My BEST ENGLISH TIPS For Indians, Pakistanis, and other South Asians

61,546 views ・ 2018-01-25

Benjamin’s English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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[Hindi]. In today's lesson we are going to be looking at difficulties that speakers of...
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From South Asia learning English may have. Now, English is a language that has been long
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established in South Asia due to our history and our connection with India, and in South
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Asia a variety of English has developed that is slightly different to traditional British
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English. Now, I'm not saying that South Asian English is worse than British English, I'm
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just pointing out that there are some differences, grammatically and in terms of pronunciation,
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so this video is primarily aimed at helping you to be understood by native English speaker.
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A native of the United Kingdom.
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So, let's start off with looking at vowels. There are certain times when a native Indian
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or Pakistani or Sri Lankan speaker will insert a vowel when there doesn't need to be one.
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For example, in front of "s" words, there may be an "i" placed involuntary, without
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their meaning to. "This istreet". Okay? We don't need a sound before the street, it's
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just: "The street". [Hindi]. "Station", we don't need a sound before that. It's not:
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"Istation", "This istation", no. Just: "This station" will do fine.
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We don't need to insert extra vowels where they do not need to be there within words.
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For example: "This is a faree lift", rather than: "This is a free lift", "a free lift"
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meaning not having to pay. "This is a fantastic filam". Whoopsy, placed that in the wrong
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place. "This is a fantastic film", "film", okay? I put "Bollywood" up here as well. I'm
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a huge fan of Bollywood films. What was my favourite one recently? Involved a girl from
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the sort of Pakistani mountains and she was a dumb girl, she couldn't hear, and she got
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lost and separated, and then she was reunited with her family. Fantastic film. [Hindi],
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something like this. Anyway, I wanted to put Bollywood up here because increasingly in
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the Bollywood film industry, English words are being used, and Henglish... Okay? A variety
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of Hindi and English is used. Just thought that was worth mentioning.
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Now, the traditional English months of the year have been adopted by South Asian English,
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and they are pronounced in a different way. So I just want to drill... Drill you on how
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we would pronounce them here in the UK. So, maybe you could repeat after me. "January",
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"January", "Jan-ur", so we don't go for the extra vowel sound, there. Just: "January".
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"February", "February". We ignore those letters, there. "February". "March", "March". "April",
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"May", "June", "July", "August", "August", "September", "September", "October", "November", "December".
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And then a couple of words that have slightly different meanings. These are just two examples
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from... I'm sure there are many. Now, in India, "a hotel" can be not just in India, in the
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wider subcontinent can be used to mean a hotel, a caf�, and a restaurant, whereas here in
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the UK a hotel is simply a place where you pay to have a room to sleep in. Also, I have
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been invited before in India to visit someone's "backside", what they meant was their back
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garden. If you said that here in the United Kingdom, they would be confused. Yes.
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Intonation, this is quite a major area to work on. So, this sentence here, the meaning
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changes according to where I put the emphasis. Just showing off my Hindi, so this means "chappalay",
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"chappalay". So, let's experiment with the stress in different places. First off with
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"I": "I did not say you stole my red slippers." So if I put the stress there it's saying:
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It wasn't me that said you stole the red slippers. Stress here: "I did not say you stole my red
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slippers." If you put the emphasis on "did", then it shows a degree of anger that you think
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the person said that. "I did not say you stole my red slippers." Again, there's a heavy disagreement
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with the other person. Have it on "say": "I did not say you stole my red slippers." So,
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we're starting to think: Okay, we didn't say that you stole my red slippers, but maybe
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you suggested that. "I did not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe someone else did.
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"I did not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe you just walked off with them. "I did
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not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe they weren't mine at all. "I did not say you
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stole my red slippers", because my red slippers are very special. Okay? "I did not say you
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stole my red slippers. I did not say you stole my red slippers." Okay? I'm putting the emphasis
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on "slippers", and I'm thinking: "Okay, what is it with these slippers?" Okay? So, just
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something to think about, where we are putting the stress. Now, obviously in Hindi, Urdu,
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nouns have a masculine and feminine form, and the adjectives change according to the
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noun they are placed with. [Hindi]. We don't have genders of nouns in the UK. So, just
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bear that in mind. In Hindi the verb goes at the end of the sentence, it doesn't in
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British English. It normally goes: Subject, verb, object. There's quite a lot of discrepancies,
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quite a lot of differences with prepositions. I've covered this in quite a lot of detail
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in my video for Polish learners, so maybe that's a video that you could be checking
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out as well.
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The comparative and superlative, so this is something that a native of the... Of South
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Asia may say. "This girl is calmer from the boy." What I need to say is: "...than the
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boy. This girl is calmer than the boy." We're comparing girl to the boy, the girl is calmer.
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"He is the most bravest boy in the team. He is the most bravest." If I have "est" here,
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I don't need "most". "He is the bravest boy on the team."
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"More", "very", and "too". Again, I also have a separate lesson on "very" and "too", so
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that's, again, another video that you could be revising. I have noticed that this is...
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People get a little bit confused here. "Try to score more than 9 out of 10 in the quiz
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after this video. Try to score more", so you're trying to get more than. "You have tried very
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hard." I'm just modelling correct usages of these words, here. "You have tried very hard.",
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"This curry is too spicy." Okay? "too" and then the adjective. "You have tried very hard."
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Okay? So the adverb coming after the verb. "Try to score more than".
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I hope this has been of some use. This is not a total exhaustive list; it's just a couple
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of things that I have noticed, and there are, as I said at the beginning of the lesson,
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some beautiful speakers, beautiful... I don't mean beautiful. I mean incredibly effective
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speakers of English in the Indian subcontinent, and in terms of literature there've been some
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fantastic books written in English by people from South Asia, one which I'm enjoying at
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the moment called The Glass Palace. Anyway, until next time, [Hindi].
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