English Grammar - How to learn tenses - ALL tenses!!

Hi. James from engVid.

I have a small problem.

I'm gonna get my assistant to help me.

This is my schtick for my gimmick.

If anyone asks me what those are I'll be happy to tell you.

There we go.

Ok, he's wearing his little scarf.

It's his university scarf.

Ok?

Mr E is ready for education.

Right. So what are we gonna work on today?

Grammar!

Grammar.

Yeah, ok. Tell you something new, like you've never heard grammar before, alright?

"What've you got in grammar that-" Oh, my favourite one.

"Teacher, I have trouble with the present perfect."

"Teacher, I have problems with the simple past."

"Teacher, I don't know why you say 'used to' instead of 'use to'."

By the way, these subjects have been covered on EngVid, so go check out EngVid and you'll see all of these and they'll help you out.

But my job today isn't really to teach you grammar; I'm gonna use one grammar template - or one grammar lesson, you might say -

to teach you a way that I think is the most effective and quickest way in order to learn English.

In fact, I'm gonna start calling all these lessons "the most effective and quickest way to learn English"!

"Ever!"

Or, go somewhere else.

I'm joking.

Alright, but I'm gonna teach you a way that'll probably help you to be able to put things together in your head.

Now, this isn't just good for English; it's good for anything you wanna study, ok?

So, let's look at it.

We're gonna look at grammar, for instance.

With grammar you're usually gonna be given a title, and that's the beautiful thing - that's what makes it easy: you know what you're gonna study!

There's never been a time or - hopefully, if you have a teacher, you walk in the room, and they say,

"We're going to study something that will tell you about time, and then put things in logical consequence order for you so that you can understand what people are saying in English..."

Leave the room.

Immediately.

Ok? Usually even the poorest grammar teacher will say, "Today, we're going to study this subject."

Alright? So the first thing you wanna do on your page is put down the title.

The title.

What am I going to study?

Ok? Boom! Write that out.

Now, here's what I suggest you do, see. See, I'm such a nice guy.

I'm such a nice guy I'm going to help you today.

Here's what I suggest you do.

Ask the teacher what would they think that particular subject

- whether it be simple present or simple past, the continuous form, or if you're in Britain, the progressive form (simple progressive, the past progressive, whatever, continuous, progressive...) -

what would it represent? What is the trigger word?

So I'm gonna put a little thing here and it's gonna be called a 'trigger word'

Now, 'trigger' comes from the use of a gun.

When you have a gun, ok

- you can see, this is how I draw worms, this is how I draw weapons -

Before you fire the gun, this is called the 'trigger'.

That makes the bullet comes out.

So that starts the process.

So we wanna have something that will start the process to help you getting all the information you need.

This trigger word is important, because it must help you remember what the subject is you're studying.

So instead of putting 'title' - 'title' is a little bit vague - I'm gonna put 'subject', ok?

So, what is the subject?

Then you need a trigger word.

What word is gonna help me remember the title, and by helping me do this will help me do the definitions,

so I don't have to think anymore - I'm going to know!

One word will take me one direction, and then the other direction.

So, what we wanna do is ask a trigger word.

So you'd say, "teacher, what is the best way to explain this?" With one word - that's the key

One word. The teacher shouldn't give you a sentence - you don't need a sentence.

That's what definitions are for.

The teacher should then after start giving you definitions.

The trigger word is a bridge, you might say.

You're going over water - here's some water - and you need to get over the water - there's land over here, and land over here

and you're saying "I wanna go from point A to point B but I don't know how to swim - how do I go?"

Well, we build a bridge.

And that bridge is your trigger.

That will take you from the subject to definitions and then take you to complete understanding.

Alright? So.

We have a trigger word and the definitions.

From the definitions, where you wanna go after that is do some diagrams.

What people forget, usually, our brains, well, we're video cameras.

Video cameras. Video cameras have listening devices, absolutely. But they take pictures.

And from the pictures we get a view of our world.

Right now close your eyes, and then try and imagine your room without thinking of a picture.

Come on. Imagine where you're sitting in the room without looking at a picture.

Can't do it, right?

Soon as you think 'room' boom! Chair pops up, you see a chair in your head.

So you know right away that our world is structured by pictures - so are your thought processes.

So if you can get a picture for it, you'll actually get a basic understanding of it.

But this should come after the definition.

Because, as I said, video cameras also have listening devices.

Go check out my lesson on listening, effective listening, alright?

That should help you.

Alright. So, you want to get the definition to get an understanding, but to complete that understanding you want a picture.

If you get a complete picture, you'll notice just by closing your eyes, seeing the picture the idea, the definition, comes up.

Cool. Alright.

After that, you'll do what standard teachers do, which should be - well, not should be, usually a good idea -

to do the form of the verb

and then to do the structure of the verb

The last thing I usually do when I teach are special cases or special instructions.

So you're gonna look here, and if you look at the board, I've basically outlined my formula for teaching

but here's the beautiful thing about it - it's your formula.

Now when you go to a class, you can literally have something like this written out for you

where you can organise your work, so each part leads into the next part.

What am I saying?

Yeah I know - it's easy to talk, but then you usually have to show it, right?

You need a demonstration.

Because it means nothing to you right now.

So why don't we start off with the - in my case, or my belief - the best one to start off with.

I'm gonna start off with the simple present.

The simple present. Well, first of all, that's the subject, so I'll put that up here.

'simple present'

And by the way, start your watch.

My watch is here.

I'm gonna teach you the simple present in five minutes.

"What?" Yup, five minutes.

Are you ready?

Ezekiel just got his watch out. "Go ahead, start!"

Alright. Starting now.

Simple present how do we start?

Trigger word. Simple present.

In my mind the present is forever, it's permanent.

And you know why? Well, the simple present is true.

Truth. Or I'll say true.

I'm gonna erase that 'cos it's kinda messy

Ok we'll go here

So, simple present is about true, it's permanent

Now you're gonna say "how can you say it's permanent? You haven't told me anything"

Well give me a second and I will.

I'm gonna say the simple present I'm gonna say it's about truth.

The important thing about truth is that it has to be true now, yesterday, and tomorrow.

What do I mean?

I'm a teacher.

I was a teacher yesterday.

I believe in my mind I'll be a teacher tomorrow.

Even for five, ten years from now.

I've been a teacher for five years and I'm a teacher right now

It's about truth, so it's true.

Yeah? With me so far?

Good.

In that case in my mind and my way of thinking, notice I've gone from the grammar lesson and expanded it.

I've expanded it.

I've given you the concept of truth, which is forever.

Here's why.

A lot of students come to my class, and they'll tell me,

"Teacher, simple present is about habit." And I usually say to them,

"Habit? How do you know it's about habit? How do you know?"

And they just say, "that's what my teacher told me."

They don't understand.

I go, "it's a habit based on truth."

They say, "what do you mean by that?"

So I say, "well, first of all, truth is permanent.

It's gotta be true today or tomorrow or yesterday.

Birds fly. True a thousand years ago, it'll be true in a thousand years from now, it's true today.

Ok? Permanent.

So that's past, present, and future, right?

So we'll just put that up here:

Truth must be true past, present, future.

I've had one minute now; I've got four to go.

Keep watching. Alright.

So, definitions.

How do you know something's true?

Well, by definition, if something's true, it should be a fact.

Notice I didn't put fact; I put true.

Some things are facts, but they're not true.

We disprove them.

We say truths are eternal or forever.

Right? It's a fact that the prime minister of Canada is Brian Mulroney.

Well, that's not a fact. It was a fact, but it's not true anymore, you see.

I don't even know, cos I don't like Harper so I don't wanna - oops, I said his name

Harper is our prime minister.

Right, it's a fact now, and it's true now, but it will not be a fact in five years; it'll be another person who's prime minister.

So facts can be true: limited.

Or it can be shown to be wrong; truth should be true all the time.

So we say true, something must be true.

Now how do we know it's true?

Well, often it's repeated.

Now you'll noticed I put repeated with '-ed' on the end - why?

'-ed' reminds me of the past.

It starts in the past. True now, true in the future. '-ed'.

Now why don't we look at here - what's the other part of it?

Repeated doesn't always mean something is true.

In fact, this morning I went to the washroom three times.

I've repeated it three times.

Will I do this tomorrow? Maybe, maybe not.

It's not necessarily true, but it's repeated.

So we need something else to make this repetition true.

And I'm gonna give it to you.

It's 'often'.

How often do you do something? or what is the 'frequency'?

Cos frequency basically means time you repeat something - the amount of times you repeat something in a given amount of time.

For instance, 'I go to school five times a week.'

So I go five times, one week.

Time period: one week. Repetition: five times.

Alright? So that's my frequency - how often.

And it's repeated. And it's true.

If I have all of these things true, it becomes the truth.

It is the truth. I am a teacher, I teach five times a week.

Now, habit. We defined habit by saying 'repeated' and 'often'.

If you repeat it enough, and you repeat it often, it's a habit.

I smoke three times a day, it's my habit.

That's where habit comes from.

The next time your teacher tells you that, you explain to them cos it's based on frequency, and it's based on repetition.

"Ooh, student!"

I have two minutes.

Well, let's look here. What did I say about truth?

I already put the answer up here, and now you know as well.

If something's true, then it has to be true in the past, pres, future.

Ok? So that means it's gonna be true.

All the way this way and this way.

I know it's small, don't worry. Go in [yo??], press that little button, blow up the screen, you'll see it, ok?

Now the import of the diagram is the idea, so we know something's true all the way here.

What about 'repeated'? Well, once again, remember I said 'past, present, future'?

Well we're gonna go all the way down here, and say this, and here, and here.

So when we say here and we talk about 'repeated', it will be repeated over here, see?

In the past you'll do it here, maybe here in the present here, and in the future you'll do it.

It keeps happening.

Repeated over and over again.

Yeah? Cool.

Now the last one is gonna go down here.

Look it's way down here, so what I'm gonna do is move it up a bit and draw another line ok?

So we've done that now to make it easy.

Frequency. I'll put 'week'.

Ok? Week? You have the word week?

Well, maybe not.

So let's go over here.

Ezekiel, move over.

I've got week. So I say '1 week'.

That is my 'time'.

Ok? Then I'm gonna say "how many times repeated in a week?"

One, two, three.

Three times a week.

I go to the gym to work on my big, massive muscles - I only have a big belly - three times a week.

That's how many times I repeat it.

That's the frequency.

You've now learned the basics for the simple present.

You have the diagrams, you've got the definitions, you've got your trigger word: truth.

Simple present - truth - boom!

These three things will come out: how do you know it's true? Bang, bang, bang, bang

Simple present.

Here's your diagrams.

'Form'. Here's my favourite.

Verb 'to do' is the auxiliary verb for the simple present.

And all we have to do is, basically, if it's singular third person, add 's'.

Ok? So. Let's move over the form a little bit.

So if it's singular you add 's'.

And if it's plural, no 's'.

That's it.

So, 'they go', 'she goes'.

Easy, right?

'I walk - well see I forgot 'I' is personal, but -

'she walks', 'they walk'.

Third person singular, so

third person singular, add 's'

That's it. He/she/it.

Finally, structure.

I won't go into that now, because I'm actually running out of board room and time,

but you get the picture.

We do the simple or the regular structure, right? 'I walk', 'I work'

Negative: 'I do not walk/work', 'I don't work'

Question. What do we do with a question? We actually reverse the verb with the subject.

And then the [W5er?] information question where we say 'what?', 'where?', 'when?', 'who?', with the rest.

Cool.

I lied, it was more like ten minutes.

But you get the picture.

What, you spend an hour in another class learning what I taught you in ten minutes?

Go over this.

You'll notice that if you go over this three times later on you'll go "whoa! I can't forget!"

I guarantee you, in two weeks you'll go "oh my God, I still remember!"

Because you have a trigger word that will lead to the rest.

Ok? More importantly, you have a structure for yourself to go into any classroom and learn English.

You write out the structure, you get the teacher to define it, teach to you, and you will remember.

Bet it's worth more than a Starbucks coffee.

Anyway. Ezekiel likes it black and tall. Send one - engVid.

So, the big quiz after, asking you what are the things you should put down

and then, you know, try and put it to use.

Alright? It'll help you with general grammar, and advanced grammar lessons as well.

It's always my pleasure helping you,

and I'd like to be more of service to you,

so why don't you come to engVid?

So I'll put it on the board, ok, just in case

And by the way, check out our other lessons on basic grammar - we've got a whole unit you might wanna take a look at.

Coming up soon, alright?

So it's www dot Eng (as in English)

Vid (as in video)

dot com

Where we do our best every day to make life a little easier for you.

Have a great day.