to live without worry. But why? Well, isn't it for this kind of thing, very useful to talk about your goals first, to talk about your goals first and then worry about the method and then worry about the thing that you should do to reach it, right? We talk about the details so you could say it's a pretty big details, I know. But you would focus on the next thing after you've already decided your goal. So this is a natural order. Actually, this is a natural way to put these in to not only focus on the goal, but actually say this is first and then after you do this, then you'll figure out how to do it. And the next one is similar to keep from spending too much money. We cooked all our meals at home. There might be many reasons to cook all your meals at home. Maybe it's more delicious, maybe it's healthier. Maybe it's to save money. There may be many reasons. Okay. I want to let you know what I'm thinking about before I say what I do. Because if I just tell you that we cook all our meals at home, you might assume many things. You might assume that I'm a great cook. You might assume that I'm obsessed with health and maybe I want to let you know that I'm really trying to budget my money and I wanna make sure you remember that. So to make sure you remember it, I should probably say it this way. And of course it's okay if you say we cooked all our meals at home to keep from spending too much money. Not that it gets lost if you do it that way. Not that people won't understand, but really emphasis is important. The order you choose to put things in. Very important. And the last example to ensure we aren't late for our flight. Let's get a taxi to the airport three hours early to ensure we aren't late for our flight. Let's get a taxi. Okay. So here we're not talking about what happened. We're not talking about what we're doing now. We're talking about the future. Okay? So if I just say, Let's get a taxi to the airport three hours early, then you might have questions in your mind. Why would we do that? Why are we leaving so early this way too early, I think, right? So sometimes I want to combine my intention, my purpose, and the action together to avoid follow-up questions, to avoid confusion, perhaps, to avoid confusion, to avoid disagreements. And it's really saving a step, right? Instead of just saying what you intend to do, instead of just saying your action, Let's get a taxi to the airport three hours early and then answering all the questions that follow will why? Well, I think because we were late to the airport last time, missed our flight and lost a bunch of money because of that, we should leave earlier. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Alright. Well, we've just spent 30 seconds having that conversation. And we could have been talking about what to order at this seafood restaurant, right? So to save time and to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid confusion, notice that I put several, two statements there in a row. You can do that too. To do that, to make sure people understand you to speak more efficiently. Add your intentions inside your descriptions, add them inside of your actions. And you might be surprised at how efficiently you communicate, how effectively you are able to express yourself and what's going on in here. Alright, practice these, make some examples for each one. Make sure you're playing around, but follow mine. To start with, let's now look at ING. 77. Beginning with -ing Verbs: Remember the example we talked about before, sweating and tired, we arrived at the hotel and we're using that sweating and tired to talk about in a way the condition of the subject. The subject we, we, we were sweating and tired. Tired as an adjective, and sweating is used to talk about our condition. Yes, sweating is an ongoing thing that we're doing. It's continuing. That's true. But it's still describing our condition in a way. And we can certainly use ING at the beginning of a sentence to do that. But not only that. So I want to explore this ING, this ING beginning, a bit more ING verbs. Okay, so let's just look at the first example and then talk about how these are being used. Because actually these ING verbs can be used in a couple of different ways. Traveling through India, I discovered, I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash. This is really focusing on the continuing action. We have something called the past continuous tense, which is, was or were, and then an I-N-G verb, okay? Well, it's being used like that. By the way, present continuous tense is the same thing except it's happening now and it is or are traveling through India. I discovered, okay, so it's in the past. Now you could make two separate sentences here and say, I was traveling through India. Or if you wanted to use a, use a dependent clause, you could say, while I was traveling through India, I discovered that would be totally fine, right? So you can have, you can imagine a little while I was at the beginning here, if you want to. That helps us remember that here's this ongoing thing that was happening in the past. Then we're going to focus on any event. Now, Where are we doing that when we talked about being sweaty and tired? Well, I suppose you could say that, yes, but that's that's focusing on the condition of us. We were sweating and tired. This is focusing on this thing that's going on in an event happens. And often when we tell stories about the past, we say something like, I was washing the dishes when the phone rang. Okay, and then something interesting happens. The story changes. We often then use this past continuous tense as context to say the background action. Because if I just say the phone rang, then I don't have any context. That doesn't feel like a story. It's not as interesting. But if I'm doing something very ordinary and then unexciting interesting thing happens. Well, that's much more interesting. It's much more vivid in a description. So if I just say I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash in India. Alright. Interesting, I guess that's fine. Great. Congratulations. But if I say traveling through India, it makes it feel like a discovery. I was on a six-month trip in India, traveling from place to place, meeting people, enjoying myself, discovering culture. Great. And then something unexpected happened. I found something, I discovered something. That's the interesting thing. So that's why we would put that there. And you can flip it around. I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash traveling through India. Now, that's where you get into a little trouble. Because then people will say, I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash traveling through India. People will say, Do you mean you were traveling through India or a city called Rishi cash is traveling through India as a traveling city on wheels. Listened to that sentence. I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash traveling through. I can't even say it, right? It's silly. That makes it sound like the city is on wheels. So that's the issue. The grammar is, right? It is confusing because we don't know if we're talking about the city. That's the thing right before traveling through India. So it shouldn't be that or I, and we know it's I logically because cities aren't usually on wheels. Although there was that one movie about cities on wheels. But I can't remember what it was called. Mortal mortal engines. Is that right? I don't know. Anyway, it was about cities on wheels. So if you do it that way, I would recommend bringing back the wildlife was that emphasizes it. So I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash while I was traveling through India. Or I discovered a very interesting city called Rishi cash. While traveling through India. That would be okay, that would make sense. But I really think the first one, this one, traveling through India is better because it puts things in the right order. You have the context first, the thing that was happening first and the comma. Then you say what happened, then you say the interesting thing, the exciting thing. So I recommend this one, but you can certainly do it the other way. Just be careful about that confusion and make sure you're not talking about cities on wheels standing atop a high mountain. She was struck by how small she felt standing atop a high mountain, again, just tells us the background, the context. And then we talk about the action. And then we talk about exactly how she felt. So doing it this way is usually very clear, usually quite vivid, simply because of the order. The logic. You set the scene. You explain the background information. And then you say the main thing you want to say. Right? Now there's a slight difference in the feeling we get from these because this is an ongoing action. And then it seems like something interrupts it. Like with the other example I mentioned, I was washing dishes and the phone rang. Thing interrupts a continuous action. She's standing atop the mountain and then she realizes something. So yes, yes. But it's more of a focus on the scene. This is more so used to describe and give us a picture, to give us a visual. Something we can imagine two then better understand or better appreciate this, okay? But the structure is the same. It's no different than what we've been talking about. This should be very comfortable. By now, struck means realized. She kinda realize that she realized how small she felt. She was struck by how small she felt. Wow, I'm such a small creature compared to all this huge, vast open space. Maybe she starts to reflect on her life. Maybe she has some other interesting realizations. Now let's play with this a little bit. Okay. She was struck by how small she felt standing atop a high mountain. That would be okay. There's a slight difference there and how that might feel or how that might come across. That makes it seem like she only feels that way when she's thinking of herself standing atop a high mountains. So here's the mountain and here she is, right? And she's saying, when I'm standing on a mountain, I feel very small. But if we say it this way, standing on top of high mountain, she was struck by how small she felt. It might be because she was on the mountain that she realized that. But not only when she's on the mountain, more of a general realization of, you know, maybe my problems aren't so serious. Maybe I see myself at the center of everything. I'm always thinking about myself. This sure is a big world. So that's just a subjective opinion thing, right? I'm not telling you which one is absolutely right. But this one leaves no room, I think for misunderstanding. If that's what you meant, the more general meaning, whereas the other one, it might be understood differently by different people. Now, I want to mention something very important, which is a common mistake. When starting sentences with ING verbs like this. Standing atop a high mountain, the scenery was beautiful. I want you to, in your mind, just get rid of this. She was struck by how small she felt. And I want you to just hear this sentence. Standing atop a high mountain, the scenery was beautiful. One more time. Standing atop a high mountain, the scenery was beautiful. Grammatically, the scenery was beautiful. That's an independent clause that works. The scenery. Scenery could be a subject, okay? Standing atop a high mountain, that could be not complete. But if we put it with a comma in front of the independent clause, we're good. Grammatically, we're good, right? Not right. Not right. Why not? Because we're not mentioning a subject that could stand on top of a high mountain scenery doesn't stand on top of a high mountain. Scenery can't stand anywhere. Scenery is what you see when you stand on top of a high mountain. This is a problem with logic. And it's actually a big problem when using this sentence type. And I want to make sure you avoid it. When you mentioned the subject right after the comma. Make sure that you're talking about the subject that, that is actually related to. So if I say standing atop a high mountain, the scenery was beautiful. I'm skipping the actual subject. That would have the thought, oh, the scenery is so beautiful. I've skipped it and I've forced you to try to figure out my logical problem and try to understand what I'm saying. I've created a big problem for you to try to understand me. That's not good. So this is incorrect. This is incorrect. We can't do it. So make sure you say Denise or she or he or they, or the old goat, whatever the subject is, that is able to then have that thought the scenery is or was beautiful. So how would we fix that? Well, we would add the subject and then make the rest of the sentence complete. Standing atop a high mountain. Denise was amazed By the beautiful scenery. Standing atop a high mountain. She was struck by how beautiful the scenery was standing atop a high mountain. The old goat suddenly realized that the scenery was beautiful. Maybe he hadn't had that thought before because he's a goat. Always been just worried about eating grass. Now that's a strange sentence, that last one, but it's better. It's better than this. So avoid that. Make sure you avoid that has a special name. I'm not going to say it because I don't want to create more confusion. Just try not to do that. Make sure you're thinking about your subjects. Very important, shouting as she ran through the office, Patricia waived the $2 million contract. She just closed. Okay. Why not just say Patricia waived the $2 million contract she'd just closed. Of course, we want to give more context. We want to add more description. This is kind of like our sweating and tired one that we did before, right? It's similar to that. It's describing something about patricia that we can hold in our minds and then carry that through the rest of the description. And that adds a lot of color. It makes it more vivid in a way it makes it more interesting. Definitely more interesting than just saying, Patricia waived the $2 million contract. Because if we add that she's shouting and she's running through the office, we can have feeling of her excitement, right? If you want to say Patricia wave the $2 million contract, she just closed shouting and she ran through the office. That would be okay. Or maybe more naturally as she shouted and ran through the office. That's how I would say it. But still, I think this is a perfect example of how the I-N-G verb at the beginning of the sentence can add flavor, texture, background information, make it a lot more vivid when we're describing things, especially which are happening in the past. But other times two, the last one, moving with the grace of a dancer, the tiger stocked its prey, which was totally unaware of what was about to happen. Now, before we've been talking about these things that are either background information or some way, some event that interrupts a continuous thing or a past continuous tense verb, right? Or adding something like a layer onto the description of an action as a way to make it more interesting. Which one is this? I would say it is much closer to this one, this one and this one as well. They're both a little bit strange when it comes to tenths. So think about it like this. We don't have I discovered a sudden moment here. Waived the $2 million contract. Is that a single thing that happens suddenly? No. She might be running around the office screaming loud. She's doing that action for a period of time, five-minutes, Ten minutes, however long that happens to take waving the contract. Now She's also doing another thing at the same time. So both of these things are describing an ongoing action. And you can think of them as side-by-side or in parallel or as a layer, however you want to think about it. That's okay. But we're using two different verb tenses to do it. And that's the interesting thing. So this waiving the contract simple past, she waved the contract k. Plus besides that, we have this shouting as she ran through the office. In fact, these are parallel. One of her actions is waving the contract, but it's the simple past. One of the actions is shouting and she ran through the office. That's not one. And then the other thing, This is not interrupting it. They're happening simultaneously at the same time, side-by-side on top of each other. However you want to think about it, okay? So don't get confused just because this is in the simple past and this is an I-N-G verb. Don't let that confuse you. In fact, they're parallel. And this one is the exact same thing. Moving with the grace of a dancer. The tiger stocked its prey. Now this one is more subtle in a way because it's not quite clear that stalking prey is a different action from. Moving with the grace of a dancer. In a way, we're describing the stocking of its prey by saying that it's moving with the grace of a dancer. But perhaps we want to describe the general action. This is the main action that's happening. Okay? What is this action? Stocking, that's when one hunting animal, a predator, is trying to kill another one. That's called stocking. It's going through the grass. Then on top of that, this animal, the tiger is moving. Is moving. Okay. Now is the moving the stocking? Well, yes, but there are different ways that stalking could happen. It could be very rapid in bursts. Maybe it's not graceful. So this one, well, it looks just the same as this one is a little different because probably probably these two things are actually tied together as one action that the stocking happens in a graceful way. That moving with the grace of a dancer is the way that the tiger stocked its prey. And it's not simply waving the contract and running through the Office. Two things going on at the same time. Waving the contract is kind of the way she's running so you can look at it that way, right? But I just wanted to explore this to help you get a feeling for the nuances that you can explore with this sort of beginning, especially when you're talking about the I-N-G beginning, it really gets complicated. But because it gets complicated, because it's so subtle, nuanced, it gets very interesting and it allows for more expression. It allows you to say things and suggest things in different ways. But you really have to just play with it and practice it to get a feeling for these small differences in meaning. And also things can be understood differently. Maybe you understand this differently from how I understand it. Maybe this one as well. Maybe you say Well, actually shouting as she ran through the office. That is the way that she waved the contract. You might think of it in a different way. You might say, well, moving with the grace of a dancer, that's one thing. Okay, and then there's the stocking. And that's another thing. And these two things are going on. Alright, fine. I'm not here to argue with you, right? We're not talking about right and wrong here. We're talking about How does it feel when I use it this way? What do you think it means? What do I think it means? What is the subtlety, the nuance? And that's where writing and speaking yet very interesting. That's where I feel the English language gets really fun because you have so many options. English maybe one of the most flexible languages on the planet because it is spoken by people from all around the world. And so people play with it and use it in lots of different ways. And it has a very interesting history that mixes in other languages. It mixes in French, it mixes in proto Germanic anyway, that's a whole long history of the English language. And so one of my sincere hopes is that from this course, you can start to enjoy the process of play. Not just play to practice, not just play because I told you to, but actually enjoy it. I love the exploration of the language, RRI literature, and enjoy that process. No one can make you do it. I can't make you do it, but it is a genuine hope that I have. So practice your examples. Play around. Next, we're going to be talking about beginning sentences with prepositional phrases. 78. Beginning with Prepositional Phrases: Let's move along with our patterns for the beginnings of sentences. Now we're going to talk about prepositional phrases, prepositional phrases. Alright, Now what is the prepositional phrase? As a reminder? A prepositional phrase is a phrase. Phrases just a few words together. A piece of a sentence, usually, or it doesn't have to be in a sentence, a phrase which starts with a preposition. Now, often these prepositions are going to be related to place, place, or time. Very often, when we use these, there'll be related to place or time. And when I say place, that could also be position. Position. However, not only, not only, and we will look at some different examples to really explore this. Now, I'm sure you can think of plenty of prepositions for either of these place in position or time. Think about, for example, under, Alright, think about, for example, before, that's related to time, that's related to position or place or location, right? There are so many prepositions and it's not for us to talk about in this course individually, how we use each preposition. If you're interested in learning all about how to use prepositions naturally, then you can check out my complete course on that topic, all about prepositions. Prepositional phrase just starts with a preposition and usually gives, like we've talked about with the other examples, some background, some information that's nice to know before we say the main content of the sentence. It gives you a picture in your head. It gives you a little bit of detail that's useful. It helps you place the action somewhere. It gives you something that aids in your understanding of the main part of the sentence. That could be just color and description and making it more interesting. But it could be necessary that you wouldn't quite understand what is being mentioned. You wouldn't quite understand what is this main sentence here without that piece. Okay? So hopefully that will be more clear. After, after we go through these examples. After sunset, we walked along the beach and watched the stars. Of course. You could flip that around. We walked along the beach and watch the stars after sunset. I think you know what I'm going to say here? What do you want to focus on? Do you want to focus on time? Do you want to emphasize time? Maybe because it's after sunset, there's something special and magical about that time. Okay. Maybe say it first instead of at the end. If you talk about this first, we walked along the beach, it's fine. But then you're focusing on the action and adding the after sunset part. He's just an, oh, by the way, sort of detail with a huge grin, I jumped from the cliff. Now, this is one of those examples that's number one, not really place, position or time. It's a different preposition with of course means alongside, accompanying together. It can be used in lots of different ways. So it's not, it's not one of these and these are, as I mentioned, the most common and it's also may be necessary. Let me explain what I mean by that. I jumped from the cliff. Independent clause ES sentence by itself. Yes. But why would I say it? Unless I want to mention my state when I was doing that. What did I have with me as my State when I did this action? If I just say I jumped from the cliff. Is there a reason to mention that? Well, maybe I'm just telling a story, but I think you would only say this if you are going to mention both things. Because I'm not sure this is saying without this interesting detail, It's pretty interesting that you're very happy and excited to do this action, right? Everyone can jump off a cliff into the water. But you might only want to talk about that and share the story if there's something special about how you felt when you did that, right? You could say that about a meeting early in the morning, right? With a glum expression. Charlie walked into the meeting room. Why would I just say Charlie walked into the meeting room? Yeah, you can do that. But I probably wouldn't unless I we're going to talk about his face because I'm telling a story about Charlie and how he feels. And I say Charlie, I think I said Charlie, right. His state, his condition, which is a thing that is kind of with him. So we talk about expressions. We've talked about tools that we might have with us, right? With a black pen. He signed the contract. Now, maybe we wouldn't in that case need to say with a black pen. Probably not. We would just say he signed the contract. Who cares what color the pen was. Just giving you a quick example of how you would mention a tool or something that's used. You would use width, width when you're doing that. So this one, I think is special and different from this one in that important way. And width is so useful when you want to add to an action and expression a feeling, a condition, a state, a tool, another person, so many different things can be added with a width. Prepositional phrase, very useful. Near the southern edge of the lake. Clifton proposed to Gladys. She said no, why did I add this detail? Why am I so negative? I shouldn't be like that. I don't want to be like that. I'm not a negative person. I'm gonna get rid of that. This is bad, bad Luke, don't be so negative. She said, Yes, of course. I regret it. Maybe not maybe not. Near the southern edge of the lake Clifton proposed to Gladys gives us a scene. Right? It's not far from the lake, near the water can hear the sounds of the However lake sound, the birds flying around, right? Maybe we'll send something again. Very negative. No more negativity, luke, please be optimistic. Okay. So this sets the scene for us. Very useful. Sets the scene. And this could be much longer. It doesn't have to be short near the southern edge of Lake Jimmy Tanga. And then you could add another one by a cross from over next to. These sorts of things, can add additional details to this place or the time. As a way to set the scene, put the picture in your head, make it vivid and then say what Clifton proposed to Gladys. That's the key because that makes it a complete sentence because it's an independent clause. But the real action, the really interesting stuff, the color, the details That's all happening in the prepositional phrase. So that's why they're so cool. A time one at exactly seven minutes to to a loud cry was heard coming from the seller beneath the bar. Now why would I need to mention the time? Sometimes it's important, sometimes emphasizing the lateness or the earliness or the exactness of something is relevant. Sometimes we want to mention that time context or that detail related to time, just to place it exactly on a timeline. It's before something, it's after something. It's around some time, it's a general thing. All of those extremely useful as a way to give people a sense of when something is happening, what is the thing allowed? Cry was heard coming from the seller beneath the bar. Oh, maybe this is a crime story. Very interesting. I like to start descriptions with time. It's very clear. It's a good way to give people a sense for the timeline. I like timelines, you know, I like timelines by now. You know that, right? I like timelines. I love timelines across the square next to a hot dog stand. Let's keep going across the square. Next to a hot dog stand in front of the bank. Let's keep going across the square next to a hot dog stand in front of the bank under a huge purple umbrella and we could keep going. Now it would get a little cilia if we kept going. But notice what I'm doing there. I'm using prepositional phrases one after another, to build a background, to build a context, to build details. So that when I finally say whatever I really want to say, the independent clause, the main action. You say, oh, wow, Okay, Very clear. The whole thing is clear. I know exactly where it is. I have a very clear image in my mind. It's very vivid. Oh, I see across the square next to the hot dog stand. Across the square next to the hotdog stand in front of the bank, underneath of a giant pink purple umbrella, right? So play with that, play around with it a little bit and you'll find you can say a lot of interesting things before you really get to your independent clause. Before you get to the main part of the sentence. Then we say the action. Now this feels like it's by the way, amber waited nervously for her contact to arrive. Maybe she's a spy is a spy movie, right? I'm just imagining it's a spy movie. We would use the word contact in that way about, about spies, other things too, I suppose, but that's the first thing that comes into my mind. I think this should feel pretty familiar to you by now. How we start sentences is really the same as when we were talking about adverbs, adjectives starting with ING verbs, starting with two verbs, right? It's all the same idea. It's all the same basic structure. We just need to play around to get a feeling for it, to see all of the possibilities, to explore it, to be creative. So I encourage you to do that as I always say, work on your own examples based on mine at first and then expand from there. In the next lesson, we're going to continue talking about the beginnings of sentences. We're going to focus on past participles. So, see you in the next one. 79. Past Participles Beginnings: Part 1: Let's continue talking about sentence beginnings. We have two more patterns to look at before we continue on to some other interesting useful sentence patterns. Not connected to, not related to how we begin sentences. We're actually getting pretty close to the end of the course. So hope you're sticking with it. Hope you're working on your examples. And I appreciate you coming along with me all this way. We're going to start here with the past participle. Now this should be something that's very familiar to you by now, something that you might be tired of me saying the past participle for the one millionth time. The past participle is a special form of the verb. Words like bin instead of B is or was gone instead of go, or went, done instead of do, or did, did. Simple past, right? Done, taken instead of took or take. Now, you'll also remember because we talked about it, not every verb has this special form. Well it does, but the special form just as often looks like, actually more often looks like the regular simple past. So we have these irregular verbs and we have to treat them in a different way. They look a little bit odd in the past tense rather than being ED, for example, like walked, we would say eight. Well that's the past tense. So for that type of verb called irregular, we have this unique form called the past participle. The past participle is used in a lot of different ways. For example, we would use the past participle when we talk about the passive voice, which we looked at, we would use the past participle when we make the present perfect tense or the past perfect tense, as we've talked about. Now, let me just make it clear. I just want to mention this. Not every irregular verb is different between the simple past and the past participle. So I know that makes it even more confusing. Can it just be simple? The best way to do it is to learn by exposure, to learn by looking at the examples and getting a feel for it to see as many as you can so that you know which one is which, right? For example, the word bet, BET. Well, that's a weird one because bet is not vetted in the past. It's not vetted in the simple past. Do you know what it is in the simple past? It's bad. Do you know what the past participle is? It's bet. Okay. How about by, BY, by? Well, I know that bought it's irregular. It's not bide, right? So I know that it's bought in the simple past. B, O U G H T, right? Byu g, h t. What would be the, what would be the past participle? It's bought, it's the same. Look at this one here. Made, made past participle, made, also made. So I know it's weird, but you have to just accept the weirdness and try to learn through your explorations of the language. Think about how native English speakers learn a language. They don't learn by sitting down and memorizing words. They learn the language by being surrounded by the language and interacting with it, and trying things out, and reading and watching TV shows and the news and everything, everything that they do, right? You did that in your native language. So see yourself as a baby and it won't be so stressful. I hope. Now that's just a little bit of background information. Remember that we can use the past participle in some different interesting ways. For example, to make the passive voice, remember we talked about that. We can also use the past participle for present perfect tense. We can use it for past perfect tense. So it's very flexible. It's very useful. Now we're going to look at how we can use it. Of course, because we're talking about beginnings. Beginnings at the beginning of a sentence. Okay, let's explore the examples and we'll talk about why it's being used, why you might want to use it as we go along. 80. Past Participle Beginnings: Part 2: The first one taken with water, fiber supplements can greatly improve digestion. Fact, check me on that one. I think that's true. Fibers good. Right? I think it's good. So this is a pill that you would take to improve your digestion. Great. Taken with water. Now, why don't we just say this as a complete normal, ordinary sentence? Well, if we're going to do that, how would we do it? Fiber supplements can greatly improve digestion if you take them with water. Alright, well, that's a little bit awkward because then it seems like they're not useful if you take them with milk or something. Okay. So we want to take the focus on which kind of beverage it is. We usually assume that someone takes a pill or a supplement with water, but if you take it with orange juice, it's probably not a big deal, right? I think it's not a big deal. I'm not sure. We're not focusing on the water thing. We're talking about the fact that it goes with something, right? That's what we're saying here. But if we add, if, if we say if, then it kind of puts the focus on the water, if you take it with water. So it could cause some misunderstanding. It's not super clear. Taken with water gives us a background action. I'm going to call it a background action. Now we've been talking about background information, context for many of these, many of these beginnings that have this, this comma, right? So again, why do we have this here? What we're trying to do is put something in the reader's head or the listener's head so that, that's there when they read or hear the rest of it. The description, the main point, the main idea, the main action, right? And so often we don't want to waste words by making a whole sentence. To do that, if it's just background information, if it's just contexts, can we condense it down into something simpler? Well, with phrases we certainly can, with a prepositional phrase, we certainly can with an adverb, we certainly can with an adjective or several adjectives, we certainly can with an ING verb or a two plus verb, we can. Yes, That's easy. Those are phrases, are, those are dependent clauses. They're not complete. Can we do that with actions? Of course. Of course, some things require actions or verbs in order to be understood. You wouldn't really understand this information that I want to communicate to you unless you heard a verb about it. Because I'm talking about the action of taking taking the supplement with water, right? That's what I want to focus on. But I don't want to make a whole sentence about it. You should take Fiber supplements with water. If you take Fiber supplements with water, it can greatly or they can greatly improve your digestion. That's a lot of words. And it's not very efficient, right? So this allows you to give that background information that has the action or has the verb. That's not the main thing you're saying, but includes the verbs still without making that whole long sentence. Okay? So this thing all we're talking about is fiber supplements. This, this kind of thing, if you take them with water, can greatly improve digestion more efficiently taken with water, fiber supplements. So it's modifying the subject. It's talking about the subject just like we've been talking about. And it's really not different. In that way. The structure, the basic structure is not different. It's just the form, right? Because we want to mention a verb. That's the important thing we're trying to include. Taken from his home at age six, Marcus had to make his own way. In America, we have this thing called foster care. And sometimes kids will be taken from their homes by the local governments for a number of different reasons. But maybe they weren't being taken care of well by their parents or there's some kind of abuse or violence or something like that. And so a common thing that happens then is that that person struggles in other ways. That they have more things to deal with now because they're living in a different kind of home environment without their parents. So they feel like they're on their own. They have to make their own way. So if I say Marcus had to make his own way because He was taken from his home at the age of six. That's okay. That makes sense. That's clear. But it's kind of in reverse order, which is fine because and then some reason the reason that he has to make his own way is that okay. He was taken from his home at an early age and had to live in foster care. And he bounced around from home to home. And he didn't have a very stable childhood. Alright, I understand that. But what if I want to start with the background information? What if I want to actually mention that first because that happened earlier? Well, this is a great way to do that without needing to make a complete sentence. Otherwise, the most natural way to do it would be to make a complete sentence about Marcus and his childhood and then make another one about him needing to make his own way. And that would be okay too. We're just looking at options. These are all tools in your tool belt or paint brushes are colors that you can dip your paintbrush into. So it's up to you, but it's good to understand the use of beginning this way, why you might decide to begin this way? Now the other question you might ask yourself is, well, if I put this first, doesn't mean that's the focus. Isn't that what that means? Instead of Marcus had to make his own way? Well, it really depends on what's going on sometimes, Yes, absolutely. This at the beginning would help you focus on that thing in the background, that context, which would then allow you to appreciate that Marcus had to make his own way and what that means exactly. But sometimes, depending on how it's being used, this is background information that we just want to mention and say so that we can then focus on something that we think is more interesting or the main point or the most important idea. So it can be used in either way. And maybe there isn't a special focus. Maybe both of these things are equally important. It's not like there's a rule about this, but it's good to think about what you're trying to focus on. And that can help you make these sorts of creative decisions. For this one, I would say taken with water is absolutely not the focus. Fiber supplements can greatly improve digestion. That's the reason I say this. That's why I say this. I'm just adding this part to avoid any confusion. So again, no hard rules here. It's all about the impression that you want to create. Alright, let's look at this one. Given enough time, any country will experience some kind of economic crisis. Given past participle form of give, past tense, gave. It's actually a form of the verb rather than a tense of the verb. Okay. So given enough time is my condition. I'm not saying any country will experience some kind of economic crisis this year, right? If I said that, I might put that there. But that's a weird thing to say, right? I want to say, I want to say if a country is around long enough, 300 years, 400 years, something's going to happen. Things are not going to be perfect. All the time. The market goes up, the market goes down. The economy improves. It declines, it improves it to clients, it goes up and it goes down. So all I'm trying to do is create a condition. Condition to say that this is true under this condition, not under the condition of something happening this year, but if you allow for enough time, whether it's 100 years or 150, I'm not trying to be specific. If you allow for enough time just because of the way things go, you can't anticipate everything. Very big mess out there. It's very complicated. Some kind of economic crisis is going to happen. This is, I think, a very natural way to express this idea. I really like this one, given enough time is an expression I actually use a lot written and spoken. I use it for both. All of these can be used for both. In fact, made with avocado pits. Linda's tea sets are both charming and good for the environment. Now, let's play with this a little bit. I think it's very useful to play around with each example so that we can see what it would feel like if we tried to say it another way. So maybe we can try it this way. Linda's tea sets, which are made with avocado pits, are both charming and good for the environment. So we use the, we use the relative clause there which are made with avocado pits after we say tea sets. Okay, alright, That's one option. Not bad. What about this? Linda's tea sets are both charming and good for the environment because they are made with avocado pits. That's a little different though, isn't it? Because then if we say it that way, there's only one cause of the tea sets being charming and good for the environment. And that is the fact that they're made with avocado pits, right? They're both charming and good for the environment because they're made with avocado pits. So nothing about the design, nothing about anything else is just because of the fact that they're made with that hard part inside the avocado. Okay? So that doesn't seem very realistic. But if I say it this way, made with avocado pits, Linda's tea sets are both charming and good for the environment. Very different now, because I haven't said exactly why they're charming and good for the environment. Have I know I mentioning this as background. I mentioning this as a detail. I mentioning this as a key feature. But I'm not trying to tell you that it is the only reason that these tea sets are both this and this, right? And so that's a very different feeling. So we've just explored three different ways of saying that same thing and there are other ways to do it. We could break it into two sentences. We could say, Linda's tea sets are made with avocado pits. They are both charming and good for the environment. Okay, Linda's tea sets are both charming and good for the environment. Period. New sentence. Oh, and by the way, they're also made with avocado pits. Each of those different feeling, slightly different meaning a different focus. And the important thing is that you try them out, you play with them, and you decide NOT which one is correct, but which one is closer to your intended meaning? Which one is closer to what you want to say? What do you want to express? Okay, let's look at this one seen from space. The earth resembles or it looks like, it looks like a blueberry. Now, what are we doing here? And is this necessary? Well, I would say this is necessary. You need this because it creates the perspective. I'm going to use context again. Be aware. Context could also say vantage, okay, the vantage point, because if you say the earth resembles a blueberry, I look around, I would say no, it doesn't. It looks like a rock and some trees in a park. And an old lady with a dog. That's what the Earth looks like to me. So let's, let's narrow it down. Let's force the perspective and say nano. If you're in a spaceship looking down at the Earth from a distance in space, maybe on the moon, then, then the Earth looks like a blueberry. Then I say, Oh, I see what you mean there. Except we don't have to say if you're looking at the Earth from the moon, it looks like a giant blueberry. You could do that, but maybe a simpler way would be to start with seen. Some of the most common ones are seen, made, taken, done, created. There are a lot that are common, but these are, these are very common. Seen from space. Seen from the top of the building. Seen from your point of view, seen from the point of view of a homeless person living on the street, right? Then you're able to take that perspective and understand something in a different way. But a great way to do that then, instead of making a long sentence to set that up and describe it and make sure people understand. Let's condense it into a little phrase that goes right here. That goes before the comma, and then right before the subject of the sentence, which is the Earth, I think you get the idea, but I still want to explore a few more examples of this to really make sure you've got it. 81. Past Participle Beginnings: Part 3: Now we're going to look at three more past participle examples. These a little bit longer, a little bit more complicated past participles. I probably don't need to write that again, but I feel complete when I've written it down there so we know what we're talking about. Now, just like the most recent example we talked about, seen from Earth. So now we know what the perspective is before we said seen from space. To force that perspective. Like if you look at it from space, if you look at them from the earth. So that means the perspective or the vantage point is important, otherwise we wouldn't mention it. So it helps us to sort of create that lens. Seen from Earth, the stars appear to twinkle. Now right there we could stop and say that's our complete sentence. I'm just saying with the vantage point of sitting on the Earth, are standing on the Earth or laying on the Earth and looking up at the stars. With that vantage point, the stars go, they twinkle, or the stars really twinkling? I don't know if you know the answer. No, they're not. They look like they're twinkling. Although it's only an illusion caused by the atmosphere. So we can see how we can start to build things out. And sentences which look a little complicated at first glance, are really just made of the pieces we've already talked about. We know how to do this. We've already talked about this. Isn't that nice to be able to take something that you learned before and apply it to something new. And in fact, that's all sentence building is taking these parts that you learned and sticking them together in creative ways. That's all it is. It's not more complicated than that. So never be afraid of a sentence, never look at it and say so long. So complicated, I can't, I don't know. Never do that. Look at it, explore it. Maybe you've learned about pieces of that before. Maybe it's not so complicated. And once you've learned it, now it is one of your tools. So one of the colors in your palette that you can now paint with. And if you can paint with many colors, who you are powerful, seen from Earth, the stars appear to twinkle, although it's only an illusion caused by the atmosphere, the stars appear to twinkle, although it's only an illusion caused by the atmosphere. Now, that's fine because usually we look at stars from the Earth. But you could say that that might cause a confusion. Because someone in a space station or on the moon might say, Hey, wait a second, the stars don't appear to twinkle. When I'm standing on the moon or standing on a space station, you get away with it. You get away with not being more clear because there are so few people who are in space at any one time, Right? So few people who have been to space. But if it's something else, then you're really in trouble, then you really can cause confusion. So my vote is to include this for the sake of clarity, for the sake of what is the vantage point? What is the perspective? Oh, now I know, now I know what we're talking about. It's more specific. Left for dead in the desert. And he had to survive three days without water before finding civilization. Again. What is civilization? This is usually anything man-made. Cities, villages, towns, water pumps, wells, cars, anything that's made by people really. So he's totally lost and there's nothing around that he can use to get water. It has no water. I don't even know if that's possible to survive three days without water. I don't know the technical limits of that, and I don't want to try it. So we give the background context here. This is pretty familiar, right? We give the context. If we wanted to make that a complete sentence, we could say something like Andy had been left for dead in the desert by some hoodlums, gangsters. Then we would start a new sentence and say, he had to survive three days without water before finding civilization. Again, totally fine. That's fine. And there are other ways to do it as well. I don't need to explain the benefits of putting this here and not needing to make a complete sentence. It really does make it clear. We immediately know what's going on and then we can focus on the real action. The really interesting stuff, not that this isn't interesting or important, this actually becomes much more interesting once we know this context. Once we know this background information, last one discovered in Australia, dropped bear fossils, prove these animals once really existed. Drop bear fossils prove these animals once really existed. Okay, great. Thanks for the information. It's actually not a fact. I made it up. I don't think there's any such thing as a drop bear in real life, although maybe who knows? So what we get here then discovered in Australia, is very important. Background information, details that yes, might not be necessary, but give us context that helps us understand why this may be interesting, why it may be under discussion, why someone would be talking about this? For that reason, I think it's very useful. Now, we can try to play around with this and say something like drop bear fossils, prove these animals once really existed. They were recently discovered in Australia. Okay, but this leads to an issue. What's the issue? Drop bear fossils, prove these animals once really existed. Okay, so we have two things. We have the fossils. It's not the real animal, it's stone, basically mineral that has replaced the animal's body or bones. These animals. So that's the real animal. We're talking about the animals in the past. But if we say in the next sentence, they were discovered in Australia, then people will say, Well, which they are you talking about, the fossils or the animals? Well, because you said once really existed, that means you must not be talking about them existing now, not in Australia, you must be talking about the fossils, but are you sure about that? Well, I'm not I'm not totally sure about it, but I can use my brain to figure out that you're talking about the fossils, okay? But if you have to make people work that hard to really think about which thing you're talking about, because you have two nouns that you could be talking about, then maybe it's not the best way to say it. Because usually when you say they in the next sentence, it's going to be talking about the most recent noun mentioned, in this case, the animals, not the fossils, but it can't be the animals, so it must be this. So that's awkward and it's a little confusing possibly. So I don't recommend doing it. The great thing that you get by putting it here is that it's directly connected to the subject. What's the subject? The bears or the fossils? Well, the bears drop bear. That's just the type of the bear we're talking about. The subject here is the fossils. Fossils or the subject. So one useful thing you can do when you're looking at a really long complicated sentence. Not that this is really long or complicated, is identify a few things for your own benefit. What do we have here? Alright, we've got the, this looks like a past participle, okay? Stars appear that it might be the subject of the sentence. Looks like that's that there. They appear to twinkle, that's what they do. Okay, So that's the main verb or that's the predicate of the sentence. You can identify these things and once you pick out the pieces, then you can think about saying these things in other ways. You can try variations. So then you could put this into two sentences. You could connect these together in a different way, keeping them as one sentence, you could try saying drop bear fossils recently discovered in Australia, prove that these animals once really existed. And then look at all the variations that you make, identifying the pieces. And then decide for yourself which way is the best way. I'm not here to tell you which way is the best way. You have to know what you want to say and which way is closest to what you want to say. Alright, practice these. Identify the pieces. Make your own sentences based on my examples, and then play around further trying to say the same thing and other ways to see actually which way of expressing this is best and closest to what you mean. Good luck with that. In the next lesson, we're going to be looking at our last set of examples for sentence beginnings. So I'll see you in the next one. 82. Having + Past Participle: In this final lesson on sentence beginnings, I want to focus on something that's very similar to what we just talked about, but different in some interesting ways. We'll talk about this one. We'll go through a couple of examples before moving on to some really useful patterns before we wrap up this course. So we don't have long to go. We're gonna be talking about Having plus the past. You guessed it, participle, having plus the past participle. Now this is also going to be about background information. This is also going to be something about context. I'm sure you're comfortable with that idea by now. But different, also, a little different. Let's look at the first example and then talk about it. Having bought a house, Jakob decided it was time to get married. Now, yes, this is the background information, but it's not quite the same as saying discovered in Australia. Drop bear fossils. So little different. That's just some background information that's just useful to know. This is either a necessary necessary condition or the preceding event or action. Okay. Maybe you don't know what that means. Let's think about it. Having bought a house. Jakob, I don't know why I made his name. So cilia, kinda running out of names in my mind. So I just started making them up. That a real name. I don t think Jakob decided it was time to get married. Would he have decided it was time to get married if he hadn't first bought a house, I think the answer for Jakob would be no. In other words, in order to decide, now I'm ready to get married. Now I must find a wife. In order to decide that. First, I need to satisfy certain things. I need to check off some boxes on the checklist. Here's the old checklist and that's not a box. And you got here, a car, a house, and maybe here's a sense of humor. So he's got that now. He went to some classes and got funny, good check. He bought a car, a brand new 1980 Volvo, which was not new, and then finally bought a house. Good for Jakob. Now for Jakob, these things are the things that he needs to complete before he would make a certain decision in his mind, what's the decision? It's time for me to get married, to either ask his girlfriend to marry him or perhaps to go out looking for a girlfriend or someone to marry or date if he doesn't have anyone at the moment. Okay. So in a way, this is the necessary condition. Rather it's one of the necessary conditions. And if we wanted to, we could mention the others. Having bought a house, a car, and gained a sense of humor. Dark, I've decided it was time to get married. You could add all three of those if you want those to be your necessary conditions. You could also consider that to be not strictly the necessary thing. That checkbox that you have to tick before you can decide to get married, but rather simply the thing which happens right before it. And that's what preceding means. A preceding event or a preceding action is the one that happens right before the other one. That's why we call it the preceding one. So that would mean that these don't have a real connection, that this one happens at some point in the past. Having done this, Jakob decided to do this. Now, that doesn't quite work here. I think it's more like the necessary condition. Since he has bought a house, he has decided to do this. It's sort of like this triggered the next action. Once this is finished, then he's able to do the next thing. So it's more like that in this case. But it doesn't have to be for that often. It's just the thing that happened before. Having been in China for many years, Luke was used to the local food. So here we're talking about now two conditions. We're not talking about an action. Here. Jacob decided to do something that's an action. This condition is true. All my check boxes have been checked. That's the condition. That condition I'm in is a man with all the checkbox is checked. They're all ticked. Got a car, gotta house, got a sense of humor. Wonderful. This one is two conditions. This condition then allows for the decision. This condition is number one. Luke has lived in China for many years, right? Then. Number two, liquids used to the local food. These are very closely connected, but Not an action. They're both just conditions. One is true, two is true. And it looks like here too is likely true because one is true. Two is likely true because one is true. That means that two depends on one. We wouldn't actually say that in a sentence, but it's like that Luke being used to the local food. Well, why? Well, that's based on the fact that he was in China for a long time, many years. He lived in China for many years. As a result of him living in China for many years, he now is very used to the local food. Why is he used to the local food? Well, because he lived in China for many years. So you could certainly say that a lot of different ways, but these two are very deeply connected. You might imagine it like this. State number one. This is state number one, this is the foundation. Now what things sit on this foundation? There are a couple of things here. This one is that Luke is used to the local food. This one is that Luke speaks some of the language. This one is that Luke has many friends from that place. This one is that Luke knows something about the culture. So there are these different layers and they're all sitting on top of this foundation, which I'm calling a condition that allows those other things to be true. Without that condition, without this foundation, these things would probably not be true. So it's kind of necessary and it sits there so that these can be there as well. So that these can be true. I'm just trying to give you a picture to understand how we're using it. It's similar to this in a way, certainly to the first one, just not focused on actions. Admiral short pants, having retired from the military after serving many years, decided to open a baboon rehabilitation center. Now you can see I've done something a little different here. Yes. Luke, you've broken the rules. I thought we were talking about starting a sentence with having and then the past participle. Yes, that's right. We said we were going to do that, but I want to transition us into the next lesson. The next thing we're going to talk about. So this is just a little bit of a teaser, a taster. We start here with the subject and then after the comma here we have our having plus past participle. Okay? So I'm familiar with this. Alright? This is okay. Having retired from the military after serving many years serving, we use when we talk about being in the military, we say serving in the military decided to open a baboon rehabilitation center, something he did in the past. So once he was done with this, he then did the next thing. Now, is this connected in this way? Is it a necessary condition? Maybe, but this could just be the preceding event, the preceding action, the thing which happened before, what happened before he retired from the military? Then what happened? Then he decided to open a baboon rehabilitation center. So first he did this and then he did another thing. Maybe it's that simple. Is there a connection between them like these two? Not so much. I'm not sure what the connection is between retiring and specifically opening a baboon rehabilitation center. Now you could say, well, he couldn't have done that unless he had retired first. Alright. Alright. Maybe there's a bit of a connection there. So that's okay. You can think of it in either way. I like to think of this one more like preceding event or action. This thing is true or this thing happened. And then after that, another thing is true, or another thing happened, and they're in order. So if we wanted to do this in the same format, how would we do it? I really want to start the sentence with having Luke. You've messed me up by starting with the subject. Well, I'm sorry. We're gonna get back to it. I have a reason for doing it this way. But if we want to do it like the other two, Let's start with having, having retired. Okay, and let's just say dot-dot-dot means all of that stuff in front of the comma. So we've got the comma there, having retired from the military after serving many years comma. Then we just say the subject, right? Just like this one, having bought a house, Jakob having been in China for many years, Luke, having retired from the military after serving many years, Admiral short pants, decided to open a baboon rehabilitation center and that was easy. All we had to do is shift the subject to the other side of the comma. Then we just have the, just have the one comma after our having past participle. Oh, what a relief. That's not so hard. But then the question is, well, hold on a second. What about this then? Why start with the subject? This is where it gets into something that you're probably familiar with. This is the idea of the relative clause. This is the idea of making a comment between two commas. This is usually information or details, or a comment that we could remove without destroying the sentence. That means it's not necessary. It's bonus, it's extra. And if you look at this sentence, I think you'll see what I mean. Let's cross all this out. Forget about the halving thing. I think you get it. We've talked about so many of these things by now as background information and context. You're probably sick of it. I hope, I hope you're sick of it by now. I hope you're so good at it. You're sick of it. Well, let's read this. Admiral short pants decided to open a baboon rehabilitation center. Sounds good to me. Pretty clear. Right? Now we put this in between the two commas, after the subject or after a noun in order to, if we want to add extra details, add that information, give some background, give some contexts. It can be extremely useful and we need to talk about some different ways of doing that. So I hope you're very comfortable with beginnings, with the different ways that we can begin sentences. If you learn these, if you master them, you will be truly powerful because you will have many different colors of paint. To paint with many different tools in your tool belt. Work on your own examples. If you have any questions about these beginnings, please let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 83. Section Overview: We're getting very close to the end of this course. So pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself for making it this far, really, it's a great thing. I hope you've enjoyed it. I've certainly enjoyed doing this. Sharing these things with you. Teaching is my favorite thing to do. So, thanks for, thanks for coming along with me. Now we have a couple more things to talk about. Before we wrap up the course. We're going to talk about especially how to include more details, more description in a sentence. If we want to, if we want to include it, we're going to be talking about relative clauses. Relative clauses to make sure that's clear because there are a couple of different types. The different types of these are very important to know, to understand, to be able to use if you want to express an extra detail about something extremely useful. We'll talk about the types of those and then we'll talk about a few other patterns we can use to squeeze in details, to add comments, to give additional information, for example, between two commas. We talked about that a little bit before, but we'll explore that in more detail, especially, especially between commas. And then I want to just briefly go over using specific verbs. Why we should do that? When we should do it, perhaps when we shouldn't do it. So that's what's coming up. I hope you're looking forward to it. I am. Let's get into relative clauses. 84. Relative Clauses: Non-essential Type 1: What is a relative clause? How do we make one? What are the different types? Why would we want to use it? These are all good questions we're talking about here, relative clauses. We're going to explore what these are by looking at examples. Of course, of course that's what we do in this course. We'll start with what I think is the simplest type. Tried to get an understanding of that, of basically what these are in general, how they're used. And then explore two other types. Now, you'll hear some people say, well actually there are two types. There are essential and non-essential relative clauses. Alright? It helps me to understand it as three, just because I think there are three general styles. But let's not get lost in the details for now, okay? And also just a quick reminder, let's not get lost or caught up in the names of things. I've got to call these something. I could make up words I suppose and call them Zuber Nell go newbie chunks. But I feel like using the word, the name of the thing at least gives you something that you can use if you want to. Do further research, find more examples, look up things on your own, right? So that's why I mentioned the name. I want to focus on the how, how to actually use these things in real life. Of course, that's the focus. Okay? So we'll notice a couple of things here at the start. We have a Who here, and we have a witch here. Now, we call these if you want to give them a name, relative pronouns. Relative pronouns, they include who, which obviously that Who's. And you'll also see, for example, where, when, now they all work basically the same way. These are just the main or most common relative pronouns that we use. We don't need to explore examples of all of them. I feel because they're really used in the same way. We're going to explore just two examples of what I'll call the first type. That's easy, right? The first type. So note, we've got our relative pronouns here. Very good. Now, note that the relative pronouns here follow a comma, which follows the subject of the sentence. The subject of the sentence is a noun, My aunt. Action movies, talking about a thing there. That's the subject, that's what I'm talking about. My aunt. That's the person I'm talking about. Okay. So that's the other thing to notice. Now for this type, notice that we also have another comma. There's one and there's one. Okay? What else can we notice? We can also notice that the information that's here between two commas, right there. And here, the information that's between the two commas can be removed and the sentence will remain. So that means that the information that we stick in here between the two commas is bonus. I'm gonna call it bonus information. Extra, whatever you want to say. Probably not necessary. Not necessary. Now, this type is part of a group which is known as a nonessential. You can remember that if you want or not, non essential, something is essential, then you need it. If it's not essential, you don't need it. So take that away. And what have you got? My aunt studied medicine in America. Okay. That makes sense. I understand that you're talking about your aunt is a specific ant. And that person studied medicine in America. And for this one, action movies are my brother's favorite. Action movies are my brother's favorite. Clear enough, simple enough. Complete thought, complete sentence. Wonderful. Now I say to myself, I'd like to say a little bit more about my aunt without needing to make a whole sentence. I'd like to say a little bit more about how I feel about action movies without focusing on it with a whole sentence. Okay, so that's my goal. Now, how can I do that? Well, I like to do it this way. Make two sentences. My aunt, now I know I say it like that and that is the mid-western pronunciation. Of course, a lot of people say aunt sat, however you want. My aunt or aunt studied medicine in America. Now I make another sentence. Get rid of these. By the way, for this type, who and which are the most common. And we don't use that for this type when you're using the commas, we don't use that. You can use the others, but who in which are the most common. Okay, So now we make another sentence. And this will be same subject. This is the key thing. My aunt or aunt. Sorry, I'm doing lowercase. I apologize. Then lives in Norway. Alright. So we have two sentences. My aunt or aunt lives in Norway. My aunt or aunt studied medicine in America to true things about my aunt or aunt. I'm just gonna go with and that's how I say it. Okay? Now I don't want to say both sentences because I would have to repeat the same subject twice. Well, then you say, Okay, well, hold on a second. Why don't we just say she in the next sentence. Alright, Sure. My aunt lives in Norway. She studied medicine in America, getting better, getting better, right? But what if we don't want to do that? Okay? So let's try sticking one of these inside the other. And the key thing here is that usually it doesn't matter which one you put inside the other. Usually the one that goes in the other is the less important thing. And the other, the one you put it inside of is the main thing you want to mention, the most important thing, okay? So if, if it's a person we're going to use who, all we then do is remove the subject and replace that with who. So now it's who lives in Norway. And we stick that whole thing between two commas right there after the subject is mentioned. Okay? Because it's a person we're using h2. So then we have my aunt comma, who lives in Norway. Comma studied medicine in America. But really what we're saying is my aunt lives in Norway. My aunt studied medicine in America because it's the same subject. It's also about my aunt. So it's very important that it goes right after the subject. Now you ask, well, can it go the other way? Could I could I put this could I replace this? My aunt and put a WHO there and stick that in this one. So that would be what? That would be my aunt who studied medicine in America, lives in Norway. So that would go inside in the same exact way. Yeah, that's fine. That's correct. Now then the question is, which thing is more important? If the main thing I want to mention is that my aunt lives in Norway than I'll say that if the main thing I want to mention is that she studied medicine in America, I'll say that. And the other thing will be the non-essential detail, the bonus, the extra information, right? So which thing do you consider to be the thing that can be removed? And the main idea is still there. Which thing is not so important? That's the one that is the detail or the bonus information or the non-essential thing that's included in the relative clause. Starting with a relative pronoun, like who, between the two comma's right after the subject. That's it. It's not so hard, right? Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. I don't think it's that hard, pretty straightforward action movies. Now this is my subject, which I really don't like are my brother's favorite. Now, just to save space here, I'm not going to write both sentences. I'll say action movies are my brother's favorite. That's one sentence. Now this one inside of here, if I were going to write it by itself as a sentence, I could write like this. I could do that. But usually when we talk about preferences, things we like, we start with I, but then we would just put it on the other side. Like this. I really don't like action movies. So that's slightly different just because it's more natural for us to say it this way by itself. But then when we put it into the relative clause, because it has to be directly connected in this way to the subject. The which doesn't go at the end. The position of the witch or the relative pronoun is very important. So even if we say, oh, this is more natural, we have to consider it as action movies. I really don't like because that has to be beside or next to the comma, next to the subject. It has to be, if we make it a relative clause, if we use it as a relative clause. So I just wanted to make that point clear. Here. We would not put which there. We couldn't say action movies. I really don't like which doesn't make sense. It has to be right next to the comma action movies, which I really don't like are my brother's favorite. So then you might think, okay, well, what if I want to reverse it like we did for this one? Well, you could do it that way. You would say action movies and then probably a comma. I really don't like. Again, it sounds odd as I said, we usually when we talk about what we like or what we don't like preferences. I don't like action movies. I really don't like action movies. So that then brings me to the other type, which we're going to talk about next. But let's just explore that for a second. If we want it to sound natural. What we want to say is, I really don't like action movies. That is more natural, right? Okay, so how would we do that and still add the information about action movies being my brother's favorite. So then we would say it like this. I really don't like action movies. I really don't like action movies. Now, this noun is at the end of the sentence. The end of the sentence. Normally we would have a period there. That's the end of the sentence. If we're going to make it by itself, right? Instead, we do a comma there. And I want to add more details about that. I want to add more information about that. So I'll make a comma there. And then I'm going to use which as well because it's a thing. Action movies, there are things which then this just as we did before, which are my brother's favorite. I really don't like action movies. You make the statement, you say the thing at the end, then you added detail to it, replacing the period with a comma. Still using usually which or who, if it's a person here at the end, it would be h2, right? We generally don't use that for this type. And that's it. Although I think we need to explore it a little more. So let's look at that type of non-essential relative clause. 85. Relative Clauses: Non-essential Type 2: When we want to add information about some noun that comes at the end of a sentence. We use a relative clause, like we looked at in the previous example. We looked at it, but now I want to explore it in a little bit more depth. Now I want to look at a couple more examples to make sure you've really got it. Now, what we're going to look at is another non-essential, non-essential relative clause. Non essential, which remember means bonus. Bonus, meaning just as a reminder, we could remove it if we wanted to. The sentence would still make sense. We don't need that information to be there to understand what's going on. It's extra, It's bonus. It's non-essential. Okay. Now, we do this as I mentioned, when it's at the end of the sentence. So I'm going to call this type two, type two. And there are a lot of similarities to type one, which we talked about before. We're using which or who, not using that, not using that for this type of non-essential relative clause. The other similarity is that we could make one of these sentences out of two sentences which share a noun. They have a noun in common. Remember we made the two sentences about my aunt, my aunt, remember, they share that in common, slightly different here, but still they have that noun in common. And we can build that sentence out of two sentences. Good way to understand it, okay? Also notes that we have the comma here. After the noun. The comma replaces what would be the period, the end of the sentence. And instead we change it to a comma, and then we have the relative pronoun Luke. Why are you always talking about commas? Is this only for written English? Can I not say these things to? Of course you can say them. They're actually very common in spoken English. I mentioned the commas because you have to know that they're there. Although you wouldn't say the comma when you speak those, then you might ask, okay, well, can I just speak them to practice? I suppose. But it's also a good idea to practice writing them. Why? Because if you practice writing five different versions, five different examples, you can look at the differences between them. You can change things, you can make notes. It's better for study purposes, better for getting the feeling for the pattern. And then you can practice saying them. Then you can practice speaking these. Yes, these are very common in spoken English. Very common. I've had students in the past say to me, I don't want to write anything. I just want to learn spoken English. Only spoken English. Don't make me write anything down. Well, okay, Alright, that's fine. But there are situations when you need to write things. And actually writing and speaking are closely linked together. Writing things down can be a powerful learning tool to be able to get into the habit of using a lot of the patterns that we're talking about in this course. Writing down many examples and then looking at those examples and thinking about them, He's really useful. So I would encourage you to do both. Practice speaking, the examples that you make, practice using these things in your daily life and your conversations and your presentations in the practice that you do, the spoken practice, but also practice writing down your own examples. That's why I mentioned commas. So the first one, last summer, I took a trip to Yellowstone, stop their end of the sentence. This is a description of something that happened in the past. This is when it happened. This is who did it. This is what happened. This is where you went. Done complete sentence, complete thought, grade. What is Yellowstone? Someone asks? So I want to anticipate this question. I want to give the detail before someone needs to ask. What if you don't know what Yellowstone is? I want to provide some information about it, an opinion about it doesn't have to be information. It could just be an opinion. So then you have the comma there and then, which, because it's a thing which is one of the most impressive places in North America now, is that a fact? No, that's my opinion. So here the detail is my opinion. I'm just adding my opinion. But you could change it to a fact which was the first. National Park in the United States? Maybe that's true, maybe not. I'm actually not sure. But if it were true, that would be a fact that you could add whatever detail you want here. Now you might be thinking, hold on a second. You said, I could make two sentences or I could use two sentences and make them into this type of sentence with a non-essential relative clause. That's right. That's right. How would we do it? Simply take this thing and use it to replace this pronoun. Then you've got your complete sentence. So the two sentences, which we would use to make this one-sentence very easy here. The end of this sentence is the subject of the next sentence. Last summer I took a trip to Yellowstone. Yellowstone is one of the most impressive places in North America. Last summer I took a trip to Yellowstone. Now it sounds weird to say Yellowstone twice, right? But you could do that. And because they share that noun, we use this second connected to this thing. At the end, the thing being the park being Yellowstone. So that's it. It's not really more complicated than that to build a simple one of those, we bought the boat. And the sentence, new sentence underline that. And you use that in the next one. The boat sank past tense. So you can see that the subject of this one is the noun. We're going to add details to the end of this one, right? So what would we do here? We would do a comma here. We bought the boat comma then because it's a thing which sank. And that's it. It's exactly the same, right? That's all we're doing here. This is a very simplified version of exactly this one. I've got a lot of arrows going on here. 12, three, that's not really an arrow. I don't know what that is. Four or five, Yikes too many arrows. Try one more. Let's draw a little arrow pointing to a little dots. Why not? I finally met your friend Alex, who told me you still owe him $50. You need to give him $50. Maybe you borrowed it three months ago and you haven't paid it back yet. And I met him and he said, Oh, you know, yeah, we know we know him. Yeah, great. Oh, by the way, if you ever see him telling me still owes me $50. So it's your friend but I met him. Oh, you know, you know him? Yeah. I know him. Oh, yeah. We both know the same person. That's cool. Hey, by the way, tell him next time you see him. We haven't talked in awhile. Tell him he owes me $50 still. This is not a great thing to find out about about your friend perhaps, but I'm just trying to give you some variety. Variety in the way that we use this type of relative clause. So now we've talked about the two non-essential relative clauses. Hopefully pretty clear. Now let's talk about the third type of relative clause. This is not non-essential. The third type is the essential relative clause. So let's take a look at that. 86. Essential Relative Clauses: We've talked about so far, the non-essential relative clauses, which just means that you can remove that extra information, that bonus information. And you still understand the sentence, you still know what's going on at least, right? You don't need that to be there in order to understand the sentence. But now we're looking at a different type. I'm going to call it Type three. That's my own little naming system. Don't be mad. And these are essential relative clauses. Essentially just means that you need that extra information. If it's not there, you won't understand the sentence. What is this about? What are we talking about? I'm confused. So we need that bonus information. It's essential. Now an interesting difference when we're writing these down is that we don't need a comma. Also, we don't as often use which when we're talking about a thing, instead, we'll use that. So we'll typically use which for the non-essential type and that for the essential type. Although, although who is still for people, we still use who to talk about people. Alright, Now, what are we doing here when we make these? How does this work? Let's read this example and try to understand what's going on. The bank that I usually go to will be closed during the holiday. What is that I usually go to doing? What is the purpose of it? Here? Is the purpose of it to say, Hey, this is some bonus information about this bank. Well, maybe. But really the main purpose of it here is to identify which bank we're talking about. Which one. There are lots of banks. There are millions and millions of banks. I want to know which one I want to identify. I want to identify the thing I'm talking about. And I need the relative clause in order to do that. Once I have identified it, then I know what I'm talking about and I can say something further about it, right? So the bank that I usually go to, you asked me now which bank and I say, oh, that's the one you usually go to? Correct. Okay. Good. Will be closed during the holiday. Okay. Just making a statement about that thing. No problem. If I treat this as one grammatical piece, I treat this whole thing as the subject. Up until that point, this whole thing, the bank that I usually go to, it, replace it with it. It will be closed during the holiday. Now, I'm not saying you should replace it with it. I'm just saying that's a way to think about it here. That the grammar of the rest of it is just a statement about the future, about this bank. And if I didn't mention which bank it was, then you would say, well, I don't know which bank you're talking about, Okay. Now, what you often see for these is a removal of that. Now I'm not saying it's more common, it's totally fine and common and normal to use that, to say that. But I would say just as often, we would skip over that and just say the bank I usually go to will be closed during the holiday. That would be just as common. But you can see the difference right before I could remove that piece. Just bonus information. And I can still know what this is, what you're talking about, right? But because it's a bank, it's unclear. So often for these, you see things like the man, the place, the restaurant, these sorts of general nouns that need to be identified by the essential relative clause. This third type, they need to be identified by it so that the person listening or reading what you wrote understands what's going on, what you're talking about. Now, this does not have to be the subject of the sentence. The bank I usually go to. That's the subject. The professor sent the boy. Okay, well maybe the professor is the subject. The professor sent the boy who never does his homework to the principal's office. So what we want to do here is identify the boy. Which boy are you talking about? The boy who never does his homework? Not that boy, not that boy, not that boy. Not that boy, not that boy. That boy. Which one? The one who never does his homework. Ah, that one. So we don't have to be identifying only the subject. We can identify nouns in the sentence, things in the sentence, people in the sentence. That's all we're doing. Yes, it is extra information, but it is necessary information in order to understand what's going on. Because if we just say the professor sent the boy to the principal's office. Yes, that is a complete sentence. That's a grammatically complete sentence. It's correct. But people will ask if we didn't say it earlier. Which boy? But boy are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. Right. So we need it to identify and we're using Who there because a boy is a person. So yes, this is a little bit more complicated than the non-essential type. I know, but just ask yourself, when you're deciding whether to use one of these, do I need an extra piece to make it clear who I'm talking about, what I'm talking about. If yes, maybe you need this, maybe this will be your best tool. Now I just want to look at one more thing very quickly here. My aunt who lives in Norway, studied medicine in America. My aunt who lives in Norway, comma, studied medicine in America. Alright, so here we have something very interesting. Both of these are correct, but what they're doing is different in each. Can you identify what they're doing here? My aunt who lives in Norway, studied medicine in America. What I'm doing with this, who lives in Norway now is not just adding bonus information. I'm letting you know which of my many aunts I'm talking about. This would be for someone who has quite a few ants and you know, I have quite a few ants. And you want some clarification, like the bank, which banker you're talking about. There are so many banks. I want to identify it. Well, you have six or seven ants. Identify which one, The one who lives in Norway, that one. Okay, now I know what you're talking about. Please continue. Please tell me the thing you want to say. We've identified the ant out of several aunts or aunts. Okay. Now with this one, my aunt, my aunt who lives in Norway, studied medicine in America. All this one is doing is adding bonus information. It doesn't suggest that I have a bunch of ants. I'm just saying my aunt and I don't feel that my aunt needs to be identified. If my aunt is not identified and you don't know which anti I'm talking about? I don't feel it's important. I just want to talk about one of my aunts. Don't don't worry about me identifying that one. I would need to identify the ant if you know all about all my aunts. And you'll be confused. If I don't tell you which one I'm talking about. The one who lives in Norway. The one who lives in Sweden. So the one who lives in Germany, did the one who lives in France, they all live in Europe for some reason, right? Which one? I know all the Iran's, then we would need this one. This one. Don't worry about it. I haven't. Okay. That's all you need to know. And my aunt my aunt studied medicine in America. Now I want to, by the way, stick in some extra information, some bonus information just as a by the way, to give my description more color, to add a bit more detail, to give a bit more background information that might help you. Maybe it doesn't help you. Maybe it helps you. Maybe it gives you a clearer picture. I don't know, but I can certainly remove it and it would be fine. So that's the real difference between these. That's the real difference. To really get a feel for these, you have to practice them. So practice all three types. Practice this type, which I called type one. Practice the other type of non-essential relative clause, where we add the bonus information at the end of the sentence after the comma, that's type two. And practice this type, the essential relative clause, make lots of examples for all of these until you feel really comfortable with making these. When you feel really comfortable and confident making these, I recommend you do it, writing them down because then you can look at all your examples. Then when you need to say them, it will be a lot easier. You'll have them there as habits. So you should practice speaking them. You should practice writing them. Do both. But I suggest for these, for these patterns, especially start with writing. 87. Clarifying Nouns: We spent some time talking about relative clauses. These very useful clauses that start with a certain pronoun, which are used to add information to a sentence, to add detail to a sentence, to add information about a noun in the sentence, we talked about a few different kinds. Remember, essential, that means if you remove it, then the whole sentence doesn't really make sense. I'm not sure what this is about. And then non-essential, which we can remove. And if we remove it, the sentence is fine by itself. We can understand it, it makes sense. In which case, that thing that we added, that clause that we added is bonus extra. Okay, so we talked about that. So why am I summarizing what we just talked about? I want you to keep that in mind because what we talk about now and what we focus on next are going to be very similar to the relative clause, to the basic form of the relative clause, especially the one that we talked about, where the clause is between the two commas. What are we doing? Well, we're adding something about that noun or about the subject, right? So can we do that without the whole clause? Can we do that without the pronoun? Can we do it without who or which? The answer is yes. So between the two commas, we can add details in different ways. And one of those things we can add is simply a noun. A noun which describes that thing better, which says what kind of thing it is. If that kind of thing is a noun, maybe this doesn't make sense. Well, well, let's look at some examples. So let's call this noun clarification. Why not? Why not call it that? That's what I want to call it. Let's call it that. And what I mean by that is we're giving a bit more clarity about the other thing we're talking about by adding a noun, it doesn't have to just be a noun. We can add a few things in front of it. But to really understand this, we have to look at some examples. So let's do that. The Titanic. The Titanic, right? That's the ship that sank in 1912. I think. You've probably seen the movie, right? The Titanic ship sank. Okay, what's going on here? Well, let's note a few things. Number one, we've got two commas, Ah, like that. One relative clause. We did the type one where we said My brother comma h2, and then we made the rest of the sentence after the second comma. Very similar here. Not just similar, exactly the same, except this ship. That's another noun. Okay, So what's happening? So we have the two comma's right there, then we have to notice something else. We have to notice that this is a sentence by itself. The Titanic, the Titanic sank. And if we removed this, if we removed this piece between the two commas, the sentence would be totally fine. We would still understand it. We would still know what's going on. Okay? So what we've added here is non essential bonus, extra, additional. And typically when you see things between two commas, right after a noun, right after the subject, whatever is in there is going to be something that you can remove. If you remove it, it doesn't break things. It doesn't break the sentence. That's generally the rule. Okay? So this is no different. We don't have the whole relative clause here. We don't need it because the Titanic is a ship. So what are we doing here? We're adding clarification using a noun. We're talking about the category of this thing. This one is going to be more specific. This is going to be the specific thing. And this, what we put here is going to be a slightly more general, a general group or category or class or something like that. It's gonna be a little broader. What kind of thing is it? Okay, So I wanna be clear that it's not a boat, It's not a house, it's not accompany. It's a ship. Everybody knows that, but it's totally fine to do that. It doesn't have to be a ship. But, but is really common when we want to say what kind of thing it is. When we're talking about a category, especially is the most common. But we need to explore this a little further to see how we could use it with some others. But the next one is also a category. My dog, a corky, is trained to fetch the newspaper. Okay. So my dog is trained to fetch the newspaper. It works as a sentence. That means a corky is not necessary, non-essential bonus information between the two commas, just a noun. This is the kind of dog. This is the I'm just going to imagine this goes all the way out here. This is the kind of dog, this is the category. And we're talking about a specific member of this kind or category or group. My dog. My dog and I could put the name here. My dogs sniffles. A corky is trained to fetch the newspaper. I just wanted to add a clarification. I want to add some detail. I want to give this broader noun because you might be wondering that, or it might add some vividness to my description. It might make it more vivid, more interesting case you were thinking, well, trying to picture the dog getting the newspaper. It's a huge dog, tiny dog that makes a difference. So tell me about the breed. Oh, it's a corky. Okay, Very interesting. So we just have a noun there and a noun there with us to set off the noun because we're talking about the category. Okay, how about this one? My friend, the scientists I told you about, has never published a paper. Okay. My friend, the scientists I told you about, has never published a paper. Now what's different between these two? Well, this one is the same. My friend has never published a paper. That's a sentence by itself, so this is not necessary. We could take it out, that's fine. We have the two commas. Okay, great. But now I'm being a little bit more clear because, you know, a little bit more. If you didn't know any more about this person, my friend, I want to make sure you know who it is if you already know about that person because I mentioned that person a few weeks ago, a month ago, a year ago. Then I can say the scientist I told you about, we have a previous reference. When you have a previous reference to something, you can typically use the instead of a if you don't know anything about that person, then I'll say my friend, a scientist, has never published a paper. But I mentioned my friend previously. So I can use that to make a reference to that person. The scientists, you could say. But which scientist? The scientist I told you about that one. So this is not a simple noun, but it's acting as a noun. The scientist I told you about could be replaced by the scientist. It doesn't have to have this. I told you about. This whole piece is replacing this simpler use. But really it's the same thing. This one I'm saying, Because it's a general category. I could say for this one if I want to make it a general category, but instead I want to make a reference to something I've already mentioned to you in the past, something that you already know. So I use the instead. And then the scientist, which one that I told you about. Now this might sound familiar. Wait a second. Can I put that here? Could I put a VAT right there? The scientists that I told you about? And if I did, Wouldn't that be the essential type we talked about? Yes. It's acting just like the essential type that we talked about before, except inside of these two commas. So it's still bonus information because it's all happening inside of the two commas. Now you might say, wait a second, but you're removing that. You didn't say that here when you read it. That's right. Remember we talked about, we can often remove the relative pronoun that we use when we do the essential type. This could be that, but because it's a scientist, it could also be who either one of those would be common. The scientists who I told you about, the scientist that I told you about, either one would be okay here, the Red Sox, his favorite baseball team, is famous for losing important games. Okay, last example. The Red Sox, his favorite baseball team, are famous for losing important games. Okay? So we're talking about a team and we should identify the parts here. There's the common number one, common number two, okay, that tells us that's probably this in the middle here is going to be a bonus, something we could remove. Well, let's try it out. The Red Sox are famous for losing important games. Perfect. That sentence makes sense by itself. Now if we wanted to make this irregular category, we could do what we did here. We could say the Red Sox, a baseball team, or a famous baseball team are famous for losing important games. Okay, That would be fine. But most people in the United States will know that the Red Sox are a baseball team. So it's not necessary. So what we want to do is for a specific person, add some information. We're talking about someone we both know who we're talking about. Him. My brother or your friend, someone like that. His his favorite baseball team. We are talking about a specific person's team. We could say the Red Sox, my favorite baseball team, my least favorite baseball team. We can change all of those things. We're just making it a little bit more specific, kind of like this one. The a is more general. Just tell me the category. This one is like a category, but a category only for one person referencing something specific to give you additional information, to give you additional details. So when we say the Red Sox, his favorite baseball team, our famous for losing important games. We might be talking about this contrast that he's so loyal to this team and yet they often lose important games that he's a big fan and will support them no matter what, even though they often lose important games. Now I don't know too much about the Red Sox. So if you're a big Red Sox fan, I'm just using it as an example. I don't actually know much about what I'm talking about. I'm not a baseball expert, so please please forgive me. Now, let's look at the parts here because this does look, well, obviously it's longer than a ship and a Kogi, right? Other than the, his part, what's different? Well, we can add things that modify, keyword, modify the noun. Team. Team is the noun, so we still have a noun here, just like ship, just like Corky. We could say my dog, a blue corky. My dog, a 13-year-old corky, my dog, a tiny 13-year-old Kogi. We can add descriptions about the noun and that's totally fine. So if you want to add things to that in front of that, between this and the noun. Adjectives, especially. Go ahead, Absolutely. Well, what kind of team is it? Well, it's a baseball team. Baseball is used as an adjective here because it's modifying team, right? What I mean by modifying is they're adding some meaning to it. They're telling us more about it. In this case, adjectives telling us more about Team. And this one specifically his, telling us specifically which person's favorite, his favorite, the guy over there, the guy we both know. So it's totally fine to add adjectives in front of the noun right there. That is extremely common. Now I would say that this is a bit more common in writing. For example, the Titanic, a ship sank. That is not something that you would hear. A lot of people say. You might instead hear people say the Titanic, which was a ship, they might throw in a quick, which is, uh, which is, uh, it's operating in the same way, same basic idea, still adding extra details. But spoken English might use the relative clause more, and written English might use the simple noun or simple noun with modifiers. More often simple noun in this case, with adjectives. More often, if someone spoke the Red Sox, his favorite baseball team, I wouldn't be shocked by it. I wouldn't say. What how could you say that? That's for written English only? It would be It's okay. It's fine. But but I'm telling you I'm trying to tell you what's more common. And whenever we come across something that feels more like written English, I want to give you a feeling for that. To let you know that something might be more common as one rather than the other. More common in spoken English, more common as written English. I would put this when it's something like, well, I don't know 75% written English more often than spoken English. That's just a general feeling I have. I don't have any hard evidence to support that. It's just a gut feeling that I have. Now practice these, of course, make your own examples. But we are going to explore more very similar to this when I keep talking about adding extra information because it's a very powerful way to make your sentences more interesting, to make them pop, to allow them to create an image that people can see in their minds. So practice your examples. Let's now talk about another type. 88. Adding Details and Explanation: Part 1: The last set of examples that we're going to talk about with this pattern of adding details or explanation. Bonus additional things between commas is one that looks similar to our relative clauses, is similar in some ways to what we just talked about, putting nouns between two commas, but different in its own way. So let's explore and why don't we just call this for simplicity, adding details and explanation. Okay, so we're going to be adding details or explanations to nouns. Now we're going to look at specifically three examples of adding details and explanations between commas to subjects. But it doesn't have to only be subjects and we can talk about that a little bit. But just to keep it simple, let's focus on nouns that are also the subjects of sentences. So the chef sparrows and read it. Okay. I want to give you a bit of a challenge here because I have examples prepared. What I'd like you to do. This is not the real example. This is not the real example. These are not the real examples I'm going to give you. I'm going to do is ask you to imagine two commas here right after the chef come here and a comma here. Comma here, and a comma here. Okay? Now, I want you to put something in there about the chef, about the sparrows, about read it if you don't know what Reddit is okay, just to sparrows and the chef, that's okay. If you want to try to add one after a cuckoo eggs, you could do that. But the challenge here is to do it between the commas about this. Now in this noun, this noun about the subject. Now, try not to do it as a relative clause. Try not to do it as a simple noun, like we talked about last time. Try to do it instead. As though you were making a sentence on your own about that thing. And then you use a form of the be verb, like is, or was, or were or m. Depending on what the subject is, it should agree with the subject. So for the chef, it would be what? Well, it could be was if it's in the past, if it's now would be probably is, right. Okay. Then you make a statement about the subject, about this noun at a detail and explanation to give more clarification to help people understand something. Okay. The chef was, let's say, trained In Paris. Now, what does this have to do with putting this between two commas? This is a sentence by itself, the chef was trained in Paris. But remember we have to then include it within this gave up cooking forever. So then what we do is the first comma replaces the be verb in whatever form we're using it. So we get rid of that and then replace it with the first comma. So now we have the chef trained in Paris than the second comma. Then we just finish after the comma, the original sentence, gave gave up on cooking forever. That's what you do. That's how you make this. Now remember, we're not actually going to use this. Is, was, were be m. We're not going to use it, but to make the sentence you can use it. Then we cross it out in our minds. Then just replace it with the comma. Then it goes in-between the two commas. And that allows us to add that detail to make sure it makes sense. I'm telling you to make it this way because I think it can help you make sure that it makes sense. It's got to follow a certain logic. So if you use that is was, were a form of the be verb, it can remind you. Okay, I need to make sure, need to make sure that at least has that structure before I can replace it with the comma. So that's how you do it. Now my challenge to you is to, doesn't have to be for all of these, let's say for the first to try to make your own sentences using the way I just taught you. And then see if, see if it works, I'm going to show you my examples. From my examples, you can see whether or not your examples made sense. So you can pause this here, work on your own. And then we're gonna come back and look at the examples. 89. Adding Details and Explanation: Part 2: So I hope you have a few examples. Let's take a look at mine. Here we go. The chef coma, depressed about overcooking the chicken. Comma, gave up on cooking forever. Now, let's see if this makes sense with the structure that we used to make it. So we would replace this comma with is or was. The chef was depressed about overcooking the chicken. But it wouldn't make sense for us to say the chef was depressed about overcooking the chicken gave up on cooking forever? No. We have to get rid of it. You have to remove it and replace it with the comma. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't work very important. I'm only telling you to use that to make it. That's how you, that's how you build it. It's a good way to build it in general. So the chef comma depressed about overcooking the chicken. Now we have some background information, some details. The chef is depressed, there's a problem. Now what happened? Comma gave up on cooking forever, but the original sentence is completely intact. That's a common trend that we have with these two commas. The original sentence is still there. The chef gave up on cooking forever. Why? Because he was depressed about overcooking the chicken. He was depressed about overcooking the chicken. And you could ask yourself the question like that. Why? Why did he give up on cooking forever? Then? Say this. He was you have to start that way. It makes sense. He was depressed about overcooking the chicken. Ah, ah, very interesting right? Now. How about this one? Sparrows often take care of cuckoo eggs. Cuckoos and other type of bird. Sparrows comma unable to distinguish which eggs are theirs and which aren't that, which is just saying the one that we want to point out, right? Which eggs are theirs and which aren't often take care of cuckoo eggs. Some background explanation to understand What's going on. Wait a second. Why do they often take care of cuckoo eggs? Because they are, sparrows are unable to distinguish which eggs are theirs and which aren't. So when we're building this, we would say sparrows aren't, which is a form of b, right? Are not able to distinguish which eggs are theirs in which aren't. That by itself, by itself could be a sentence to. So what you're building is another sentence. And that sentence then we'll fold back into the original sentence. Might be a little complicated at first, but once you practice it and get used to it, it can be a very powerful way to add details to your descriptions. Okay, how about this one? Red, it is actually a great place to get news. Reddit is when I already have it, is there? Okay, forget about that. We're putting that to the side for a second. We're going to make another is, or was. Here is what? Reddit is best known as a place to discover memes. Is that a sentence by itself? Yeah. Yeah, it is red. It is best known as a place to discover Memes. Okay, That's a sentence. So we know it makes sense. Now we remove these, we fold it. I like to use the word fold. We fold it back into the original sentence between the two commas. The is, is now gone, right? So we have read it, best-known as a place to discover memes comma is. Now we still have that is because we're not deleting that is that's the original is we've got to keep that is, we only use this is as the is for building our other sentence. Now, if this method doesn't work for you, that's okay. It's not the only way to do it. I think it's helpful. I think it works pretty well. But everybody is different. If it's not it's not right for you. It's okay. Don't force it. Find your own way. It's totally fine. The important thing is that you feel you understand how these are made, how you can make them, so that you can make them by yourself when you need to, so that you can use them when you need them in your daily life. Whether you're speaking, whether you're writing, read it, best-known as a place to discover memes is actually a great place to get news. I'm curious if you came up with an example for that one. Not everybody knows. Read it, although I feel like it is getting more and more popular, tons of people use Reddit. I use it a lot for news. It's a pretty good resource and a very interesting platform and community. Now what about this one? What if we wanted to add details to cuckoo eggs? It's not the subject, but it is a noun. Sparrows unable to distinguish which eggs are theirs in which aren't, often, take care of cuckoo eggs. Comma. Then we would say something like cuckoo eggs comma prized for their delicious taste or something like that. Now, I think that's a little too much, a few too many commas, a few too many comments in details and explanations added into a single sentence often, but you could do it and you would make it in the same way. Cuckoo eggs are prized for their delicious taste. Sparrows often take care of cuckoo eggs comma prized for their delicious taste. It has to be right next to the noun it's talking about. If it's not right next to the noun, it's talking about, people will feel confused. They won't know what you're talking about. So you have to be careful with this. You have to make sure you're using in the right place, in the right way, you have to feel comfortable with how to build it. But once you really feel like you've got this figured out, once you really get used to using this, you will be powerful. Okay, practice those. Next, we're going to go on to the last real lesson of the course. We will have a wrap-up summary, but the last real lesson where we have new things to learn, examples to look at. So I'm looking forward to that. I hope you are. Again, I hope you've enjoyed the journey so far. We've got one more lesson. One more thing that we really need to learn before we finish this course. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 90. Using Specific Verbs: Well, you've made it to the last real lesson of the course. So nice job. Hope you're proud of yourself. You came all this way. You've been working hard. You did it, you made it. Congratulations, that is really awesome. I hope that you feel you've learned a lot. I hope you've actually learned a lot. I hope you're using what you've learned in your real life. That's the most important thing, that's the thing I want to focus on. Most in this last real lesson, where we're looking at examples, actually learning something new. I want to talk about something that could take an entire course to talk about. I want to introduce the idea to get you thinking so that you can expand your use, specifically a verbs to make your language, your use of English, more vivid, more clear, more powerful, more interesting. And it all has to do with verbs. So I'd like to spend just a little time talking about specific verbs. So I'd like to spend a little time talking about specific verbs. Specific verbs. Now again, this is something that we could spend a whole course on talking about all the interesting verbs we could use to say things very clearly, very vividly. But as one lesson to introduce this to you, to get you to start thinking about it. Here's the main idea. Often we're tempted to use the simplest verb, the first verb that we can think of, which describes the action or the thing that's going on. We just automatically say, Oh yeah, use the verb went. Oh yeah, use the verb reflected or shown. Oh, yeah. Use the verb beat. Oh yeah, I use the verb moved and there's nothing wrong with that. It's great to use ordinary, common verbs, like go, like, move, like jump, right? Those are great. But if you only use those, if you always choose those and you never think about using more specific verbs, then your language, your use of the language is going to be a little less vivid, a little less powerful. And when people hear or read your descriptions, it's not going to stick with them as much. You're not going to be quite as flexible to say exactly what's inside of your mind when you want to say it, right? So all you do when you find yourself choosing an ordinary verb, like went a little too often? Sometimes, yes, great, of course, wonderful use went fantastic. But sometimes ask yourself, have I used it too much? Maybe, okay. If so, then I want you to think about specifically what action is happening, what thing is going on. And then see if you can find a more interesting verb which describes that specific action. More clearly, more vividly. This is why we could spend a whole course on this, because there are so many situations, there are so many different interesting verbs we could talk about, right? I will leave it to you to explore all of those. Make sure when you do, when you look up a verb that you know it's context. Always look it up in context in a sentence. Never by itself. Because some words very interesting, but nobody uses them. So you have to make sure you understand the context, how it's used in general. Always look at the example sentences when you find the word in the dictionary, always make sure you find plenty of examples, sentences so that you can get a feeling for it, okay, ask yourself about the verb, went, about the verb go, how many different situations can you use it in? So many? I went to the library, I went to the bus stop. I went to university, not just a physical place, but to school in general, to university in general. I went to University online. Very interesting. That book goes on the bookshelf. That means you put it there, That's where it belongs. So that's sort of like belonging. Okay. The squirrel went up the tree. Well, that's a little bit different because we're not talking about the destination of the squirrel. Now we're talking about just the relationship between the squirrel and the tree. And the squirrel is moving. So we can use went, go, gone in so many different ways, so many different situations. And that's what's useful about it. It's so broad, it's so general. But the thing to ask yourself is, are there more specific verbs for each of those things that I described using wind that I could use instead. And not to only use those, but to sometimes choose those for the squirrel and the tree. Instead of saying went up the tree, we can describe the way that a squirrel goes up a tree like that, right? Have you ever seen a squirrel go up a tree like that? Well, I can think of a perfect word. How about scamper? The squirrels scamper up the tree. Okay. I went to university. Okay, that's fine. But went to school education. Alright. I think you know the word attend. That's more specific. I attended. University. I enrolled in university. If you change it a little bit, that's a little more specific. Alright, How about the book on the bookshelf? The book goes on the bookshelf. So the book belongs on the bookshelf. Okay. So belong, that's more specific. So each of these words are a little more specific, specifically to the situation we're using them in. Then went because when two so broad and went is so general, it looks like an H that's an n with a tall neck. Looks like an H. That's a general. Okay. That's the idea. So what about vines, those plants that go up like this. There's a poll or something. And the climate, we could say the vines climbed up the lamppost. That would be a little more specific. But if you really think about it, there's this action where they're doing this query there going up and they're going around and around. Is there a specific verb which means that, yes, it is spiraled. So the vines spiraled up the lamppost. More specific, more interesting. Instead of the light shone on the surface of the lake? Yes. Okay. But the light can shine on the window and the light can shine on a ring. Light can shine on a lot of different things. But specifically that feeling on water, where it's changing all the time because of the waves on the water, on the surface of the water, the lightest kind of sparkling. Okay, So we can say sparkling, that would be good if we want to focus on the points of light, the sunlight hitting the water and the points of light we see. But shimmering is also a great word. The light, the sunlight shimmered on the surface of the lake. Wu. Very vivid. Instead of my heartbeat violently, you can beat a drum, you can beat some eggs. Very general, very general verb, thumped. Not so general, more specific, we get this. That's the feeling of thumped by heart, thumped violently. More specific, I want to be clear. These are not the only verbs we could choose. There are many different ones we could choose for each of these depending on the feeling we want to create. This is where you get to be flexible. This is where you get to be unique. This is where you get to think about what you want to say in how you want to say exactly which verb, which adjective, Which word perfectly says what I want to say, right? So my heart thumped the right word. It's got a deep feeling violently in my chest because I was so afraid or so nervous. The machine word and beeped to life. Instead of saying the machine came to life. That doesn't give us any sense of exactly how it came to life. That just gives us a feeling of cartoon machine on now, we don't know anything else. We can't picture anything else. There's nothing else going on in here. A visual, a sound. But if we say word and beat, BBB, BB, we get this feeling of this machine slowly starting up and almost makes me excited to read the sentence. So it's much more interesting. Now, it's two verbs. Totally fine. If those two verbs are very specific, they say, What do you want to say better than came to life? Because that's so simple. Now, if you don't want to focus on making a vivid sentence and you just want to say what happened, then, great, maybe this is the best choice. I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm trying to give you the tools that you need to think about how to say what you want to say, exactly, how you want to say it. What do you say? What do you write matches your intention? I want to give you creativity and flexibility with English. Now we can do really interesting things like this one, my boss slathered into the meeting room. Now slathered is usually a word that we would use for snakes. Okay? So think about that. The movement of a snake, that sort of movement that a snake has, we use the word slither. It gives us that, that sort of feeling, right? So instead of using the word came, my boss came into the meeting room or slipped even slipped would be okay. Slathered like a snake. What does that mean? My bosses, evil and creepy. And the way that he moves, does it mean that my boss is ten minutes late and he's getting in there because he doesn't want other people to notice. What is it? Well, it makes us think. It makes you think about the boss and what kind of person he is and how he moves and his character. So many things pop out when we use the more vivid and interesting verb. When we use more vivid and interesting adjectives to the boy zoomed across the gymnasium. Zoom is a great word. Instead of ran. Well, you can run a video game, you can run a drill, you can run a computer program. So it's pretty general, zoomed though. Gives us a feeling of speed. Wow, so fast. That's the feeling we get so fast. Wow, so fast. And then you could add things at the end, the boy zoomed across the gymnasium and then we can add like, we can always use like if we want to make a comparison like a, like a rocket, that tells us a lot that we wouldn't have if we just said, the boy ran across the gymnasium from a to b, little robotic. My dreams disintegrated in a single moment. Well, you could say yes, of course my dreams ended in a single moment. That's a sudden your dreams stopped. You find something out. The judges in the singing competition that you attended told, you know, you can't make it to the next round. My dreams ended. On that day. My dreams to be a professional singer ended. Well, fine. But what about disintegrated? It's more specific. It's a feeling of crumbling, a feeling of something eroding it slowly. Well, it could be fast. A feeling of burning a piece of paper and then all that's left is the ash. And when you touch it, it just blows away because it's powder in the wind. So we get a totally different feeling from that specific verb. So try these out and I want you to explore verbs in a creative way. I want you to explore because you enjoy exploring. I'm not trying to force you to do anything. If you do it and if you enjoy the process, if you come across interesting words, when you're watching movies, when you're reading in the dictionary, finding examples. What does this word fascinating? I love it if you'd like to make examples. If you enjoy the process of discovery, of exploring the language, of using what you learn, of learning in context, absorbing the language surrounding yourself with the language, movies, TV shows, podcasts, books, articles, and then you make stuff with it. Write blog posts, you keep a diary, you start a YouTube channel. I know that sounds crazy. You start a YouTube channel or something like that. You start making videos and share those with your friends, or share them with the world. You start making things, you start having more conversations. You join groups, you practice discussing. If you start just getting out there and using this stuff, then it's going to get easier and easier, not harder and harder. So I hope this is just a starting point for you. I hope now you feel you have many more of the tools that you need to become a powerful, creative, flexible user of the English language, whether it comes to speaking or writing. But the next step really is for you to get out there and start using it. In the next video, we're going to do a quick wrap-up of the course. Let me know if you have any questions about this stuff, get to work on your examples. Practice using these verbs. Start exploring more on your own. Make sure you're always making your own examples that you're always turning what you learn into a habit. I will see you in the next video. 91. What's next?: Hey, you made it. Congratulations, welcome to the end of the course. You should be really proud of yourself. It's a major accomplishment. We've covered a lot of stuff. So give yourself a little, a little high five, gives me a little high five. I appreciate that. It's been really fun for me to take you through this course. I really love teaching this stuff, and I hope you've enjoyed it as well. Now here at the end of the course, I just wanted to give you some final thoughts to rattle around in your head as you continue your English journey. And I want to also give you something that you can do next, what you can do going forward, okay? So let's start with something that you're already very familiar with because I've talked about these things a lot. In order to really continue growing. As an English speaker, it's important to develop the right mindset, right attitude. And again, I've talked about this throughout the course. But the key to that is to develop curiosity and a sense of exploration. What does that mean? Well, it might mean you're reading an article and you come across a really interesting sentence that you think is really beautiful. And you think, Oh, what is going on here? And then maybe you do a little research. Maybe you look some things up, you find other examples of that. Then you try it yourself. You play around with it a little bit, then maybe you try to use it in a conversation. This becomes part of a process, but it starts with the attitude of being genuinely curious. It's important to remember. English is a language that's obvious, but a language is something that we use to communicate meaning to other people in writing, in speech. That's what it is. We're communicating what's in here to what's out there to others. And there's this tendency as a learner to sometimes see it as an academic subject, like a school subject. But it really isn't. Teachers tell you in school, learned this, take an exam. Here's a grammar book, but that's not what a language is. Language is much more, it can be beautiful, it can be precise, it can be offensive. It can feel different ways depending on how it's used. And so that's what I hope to get you to start, to realize in this course. To start to get used to thinking in this way when you see something interesting, What is this? I can find out more about this. I'm going to practice it myself. I'm going to play with that myself. I'm going to use that in a conversation myself. Why? So that you can be an effective communicator so that when you decide to say something, it matches what's in here. And that's tough to get it to match what's in here. You have to be precise. You have to choose your words carefully. Because the way that you organize a sentence, as we talked about in the course many times, the way that you organize something, the word that you choose, the place you decide to put it, can have a huge impact on the other person, on how they feel emotionally, how well they understand you, what exactly they understand, because there are slight differences between things. We've talked about many examples of subtle changes having a huge impact on meaning, on how something feels or seems. This is a more difficult level, but I think also a more interesting level. Now you're on the level of really connecting with people, really learning things, really exploring. What is exploration? That's watching movies, it's reading articles. It's having conversations surrounding yourself with the language, immersing yourself in the language. How do you develop curiosity? Start with your interests. What are you interested in getting involved in an online community related to that? Watch movies and videos related to that, read articles related to that, make comments under articles and videos related to that. Get involved in discussions related to that. And through that window of interest that you go through, the whole world of the language will open up and you'll find more and more that is interesting about it. And as you discover more and more, your skills improve faster and faster. You speak more naturally, you write more naturally. As you do those things, you start to be able to connect with others with native English speakers at a higher level to develop friendships and relationships where you're communicating naturally, fluently, easily in a relaxed way. This is the power of language to communicate what's in here to other people. But how do you get there? It's all about your attitude, being curious and exploring. But also on the practice side. Play is essential. When you're practicing. Don't get stuck in one way of saying things. Don't think to yourself. Oh, that's the only way I learned that in school. Teacher told me no. Play around. If you develop a sense of play, you try things out. You do variations and you check those variations with other examples of similar things, then you're going to improve faster. Developing this sense of play can take you much, much further than saying, what are the rules? Tell me the rules. Now. I know the rules. Okay. Those are the rules. Great. I'll just follow the rules. No, no. It's a language. Remember, it's a language, not a subject in school, but it's important to balance that with accountability. That means you have to actually do it. If you say to yourself, I'm going to practice this. Be accountable to yourself. Practice it, really do it. Or if you have, for example, a learning buddy and you say we have a writing assignment, we're going to write about this every Tuesday. We're going to give each other feedback. You send that to your writing buddy on Tuesday. They send theirs to you or you didn't send yours, but they sent this to you. Where's the accountability? Accountability means you have some pressure to push you, either from yourself or from others. That's good or you do an exercise. We talked about some exercises throughout the course. When you're doing those, do them very seriously. And for example, if you're doing the speaking exercise, go back and listen to it. Listen carefully. Give yourself some feedback. Few practice, some examples. Check them very carefully. Go through them. Imagine you're looking at someone else's examples. Be tough on yourself. Push yourself to constantly improve and respect yourself. That means do what you say. You're going to do, stick with it. And if you do all of this, if you do all of this, you're going to build the most essential thing, which is habits. And that is when you're trying to communicate with someone but you forgot what you learned in that course. You didn't have the right habits. So in order to be able to use what you learned, you have to have explored and practiced a lot and hold yourself accountable, practice many, many times so that when you need it, it's right there. I know exactly how to make that sentence. I know exactly how to say what's in here in exactly the way that I want to say it, because I practiced that sentence that I learned in that course 20 times. I May 20 different examples and now it's easy for me. So if I'm writing an e-mail or if I'm having a conversation, I can use it immediately. No problem. That's the difference between knowing something and having something as a habit, between knowing and a skill. Skills are based on habits. So buildup habits through practice, buildup habits through play and accountability. Now, what's next? Well, what's next is exploration. Surround yourself with the language. Immerse yourself in the language. If you feel like you missed something from the course or you want to practice something a little bit more because you feel like you don't quite have it. Maybe go back through the whole course again. You don't have to, of course, but it can be a very effective way just to make sure you've got everything. You didn't miss, anything that we covered in this course. But the key thing is now that you know how to take a sentence from a book, an article, a movie, and then write it down. And then practice your own examples. And then try some variations. Now that you know how to do that, the world is open to you. So go out there, find interesting ways of expressing things and play around with them. That's what you should do next. Get out there and practice, but try to follow your curiosity. Because if you're always following your curiosity, you'll never get tired of it. It won't feel like a thing I have to do. It will be fun. So that's what you should do next. If you enjoyed the course, I would love to hear from you. So feel free to leave a review. Let me know how you felt about the course. Also, if you want to continue your journey with me, fantastic. This doesn't have to be the end of the road. I have a bunch of other courses on many things from pronunciation, speaking more fluidly, thinking in English, grammar, writing skills, business English, words and phrases, idioms, all kinds of things. Tons of different areas that I focus on in some of my other courses. So you can check those out on my page. I have many other courses covering things like pronunciation, how to think in English, how to speak more fluently, business English, job interviews, grammar, idioms and phrases, a bunch of other stuff. So check those out if you like. The only thing that's left for me to say is thank you again. Good luck and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye.