English Vocabulary Pyramid - VENT - adventure, convenient, eventually...

What an adventure. Hi, I'm James from engVid. I haven't done one of these in a long, long

time -- a vocabulary pyramid. Well, before I start, let me explain. The ancient Egyptians

-- they built pyramids. These were places where they would put their dead people, their

dead leaders. Now, the thing about a pyramid is at the top, it's very tiny, but it goes

down to a very big bottom. We call it the base. So what happens from a small part, we

can do a lot of things. That's the idea behind the vocabulary pyramid, that we're going to

start with something small, but I can show you how you can use it for many, many things.

Okay? Let's go to the board.

Today's word, boys and girls, is "vent". "Vent" is a root. What do I mean? Well, it's like

the tree. The tree has -- well, let me show you. You have a tree. I'm an artiste. What

can I say? And then underneath, you have these things. It keeps everything together. "Vent"

is a root. It means words are made from this. Okay? "Vent" means "come". "Come. Come to

me. Come to me." All right. So "come". "Vent" means "come". And we're going to work today

with "vent" and show you how it's in many words you've probably seen or some new words

you don't know, and that's why we call it a vocabulary pyramid. We're going to start

from here, and we're going to build. All right? You'll learn six new words. You're going to

learn some prefixes and "vent". That's a lot of bang for your buck. Come on. Let's go.

So story. Mr. E wanted to go on an adventure, so he decided to go to the local comic book

convention. I don't have one, but comics are cool. He knew driving there would be inconvenient.

Maybe I can get one. Hold on. Comic book. Sorry. It's good. Hellblazer. Really good.

Anyway, back to our story, and back to the adventure. Okay? So he decided to go to the

local comic book convention. He knew driving there would be inconvenient, so he took the

subway. As he sat down, two people began to argue about the best hero. To prevent a fight,

he intervened, and eventually, everyone agreed that Batman is the best. Three movies, three

titles. Okay. Batman is the best. So here's a story. Some of you now are going, "I don't

understand why you tell me this." It's very nice, but I don't understand. So I'm going

to help you right now. All right? We're going to look at "vent". I told you "vent" means

"come". Well, it doesn't really help you, and I should tell you, "vent" can also look

like this. Vennie, I've got a little story I want to share with you from my heart, from

my life. You'll like it. Okay. "Vent" means "come", but I'm sure you're still going, "I

don't understand how any of this means 'come'." Give me five minutes of your life, I will

change this for you. You'll never be the same again. "Vent" means "come", but what does

"adventure" mean? Well, "add" -- this word here -- "toward". So it means "come toward

something". An adventure is something you do have to come towards. You must go to it,

in a way, or you come to it. I've made a gesture that's not good on camera. I won't do that

again. So you come towards an adventure. So that's why we say, "I want an adventure. I

want to come to something that will make my life better or more exciting." Yes. "Add"

means "toward", "move". And "toward" means "go to", basically, "direction of". There

is a video on "ward", but "ward", "go to". All right? "Toward".

Next one. So Mr. E wanted to come to an adventure. Hmm. What about this one? So he decided to

go to the local comic book convention. "Come". So we know this means "come". What does "con"

mean? "Con" means "together or with". So a convention, because "ion" means "noun", is

a place where people come together. Oh my gosh. So people come together to talk about

comic books. This was his adventure, a place where people come together.

Next one. "Inconvenient", "inconvenient". Well, I'm going to stop the story now and make it

kind of inconvenient, explain to you what the word means, and a little story from my

heart. Special effects. I love them. Okay. "Inconvenient" means it's not easy for you

to do. When something's convenient, inconvenient, it means it's going to be too difficult or

make your life harder. Okay? If I have to walk to school, and it's going to take me

three hours, that's "inconvenient". I should take a car, and it will take me 20 to 30 minutes.

That's better. That's "convenient". So "inconvenient" means too hard or difficult. "Convenient"

means easy to do or easy for me to do. Right? It's convenient for me to get up at 12 o'clock

in the day because I'm tired. It's "inconvenient" to get up at 4 a.m. in the morning. Even the

cock-a-doodle-doo doesn't get up that early. So, here, "inconvenient". So you're going

to say, "Well, what does 'inconvenient' mean?" "Con" means "together", "veni" means "come",

so "come together". Well, in this case, yeah, the idea when it's convenient, everything

comes together and makes my life easy. It's "convenient". It comes together to make it

easy for me. When it's "inconvenient", here's something interesting. "In", most people know

for like "inside", "go inside", they know this. But in English, "in" can also mean "opposite",

so you have to pay attention. Right? There's another variation, like "impossible" and stuff

we'll come to another time, but in this case, it means "opposite". So it means things aren't

coming together in an easy way for me. It's the opposite of "convenient". This is not

"convenient", it's "inconvenient". Here's my story. Up until today, I could not spell

this word, but because of you, engVid viewers, I learned how to spell this word. I would

always get the "e" and the "i" incorrectly. See, "incorrect", opposite of "correct". So,

I tried not to write this word because it was always inconvenient because someone would

correct me and it was a little embarrassing. Then today, to teach you, I learned that "vent"

or "veni" must always be "ve" and "i". And then I went, "Oh, snap!" It's never "ei",

it's always "ie". So easy. This is a very convenient way to learn. So you look here,

"veni", and so simple. Even James can do it. So now, I would just say to Mr. E, "I can't

spell it wrong anymore. I know." So if you learn anything from me today, learn that "veni"

is an "inconvenient" because you know "con", you know "in", I've explained them, "veni",

"ent". You've just learned a word. A lot of us get wrong and you don't have to think about

it. Thank you, engVid viewers. Okay, so you've helped change my life. Thank you. All right,

so inconvenient.

So he took the subway, remember? Things come together, it's easier that way. As he sat

down, two people began to argue. "Argue" means like "fight", but it's verbal. Verbal means

they're talking, fighting. Right? About the best hero. To prevent a fight. "Vent" means

"come", "pre" means "before". When you prevent something, you come there before something

happens. Oh. If you want to prevent a fire, you won't put oil and fire together, right?

If you want to prevent a fight, you go and say, "Guys, hey, sit down, have a beer, have

a Coca-Cola, have some Coke, whatever, just relax, go out of here." I know, got a look

there, terrible. "Just relax, chill out." "Prevent" means to go before, if you want

to prevent something. If you want to prevent getting sick, have orange juice, vitamin C,

right? It stops. Come before the event, okay?

So to prevent a fight, they wanted to stop it before it happened, he intervened. There's

that "vent" again. Remember, "vent" means "come"? Well, what does "inter" mean? "Enter"

means "between", right? Interrupt, right? When you interrupt something, you come in

between two things. Intercept, so here are two things, you come between them, and you

stop them from happening. So they should come together, and you stop them, okay? So, in

this case, "intervened", come in between. The two people were like, "I'm right. I'm

right." And Mr. E went, "No, don't fight. Stay apart." Came between them. So he came

between them, intervened, and eventually -- what is "eventually"? "E" means "out of". It comes

from "x", to be honest with you. And you'll know this from "ex-wife", "ex-job", "ex-athlete".

Out of. You're out of that situation. "Vent" means "come out of". So when we say "eventually",

what it really means is what comes out of something, usually a situation. If you eat

too much chocolate, eventually what will come out is you will be fat, right? If you don't

read enough good books and learn English, eventually you will become stupid, get an

education. So, eventually, everyone agreed. So it came out in the end that all the people

agreed that Batman is the best. You like that? Batman's the best. Go check out our two videos

on Christian Bale and Batman.

So let's go through it quickly. This time, I bet you understand the story. Read it and

try not to laugh at the end, okay? "Mr. E wanted to go on an adventure, so he decided

to go to the local comic book convention." They don't pay me to sing. "He knew driving

there would be inconvenient, so he took the subway. As he sat down, two people began to

argue about the best hero." Okay, that's just a terrible song. Sorry. "To prevent a fight,

he intervened, and eventually, everyone agreed. Batman is the best, is the best, is the best."

Yay. Over.

Okay, this lesson's too long. I'm going to wrap it up. Wrap it up means finish it. Thank

you very much for listening. Mr. E and I would like to invite you to a place where you can

get more information. Go to www.engvid.com, okay? And we invite you. We don't want to

prevent you to go, so go already.