JAM Basic Verbs Learn English Grammar
jam okay hi everybody welcome back to
know your verbs my name is alicia and in
this lesson we’re going to talk about
the verb
jam let’s get started
let’s start with the basic definition of
this verb the basic definition of
jam is to cause something to be blocked
to cause something to be blocked
examples
i jammed the printer somehow we jammed
the shredder with paper
now let’s look at the conjugations for
this verb
present jam jams
passed jammed past participle
jammed progressive jamming
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb the first
additional meaning
is to push or force something into a
space
examples he jammed himself onto the
packed train
the moving company is jamming boxes into
trucks
so here we see examples of someone or
something
being pushed or forced into something
it’s like something that’s difficult to
get into or maybe there’s not enough
space
in the first example we see he pushed
himself
into a packed train that means that the
train is full of people already
but he pushes himself he jams himself
in forcefully pushing in order to get on
the train
in the second example sentence we see it
in reference to
boxes a moving company is jamming boxes
into trucks which means
there’s maybe not a lot of space in the
truck however
he needs he or she the moving person
needs to get these boxes in so they’re
forcefully pushing we use
jam to talk about that to describe that
act
all right let’s go on to the second
additional meaning for this verb
the second additional meaning is to play
music
informally or to improvise music in a
group
examples the group jams a few times a
month
i think the neighbors are jamming again
so this use of
jam refers to practicing music or
playing music in a group of people so
there’s a group of people
usually different instruments and
there’s no
song specifically there’s no like goal
really
they’re just making music together so
you might have heard this called a
jam session actually um to me it sounds
a little strange to use the word
jam if you yourself are not a musician
like it feels strange to me to say
they’re jamming
because i’m not really the kind of
person who uses that word
but it might sound more natural coming
from a musician
so if you’re a musician and you like to
improvise music with people
you might be able to use this word quite
naturally to talk about your practice
sessions
so again it’s just practice it’s just
kind of enjoying and feeling the music
it’s not really playing with a goal in
mind
you’re improvising improvising so you
can also use it in general kind of to
talk about other ways of enjoying music
like with dance
or even just enjoying music and kind of
moving your head a little bit too
we sometimes use the word jam to mean
just like
improvising and enjoying music in some
way
um so that’s another way kind of related
to this meaning
that we can sometimes use jam the third
additional meaning for this verb is to
cause a part of the body to be crushed
or
injured somehow usually crushed examples
my friend jammed his finger in a door a
few years ago
i jammed my toe on my bed
okay so jammed in these cases usually
refers to some kind of like
crushing motion or some like like hard
impact something like this so in the
first example sentence
my friend jammed his finger in a door a
few years ago
it means in the open door so maybe
there’s the door
and the space between the door and the
wall this person’s finger
went in between those two and the door
closed that’s a perfect example of when
we
would use jam this actually happened to
my friend this is true
and his finger was jammed in the door so
this crushing motion this crushing
injury
we use jam to refer to that we can also
use it to refer to other kind of similar
small
injuries usually to like fingers and
toes as in the second example sentence
i jammed my toe on my bed that refers to
like
against a hard object you’re walking
walking walking and you
touch or you jam your
finger or you jam your toe into an
object like a table
or sofa or bed or something it’s quite
painful and it feels like you just
pushed it forcefully into that object we
can say jammed another verb we use in
this case is stub i stub my toe
but you can say jammed or stubbed
depending on what you like
people use both okay let’s go on to the
next additional meaning then
the next additional meaning is to
interfere with a broadcast to interfere
with a broadcast let’s go to some
example sentences
they’re jamming our signal the signal
from the satellite has been jammed
so this means that some thing or someone
or some kind of
like machine or data or something is
blocking
some signal so this could be blocking
like a wi-fi signal like
satellite tv radio signal something is
causing the signal to be disrupted the
broadcast to be disrupted there’s some
problem there so we use the word jam to
talk about this
you will see this a lot in like spy and
police
and suspense movies relating to
technology
like you can jam your enemy’s signal and
they can’t get any communications out
for example
so you block someone’s communication or
you block someone’s ability to broadcast
information we use jam to refer to that
okay now let’s look at a variation for
this verb
this variation is to jam on the brakes
to jam on the brakes quite specific
this expression means to push quickly
and with
force on the brakes of a vehicle
examples
he jammed on the brakes when the child
stepped into the road
don’t jam the brakes so to jam the
brakes or jamming the brakes is usually
like a very
quick and fast and very uncomfortable
motion very uncomfortable like results
actually
so you push the brakes and the car
quickly comes to a stop or the car
jerks very fast so the people inside the
car feel uncomfortable
and it can be bad for the car’s braking
system
um maybe it can also like damage items
in the car
so it’s considered typically to be not a
good
thing to do so it’s typically not
recommended to
jam the brakes you’ll hear jam the
brakes and also jam
on the brakes both of them are in use so
you can choose which you prefer they
have the same
meaning okay so those are a few
different ways that you can use the verb
jam i hope that you found something new
of course if you have questions comments
or other ways to use the word jam
please let us know in the comment
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thanks very much for watching this
episode of know your verbs and we’ll see
you again next time bye bye
jam