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0:01
do you think grammar is just a lot of boring rules well think again my friend think differently because learning english grammar can be easy and fun if you think about it correctly let me help you change your thinking [Music] hi nice to see you again oh and if you're new my name's keith i run the website the keith speaking academy and the youtube channel um english speaking success so listen in this fun lesson i'm going to make grammar easy for you i'm going to do this first with a short
0:50
story an anecdote and then we'll do a review of the most important parts of speech including verbs nouns prepositions adjectives and many many more in the end there's a little quiz to help you review and have a bit of fun and also don't forget to click the link below and you can download the pdf of this lesson finally if you want to practice your spoken grammar with a native english speaker then check out camberly this is a fantastic platform where you can find native english speaking teachers
1:26
and improve your speaking skills the great thing is the teachers come from lots of backgrounds so you have ielts and truffle trainers you also have teachers who have a background in business filmmaking music even journalism so you can find somebody to match your needs more about that later let's get into it and start making grammar easy
1:58
i think language is like music you listen to music and you hear beautiful sounds you listen to a language and i hear beautiful sounds [Music] with music you have different names for the notes and the order they go in with language you have different names for the words and the order they go in and that's it grammar just describes the language it's not the actual language it's just a way of talking about it now maybe you started to get nervous about grammar at school when your
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teacher began to introduce some names and labels for things like the present perfect subjunctive the possessive determiners the predicate and then suddenly lots of rules and then exceptions and then at the end of the day you felt that grammar was the same as headache
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and that's very very common you see i think we need to change things i think we should start by listening to the language loving it and then repeating it not starting with the grammar talking about it so when learning english i suggest you listen you love it and then you repeat it and let me tell you a little anecdote right this is when i was younger i was a teenager and i began learning to play the piano i did it on my own i had a little keyboard something probably something like this yep
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of course those days we didn't have apps but we had something similar and so i was at home and i was playing
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and i was you know practicing teaching myself and then after a few weeks um my friend came along and he's a musician he played the guitar um and he said what are you learning so i showed him like [Music] and he said great that's a scale in c major and i was like a what a scale in c major and he said yes i thought that's interesting and then i played i played him something i'd learnt
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and he said oh an arpeggio i had no idea and then [Music] [Applause]
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oh a blues scale in c minor i had no idea and he said that's great and what he was doing he was describing what i was playing but i had listened loved it and repeated what's interesting is that then i began to get curious about the names and the rules and the order and it actually started to help me and i think it's the same with language right what we should do is start by listening loving repeating and then get curious find out the names the labels the rules
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and that can help us and that's exactly what i did when i learned spanish and when i learned chinese i began with the language and doing it loving it repeating it and then bit by bit learning the labels and the rules and i think that's the way to do it and that's the way to think about it so for me grammar always comes second it's a kind of a way of clarifying um rather than a basis for learning with this in mind i offer you this lesson coming up now basic grammar
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i imagine most of you are beyond beginner level otherwise you wouldn't really understand me so use this as a way of kind of getting clear about the grammar reviewing it getting curious about the rules and use it as something to help you move along not as a starting point great let's get into it
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okay so we're going to look at well eight of the most important parts of speech right speaking and these include verbs adverbs nouns articles adjectives pronouns prepositions and conjunctions omg now you may be thinking that's a lot keith yes it is but don't worry you don't have to be stuck in the classroom with me this is youtube right you can go down to the description and there's a timestamp and you can click on the part that is most interesting or useful for you and
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just watch that you don't have to watch the whole video you can but you don't have to okay i'm going to begin with verbs so what are verbs simply verbs are doing words they describe actions that we do right like drive spanish roundabout always fun and games
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cook
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lose
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where's my pen also they can describe states of being like be or seem okay the most important thing about verbs is they can describe actions in the present in the past and in the future different tenses so in the present we can say i'm cooking a soup or we can talk about a present habit for example and say i usually cook on sundays and one of the most important things to remember because we don't really conjugate verbs in english it's i cook you cook they cook we cook we all cook however he
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she and it cooks you must add an s when you're talking about another person he or she or a thing it's the dog so at the s now you're saying of course i know that keith but when you're speaking lots of students at a high level forget the s yes he cook a lot no he cooks a lot so you need to practice a lot speaking out the s and the thing is there are three different pronunciations there's is depending on the word right she drives he cooks he loses so be careful about the
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pronunciation especially when speaking especially when speaking only when speaking now when we talk about the past verbs can be regular which means they're all the same or irregular means they a bit different right now the regular past you just add e d but again when you're speaking that can be three different sounds it can be
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depending on the verb so you may have for example i cooked yesterday i washed my face i wanted to go to the cinema so be careful on the pronunciation if it's not regular then it's irregular and they're all different and you just have to learn them there are about 200 irregular verbs in english and in my free pdf you can see the most important ones for you at a beginner intermediate level an example might be drive i drove yesterday a final interesting thing about verbs is
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that they can become a noun very easily if you add ing right cook cooking cooking becomes a noun i like cooking or cooking is fun driving is dangerous it becomes a noun great that's it let's move on
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next up adverbs now adverbs tell you how you do something right so if you drive how do you drive i drive quickly i drive safely they tell me how i do something so they describe the verb normally they they're easy to make right you would take an adjective like quick and you add l y quickly or safe safely and normally usually the adverb comes after the verb i drive quickly i drive safely if there is a thing right i read books then the adverb will come after the thing or after the object
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i read books slowly now in a similar way to verbs adverbs can also be regular or irregular 99 of them are regular phew great but there are a handful maybe five or six which are irregular so instead of taking the adjective and adding l y you have a different word most common one is good well so we don't say i cook goodly no i cook well and the others are quite easy because a lot of them are the same as the adjective and the adverb like fast fast hard hard late late right
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i drive fast i play hard i arrived late so these are quite easy to remember in addition to talking about how you do something we can talk about the time when you do it and how often you do it and we use adverbs for this right for example i drive carefully we said i always drive carefully always tells us how often i do it and that adverb normally goes in between the subject and the verb the person and the doing word i always drive carefully i always drive my car
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i don't let any tom dick or harry drive my car the most common adverbs here are a frequency are sometimes always rarely hardly ever never others are things like now and again from time to time once in a blue moon meaning very rarely when you have more than one word it's usually called an adverbial and this can go either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence so you may say well once in a blue moon um i drive my wife's car or i drive my wife's car once in a blue moon
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at the beginning or at the end a final note is that adverbs actually can also describe adjectives oh yes how interesting more about that later let's move on now to talk about nouns
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right next nouns so nouns are things like piano pen book book or people like friend teacher colleague or places like classroom city kitchen notice if you take things like friend or city and you actually use the name like jack and manchester it's still a noun but we call that a proper noun i don't know why a proper noun and if you're writing it it has a capital letter but not when you're speaking it obviously now the thing about nouns right is that you can either have one or more than one
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singular one or plural more than one three four two three four five six and so on when you make a noun into a plural then you know this right you add an s or an e s but be careful when speaking because to make a noun into a plural when speaking you either add well there are three sounds right there's
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is for example books cars boxes so depending on the last sound of the noun it will tell you which sound to make at the end another important thing about nouns is that you can count them a pen two pens three pens so you can count nouns however you can't count all nouns some of them are uncountable things like liquids or powders for example water you can't count water or coffee you can't count coffee grammatically so what we can do is we can use a trick to count right we can say a glass of water
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or a cup of coffee rice you can't count rice grammatically but you can say a grain of rice or a bowl of rice so these are the tricks we use to make them countable the most or some of the most common uncountable nouns that are probably countable in your language so can be confusing things like furniture information news advice they're uncountable so you cannot make a plural you can't say furnitures no you have to say furniture you can save five pieces of furniture
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right if you want to make it countable likewise pieces of advice some pieces of news pieces of information if you want to make them countable the final thing to mention about nouns is that they're not only single words they can also be several words and that we would call a noun phrase logical right noun phrase now phrases it's interesting to be aware of this because when you're listening it will help you mark the boundaries between the noun phrase the verb adjective and other parts of speech
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so for example if i say the pen in my hand is black the pen in my hand that's the noun phrase is verb black so it's a longer phrase it's useful because when you're listening you want to be listening for the verb and then go back for example the woman with blonde hair and glasses is from london is from london that's the verb is everything before then is a noun phrase the woman with blonde hair and glasses that's the noun phrase so as you're listening it's really can really help
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your listening comprehension to be aware that the noun is not just one word it can be a phrase okay let's move on
19:33
next up i'm going to talk about articles and three kinds of articles we'll talk about the first one is and you'll notice hopefully when i talked about nouns i said pen book but of course we usually say a pen a blue pen a black pen a book if a noun begins with a vowel sound like elephant or apple then we say an and when you're speaking link an elephant an apple and people go napple what's napple no an apple because you're linking an elephant do notice with plurals like dogs we don't use a
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right i love dogs i like cats also with uncountable nouns we don't use a or i need information okay the second kind is the and this is when we basically are referring to a specific noun and it's where you know which one i mean right can you pass me the blue pen we can see the blue pen we both know which one i mean that's when we use the the third kind is what is called demonstrative articles because they kind of demonstrate where the thing is this and that so for example this pen is blue
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that pen is black this is close that is far some students ask me what's the distance when it goes from this to that one meter two meters it's not about distance it's about feeling right if you say that you're creating the feeling of distance so it's all relative and it's it's not only physical distance it can be time distance right this story i'm going to tell you is very interesting this story now that story you told me yesterday was interesting that story in the past right okay so
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it's also a time distance singular this plural these you have to smile a lot these singular that plural those oh those great let's move on
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next up adjectives so adjectives can describe nouns right for example we had a book an interesting book notice the ah from book becomes an because of the adjective beginning with a vowel sound an interesting book actually it's an exciting book um a delicious chocolate hmm
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a refreshing drink
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um it's the great thing about youtube teaching you can stuff yourself with chocolates in the classroom and notice the adjective comes before the noun a refreshing drink a refreshing drink when learning adjectives i think it's also a very good idea to learn the antonyms at the same time so an antonym is a word with the opposite meaning for example big small when you learn big learn small when you learn thick a thick book a thin book learn the antonyms great and we can also use adverbs to
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describe adjectives adverbs like really absolutely totally completely okay for example this is an exciting book this is a really exciting book oh that was an absolutely delicious chocolate great let's move on
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so thank you for watching so far um i thought we should have a break maybe have a refreshing drink because you've been seeing so much new grammar now then knowing grammar is one thing but what happens when you speak sometimes you forget you make mistakes and that is absolutely normal it's fine it's part of the learning process right now the thing is i always suggest start listening then loving and then repeating and then you can start reviewing the grammar like in this video and practicing more
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practicing is great you can practice on your own you can also practice with somebody else and if you can get feedback on your speaking even better a great place to do that i think is cambly cambly is an online platform where you can find native english speaking teachers who can help you with your english it's great right you can choose the teacher that you want to match your needs you can decide on the time and you can find cambly tutors 24 7 around the clock
25:40
you choose the content of your class and you can also watch the recording so you can review there are lots of packages available you can find one to suit you and because cambly are sponsoring this video thank you kimberly then there are discounts for you first of all if you're a first time user you can get a 50 minute free lesson which is great to find out if cambly is right for you and then if you get a 12 month plan you can get a 40 discount 12 months is great because it's a long
26:16
term investment in your english and improving your english language that's it cambly you can check out the link below below the video um it will take you to the website find out if it's right for you and then start practicing with cambly great we're gonna go back now to the refreshing drink and a bit more grammar
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next let's talk about pronouns as you can probably guess they replace nouns remember people places things and also they replace noun phrases do you remember the woman with blonde hair and glasses the noun phrase we use them really to avoid repetition right because you could say your car is lovely she likes your car but it's a bit repetitious it would be better to say your car is lovely she likes it there are different kinds of pronouns first of all subject pronouns where the
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pronoun replaces the noun that is a subject for example jack is a subject jack ate the chocolate the pronoun would be he ate the chocolate the other pronouns i ate the chocolate it was mine you ate the chocolate he she it ate the chocolate or we ate the chocolate you plural ate the chocolate all of you or they ate the chocolate secondly we've got object pronouns and this is where the pronoun replaces a noun that is an object for example she likes keith keith is the object of her
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liking she likes keith pronoun for keith is she likes him or she likes me the other pronouns she likes you she likes him she likes her she likes it she likes us she likes you all of you she likes them object pronouns thirdly we've got possessive pronouns and this is where the pronoun is is a possession for example my hat right my we can replace or my hat we replace with it's mine your hat it's yours his hat it's his her hat it's hers our hat it's ours their hat it's theirs notice of course with
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it's mine there is no noun because you're replacing the noun with the possessive pronoun great let's move on
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next we're going to talk about prepositions my oh my now prepositions are challenging because often they don't translate the same into your language and we use them differently so if you translate word for word you're probably going to make lots of mistakes with prepositions much more useful is to try and get the feeling of the preposition and what native speakers feel it represents or it means i'm going to try and do that with you today with three prepositions i'm not
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going to give you a big list of prepositions and a list of all the different uses that would be a waste of time you wouldn't use it you wouldn't follow it it wouldn't help you let's just try and zone in on three prepositions and give you a bit of a feeling of how we use them i've chosen at on in because i think these are three of the most important and most challenging ones and also they are quite closely connected so let's have a go wish me luck i wish you luck at
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is used that the feeling of a specific point a specific place or time right i live at 221 baker street really it's a specific point right a specific house i get up at six o'clock in the morning a specific time also at has the idea if you like of a space or a bubble if you imagine um for example i'm at home the idea of a feeling of a bubble or a space that you're in that bubble so at home you don't know if i'm in the kitchen in the bathroom in the study in the lounge
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but i'm in that bubble right i'm at home likewise at work but you don't know exactly if i'm at my desk in the toilet in the office at the beach right am i on the sand in the water in the coffee bar at the beach um at the cinema at the shops idea of a bubble right next on on can represent more well kind of touching a surface or a platform generally speaking talking about places right on the table the cup is on the table it's a surface on the wall there's a picture on the wall um
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on baker street i live on baker street you're on the surface of the street platforms well i'm on the internet i'm on the phone i'm on facebook they're all kind of platforms that you're on time on monday days of the week on monday on tuesday on the 5th of january which is also a day so again it's the idea of being on a kind of a platform if you think of all the days of the month as a platform you're on one day i'm on monday i i'm not on monday i work on monday i don't work on sunday
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next in in has the idea of being contained in a container like in a box clear right in manchester think of the city as a container you're inside i'm in manchester i'm in the car get in the car okay with time in july in august so think of the the month um there's a number of days and you're contained in that so in july could be one day in the month in summer idea of contained in the in the season and also in 2021 right um the idea of being in the year there are many different
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parts of the year or months of the year so at on in there is a connection between them and i'd like to show it like this being at being very specific on being bigger and in being even bigger let me show you some examples right at six o'clock very specific on monday bigger in july bigger he lives at 221 baker street at very specific he lives on baker street bigger he lives in london even bigger at on in think of it like that i hope this helps you get a bit of a feeling
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for the different prepositions i should do a whole video about prepositions and the feelings let me work on that for now let's move on
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last but not least conjunctions conjunctions are words like and or but so because and these are words we use to join other words phrases and even clauses they're very very useful and they actually as you use them they help you build up longer sentences which helps build your fluency for example right we could say he eats a lot he is fat two sentences two clauses um we can use a conjunction different ones to connect them right he eats a lot so he is fat he eats a lot because he is fat
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he eats a lot and he is fat you see there are different possibilities the good thing to know as a beginner is that in spoken english we mostly use very simple conjunctions there are more complex ones you can learn as you go on but if you can master using the basic simple ones these are what we normally use when we're speaking but as i said practice building up your sentences using conjunctions and that really gives you more complex sentences if you're studying for ielts
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you'll know complex grammar is very important this is a great first step to mastering just joining your clauses together over a longer sentence excellent that's it let's see how well you have learnt we're going to move on to a little quiz
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right in this quiz we've got five quick fire questions you need to say if the phrase is grammatically correct or incorrect um and then think about why if you like you can put your answers in the comments below let's do question number one i think cook is fun
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it's incorrect right because cook is a verb but here it's the subject of the sentence it must be a noun i think cooking is fun question number two i read slowly books
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it's incorrect right it should be i read books slowly the adverb comes after the verb but if there's an object a direct object books then the adverb comes after the object i read books slowly number three i bought three furnitures
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it's incorrect again because furnitures is an uncountable noun you cannot count it or them you must say i bought three pieces of furniture number four i love cats
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yes it's correct well done cats as a plural does not take a or an or the i love cats final question number five the hat is mine hat
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right it's incorrect okay it should be that hat is mine because mine is the possessive pronoun replacing hat so you don't need to say hat again right great well done how did you do how many did you get correct tell me in the comments down below and also tell me about any other grammar that you find difficult or challenging and i can make a video about that in the future so listen if you've enjoyed this video please do subscribe and turn on the notifications i hope this can has made grammar a
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little bit easier for you um especially the basic grammar to give you a basic understanding remember my philosophy listen to english love it repeat it and then practice as well and of course if you want to practice go and check out cambly where you can practice with native english speakers choosing the teacher of your choice if you want to try it you can do a 15 minute class for free and then you can if you choose a 12 month package you can get a 40 discount just use the code new keith
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when you sign up that's it great most of all have fun when you're studying and learning and growing into a more confident english speaker and i look forward to seeing you very very soon in the next video take care my friend bye [Music]
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