Master Modals with the SEAM Method, Part 3 -- Preference & Opinion

Hi, welcome to engVid. If you look very carefully, this snowblower is the devil's number. 666.

Joke. I say that because in Canada, even though it's cold, it's hell here. It's freezing.

Anyway, welcome to engVid. And today's lesson. For those of you who have been following for

a while, there is a method called the SEAM method. A method in which I take a lot of

the common modals and put them together in a way that you can actually understand them.

Not understand is one way. Remember is almost more important. You can remember them and

understand how to use them. Today, we're going to do the ESK. In the previous lessons, we

did EXPRESS, PAN, ASK for a PASS, and today, SEAM like POP. See POP. You're going to say,

"What is POP? What does it have to do with modals?" That's what the next ten minutes

is for, son. Let's go. All right, so POP. Okay, so we go C and S. Well, the S really

stands for STATE. STATE means to say. When you state something, you say it. In this case,

we're going to state or say our preferences or our opinions. P for preference, OP for

POP. I've got to thank Mr. E on this one. High five, Mr. Boom. Gave me the idea before

like why, blah, blah, blah. I was like, "I don't know," and he said, "Try POP," so I

did POP. Remember, state POP, preference and opinion. What do we mean by this? Well, let's

do preference because I like things and you like things. Sometimes, you want other people

to know. Well, a lot of times, you want other people to know what you like. Now, here's

what we use to do that with modals. We actually use the modal WOULD. Why do we use the modal

WOULD? I'll tell you why. Because we use it as a conditional in English, meaning, well,

like other modals, it's not 100% guaranteed. In this case, we're saying, "Under these conditions,

I like something or I like something better than something else." It expresses the imaginary,

what I would like it to be because it's not that way now, but I would like it this way

or I can imagine having this. By using WOULD, we get the power of saying what I could imagine

liking or having, what I would prefer, and then the conditions I would like it. How do

we use it? Well, there are three words that usually go when I say, "I prefer something."

It's easy. You could say, "I prefer," "I rather," "I like," but when we use modals, we put on

that potential. We talk about possibility. I would prefer because you're saying, "I would

like it to be this way." It's not this way right now. We should look at prefer and rather.

Prefer is choice. This is what I would like more. Rather means basically the same thing.

We have like. Like is, "I do like it." Now, when we use like, we usually use it with the

verb in the base. "I would like to," sorry, before I forget, "to," we use this and we

use a verb in the base. Another word is an infinitive. That's when there's nothing added

on, no "s," no "ing" or "ed." I would like to go to the store right now. That's what

I would prefer my preference in doing. I would like to do other things, but I'd really like

to do this. When we use prefer, it's a little different. I would prefer something, we use

the gerund form. I would prefer shopping. I'd prefer to go shopping. Use a gerund that

follows this one. I would prefer running to sitting around here. I would prefer watching

TV than cleaning the house. We use the gerund form with the prefer.

With rather, we just use a verb in the base. You don't really need to say, "I'd rather

to." In fact, you can't say "to." I would rather sleep than talk to you for another

five minutes. I would prefer to do this. We've got the three different types that usually

goes with would, that shows our preference, and how we would make them conjugate. This

one is to plus verb in the base. This one was generally followed with a gerund. This

one, nothing, just the verb in the base. That's your preference option.

Now, let's move over here. Let's talk about opinion. What is your opinion on something?

I would prefer the blue dress to the red dress. In this case, I'm using it as prefer. What

happens if I said... Sorry, slow down for you here. What happens if I said to you, "I

wouldn't believe anything that man says?" Is this true? Remember, would talks about

conditional and imaginary. I'm not saying it's a fact. I'm saying it's probably true,

so it's not 100% like can or will. We're looking here, and we're saying, "I believe. I wouldn't

believe." Percentage, maybe 20% believe him, mostly not because we want to talk about that

conditional and that imaginary. I think what he says is a lie. That's my opinion. The reason

why it's opinion is because it's not actually a fact I can prove to you.

Next, I would shoot him if he did that to my wife. That's my opinion, but also it's

imaginary because I'm actually not doing it. When we talk about opinions, we're not saying

it's reality. We're saying that's how we think or we would imagine reality to be and the

conditions reality would have to be. Cool? We've done seem, and you've learned something

else about stating pop. What's pop? Stating your preference or your opinion. How do we

do it? Well, if we use would with the words like, prefer, or rather, which show things

you like more, we just have to look at how we use it. Verb plus to plus verb in the base.

For prefer, verb plus ing or gerund form, and for rather, just verb in the base usually

follows. Not bad, huh? For our opinion, we can say would or wouldn't with the verb in

the base and state directly, I would, she would, da, da, da, and usually goes with words

like believe or think because those are your opinions.

I had a complicated sentence before which was, I would think that he wouldn't do something

like that. You'll see the word would is used twice, right? But once again, expressing our

opinion and disbelief about a situation that happened. Long story short, we can use would

for our opinions and use would for our preferences. If you want to see the other three parts of

the seem method, please go back to where would you go? Where would you go? Well, I would

like you to go to, preference, engVid, which is www.eng as in English, vid as in video

.com. I believe you would find it very entertaining and you would learn a lot from it. And as

I told you, I'd rather you go there than anywhere else. What else are you going to do? Watch

soccer? Have a good day. EngVid.