Name: Instantly improve your English with 3 easy words!
Uploaded: 2018-02-27T05:21:23.000Z
Duration: 22 min 53 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Today's lesson is about
instantly improving.

I want to show you a little trick that will
make your English sound better instantly,

and I will give you a technique that you
can use after to help practice this.

What I have found are students have a mistake
or make a mistake when they drop these three

words, and because of that I know
you're not a native speaker.

But today I'm going to address
that, show you the three words...

Okay? Explain why, and then I will give you a technique
that you can use at home soon as you go back

over this video or any video to practice
it, and you will get instantly better.

Let's go to the board and look at something you've
learned, but today you're going to understand.

So, Mr. E said: "Which three words can
help you sound like a native speaker?"

I'm going to help you a little bit by doing
this, and then we're going to go to the board.

The words I'm talking about, and you might
not consider them words but they are words

Okay, and I consider that one word
because it's modified. Right?

Of course you're going to say:
"Yeah, James, we know all these.

We learned this at beginner, so how does
that instantly help me improve my English?"

The problem is this: When a person knows something
they will talk, when they understand they

will change their behaviour or
they will use the information.

Many students know about articles and the
preposition "to", but they actually don't

Soon as you say that I know
you're not a native speaker.

Or if they say: "I bought car yesterday"
or "I bought food..." Not "some food".

They don't think to say it, because they
know: "Teacher, you know what I'm saying."

And I go: "Yeah, I know what you're saying,
but the way you said it I know English is

So what I want to do is get you to come back
to understanding, not just knowing why these

words are important, the fact that, especially
with the articles we're going to talk about,

You can almost not get by a
sentence without using them.

So let's go to the
board and take a look.

Well, you'll see an article
is the letter "a" or "an".

Quickly on that one, "an" is used
when we have a vowel sound, sound...

So when you say: "A apple", we know "a" and
"a" make it difficult for us to actually get

it out and for you to understand, so we add:
"an" to put a consonant to make it easier

But we say: "hour", we don't say: "h-our",
because with "a" we have to say: "an hour",

Now, this is what we call
and indefinite article.

When I say to you: "I
want a marker", a marker.

"A" just means generally
speaking marker.

That's why it's indefinite;
it's not special.

When we look at the word
"the", "the" is special.

In this case, when I say to you: "I want the
marker", which one do you think I'm talking about?

Clearly. Even if you don't know, you would
look and see four, and see this and go:

So with a definite article what's happening
is someone is being very specific.

They could say something is special
or something is specific. Okay?

And here we have definite
article is "the".

Okay? "Tell the man", in this case both of us
have to know what you're talking about, because

if there are 10 men
you'll go: "Which man?"

But when I said: "Tell the man in the yellow
jacket" or "yellow suit", you know I'm being

very specific about who
I'm talking about.

If I tell you: "Tell a woman I like her",
you can walk up to any woman and just say:

"He likes you", and you
fulfilled my request.

So when we say indefinite, it doesn't
matter; it's just general, it's open.

When we say definite we
mean something specific.

And if you remember the example, when I say:
"Give me a marker", you're going to give me

any of these, because generally speaking,
it doesn't matter which one you give me.

But when I say: "Give me the marker", you
and I must know I'm talking about this one.

Simple lesson, but when we understand something
simple we can use it better and we probably

will use it, because now you know when you
talk to somebody, I was talking to...

You're going to think
first: "Do I know...?

Does my friend know who
I'm talking about?

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Instantly improve your English with 3 easy words!

awkward

specific

technique

basically