Master Class Vocabulary Pronunciation Grammar with Vanessa
Hello, hello.
Welcome to today’s live English lesson here
on the Speak English with Vanessa YouTube
channel.
I’m Vanessa, and today we have something really
special.
I hope you’re prepared.
I hope you have a notebook with a pencil,
because we’re going to talk about so many
valuable topics today.
This is a special Q&A, question and answer,
time.
Last week, I asked you to ask me your questions,
and I got a lot of questions.
I have organized your questions.
We’re going to talk about vocabulary, pronunciation,
grammar, some learning tip ideas.
Some of you also asked more personal questions,
“Vanessa, how are you doing?” these kind of
things.
I have a lot of pictures and videos and ideas
and hopefully useful tips to share with you
today.
Take some time, take a deep breath [inaudible
00:01:05] because we’re going to be focusing
a lot on English.
Thanks so much if you’re joining me here live.
If you’re not live, don’t worry.
You can enjoy the replay, and you’ll certainly
learn a lot.
Those of you who are here live, hi from India.
Hi, Roger in Brazil.
Hello, hello in Pakistan.
Welcome.
Morocco, Sudan, in Korea.
Welcome.
Vietnam.
Thanks for joining me.
Today we’re going to be taking a little bit
longer than usual because this is my last
live lesson on YouTube for a short time.
I’m not going to be leaving YouTube.
I want to make sure that this is clear.
There will be two videos, two new lessons
every week, no problem, continuing for a long
time.
I have been working hard to prepare and to
schedule and to plan and imagine great lessons
for you, and they’re recorded videos that
I’ve prepared for you.
There’s also some free PDF guides coming up,
some new guides, and a lot of great information.
Even though I won’t be making live videos,
there will still be a lot of lessons.
I hope that they’ll be really useful to you.
I’ll be here reading comments, answering comments,
trying to give you some feedback, but just
not a live lesson because I’m going to be
having a baby soon, pretty soon.
It will be nice to prepare my life and take
a little break and try to be the best mom
and mother that I can be.
Let’s start with the first question.
I’ve prepared a document with some pictures,
some ideas.
I’ve prepared some information.
We’re going to take a look at that screen.
I’m going to share my screen a lot today.
I hope it will help you to focus and follow
the different questions.
Let’s take a look at my screen here.
All right.
Here you can see my screen.
This is our first question today.
“How will we improve our English without you
in this period?”
Rafael asks me.
I talked about this for a moment, but I just
want to emphasize that there will be a lot
of videos coming on this channel.
I’ve been working hard to prepare them.
There is a special series each month.
In July, we’re going to be focusing on basic
English, back to basics, so really building
your foundation of English.
There will be idioms and expressions and ideas
and tips.
Stay here.
You’ll certainly learn a lot, and I will be
in the comments.
Let’s go down to the second question.
Those of you who are here live, if you have
any questions for me that you would like to
ask me, and I will try my best to answer live,
feel free to ask me in the chat box, ask me
in the comments below.
If I see your question and have a moment,
I will answer it, certainly.
These first couple of questions are, as you
can see here, personal questions.
They’re questions about me or my personal
experience.
Christine from Russia asks, “What were your
favorite subjects in school?”
I want to ask you who are here with me, I
want to ask you the same question.
What were your favorite subjects in school?
While I was thinking about this question,
I decided to look at an old hard drive from
my computer and find some pictures from high
school.
Now school in the US could be college, university,
elementary school, high school, but I decided
to think about high school.
I found some old pictures.
I’d like to share with you some of these pictures
from my favorite memories in high school.
Maybe they’re favorite subjects.
We’ll see.
Down here I have … These pictures are really
old.
They’re from 2004.
That’s why the quality is, of course, not
like 2017.
But my favorite subjects in school were not
really the academic subjects.
I enjoyed all of the other subjects.
I play the flute.
This is me here.
I really loved playing in our school band.
This is a smaller group, this isn’t the full
band, but this is a picture that I found yesterday.
I really loved playing music, being in the
band, and just that kind of community field.
The next thing that I enjoyed in school was
also not academic.
This was a theater group.
We performed … If you know Rudyard Kipling,
Rudyard Kipling is an author, and he wrote
short funny stories.
We performed one of his short stories for
a huge audience, and we won first place.
This is our group posing for our final picture
together.
This kind of group activity was something
that I really enjoyed because we all had something
in common, like the other picture.
We liked to play the flute or we liked to
act and perform and memorize and pretend like
we were different characters.
It was really interesting.
Just to let you know, some of you are asking
in the comments: “Will we hear you play the
flute?”
The answer is yes, if you are part of the
Fearless Fluency Club.
If you’re a part of my course, the Fearless
Fluency Club, in a couple months … You’re
going to have to be patient.
But in a couple of months, one of the lesson
sets is about music.
It’s biology and music mixed together, and
I recorded myself playing the flute.
You’ll be able to hear that in a little bit.
Another activity that I liked a lot in high
school was lunchtime.
Also not academic, but this was me 12, 13
years ago.
I was probably 15 years old, 16 years old
maybe.
School lunches in the US are a time when you
can just sit with your friends and enjoy relaxing.
It wasn’t very academic, but enjoyable as
well.
Something else that I enjoyed was the extra
activities.
This was a carnival, kind of like a festival,
in high school.
This was 2004 maybe, maybe 2005.
Probably 2004.
The senior class, so this is the oldest class
in the high school, which was our class, we
had a carnival, a festival, and we sold drinks
and we played games.
A lot of younger kids bought tickets, so we
could save money for our senior trip.
This is a fun experience because I got to
dress like a clown, as you can see.
My friend also was dressed like a clown.
We just did silly things.
Finally, as a bonus, this is not related to
school.
Christine from Russia, I know you asked about
school subjects, but I wanted to share with
you one of my favorite memories.
As you know, I love watermelon.
This was the biggest watermelon that we have
ever found.
This is my dad.
This watermelon weighed … Guess how much
this watermelon weighed?
It was huge.
It weighed 18 kilograms.
Guess how much we paid for it?
Not $50, not $20.
Only $5.
We paid $5 for this 18-kilogram watermelon.
I’m a big fan of watermelon, and so is my
dad.
This was really a special treat.
Christine, I hope that this helps to answer
your question about what kind of subjects,
what subjects I enjoyed in school.
I think that academic subjects in high school
for me were interesting if I was well.
But if I wasn’t doing well, then I didn’t
really enjoy it.
But in college, so in university, that changed.
I had more varied interests, and the professors
and teachers were more my style.
Let’s go to the second question or the next
one.
“I just want to know how did you learn a second
language?”
“How did you learn a second language?”
Oh, well, I’d like to share with you … Here
in this document, you’re going to be seeing
a lot of pictures like this.
This is a screenshot of a video.
If someone asked a question and I’ve already
made a video about it, then I posted this
video in the description.
Below this live lesson, in the description
on YouTube, there are a lot of links, including
My Language Success Story: How I learned French.
This is something that I’ve already talked
about, how did I learn French, how was it
successful.
I also made another video about difficulties
and maybe failures of learning other languages
and why those didn’t work for me.
I hope that you can enjoy that video and learn
a lot from it.
Before we go to the next question, I would
like to answer some of your live questions.
Let’s come back here.
I saw a couple of questions live that I’d
like to answer.
One of them asked … [Tristiani 00:12:52]
asked, “How can I make myself confident enough
to join your group?”
Well, first of all, if you would like to join
the Fearless Fluency Club, just go to SpeakEnglishwithVanessa.com/fluency,
and you can learn a lot about it.
But the purpose of this group is that you’re
not fluent yet.
You’re not 100% confident yet, so you’re joining
the course to learn more and to join other
people who are on a similar path, because
if you’re already perfect, then great.
You don’t need to do more.
But, really, I think everyone can do something
to improve.
This is the method that I’ve tried to focus
a lot of energy and effort on to help you.
We have some other questions, live, some questions
about my baby.
All right, we’re going to talk about that
in just a second.
[Federica 00:13:59] asked, “Is the baby kicking
a lot in your tummy?”
Yes, nonstop.
Nonstop.
I think he’s trying to get out from my stomach.
Let’s take a look at the next page, because
the next page of questions are somewhat about
that as well.
I have a couple more pictures to show you
before we go to the vocabulary section.
First are personal questions, then our vocabulary
questions, then pronunciation and grammar
and English tips.
We’ve got a lot, so hang on.
Let’s go to the next page.
Marie asks, “Will you speak to your child
in different languages?”
For me, I can speak French.
It’s something that is comfortable for me.
It’s not my native language, but it’s comfortable
for me.
To be honest, I haven’t 100% decided how I’m
going to integrate French, or even other languages
that I don’t know, into my child’s life.
My first goal is to create a healthy child,
then to give birth, and then to learn how
to be a mother.
I still need to think about it.
I’m curious, what do you all think?
Those of you who are watching this video,
do you think that it’s helpful for a parent
to help their child, their young child, maybe
a baby, learn a second language?
There’s no 100% correct answer about this.
I’m curious, what’s your opinion?
Do you think that I should speak to my child
in French, I should help them with French
as a young child?
What do you think?
The next question is about the cards on the
wall behind me.
I’ll show you them in a second, if you don’t
know what Rosa is talking about.
Rosa asks, “What are those cards on the wall
behind you?”
These cards, let’s take a look really quick.
These cards are here.
These are some postcards that you all have
sent to me just to say hi maybe for New Year’s,
maybe for Christmas, or, yeah, just to say
hi, thanks.
These are from you all.
In the description of all my YouTube videos
is my address.
If you would like to send me a postcard, I
will put it on my wall, and I’ll enjoy it
a lot.
It’s amazing.
It’s great to learn online, but when you have
a physical connection, when you receive a
physical card from someone else, it’s like
another level.
It makes you realize that it’s not just the
Internet.
There are real people and Vanessa’s a real
person who is getting your postcard.
It’s really cool.
Of course, if you want to send other things,
feel free, millions of dollars, lots of cats,
no problem.
But a postcard is something nice that you
can send from your country.
I will show you my address.
It’s also in the description of all the videos.
This is my address here in the red box.
Vanessa Prothe, PO Box 104, Asheville, North
Carolina 28802 USA.
Let’s go to the next question.
Fabricio asks, “When will the baby come?”
That is a great question.
I don’t know because babies can come at any
time.
Well, my first recommendation is to watch
… This video is in the description, to watch
this video.
Dan and I made a video three months ago called
We’re Having a Baby: Polite and Rude Questions
to Ask a Pregnant Woman.
Here we talk about some of the details of
pregnancy and conversational ideas so that
you can also learn English while learning
some more about what’s happening in my life.
I recommend watching that video, but if you
have any other questions, feel free to ask.
I know some of you have asked about … We
have here a question about a baby shower.
“Are you going to have a baby shower?”
This is a party, when your friends come over
and maybe you play some baby type games with
your friends, and they give you some baby
presents.
Actually, we decided not to have a baby shower,
mainly because … Maybe it seems strange
to you because I’m making videos on the internet,
but I feel kind of uncomfortable being the
center of attention with a lot of people and
people just giving me presents.
It feels a little bit strange.
We decided to have a party after the baby
arrives.
Maybe one month or two months, whenever we
feel comfortable, we’re going to have a party
to meet the baby.
Our friends can come over and we’ll have some
cake and we’ll have a good time meeting the
baby, instead of before the baby comes.
Even though it’s nice to receive baby presents
before the baby comes, babies don’t need too
much.
They’re pretty basic.
After the baby comes, we’ll have a kind of
celebration with our friends.
I saw some other questions about babies as
well.
Just to make sure that while we’re on the
topic, I can answer that.
Oh, yes.
We have a question about, “What are you going
to name your baby?”
If you are part of the Fearless Fluency Club,
you will find out this week.
We’re going to have a little competition for
members of the course.
If you are not a member of the course, I will
tell you after the baby is born.
Not too long of a wait.
The baby might be born around July 8th, but
a healthy baby can be born three weeks early
or two weeks late.
There is one month when the baby could be
born.
I don’t know.
We’ll see.
We’ll see what he wants.
Also, a lot of you asked me … I didn’t write
it here, but a lot of you asked me, “Vanessa,
can we see your belly?
Can we see what does it look like?”
I have some good news.
Yesterday my friend, who is a professional
photographer, his name is Davey Morgan.
If you would like to have pictures from him,
they’re amazing.
We’re really lucky that he’s our friend.
He took some pictures of Dan and I. I’d like
to share two of those with you.
Let’s take a look.
All right, I’m going to share my screen so
that you can see two pictures, which will
include the first pictures of my child.
Let’s go to the other screen, and I’m going
to share this picture.
All right.
Here we have … Oh, sorry.
I need to take it to the next page.
Here we have the first picture.
You can see the baby is growing nice and healthy.
Actually, it’s kind of strange because the
rest of me is quite normal, but there is a
basketball, which is a baby right there.
There’s also … Let’s take a look at one
more from yesterday.
This is a picture of Dan and I and our baby.
This is at a place that’s near our house.
There’s a public garden.
We went there and our friend took pictures
of us.
It was really nice.
But I think these kind of pictures, they’re
called maternity pictures.
They are really common in the US.
When you’re pregnant, it’s really common to
take pictures, when you’re engaged to be married,
when you’re married, when you’re going to
have a baby like this, and then after the
baby’s born.
Some of you are asking, “Who is that with
you?”
Well, that is my husband Dan.
It’s not a strange guy who happens to be here.
This is Dan, my husband and the father of
our baby.
All right, hopefully in a couple of months,
these pictures will be a little different,
and there will be a baby in our arms instead.
But for those of you who are asking, those
are some pictures of my belly.
Let’s go back, and I believe we’re almost
… Okay.
This is our final question before we get to
vocabulary.
Thank you for your patience.
The final question about … Kind of a personal
question is about 3D animation.
Jose asks, “Do you enjoy watching Disney,
Pixar, or DreamWorks?
What’s your favorite?
What’s your opinion about them?
Do you know anyone who works in the animation
industry?”
I want to know for you, those of you who are
watching this video, what Disney or Pixar
or DreamWorks movies do you love the most?
What are your favorites?
For me, I think animation is a really interesting
style of art.
We’re looking at a lot of pictures today,
but when I was younger, I loved one movie
in particular.
It was my favorite movie.
I had stickers and clothes and a lot of different
things based on this movie.
Here, these clothes are not exactly from the
movie, but this is me, this is my sister.
We loved The Little Mermaid.
The Little Mermaid is Ariel.
She lives in the ocean and she falls in love
with a human.
I loved that movie so much that even though
this is my real hair, my parents bought me
a red wig.
A wig is fake hair, W-I-G.
They bought me a wig.
I’m not wearing it in this picture, but I
wore it almost every day because I loved The
Little Mermaid and we loved to wear fun clothes
like this and just play.
A lot of you who are here live say that you
like Up, the movie Up.
That is also an excellent movie.
Even though I don’t know anyone who’s working
in Disney or animating Pixar movies, I think
this is really great.
Some of you are asking, “Oh, I didn’t know
you had a little sister.”
Yes.
Well, now she’s not so little, she’s 27 years
old, but you can see her on my YouTube channel.
You can see my sister in a video about reverse
culture shock.
Here we’re just playing dress up.
We’re wearing some fancy clothes and maybe
every day we played and we dressed and just
had fun wearing fun clothes.
If you have a little daughter, maybe you also
know what that’s like.
But my child is going to be a boy, so we’ll
see.
We’ll see what that’s like.
All right, let’s go on to vocabulary, because
we’ve been talking a lot about just personal
things, but I don’t want you to be waiting
for too long.
Let’s go to some vocabulary questions.
Niteesh asks, “How can we use the word “grown”?
“Grown”.
Here, I wanted to give two sample sentences.
Those of you who are here live, if you’re
watching the replay later, I challenge you
to try to make your own sentences as well
using all of the concepts that we’re going
to talk about.
How can you make a sentence using the word
“grown”?
Here in our first sentence, we’re using it
as an adjective.
You are a grown man.
You could say you are a tall man.
You are a nice man.
These are all adjectives.
“Grown” means you’re not a child, you’re an
adult.
You are a grown man.
Or we could use it like this.
My cat isn’t fully grown yet.
She’s still a kitten.
She’s not an adult, or we could say a cat.
She’s not an adult cat.
She is still a kitten.
We’re using this word “grown”.
“Grown”.
We have some great comments using “grown”.
I have grown a beautiful plant.
Excellent.
You’re using this as a verb.
There’s multiple ways.
We can use it as an adjective.
We can use it as a verb.
I have grown a beautiful plant.
Excellent.
Let’s go on to the next question.
The next vocabulary question is: “How can
we use “get”?
Oh, wonderful.
There’s so many ways to use “get”.
Heitor’s sample sentence is, “Now that I get
to talk to you, I won’t miss this opportunity.”
“Get to talk.”
There are almost endless ways to use “get”
in English, so I just want to take a moment
to let you know that this is a picture, but
this link is in the description below the
live lesson.
There are a lot of videos on my channel about
“get”.
If you go to YouTube and you go to my channel,
of course, you can click in the description
to find this page.
But also if you have another question and
you’re curious, “I wonder if Vanessa already
made a video about this,” well, there’s a
little search bar, and you can type “get”
or you can type “vocabulary” or you can type
something else that you’re curious about.
If there’s a video about that topic, then
you’ll see it.
You’ll be able to see similar type videos
that you’re curious about.
For this question, I recommend checking out
some of these other “get” videos.
That’s a little YouTube trick.
Let’s go to the next vocabulary question.
This is a great one from Donnie.
Donnie asks, “In some of your videos, you
said, ‘In my free ebook, you’ll know what
is the best path for you.’
Could you explain the difference between “to
know”, “to learn”, “to see”, and “to find
out” in this context?”
Here we’ve got four verbs that are quite similar.
I wrote four sentences that are exactly the
same.
I want to know how to speak English.
I want to learn how to speak English.
I want to see how to speak English.
I want to find out how to speak English.
As you can see here, they’re all the same,
except “to see”.
This one here is a little more direct.
These others are more general, but “to see”
is going to be a little more direct.
I want to know, for those of you who are watching,
can you make two sentences using two of these
verbs?
I want “to know” … I want “to learn” … You
can finish that sentence using these in a
similar way.
They all mean to learn something or to find
out something.
You’re searching for information.
I hope that this will be useful just for expanding
your vocabulary, because you probably already
know those words.
But if you know that they mean the same thing,
then you’ll be able to use them in different
situations.
Let’s go to the next question about vocabulary.
Actually, I’ve never received this question
before.
I was pretty curious about how to explain
it.
Let’s take a moment to talk about Viktor’s
question.
“Can you explain why some people say “help
someone do something” and other people say
“help someone to do something”? He says, “The
first one looks strange to me, even though
I know that the sentence is correct.
But I’m confused.”
Let’s take a look at this quickly.
Really, in English, if you’ve been studying
English for a little while, you might know
that sometimes rules don’t apply.
This is one of those situations.
I’m going “to go see” a movie or I’m going
“to go to see” a movie.
In conversation, we are more likely to drop
the “to”.
I’m going to go see a movie.
Can you help me do something instead of help
me to do something?
In conversation, we’re more likely to drop
that “to”, but it’s certainly not wrong.
Sometimes when we’re writing, we will add
it instead.
If this is something that’s a new concept
for you, I recommend as you’re reading and
as you’re listening to people, try to think
about the sentence structure and if they’re
using “to”, if they’re not using “to”, if
they’re dropping it, what that’s like.
I hope that for you, it will just add to your
sentence structures that you can use.
Before we go to the next question, I’d like
to come back here.
Hello, hello, everyone.
I’d like to answer any of your questions that
are here live.
We had a couple of questions about movies.
[Hugen 00:34:46] asks, “How can I improve
English through movies?”
This is a great question.
I think the first thing that you can do is
to watch a movie that you already have watched
in your native language.
This way you know the story, you know the
general ideas.
For me, that’s something that helped me a
lot.
When I was learning French, at the very beginning,
I watched almost every Disney movie, because
I really knew those Disney movies from my
childhood.
I watched almost every Disney movie in French.
Sometimes I watched them with French subtitles
and speaking in French, but really watching
those movies again helped me to realize, “Oh,
that’s an expression that I’ve heard, but
I didn’t know I could use in that situation.”
Rewatching movies is a really good first step.
Don’t worry if you want to use English subtitles
and also listen in English.
Surrounding yourself with English is going
to be great, especially if that’s really challenging
for you to watch movies.
Don’t worry about having as much English as
possible, reading and listening and trying
to find stories that you already know about.
This is the same for reading.
If you’ve already read a book, read it in
English.
You’ll learn a lot, I’m sure.
Let’s go [Samir’s 00:36:19]question.
“Can you recommend a good English to English
dictionary?”
Honestly, nowadays, for me, I use just the
internet.
When I’m curious about a word, if some of
you have any recommendations for physical
dictionaries, go ahead.
But if you want to look up a word that you’re
not sure about, you can type it into Google.
If your browser is in English, then English
websites will come up.
Dictionary.com is the most basic, and you’ll
see English definitions, sample sentences.
Some dictionaries online will even show you
famous quotes from other people using that
word, maybe parts of books that use that word.
Really use the internet as your dictionary,
too.
You’ll get a lot of information.
Some people are saying, “I use WordReference.com.”
Great.
Or free dictionary app.
Excellent.
Lots of good choices here.
Other people use WordReference as well.
[Joel 00:37:33] has a good question.
Before we go back here, he asks, “Have you
ever taken some courses to learn other languages,
or did you only learn by yourself?”
I have done both.
For French, the language that I feel like
I have successfully learned, and I’m always
learning, there’s a lot more I can learn,
but that I have learned the most successfully,
I started learning in a classroom.
The other students weren’t really interested
in learning French, so I quit the class and
I started to learn only with the teacher one-on-one.
She was really generous and let me come to
her office and ask her questions and try to
talk with her.
When I moved to France, I also took classes
four days a week.
I went to a class, and my teacher was so amazing.
I know that oftentimes classrooms can be boring
and just not interactive, but this teacher,
he’s my role model.
As a teacher, he really included the students.
He used a lot of realistic ideas and sentences
and situations.
In that situation, I did learn in a classroom
and with the French family who I was living
with.
I tried to surround myself with it.
Now I’m living in the US and I’m also participating
in a French course online.
If you’re learning French, I recommend it.
You can go to Français Authentique.
It looks like Français Authentique, but Français
Authentique is a great website for learning
French.
That’s what I’ve used since I’ve lived in
the US.
I’m part of his course and learning a lot
just through natural discussions.
That’s been my short story about this.
Let’s go back to the questions.
I’d like to share with you some more vocabulary
questions.
Phrasal verbs.
All right.
Thank you, Marco, for this great question.
Marco asks, “When should I use “help” and
when should I use “help out”?
They seem to be interchangeable.”
This is a great word, “interchangeable”.
“Which situations should I use which verb?”
Those of you who are here watching, can you
make sentences with these?
I want to know.
Can you make sentences?
Here I’ve got some samples.
“Help”.
We can use help in any situation, serious
situations or non-serious, lighter situations.
Can you help me carry this box?
It’s not a serious situation.
It’s just a light situation.
Maybe the box is heavy, but this is a non-serious
situation.
Can you help me?
But our next one: Help me, I’m hurt!
This sentence is probably more serious.
There’s probably some kind of emergency.
We can use “help” in both situations, but
“help out” is generally for non-serious situations.
Can you help me out with this homework question?
Or Marco says, “Can you help me out with this
problem?”
I could say this box is too heavy.
Can you help me out?
This is great for lighter situations.
If you’re in the middle of the ocean, maybe
not the middle, but if you’re in the ocean,
and you can’t get air and you need someone
to help save you, you’re not going to say,
“Someone help me out.”
You’re going to say, “Help me.”
We need to use “help out” in these lighter
situations.
All right, let’s go to the next question,
but I’d like to read … We have a good sentence
here.
“I want you to help me out to improve my English.”
Excellent.
I can help you out.
“Vanessa, you helped me a lot with English.”
Excellent.
Thank you for sharing sentences.
We have a good question.
Fabio asks, “Why are we using “out” here?”
You know what?
Sometimes phrasal verbs are not literal.
We’re not talking about going outside or inside.
This phrasal verb is using “out” not literally.
Really, it could be helping me to get out
of a difficult situation.
We could think about it like that, but it’s
not necessarily a literal thing.
Let’s go to our next section, which is pronunciation.
If any of you have any pronunciation questions,
let’s talk about them at this time.
Matthew has a great question about -ed and
-th.
All right.
He says, “How do Americans pronounce the -ed
ending plus the -th sound?”
Here we have some sample sentences.
I changed the game.
I called the doctor.
He says, “If we say these sentences fast,
what’s the difference between them?”
Matthew, I have some bad news.
When we say them fast, there’s no difference.
I’m going to say this sentence here.
I changed the game.
I called the doctor.
I’m going to say them quickly, but I’m going
to go back to my video so that you can see
my mouth.
I want you to see my lips and see how they’re
forming.
When we use -ed plus -th and we speak fast,
like a native speaker, we often drop the -ed
sound.
It’s going to sound exactly like the present
tense.
I know that this is going to be frustrating
and difficult to understand immediately when
you’re listening to someone or a TV show.
Are they talking about past tense, present
tense?
But really we only have context to help us
in that specific situation.
Let me say these two sentences.
I’ll say it slowly and then I’ll say it quickly.
I changed the game.
I called the doctor.
This is slowly.
You can hear the ’d', you can hear the ‘th’.
But if we say it quickly, I changed the game.
I changed the game.
-ed, that ’d' sound, is gone.
If I say the second sentence, I called the
doctor.
I called the doctor.
Your tongue is kind of in that position to
say the ’d', called the doctor, and no air
is coming out, but sometimes we just drop
it completely.
This is a great question.
If you feel worried about listening to people,
just it’s good to know.
If you don’t feel comfortable using it in
that fast style yourself, don’t worry about
it.
But if you know about it, then when you hear
someone, it’s going to be easier for you to
understand the context.
Let’s go back quickly to the screen.
I want to show you here on my YouTube channel
and also in the comments, or in the description
below this video, there are two videos on
my YouTube channel about -ed, because there
are multiple ways to pronounce -ed.
There are two videos that you can study after
this to help you with -ed pronunciations.
I recommend checking them out.
Both of the links are in the description below
this video.
All right, let’s go to the next pronunciation
question.
Iury has a great question about three words.
“Can you explain how to pronounce “threaten”,
“threatening”, and “threatened”?
I would appreciate it a lot.”
This is a beautifully kind expression, “I
would appreciate it a lot.”
Thanks for using that, Iury.
I appreciate it.
Here we have a special situation.
As you can tell by the color red, I highlighted
this letter because something special happens
to it in the middle.
I want you to listen while I say these three
words, and try to guess what is happening
to that middle ’t'.
Threaten, threatening, threatened.
Oh.
What happened to that ’t'?
Did you hear threaten, threatening, threatened?
Did you hear a strong ’t'?
Probably not, because this ’t' sound is swallowed.
It’s in my throat.
Here we need to … If you can say the ’t',
in some situations, you’re going to be speaking
really clearly and you’re going to be emphasizing
really strongly.
This ’t', you could say it in some situations,
but a lot of the time, when we’re speaking
normally, it’s going to be in your throat.
I want to practice these three sentences together.
Those of you who are here watching right now,
exercise your pronunciation muscles, get them
ready.
We’re going to practice these three sentences.
The final one is an extra challenge sentence
with three words.
Let’s practice having this ’t' in your throat.
Are you ready?
I have a button on my shirt.
You can imagine there’s almost an apostrophe
here.
Button.
Button.
I have a button on my shirt.
Can you say this with me?
I have a button on my shirt.
What about this sentence?
How do you imagine that we could pronounce
this word?
Have you gotten the package yet?
Have you gotten the package yet?
We can pretend it’s not even there.
Gotten.
Gotten.
Have you gotten the package yet?
Our final sentence, let’s combine all of these
words together using lots of ’t’s that are
in your throat, in your throat.
He had forgotten my threatening button.
This sentence is a little crazy, but let’s
say this together.
Then I’m going to show you my mouth.
I’ll put the video back so that you can see
my mouth.
He had forgotten my threatening button.
As we practice here, in your mind, delete
the ’t'.
Pretend that it’s not even there.
Let’s go back to the video so that you can
see my mouth.
As I pronounce this, I want you to see what
it’s doing.
I’m going to take a look over here at these
sentences.
He had forgotten my threatening button.
All right.
I’m going to say this again.
He had forgotten my threatening button.
There’s no air coming out.
When you say a ’t', threatening, button, when
you say a ’t', there’s a lot of air that’s
coming out, but here, there’s not.
Make sure that when you say this word, if
you want to say it quickly, it’s going to
be dropped.
Thanks to all of you who are watching live.
I really appreciate it.
Let’s go on to the next section of questions.
We’ve got a lot of questions today, and I
want to make sure I have enough time to answer
all of them.
If you’re here live and you have any other
questions for me, feel free to ask and I’ll
try to take some time.
Let’s go back to our questions.
The next section is grammar.
Are you ready?
Oh, I just dropped something.
Don’t mind that.
The next section is grammar.
We have a great question from Moiso.
Maybe that’s how you say it, I’m not so sure,
from Colombia.
He asks, “I would like to know about reported
speech and conditionals.
I’m in the second semester now, but in the
third, I’m going to see that topic.”
He’s in school and he wants to be prepared
in advance.
That’s awesome.
It’s my pleasure to help you in advance.
Let’s first talk about the second part of
your question here.
We’ve got a question about conditionals.
Conditionals are “if” sentences.
If I go to the store, I will buy cheese.
If I were a boy, my life would be much different.
These are conditionals.
Practice these.
I have a video about “could”, “would”, and
“should” that talks about some conditionals.
The link to this video is in the description.
I recommend checking that out.
I’m not going to talk about it in this live
video because you can check out this video.
But let’s talk about reported speech or passive
speech, passive voice.
We’re going to be talking about this in much
more detail later in the course the Fearless
Fluency Club.
If you’re part of the course, we’re going
to be focusing on this in a couple months.
It’s going to be really something that we’re
going to master over that month.
But let’s take a look quickly at these two
sentences.
These are passive sentences.
Does anyone know why?
Why is this sentence a passive sentence?
My car was made in 2006.
My car was made in 2006.
Why is this a passive sentence?
Well, we have a little hint here, that my
car is the subject.
Or the second sentence, the city was destroyed.
The underlined part is the subject, my car,
the city.
The red part is our verb.
My car was made.
The city was destroyed.
But the subject is not the one who’s doing
the action.
The car didn’t make itself.
We’re not living in the 3000s yet.
It’s still 2017, so my car didn’t make itself.
It was made by who?
Who made this car?
Mazda.
Who destroyed the city?
The enemy.
A good way to imagine reported speech or passive
sentences is to notice is the subject doing
the action?
Oftentimes the verb will include “was”.
We’ve got a special verb structure “was made”,
“was destroyed”.
Maybe your sentence doesn’t include this.
Maybe this part is not in the sentence.
My car was made in 2006.
We don’t know who made it.
Maybe we don’t care.
Maybe it’s not important.
We’re noticing that this is reported, this
is a passive sentence.
The city was destroyed.
Who destroyed the city?
The enemy.
Here we have a passive sentence.
This is the subject not doing the action.
All right.
I want to see if any of you who are here live
can make also … Can you also make passive
sentences?
Oh, Gabriel says, “The Apple was eaten by
the voracious worm.”
Wonderful.
“The Apple was eaten.”
The Apple is not eating itself.
The worm, the voracious worm.
Voracious is a great word to mean super hungry.
The worm is eating it.
“The Apple was eaten by the voracious worm.”
The watermelon was eaten by Vanessa.
Let’s go to the next grammar point.
Gabriella asks, “Vanessa, could you explain
to me what do all of these words mean: a friend
of mine, a book of mine, a friend of yours,
a car of yours?”
What does that mean?
Those of you who are here, I want you to try
make a sentence using this kind of structure,
because it means the same thing as our second
sentence here.
A friend of mine told me about the movie.
My friend told me about the movie.
Both of these are the same.
Now in English, we are more likely to use
this version.
I know in a lot of other romantic languages,
maybe in Portuguese or French or Italian or
Spanish, you’re more likely to use a construction
that includes “of”, but in English, we often
like to make it much shorter and just say
my friend.
But it’s no problem to say a friend of mine.
Make sure we’re using “mine”, not a friend
of me, not a friend of I, a friend of mine
told me about the movie.
Or you could say, “A teacher of mine taught
me this lesson,” or, “My teacher taught me
this lesson.”
We’re talking about two different ways to
talk about ownership, something that is yours.
We have some great sentences.
This postcard was sent to me by a friend of
mine.
Great.
This postcard was sent to me by a friend of
mine.
This postcard was sent to me by my friend.
Great.
Federica says, “An old-time friend of mine
lives in Canada.”
Great.
Or my old-time friend lives in Canada.
We’ve got lots of options.
[Rodwan 00:57:13] says, “This channel of yours
is extremely beneficial.”
Excellent.
I’m so glad, Rodwan.
We could say, “This channel of yours is extremely
beneficial,” or, “Your channel is extremely
beneficial.”
Great.
I would like to know if any of these concepts
are new for you.
Maybe you’ve never thought about this kind
of structure.
After this lesson, take some time and write
your own sentences.
Do some research about it.
This is a really quick explanation for these
to help you feel comfortable.
Let’s go to our next question.
“When can I use -ing or the infinitive to
talk about purpose?”
Here’s a specific question from Marco about
when to use -ing or an infinitive.
First of all, if you feel like there’s a specific
rule that’s challenging for you, then it’s
good to know the rule, but I don’t want it
to stop you from progressing.
You don’t feel like you need to master it.
Before you watch a movie or before you write
an email in English, I want to help you learn
the general idea.
Here, we have two options.
Purpose.
What is the purpose of the door?
We’ve got two ways that we can talk about
the purpose of the door.
The door is for going into another room.
If the beginning of our sentence is talking
about the object, the door, the thing.
The door is for going into another room.
I open the door, I go to another room.
The door is for going into another room.
Or we could talk about the person, if the
person is at the beginning of the sentence.
I use, I use the door to go into another room.
I use the door to go into another room.
Then we’re going to need to use the infinitive,
not -ing.
Let’s have a little challenge here.
I have two lines waiting for your sentences.
What is the purpose of a smartphone?
I want you to use these two sentence structures
and talk about the purpose of a smartphone.
The smartphone is for what?
What is a smartphone for?
I use a smartphone to … What?
What are some sample sentences that we can
use to use this concept?
I’m going to take a drink of water here, and
I want you to think about how we can complete
these sentences.
All right, let’s write our first sentence
here.
The purpose of a smartphone, for communicating.
Great.
Let’s say the phone is for communicating with
other people.
Great.
Here we’ve got for communicating.
We’re using -ing.
How can we use that same sentence and talk
about a person?
A person.
Gabriel says, “I use Vanessa’s channel to
learn English.”
Great.
Beautiful sentence structure.
We could say, “I use the phone to communicate
with other people.”
“A smartphone is for texting.”
Great sentence.
[Elliota 01:01:10], great.
A smartphone is for texting.
I use a smartphone to learn English.
I use a smartphone to contact people.
I use a smartphone to surf the internet.
“A smartphone is for watching your amazing
videos, Vanessa.”
Oh, excellent.
We’ve got two different ways we can talk about
purpose.
This is really advanced, so feel free to take
some time later to write your own sentences,
to think about how to make these in other
situations.
But don’t stress about the grammar.
Just learn it and listen for it as you’re
using English.
Let’s talk about the next question.
The next question is from Natasha in the Ukraine.
“The sentence: ‘When you are gone,’ is really
strange for me because I don’t understand
what grammar rule is suitable for it.
Why don’t we say, ‘When you are going,’ or
‘When you have gone’?
It looks like passive voice, but it’s not.
I will be very grateful if you explain it
in your next video.”
Oh, this is a really polite sentence.
Thank you, Natasha.
I really like those polite expressions for
asking for requests or suggestions or advice.
That makes it so much nicer.
We’ve got some ideas here.
The main thing is that this word “gone”, “gone”
is a keyword that needs a “be” verb in front
of it.
We call this an auxiliary verb.
We need an extra verb, “have gone”, “are gone”.
“Gone” cannot be by itself.
We can’t say, “When you gone.”
We need to use another verb in front of it.
When you are gone, I feel lonely.
When you leave, I feel lonely.
These have the same meaning, but “gone” requires
“are”.
It requires that auxiliary verb.
I want to know, can you make a sentence?
Can you finish this?
When I’m gone … When Vanessa’s gone, how
will you feel?
When I’m gone … “Oh, I will feel deeply
sad.”
Gabriel says, “When you’re gone, I will feel
deeply sad.”
When you’re gone, I will continue to learn
English.
Excellent.
We can make sure that we’re adding this auxiliary
in front.
Let’s go to the next grammar question.
Actually, the next ones are English learning
tips.
Excellent.
For these, I have a lot of website suggestions.
If you want to take any notes about the websites,
feel free to, but a lot of them are really
easy to find on the internet.
My first question is from Gabriella.
“How many words and tenses do you recommend
for all English learners to learn, so we’re
able to be fluent in English?”
How many verb tenses do I need to know?
Well, first of all, let’s take a look at this
website.
I typed into Google.
You can type this, too.
I typed English verb tenses, and I found this
website.
Pretty simple.
I found this website.
Let me show you here.
I’m going to share it on my screen.
It has a list of verb tenses and then a list
of how to use each one.
Yes, these are pretty basic descriptions,
but I would say if you want to be fluent,
you need to have a good idea about how to
use most verb tenses.
You don’t need to use them perfectly, but
on this website, this is a good place to start.
You can check out how they’re used, the form,
how they’re used.
This will just give you a good basis.
If you want to be fluent, then, yes, you need
to be comfortable with all of the verb tenses.
But if you want to speak English, if you want
to be understood, you don’t need to be perfect
with all of them.
This is just a good resource.
You can type into Google the same thing, English
verb tenses, and take a look at it.
Let’s go to the next question about learning
English.
“Could you explain in a video how to understand
the news in English?”
Kevin, great question.
“It’s frustrating because they combine so
many words.”
Oh, I understand.
Yes, they combine a lot of words.
This is normal when people are speaking quickly.
I have two recommendations.
The first is a website called breakingnewsenglish.com.
The second is newsinlevels.com.
This is a good place to start because it’s
for English learners, but it’s still real
news.
Here’s a screenshot.
You can see an article and you can click level
one, level three, level six, and the article
will become more and more complex.
You can also listen to someone read the article
in British English, in American English.
You can check out vocabulary.
This is a really good resource for … I use
Breaking News English more than News in Levels,
but feel free to check them both out.
This is a really great resource for learning
formal speech and learning about the news,
because it’s really great to learn about the
news in other languages.
Maybe you can get some real-life ideas from
other countries and compare it to the news
in your country, but sometimes it is challenging,
so I recommend starting with these two websites.
Let’s go to the next question, on YouTube.
This is probably not the person’s real name,
but their YouTube channel, they ask, “Is ‘Y’
a vowel in English?
Because ‘Y’ is a vowel in French.
But if you watch English videos, they never
talk about ‘Y’ as a vowel.”
A good key for this is let’s look at the word
sky.
Sky.
Sky has no ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’.
These are vowels.
‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’.
These are typical vowels.
But every word in English needs to have a
vowel.
What’s wrong with sky?
Well, sometimes ‘Y’ is a vowel.
It’s not a traditional vowel, but ‘Y’ can
be a vowel or it can be a consonant.
The quick answer is that it’s kind of a vowel
in English, but it’s not one of the traditional
vowels.
Usually we don’t talk about it as one of the
top five vowels.
Let’s talk about his next question: hair.
This is a great question.
“Is hair plural or singular?
I’m a bit confused because, in French, it
is plural, but we never say, ‘My hairs’ in
English.'”
Let’s take a look at these two sample sentences.
The first one: my hair is really long.
My hair is really long.
Is this talking about one hair?
There’s no ’s'.
There’s no ’s' here.
Is it just one hair or am I talking about
all of the hair on my head?
Well, when we use “my” or “your”, these possessive
words, “his” hair, then we don’t use an ’s'.
His hair is short.
His hair is curly.
My hair is brown.
My hair is really long.
There’s no ’s'.
But when we don’t have a possessive … Think
about the second question, second sentence
here.
There are a lot of hairs on the floor.
When you go to the haircutter, you will see
a lot of hair or hairs on the floor.
We have two choices.
We could say, “There is a lot of hair on the
floor,” or we could say, “There are a lot
of hairs on the floor.”
We’ve got two choices, two choices here.
But when we’re using a possessive, we need
to forget about the ’s'.
The ’s' is not there.
Let’s go to the next question.
Ryan asks, “I want to ask you about how to
understand rude words in movies.”
All right, Ryan wants to know how can I learn
more bad words.
Well, this website is pretty useful because
it talks about all kinds of slang, urbandictionary.com.
Well, I want to tell you something really
quick about this website.
On this website, urbandictionary.com, you’re
going to find a lot of slang that hardly anyone
uses.
Most of the things on this website, I have
never heard of and a lot of other people haven’t
heard of.
My recommendation is when you hear a slang
word or maybe a bad word in English that you
don’t know what it is, type into the search
bar of this website and it will give you a
definition.
It’ll probably give you some sample sentences.
But I recommend not searching for other words
on the website, because, most likely they’re
really unknown.
Anyone can add to this dictionary, so it’s
kind of freeform.
I could add something in the dictionary.
If you just use any word that you see on that
website, most likely it’s not common and people
don’t use it often.
But there are common slang and bad words in
this dictionary if you search for them.
I recommend using this as a good place to
find current slang or maybe some strange words
that you haven’t heard maybe that are new,
or even bad words.
There’s a lot of stuff that you can find there.
Let’s go back and finish up with some of our
questions.
Himanshu asks, “How can I join your Facebook
group, Vanessa?”
Well, I have a private Facebook group.
I know some of you who are here live are part
of this Facebook group.
It is a lovely place.
The way you can join it is to be part of one
of my courses.
I have two courses: the Fearless Fluency Club,
which I’ve talked about, and also the 50 Natural
English Expressions course.
You can go to my website, speakenglishwithvanessa.com/speakenglish,
or you can click on ‘Courses’.
When you join a course, I will give you a
link so that you can join the private Facebook
group.
In the Facebook group, we have live lessons.
There’s a lot of ways to meet friends from
around the world.
You can talk with them on Skype, if you’d
like.
This is the only way to join the Facebook
group is to be part of a course.
Chloe has a good question.
“I need some study plan ideas for each week.
Do you think that’s a good idea?”
I want to know for you, for those of you who
are here watching, do you have a study plan
for each week?
Do you plan what you’re going to do with English?
“This day I’m going to watch this video.
This day I’m going to listen to a podcast.
This day I’m going to meet with my English
friend.”
Do you have a study plan for each week?
Some people like to have more structure, some
people like to just do it whenever they want
and just learn English when they can, but
for Chloe, because she’s thinking about this
and she’s worried that maybe she needs more
structure, I would recommend trying it, because
it’s something that you’re concerned you’re
doing wrong.
Try it, see if it works for you.
If it’s too much structure, maybe too much
stress, because, “Oh, I forgot to watch the
video today that’s on my list,” if it’s too
much stress, don’t worry about it.
But for some people, it could be really helpful
to make a plan at the beginning of the week.
“This week here are three English goals that
I want to accomplish.
I want to watch Vanessa’s live video.
I want to write 10 sentences.”
You can make this kind of weekly plan and
see if it works for you.
Also, if you would like someone else to help
you with this structure, this is something
that is really good about courses.
For example, in the Fearless Fluency Club,
in my course, I have monthly material.
Every month I give you new material, and in
that material is a guide.
I give you a suggested study guide, and you
can study week one, here’s information.
Week two, here’s the information.
This helps you to finish the material in one
month and also to not feel too overwhelmed.
This is a good way to have someone else create
the structure for you, but you can always
create your own kind of plan using materials
that you already use.
Those of you who are here live, some of you
said, “There’s things that I do every day,
but I don’t really have a specific plan.”
[Delia 01:16:24] says, “No, I don’t have a
weekly plan.
It’s too complicated.”
Others say, “Yeah, sometimes I have a plan,
sometimes I don’t.”
Well, if you would like to create a plan,
try it.
If you would like me to help you create a
plan, join the Fearless Fluency Club and follow
that guide, the monthly guide.
If the plans are not for you, you do what
works best for you.
Let’s go back.
I believe we have only one more question.
Let’s go back to our screen here.
Zoe has a question about polite conversations.
She asks, “I would like to know what we need
to pay attention to when we’re talking to
Americans.
What’s the topic we cannot discuss with them
due to the cultural difference?”
Here I want to give you one topic that is
definitely controversial.
If you would like more topics, there’s a video
that Dan and I made two years ago.
Wow!
A long time ago.
It’s in the description of this lesson today
about small talk.
Polite topics, rude topics, we talk about
our opinions.
But one that I want to talk about with you
today is someone’s body appearance, talking
about their eyes, their figure, their skin.
You can talk about their clothing, “Oh, that’s
a nice shirt,” “Oh, are those new shoes?”
“Is that a new dress?”
No problem.
You can talk about clothing, but talking about
someone’s body is usually uncomfortable.
Let’s take a look at three quick examples.
The first one is, “Your eyes look tired today.”
Oh, this is too negative.
I know in some cultures it can be acceptable
to talk about some negative things, because
maybe you’re trying to ask them, “Are you
okay?
Why are you tired?”
But in the US, when you say, “You look tired,”
or, “Your eyes look tired,” “Oh, your skin
is kind of pale today.
Are you sick?”
Well, if they are not sick, then they’re going
to feel pretty uncomfortable.
I recommend avoiding talking about their body
appearance.
What about something positive?
If you say, “You’re really slim,” slim is
the opposite of fat.
If you say to someone, “You’re really slim,”
it’s not a negative thing, it’s a positive
thing, but someone might feel uncomfortable
because they don’t know how to respond.
Should they say, “Thank you”?
Should they say, “Oh, you too”?
It’s uncomfortable to know how to respond.
If you say something that is definitely positive,
like, “Your hair is beautiful,” “Wow!
Your eyes are amazing,” oh, this means that
maybe you want to go on a date with that person.
If you want to go on a date with that person,
great.
You can say that.
But if you are just trying to say something
nice to them, this is probably not the right
thing to say, because they will think, “Oh,
are they romantically interested in me?
My hair is beautiful?
Well, thank you, but I don’t know what else
they’re trying to say.”
This is something I recommend avoiding is
talking about their physical body.
You could talk about my hair clip.
Maybe you like my hair clip.
You could say, “Oh, Vanessa, that’s a really
cool hair clip.”
Great, no problem.
This is just something nice because I can
say, “Oh, thanks.
I like it, too.”
But if you’re going to talk about someone’s
physical appearance, their body, they might
feel a little uncomfortable.
This is my quick tip about small talk.
Feel free to check out the video in the description
so that you can get more details about that.
I want to know for you, what are some topics
that are uncomfortable in small talk?
What shouldn’t you talk about?
Even though some people say you shouldn’t
talk about politics or religion or relationships,
a lot of people do talk about that.
It just depends on your situation and how
you talk about it.
But bodily appearance is one thing that definitely
is uncomfortable for both men and women.
Thank you so much, everyone, for taking your
time.
We talked today for, I think, an hour and
a half.
I’m quite thirsty.
I’m going to say goodbye.
Thank you for all of your wonderful questions.
Thank you for your patience.
I hope that you could learn a lot.
Feel free to use all of these extra videos
that are in the description to continue to
learn.
I will continue to be making videos, be sharing
information.
If you are receiving my free email lessons,
I will continue to send you email lessons
two times a week.
If you would like to get these email lessons,
all you need to do is download my free ebook,
Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
Speaker.
In this ebook, you will learn, you’ll find
out, you’ll see, you’ll know what is the best
path for you as you’re progressing in English.
I recommend reading the free ebook.
The link is in the description and it’ll be
on the screen at the end.
I want to help you to continue to learn English.
I will be reading your comments.
I’ll be giving feedback.
But our live lessons are going to take a little
break because my baby is getting ready.
He is growing day-by-day.
I’m growing day-by-day.
Thank you, everyone, for your support.
Thanks for your kind words.
I hope that the next videos on my YouTube
channel are going to be extra special for
you.
I’ve prepared them, scheduled them, recorded
them just for you.
I hope that you’ll enjoy them and continue
to learn English with me.
I’m not going away, just not having live lessons.
I will continue to be here on my YouTube channel.
Thank you, everyone.
I appreciate your time, your energy, and effort.
Have a wonderful day.
I’ll see you the next time.
Bye.