W5 Questions in English: Wherever Whenever Whatever Whoever Whyever

[singing] Whenever, wherever, you and I were meant to be together...

Hi, James from www.engvid.com . "My Hips Don't Lie" was Shakira.

But anyway, it's an interesting point because Shakira in a song sings a song where "whenever,

wherever", and I want to teach you what whenever, wherever, whoever, however actually means.

Let's go the board and find out.

You'll see Mr. E here is saying "Who, why, how, what, when?".

A lot of times in English, if you go to an English school, they'll talk about the W5

questions, which are the W words: who, when, where, why... we'll just stop at four, because

I don't want to give away something, because there's which and other ones, there's more

than W5, but basically these ones.

Oh sorry, what.

We can do that one, I think it's here.

So, what.

These five are used for questions, to ask questions.

Who is this person, what did you do, why did you do it, where did you go?

W5, okay?

Reporter questions.

Now, there's a mutant - a mutant variation of the "who, why, when, where, what".

And what is this variation?

Mutant means different from the original.

It's changed its form.

If the - ever part.

I've got "ever" here, question "ever".

So, let me just put it in red so you can see it.

Question "ever", so whoever, whyever, whenever, however.

I said "how", but we'll get to that later, and I'm going to explain how "ever" changes

the basic meaning of these W5 questions and how we use them in English and how you can

use them.

So, let's start off with "wherever".

Well, Shakira started off with "whenever", but I'm just going to switch it.

Wherever.

So, we know "where" means place.

Simple enough.

But when we say "wherever", it means no particular place.

It means there's no special place or nothing I have specifically in my mind where I want

to go, alright?

So, you can say to somebody "We can eat wherever you want."

I don't care about the place.

There's no particular place, right?

Or, "Where do you want me to put this?"

"I don't know, wherever".

It's not important.

So, the "ever" here changes it to meaning no restriction.

There's no limit to where it is, okay?

Or - yeah, there's no limit, there's no restriction, we're open.

We can also use it as a conjunction, so we're saying it as a conjunction, joining two ideas

about possible - leaving some room.

So, wherever it's possible, leave some room.

Conjunction.

Next one I want to talk about is "whoever".

Whoever.

Now, who is about persons or peoples, right?

Person/people.

But when we talk about whoever, we're talking about any person, so there's no limitation

to the person, I don't know who you are.

Example here would be "Whoever was responsible for the..." action, or whoever was responsible

for the accident.

In this case, I don't know who the person is, so I'm saying any person who did it.

Okay, I'm not pointing particularly, I don't know.

And we go back to the idea of restriction, there's no restriction, I'm not saying this

group of people or this group of people of this person over here, I mean, I don't know

so it can be any person.

I'm not restricting it to a certain number, okay?

Now, when I said "whoever" in brackets, I said "whomever" because in English we have

"who" which is the subject, and we have "whom" which is the object and yes, when you say

"whoever", you can say "whomever", okay, to whomever this letter is addressed.

In that case, the object, the person I'm speaking to.

Usually, we say "whom", but once again, it could lead to non-restriction or no limitation.

We're cool?

A lot of information.

Whoever's listening out there, I feel for you!

Whoever's listening out there, wherever you are, I know this is difficult, okay, see,

I don't know where you are and it's anybody.

Next, it also can be used as a pronoun.

Yes, you can see it's a pronoun here, but I'm saying to you that you can use it as a

pronoun as a sentence like "Whoever would do such a bad thing?".

In this case, this is the person, this is the person speaking about it, instead of he

or she or it, we're just saying whoever would do such a bad thing, alright?

So, you can use it for pronoun use.

"Whyever".

Whyever is for reason.

What is the reason you did this?

Now, here's the interesting thing about whyever: most North Americans probably have said this,

but they'll tell you I've never written it on paper.

I will be one of the first ones to tell you I've never written it on paper.

In fact, the first time I wrote it down on paper was for this lesson for you, and whyever

I did it, I don't know at this moment.

Whoever asked me the question was the one responsible, and I will find them, wherever

they are.

Okay?

So, I'm trying to play with you to build up on our knowledge.

But it's - what was the reason for doing it, like "Whyever would you do this?"

And it's actually kind of formal, because we usually just say "Why would you do it?"

But whyever, we're going back to this whole theme about restriction and opens it up, makes

it bigger, gives it a bigger field to play in, so to speak, alright?

And you might notice I put here for emphasis for the reason why, so we know it's why and

why is the reason, but it makes it stronger, giving it emphasis.

So, whyever would you ask me that?

You could say "Why would you ask me that?"

But you're going to hear people say "Whyever would you ask me that?", making it much stronger

and much more personal.

So, more, you might say, more offense.

Whyever would you do something like that?

For what reason could you possibly think of, you know, that would make any sense in this

situation?

Now, remember, Shakira, whenever, wherever?

Now, we're going to when.

When is for what?

Time.

So, when we want to talk about no restriction - I keep saying that word because that's what

the "ever" part does.

It opens it up to, you know, being unlimited in a way, right?

So, when I say no particular time, here's an example.

I could say - you could say "Hey James, you're having a party tonight.

When should I come?"

I go "Oh, I don't know, whenever you want to come.

Come over whenever you want."

There's no restriction, there's no particular time that I care about, it's open for you.

No restriction.

The second thing we can talk about is anytime something is repeated, a repeated action.

So, you could say to somebody "Whenever" - okay - "Whenever I eat a burrito, I get stomach

problems."

It means anytime I eat it, and it's repeated, because it must mean more than one time, right?

So in this case, it's not no particular time, I'm saying anytime, anytime - anytime, anytime,

anytime I can say it many times - as an action is repeated, maybe not regularly, but in any

occasion that it occurs, or whenever this thing does happen in time, maybe once a week,

once a month, once every three years, I just know it's repeated, I'm saying anytime this

repeated action occurs, something else might happen.

So, whenever you are late, people get unhappy, right?

It means every time you repeat that action at any time.

Cool?

Alright.

Now, here's my favorite one: whatever.

What is for things usually, when we speak in English grammar we say what is for things,

who is for people, like "What is that?".

You cannot say to somebody - oh, please don't ever say to somebody "What is that?" because

they will punch you in the face, okay?

Because what is a human being, not a piece of poopoo, okay?

So, you can't say "What is that?"

talking to people, you can only say it about things.

So, whatever is a thing or caring and I put caring - you'll see why in a second or two.

What is a determiner?

Some of you are going "determiner, what is that?".

A determiner tells us what we're talking about, so you can say "this, that, and the".

These are determinator - determiners.

I think I've been watching too much Schwarzenegger.

"I am the Determinator, and I'm going to determine your future with a gunshot."

Sorry.

So, determiner tells us what we're talking about.

So, if you said, for instance, "Whatever you did worked.", I'm saying this thing here,

I'm talking about this like "the thing, this thing, that thing", it worked.

And this determines or shows me what I'm talking about.

So, whatever you used on the wall worked.

I'm talking about this product.

I could say "This thing worked, that thing worked", but I'm saying whatever it is, I

don't know what it is, alright, it's a thing, and there's no restriction on the thing, but

it worked.

Determiner to tell me what it is.

Not caring.

I was very lazy and I put "whateva".

Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes you have, in a relationship, one partner who doesn't

care and you'll say something like "Hey baby, I'm sorry - hey baby, gonna give you the news.

I'm very sorry baby, I'm late."

And she goes "Ah whatever, I don't care."

So, when someone says "Whatever", or your boss goes - you go "Boss, I didn't get the

project..."

"Whatever, Johnson!", it means it's not important, I don't care.

Sometimes, you'll see people put - by the way, please don't put this, I wrote it as

a joke, okay, because people say it like that, they go "whateva, whateva", they also say

"whatevs", "whatevs", it means "Whatever, I don't care".

But you can use whatever, finally, as emphasis.

"Whatever you do, don't touch that button!"

It means, remember the non-restriction part we talked about, you can do anything you want,

but don't do that.

Whatever you do, don't touch his hair.

You'll go crazy.

You can touch his nose, his mouth, his lips, his ears, don't touch his hair, alright?

Anyway.

I do have limits because we have time restriction, so I need to go to the next board and give

you a little quiz on what, when, where, how, and I said how because that's going to be

on our bonus section.

Are you ready?

Let's go!

And we're back!

So, I'm going to do our little quiz and then we will do our bonus section because I did

say this was the W5 lesson in which we ask questions, but there are a couple other words

we use for questions that I will address or look at in a second or two.

So, let's go to the board and look at our exercise today is choose the right word.

You learned whoever, whenever, whatever, however, whyever, now we're going to see where they

may fit in this little quiz of ours.

Start with the first one: ___________ flushed the toilet left a floater, and I had to flush

it again.

That's a difficult one, alright?

Something flushed a toilet, left a floater, and I had to flush it again.

Hmm.

Okay.

Next one: You can choose ___________ food you want for the party.

You can choose ____________ food you want for the party.

Number three: You can come over ___________ you want.

I will be home all night.

You can come over __________ you want, I will be home all night.

And: I don't care.

Do ___________ you want to do!

I don't care.

Do ___________ you want to do!

And finally: ____________ it was done, it wasn't done correctly.

____________ it was done, it wasn't done correctly.

Now, I've read these to you because some of you, I know, are really good and bright and

smart and already you're trying to figure it out, and doing so, I'm giving time for

the other people to, you know, take some time, think about, or go back over the video which

ones we did and which ones might go over here or work the best, okay?

So, I'm going to help with some of them, because some of them will have key words that help

you identify what you should use.

Some are from the lesson I taught you and I used some key words, right?

And other ones - so I've given you three that will help you, the rest we'll have to work

on, and even here I've helped you, but you have to figure out what it is, because what's

missing?

Something is missing from here.

That goes with here.

So, you ready?

Let's go to the board.

_________ flushed the toilet, left a floater.

Well, first of all, what is a floater?

If you don't know what a floater is, the sentence won't make sense.

So, let's go flush, toilet, floater.

Flushing the toilet is when you go to the washroom and if you're a lady you might sit

down, gentlemen you'll sit down and sometimes you pee, guys, you know, you pee, right?

And sometimes you do what we call number 2, you sit down and [poof, plop].

Well, sometimes the poo that you drop, it doesn't go down, it actually floats.

It stays in the top of the water like "Help, I need help, I'm in a big bath of water, help,

I'm floating!"

So, sorry, a floater is a poo that doesn't go down, it stays on the top.

And let's be honest, we've all had occasions when you flush the toilet and you know, you

walk out and you turn around, you lift up the lid and there's one piece going "Hahaha,

you didn't get me, haha, I'm still here!" and you have to flush again.

The one staying there is called the floater.

So, if we look here, because I know I went a long way from this but I'm coming back,

flushed the toilet, so flushing the toilet is the action of pulling or pressing a button

so the water goes down, that's called flushing.

Flushing a floater.

Now, the floater can't do anything.

So, we're missing a pronoun.

And if you remember when I said this word, I said it can act as a replacement for a pronoun?

And it would be this: whoever.

No restriction, I don't know who went to the washroom, but whoever flushed the toilet left

a floater and I had to go in and go "Oh geez man, ew, flush again!", so a public announcement:

be nice, flush twice, okay?

Thank you.

Anyway, now I'm back to the board.

Second one: You can choose ___________ food.

I tried to help you by putting the word "choose".

Choose offers choice.

Now, there are two, I'm going to be honest, there are two possible answers here, think,

you've got a choice with the choice.

The one I was looking for because I said "choice" was this one: whichever.

I told you which offers choice, right?

But remember I said thing?

So, you could have the choice and actually use this one: (whatever) You can choose whatever

food you want, it's a thing, but I was looking for "which", but know in English, in this

particular case or situation like this, either one could be used, alright?

Cool.

Now, let's go to the third - this one here.

This one: night.

Night is a time of day, right?

We talk about day and night, we're talking about time, and which one were we saying that

we have to use with time?

And I would say this one: when.

When is time, so whenever, without restriction, you can come over whenever you like, no restriction.

In all three cases, there's no restriction.

I don't know, there's a group of people, I don't know which one, so whoever.

Whichever means you have any choice, it's unlimited, or whatever, I'm not limiting your

choice.

And here's the same thing: Come over whenever you want, there's no restriction to the time.

Now, let's go down here.

"I don't care anymore..."

Phil Collins, right?

I don't care?

What you say.

When I was a young child, I used to play this song to annoy my father, so my dad's watching

this video, I love you Dad, but I know I used to play it whenever you would say "You've

gotta clean your room!" and I'd be "I don't care anymore!" and then he would go "Do you

want me to come downstairs?" and I'd go "I do care, I'm cleaning now.", okay, so.

I don't care, so you don't care, remember what I said, that there's this word we say

for not caring, but it also can be slang and we use a slang version of it?

That's right.

It doesn't always have to be negative because I mean, I was joking about it, but if you

say, "I can do whatever I want.", it means I have the freedom to do, I have any choice

I want to make, okay?

Do whatever you want to do.

And finally, this one was paired, or I put it with - actually, we haven't done it yet,

so if this was difficult for you, it should be.

But if you're looking at the board - don't look, don't look, don't look! - the answer's

there.

Because when a teacher wrote this one, and it is "However", you've been taught in grammar

class however means with exception or it's a contradiction.

I'm going to teach you one more meaning that may not be obvious here for you, but we'll

go into it.

So, if you say, "However it was done, it wasn't done correctly.", it means in the way it was

it was done, or any way it was done, it was not correct.

And on that note, I want to go to the board and let's look at two other ones we didn't

talk about at the beginning of the lesson that I'm going to give you in the bonus section,

and these ones are "whichever" and "however".

Now, when we talk about "whichever", we talk about choice.

You notice I had it over here, I explained it, so whichever choice.

So, you can say "Have whichever one you want.", which means you get to choose the one you

like.

Whichever has a second meaning, which means "regardless", right?

It means it doesn't matter in that way, in that case, so regardless what I do, and it

means it doesn't matter what I do, so, she was going to be lost whichever road she took.

Which means if she took the left road, the right road, the straight road, the back road,

whichever one, regardless, she wasn't going to - she was going to be lost.

She wasn't going to get home.

This is very different than choice, when I say "whichever", okay?

It means regardless.

Two different meanings.

When we talk about "however", commonly it's taught in school to be a contradiction.

You know, vacations are expensive, however, they're necessary to relax.

So, there's a contradiction or there's a break, so we're saying on one hand this, on the other

hand this.

And that's what we have here, something, I don't know what they're talking about, and

he said "...however, it might be better to do this".

So, something here is suggested, like we go to McDonalds for dinner.

However, considering my stomach is not good, it is better to do something else.

We go to Burger King.

Just however in contradiction or contrast or opposing to the other thing.

And the final one for however is in any way.

And it means it doesn't matter the way that you do it.

So, you often hear people say "However you look at it", and it means it doesn't matter

if you look at it this way, this way, this way, it doesn't matter what your prospective

is, it doesn't matter what your opinion is, in any way you look at it, it's a certain

way.

In any way, it's done.

Cool?

Alright.

So, I've given you W5 and made it W7 for extra and I want to give you your homework as per

usual.

I want you to think of five new ways to use this vocabulary in a sentence and I don't

want to make it too easy, so it's rather easy to write out five random sentences and go

"Okay, good on me, look what I did".

But, you could put something together like, you know, "Whoever handed in their essay late

and thought that" - you know, sorry, let me see, I gotta work on this, because I speak

English, I can do this!

Okay.

"Whoever thought coming in late at night was a good idea should have thought twice, because

whenever this has happened before in the past, there have been consequences.

And whichever way you look at it, these consequences must be given out to maintain order."

I speak English, so I just used three of these words like that.

I didn't think of this sentence before, and that's why you saw me look up going "I better

get this right before I get embarrassed!"

But you can do the same thing; taking these words and putting them together in a context

that makes sense so you can show your expertise or your mastery of the language.

On that note, whoever's still watching, thank you very much.

I always enjoy it whenever you come to visit us here at www.engvid.com . I better get going,

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And, as always, thank you very much for taking your time to being with us here at www.engvid.com

and I appreciate it.

It's me, JamesESL, on my way out.

Have a good night, and I'll see you whenever we meet up like this again.

Ciao.