How to Use Of Learn English Vocabulary

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson

i’m going to talk about three ways to

use the word

of this will not cover all uses of the

word of

but we’ll focus in on three very common

and very useful ways to use this word

let’s get started okay the first use

of of i want to talk about is

use to show connection or relationship

between part or parts and

whole so this means when we want to

show that two things two or more things

have some kind of relationship

they fit together or they have some kind

of connection

or we want to talk about things within

a larger group so like for example

pieces of things that are inside a hole

of something

we use this meaning of of

let’s take a look at some examples first

example

i ate a piece of cake

here we’re showing parts inside

a hole in this case we’re looking at one

part here my part is a piece

and the whole in this case is

a cake so when i want to talk about one

part in this case a piece i connect

the part to the whole with the word

of i ate a piece of cake

i could make this a plural word if i

wanted to i ate

pieces of cake so i’m still

showing a relationship between parts and

whole with these words so you’ll see of

used in this way very commonly with

these counter words

and uncountable nouns let’s take a look

at the next example sentence

he broke part of my table

he broke part of my table so again

we see of is connecting in this case

quite literally

a part to a hole in this case my table

my table represents the hole we’re

talking about here

so he broke part of my table could mean

like for example one leg of the table

or a corner of the table one piece

one portion of the table so he broke

part of my table

shows that only one piece was affected

we show part and the relationship to the

whole

by connecting them with of he broke part

my table

is not correct part of my table

is correct okay let’s move on to the

next sentence

one of the kids cried one of the kids

cried here we have

the kids referring to a specific

group of kids the part

here is one this means one child

one kid in the group of kids

cried so you’ll often see

this kind of pattern used when we’re

talking about people

groups of people like students or

workers and so on so one of the kids

cried we could change this to the plural

form

as well two of the kids cried it shows

parts or a small number inside a larger

group

so in this example sentence we don’t

know the total number here

but because the kids in the plural form

is used

we know that it refers to a specific

group

of kids and we want to talk about one of

those kids

we show the relationship between this

one kid

and the group of kids with of

one of the kids cried so this is the

first way

to use of for this lesson i want to talk

about one more

important and related use of of which is

to show a portion inside something

to show a portion inside something means

to talk about

uh more than one of something inside

a group for example so in these cases

i focused on just one part

inside a larger group but if you want to

talk about

larger numbers for example the majority

or the minority inside a group we can

use

of to show that relationship let’s look

at some examples

first most of the students

passed the test most of the students

passed the test so here i’m talking

again about people

we see a very similar sentence here

the kids was in my previous example

sentence

here the students so i’m talking about a

specific group of students

i’m showing though most of the students

passed the test so not just one or two

or three students passed the test

but most of the students passed the test

so i connect this most with the larger

whole

so this could be the students in the

class or the students

in the school whatever i connect this

part

even though it’s a majority even though

it’s most i connect this

with of most of the students passed

the test you might also hear the pattern

most students passed the test that is

also okay

if you’re including this the though you

need to include of because

this the students is referring to a

specific

group so the our definite article

is showing us that we’re talking about a

specific

group of students so this could be most

of the students

in this class or in my class something

specific is happening there so we use

the we connect it with of if you don’t

use

a specific definite article for example

most students pass the test that’s okay

but the statement becomes less specific

you’re just talking about maybe

students across the country for example

we don’t know

it’s not so clear there so if you’re

using the definite article

make sure to use of to connect it

okay let’s look at another example

the majority of people at the event

were rich the majority of people at the

event

were rich okay so here

i’m using majority the majority

the majority so majority is another way

to say

most the largest number of people

in other words so majority for example

could mean like 80 percent of people

basically more

than 50 percent is a majority so

the majority of people at the event were

rich

so this is an example sentence where i

could choose to

use the definite article or not the

majority of the people

at the event were rich that would also

be okay

because i’m making it very clear in the

sentence

which people i mean so people at the

event

the specific group of people so i could

say the majority of the people at the

event were rich

that’s also okay i’ve chosen not to

include it here because this extra

information

tells me which people so the majority of

people

at the event were rich here my part

is this percentage of people so 50

or more of this group people at the

event

were rich i show the connection by using

of so this is my part

my portion and this is my total group my

hole here okay one more example of this

none of us had any idea

what to do none of us had any idea what

to do

so here we’re showing zero

none of us so us

because we’re using us it refers to a

group that means

nobody inside our group no people

zero people inside our group had any

idea what to do

so we connect this with none of

us so we wouldn’t really say zero

of us it wouldn’t sound so natural we

would say

none of us you could also say nobody had

any idea what to do

but we’re using of here because we’re

showing

a portion in this case none

and we’re showing a whole so when you

want to show this relationship between

something inside the hole and the larger

group

the larger hole you connect the two with

okay let’s continue on to the second

point for this lesson

the second point for this lesson is

using of

to talk about the materials or

parts something is made with

or to talk about an object’s

contents so contents means the things

inside something else this is a bit

different

from what we’ve talked about over here

let’s look at a few example sentences

first let’s focus on these two

a cup made of silver

a cup made of silver this use of

of here is showing us

the materials that the cup is made of so

a cup

made of silver silver is the material

cup is the object you’ll notice too

made is in parentheses sometimes native

speakers will drop this part when we’re

talking about the materials or the parts

something is made with a cup of

silver this can sound a little bit more

formal

but sometimes we do choose to use made

of silver i like to include it for this

lesson just to make it a little bit more

clear

which kind of of we’re talking about so

a cup of silver is also

okay to use to me it sounds a little bit

more polite

so this of is showing us a material

silver for a cup

let’s go on to the next sentence also a

material

sentence her earrings were made

of gold her earrings were made of gold

so again you see our material

comes after our connecting word of

and the object it’s connecting to

is earrings her earrings

were made of gold so these two sentences

show us how we use of to indicate a

material

or a part that something can be made

with

i want to look at the next two sentences

though

these two sentences refer to using

of for objects contents

first example sentence i’d like a glass

of wine please i’d like a glass of wine

please

so you’ll notice as we talked about in

this part

we have a counter word and an

uncountable noun so wine is an

uncountable noun

glass is a way to count portions of wine

a way to count

servings of wine here however

it’s referring to the contents of the

glass

so i’d like a glass of wine please means

one glass

full of wine so inside the glass is just

wine a glass of wine we could say

a pint of beer or a cup of juice

for example those are all counter words

plus

uncountable noun connected with of

patterns

so here this part is referring to the

counter word

this is the uncountable noun that’s

completely inside it we connect the two

with

of one more example of this

the box was full of old

letters the box was full of old

letters this one does not use an

uncountable noun

here we’re talking about a box

in this case this box the contents of

this box

was or were rather the contents were old

letters old letters so

we’re using of here because this is a

good hint word

full full means like 100 of the

inside of the box was old

letters so we’re showing the contents

there

with uh we’re connecting the item the

object

to its contents with the word of

we could change this we could add other

things too

the box was full of old letters and

pens and pencils or the box

was full of old pictures we could change

that we could add

other things to this sentence if we want

but we’re showing

here the contents of the box full

of something so you may see

that empty is used in a pattern like

this like the box was

for example empty of money

empty of money so this may seem a little

bit strange

why would you say that but it means

there was no money

inside the box empty means there’s

nothing inside

so the box was full of means it’s 100

percent

uh things inside something empty means

nothing zero percent so the box was

empty of money

is correct we sometimes use that it

sounds a little bit more formal a little

bit more polite

but when you want to talk about the

contents of something in this case a box

or perhaps a bag

a purse you can use of

to connect the contents with the object

itself

okay so with this in mind let’s continue

to our last use of

of for this lesson number three we use

of to show belonging you see this

a lot in organizations in

government situations companies schools

and so on

we use it to show belonging to be a

member

of something let’s look at these

examples

here she’s the head

of the company she’s the head of the

company means

she’s the top of the company so

in these patterns the company is the

organization

that’s the group the head

means the top or her position the

way in which she belongs to the company

she’s the head of the company we could

change this part right here

to reflect a different position in the

organization

she’s a manager in the company

she’s a worker in the company

but you’ll notice we change

of to in in situations like that

because it’s like we’re not talking

about

one specific key figure we’re talking

about one person that’s kind of

like a member of a group so she’s a

manager

of the company might be used in

situations where a person is like a top

manager so this is kind of another key

point

we use this of pattern when belonging

to talk about like key roles

in organizations or key roles for

organizations so she’s the head of the

company

in contrast we would not say she’s the

head in the company

we would not use a pattern like that

she’s the head

of the company let’s look at another

example here

have you ever seen the queen of england

here england

it’s a country but we think of england

as our group our organization

queen then the queen shows this

top level position so the queen of

england meaning

she is the queen that belongs to england

so this shows her relationship to this

larger organization in this case

a country so the queen of england

so we would use this again for like

politicians we would use this for public

figures kings queens and so on

but again they’re at this very high

level position

in their organization so let’s look at

one

maybe smaller level organization for

this last example

we’re the leaders of this group

we’re the leaders of this group so this

could be a volunteer group in your

community for example

here the group is our organization

the leaders the leaders in this case

more than one person

the leaders are the top people in the

organization

we connect the top people to the

organization

to which they belong with the word of

we’re the leaders of this group

so if we wanted to talk about the

members we could say

we’re members of such and such group

yes but you would use that if you’re

introducing yourself to someone outside

the situation

and you kind of want to show perhaps a

sense of pride in your belonging

we tend to use in more when we’re

talking more internally

i feel so like i’m a member of such and

such group

would be okay but we would probably use

for like companies and so on like a

manager

in this company so there are a couple

situations where there’s

a little bit of flexibility in terms of

the preposition that’s

used but a good rule is that when you’re

talking about

the leader of something the leader of a

group or the leader of an organization

you can use of to show their role so

leader queen king head of company

and use of to connect it to the company

name the organization name the country

name

and so on if you want to talk about the

members of something

if you’re talking to someone outside the

group it might be a good idea to use

of i’m a member of such and such

group or i’m a manager

in this company i would prefer

personally to use

in for talking about company sorts of

things i would probably use

of for talking about like group related

things

so this is perhaps a small point that’s

a little bit different for

lower level people in organizations but

as i said a good rule is to show

belonging for people at the tops of

organizations

with of uh so i hope that this lesson

gave you some good ideas and some good

chances to practice

these three uses of the word of as i

said there are many

other ways to use this word but i feel

that these are probably some of the most

common ways

and perhaps we can talk more about other

uses of of

in another video in the future if you

have any questions or comments or if you

want to practice making a sentence

with this word please feel free to do so

in the comments section

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thanks very much for watching this

lesson and i will see you again soon

bye-bye

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