3 tricks for learning English - prepositions, vocabulary, structure

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TRANSCRIPT

Hi. James from www.engvid.com. I'd normally be reading, but I'm putting my finishing touches on. Our expensive prop department -- "props" are things you use in movies to demonstrate things, or a "prop" might be a marker or a pen or a car, right? Our prop department is so poor I had to draw a hat on a box, but it will help demonstrate the 3 tricks to learn English. Now, there are three little tricks that you can do -- and even better, you can do with a friend -- to learn English. So you can actually have partner practice. We haven't really discussed this much here, but why not? I mean probably, you may not go to an English school, so you don't have anyone but your friend who is probably watching with you right now. So here are three quick little tricks you can do, and the beauty of these are - they're going to help you with, No.1, vocab -- vocabulary. Okay? No.2, we're going to work on prepositions. And No. 3, we'll work on structure of English. How's that? You paid nothing, and you're getting lots. And the best thing is they'll all be fun -- fun. Cough, there.

All right. First thing we're going to talk about is a hat trick. In hockey, a "hat trick" is three things: You score three goals. One, two, and three, just like in English football or European football. Three goals is a hat trick. Don't know why they call it that, but that's what they call it. Our hat trick is called a "hat pull", "hat pull". What's a "hat pull"? Well, you learn your vocabulary, and there's lots and lots of vocabulary. Every day something new. Even when I said things like "hat trick" in this very lesson, there are probably three vocabulary words that you hadn't heard before, that you had to go, "What does he mean?", and I taught you them. But wouldn't it be cool if you had a fun trick to play? A lot of people play flash cards, you know, they get a card. They put the meaning of the word. They turn it over and try and remember. This is a variation that a friend taught me. It's quite fun. What you do is, take your hat, okay? Learn five, ten, words -- 20 even. When you learn them or think you know them, put them in the hat. And you and a friend can then put your hand in the hat and take out the word, and then say something like "philosophy". And the other person has to say, "It's this word. It means this." If they get it right, then they can put their hand in, take out another vocabulary word, and go, "What's this word?" And you can keep playing to help master vocabulary. Cool, right? You're having fun, you're challenging each other. Collect cards. See who wins the game. Or if you're doing it by yourself, just pull it out, turn it over, and try and think of what is the word that's in your hand. It helps to "jog your memory", which is an idiom that means to help you remember or reminds you of the meaning of words. You can play it with one friend, two friends, three friends. That's kind of cool, right? You can even do it in a classroom. Suggest it for your teacher. Go, "Hey, can we play the hat game?" "The hat game? Son, you're too young to play the hat game." You go, "No, Pops, it's a good game." Just get a hat and some paper or tissue paper. Hee hee hee. Sorry. Moving on.

Next one: I got the hat pull, and you'll see it goes to this one. This is really long: "random sentence generator". And it seems like it's really, really hard. I mean, this one we worked on vocabulary, right? Building your vocabulary, remembering our vocabulary. The second trick, the "random sentence generator" -- I just had to say it twice because it sounds so nice. Well, random sentence. You can use this game to go to this game to make it more complicated or -- and "complicated" means "difficult" -- you can just simply play it by itself. Take a word -- random. Okay, there's a word, "random". Now, "generate" means "to create or make". Make a sentence like that -- random. "He randomly created a sentence from nothing." Right? Yeah, I just took this word and I just made it. I could say, "develop": "In order to develop your mind you have to read many books." I'm going really quickly because I want you to understand that when you do it randomly, it has to be quick. You can't say "blah, blah, blah" very slowly. The whole thing is: speed. This will help you with English structure because if you say it incorrectly, you or your friend will actually notice it and try and correct it. What's the structure? Why can't you put "random" here or there? Is it a verb? Is it an adjective? What is its purpose in a sentence when you're making the sentence?