Learn English with Ed Sheeran 'Perfect' | Lyrics

Look who's back! It's Ed Sheeran!

He's back again Eat Sleep Dreamers. Ed Sheeran is here to teach us some English from his

amazing songs. Today we're looking at his hit single 'Perfect'. It's a romantic love

song that's full of fantastic vocabulary. So if you're ready, let's let Ed do his thing.

'Darling just dive right in and follow my lead'. Here we have two fantastic phrases.

The first one 'dive (right) in'. This means to do something without stopping to think.

So whenever I get something from Ikea, like a bed for example, I won't stop to read the

instructions I'll just dive right in. I will just start trying to put it together without

stopping to have a look at the instructions, to think, to take my time. I just dive right

in, I just start doing it without stopping to think. 'Follow my lead' means kind of do

as I do. Use me as an example. I context for follow my lead that's quite common is dancing.

So one person maybe an expert knows how to dance and the other person is learning. The

expert would say 'follow my lead'. So I'll show you how to do it and you just do as I

do, you follow my example. So yeah that's a really common use of follow my lead. And

in fact in Ed Sheeran's official video for this song he is dancing with his partner so

maybe that's part of the reason.

Obviously we've got kids which is a short form for children. I'm sure you know that

one. And then we've got 'I will not give you up this time'. To give someone up. So to give

up in the general sense, we often associate with a bad habit so 'I need to give up smoking'

or 'I need to give up picking my nose' or whatever it might be. Now if you give someone

up, there're a couple of meanings there. I guess the idea is here that he's not losing

hope with this person, that he wants to keep this romance going. In this sense, I don't

want to give you up means like this relationship is great, let's keep it going, like you are

too important to me to stop loving. So I don't want to give you up, that's what it means.

Woah! Ed stop right there! Ok, now if we are going to do we're going to do this right.

Sometimes in songs, they use incorrect grammar and this is an example of incorrect grammar.

Certainly in British English. We have kiss, it's a verb. After a verb, to describe how

we do that verb, we need an adverb. So we would need slowly, kiss me slowly. Not kiss

me slow. Slow is an adjective and that should be describing a noun. Now in American English,

it's much more common to use an adjective to describe a verb so 'we did good' for example.

Now I'm not going to tell you what's right and wrong in terms of what you should say

but if you want to know the rules in British English we would say 'kiss me slowly'. Because

you need the adverb to describe the verb. Now Ed Sheeran is a an award-winning artist,

I'm not going to tell him what to right and wrong in English but just FYI Ed, it should

be slowly, but I'm not saying anything. No, Ed can do what he wants. I'm not telling him

what to do. It should be slowly though.

'And in your eyes you're holding mine' it's a very romantic line here. Ed is saying here

that they both keep looking at each other and they continue to look at each other, keeping

their attention. Now we've got 'to hold someone's gaze' which is the same, kind of the same

meaning here. It means that you keep looking at someone who is looking at you, so a lover

or two lovers would keep looking at each other in pure love. They would hold each other's

gaze. You could hold someone's attention as well. So you keep their attention on you,

you continue to hold it. So this is the same kind of thing. In your eyes you're holding

mine just means we are kind of looking at each other and I can't stop looking at you

and you can't stop looking at me. It's a very romantic phrase.

Barefoot can be used as an adjective or an adverb to describe when you are not wearing

anything on your feet. So no socks, no shoes. You can walk barefoot, so you are walking

with no shoes or socks. So Ed Sheeran is barefoot in the grass so he's dancing in the grass

without any shoes or socks on. 'When you said that you look a mess' now a mess is a great

*noun (not adjective) we use in every day English to describe when you look untidy.

Your hair is everywhere, you've got bags under your eyes, you look tired you don't look yourself.

Usually in the morning, if I think about the moment that I wake up, you know, I look a

mess. I haven't got my hair sorted out, you know, just yeah, I look a bit of a disaster.

Here's a fantastic phrase 'to whisper underneath your breath' or 'to say something underneath

your breath.' The idea is that you say something very quietly so that only you hear it or someone

very close to you hears it. So you speak a bit like this, but you don't need to put your

hand there obviously. You just kind of say something very quietly so that only maybe

the closest people to you can hear or just yourself. So in this case Ed is saying 'you

look perfect tonight' but he's saying it very quietly 'you look perfect tonight'. So that

no one else can hear. So to say something underneath your breath or to say something

under your breath, same meaning.

Against all odds. If something is against all odds it's not likely to succeed. It will

probably fail. So here in Ed's example he's talking about our love. Now this love is against

all odds, there are so many problems. So many difficulties but we've succeeded, it's incredible.

You could have it in a sport for example a small team playing a bigger team. The small

team, they are against all odds. There's very little chance of them winning but if they

win, they won against all odds. They won even though it was unlikely and there were so many

problems. So if you do something against all odds you do it despite the fact that it was

really unlikely to happen and very difficult to do. Alright, how was that for you guys?

Did you enjoy learning English with Ed Sheeran? It's a beautiful song, very romantic.I hope

you enjoyed it, I hope you learned lots of new vocabulary and phrases. I've done two

other Ed Sheeran videos, please check them out. I did 'Shape of You' and I also did 'Castle

on the Hill'. Check them out. I'm sure you will enjoy them as well. They are a bit of

fun. I think music is a great way to learn English so check them out, see if you enjoy

them, let me know in the comments below. This is Tom the chief dreamer saying goodbye.