Learn English FASTER with Ed Sheeran

With just one song, you are going to learn phrasal verbs, past tense,

vocabulary, pronunciation, and how to connect your words together in a

beautifully smooth and natural way.

And you're going to do this all through the power of music.

Hello everyone, Anna here from englishlikeanative.co.uk, and

I'm here today to help you to learn English through song.

If you need a space to practice, then consider joining my Conversation Club,

which is a fantastic online community that gives you lots of opportunities

to read, write, speak, and listen.

I'll leave a link in the description.

But now, let's learn English through song.

First, pronunciation.

Ed Sheeran is from the UK and he sings with a British accent.

So let's see what we can learn from him taking the first verse.

He starts by singing,

"When I was six years old.

I broke my leg."

Ouch.

Now notice here, the S on the end of years /jɪəz/ is pronounced as a Z.

Many times in British English, S will be pronounced as a Z.

So it's important to listen out and hear when it's an S and when

it's a Z in years /jɪəz/ it's a Z.

So, "When I was six years old."

Now, you'll notice that years joins very nicely onto old.

We do this a lot.

We connect our words often not breaking and having a pause between words.

So he says, "When I was six years old, /jɪəzəʊld/."

Then he reduces I — to /æ/.

So instead of saying I /aɪ/ with a nice diphthong sound, he does a simple — I /æ/.

"I /æ/ broke my leg.

I broke my leg.

I broke my leg."

And this is because he's singing fast, it's right in the middle of a

sentence, and so it's just reduced.

"When I was six years old /jɪəzəʊld/, I /æ/ broke my leg."

Now I would play the song for you, but YouTube will hit me with

a copyright strike if I do that, and I may lose the entire channel.

So it will be up to you after this lesson to click on the link

in the description and listen to Ed Sheeran actually singing this.

"When I was six years old, I broke my leg."

Then he says,

"When I was running from my brother and his friends."

Now here, was /wɑːz/ is in its weak form.

We use weak forms often.

So instead of saying was /wɑːz/, he says was /wəz/.

Was /wɑːz/ — was /wəz/.

Can you hear the difference?

So he says, "When I was, when I was, when I was."

And the A in and /ænd/ becomes the schwa.

So it becomes and /ənd/, and /ənd/, rather than and /ænd/, which is a little bit

brighter, takes a bit more effort, it's more relaxed to help everything to flow.

And you'll hear this a lot with the word and /ænd/, it's

normally weakened to /ənd/, /ənd/.

"I was running from my brother and his friends."

So he sings,

"When I was six years old, I broke my leg.

When I was running from my brother and his friends."

Now, the next time we hear and /ænd/ is the very next sentence.

And is then reduced to simply /ən/, /ən/, so he takes the D off.

He sings,

"And /ən/ tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass I rolled down."

So instead of saying, "And /ænd/ tasted the sweet perfume," we've

got /ən/ — and /ən/ untasted."

And that's to make it flow easily, "And /ən/ tasted the sweet perfume of the..."

And here, of /ɒv/ is weak.

So instead of /ɒv/, we have of /əv/, /əv/.

"And tasted the sweet perfume of /əv/ the mountain grass."

Now here you'll notice that mountain /ˈmaʊntɪn/, we have that ending

/tɪn/ rather than /teɪn/, which is what I hear regularly from students

because that's how it looks.

But the pronunciation is — /ˈmaʊntɪn/, /ˈmaʊntɪn/, /ˈmaʊntɪn/.

And with the word 'grass', there is a divide in the UK — some British

accents will have a short /æ/, you'll hear grass /ɡræs/, but RP

and more Southern-based accents are a long /ɑː/ vowel, grass /ɡrɑːs/.

So he sings,

"And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass /ɡrɑːs/ I rolled down."

Right, so in the next section, I is treated differently.

We have one version where it's weakened to /æ/, and then we have one full version.

He sings,

"Well, I was younger then..."

So, "Well I /æ/, well /æ wəz/, I was, I was younger then, take me back to when.

I..."

Okay, so when he sings that I, it's before a beat, so he has a pause

before it, a pause after it, so he has time to make it important.

"I /aɪ/ found my way.

I can't remember what the next bit is, but that's, that's what happens.

We have a shorter, weaker, "I was /æ wəz/, I was younger

then, take me back to when I."

Next, he treats the word my slightly differently too.

He turns it into /mæ/, which happens a lot.

"Found my /mæ/ heart," he sings, "Found my /mæ/ heart," rather

than "Found my /maɪ/ heart."

So, "I found my /mæ/ heart and broke it here."

So all together he sings,

"Well, I was younger then, take me back to when

I found my /mæ/ heart and broke it here

Made friends and lost them through the years."

Okay, so next we have — "And I've, and I've."

"I've" being in the contraction of "I have".

"And I have."

But "And I've" when put together, sounds like "An dive, an dive" — "And I've".

So we have,

"And I've not seen the roaring fields in so long.

And I've, and I've not seen..."

Okay.

We have the word roaring fields.

So here roaring ends with I N G.

So it should have in RP an /ŋ/ sound.

N G represents an /ŋ/ with the back of the tongue high.

But from what I can hear, Ed Sheeran is actually doing an N sound instead.

And I think this is because it's easier to get the flow of the lyric throughout

that particular part of the song.

So he says roaring, roaring.

And the front of the tongue comes up for the N, roaring, roaring.

This happens often in many dialects.

You'll hear the NG being switched for an N.

So he sings, "And I've not seen the roaring fields in

so long, I know I've grown."

Now he sings the line leading into the chorus.

He sings,

"But I can't wait to go home."

So I can't wait.

Can't wait.

You'll notice here both ts are dropped, "But I can't wait to go home."

And that's kind of given him more of a, a regional accent.

The other thing you'll notice here is the vowel in can't often I hear

students giving a short vowel here, which is very prominent in American

English, can't, can't with a /æ/, /æ/, /æ/, like you'd have in can, but for

British English, you want to have a long /ɑː/ sound — I can't, I can't.

Open the mouth, drop the jaw — /ɑː/.

I can't.

And then if you're singing along to the song, drop the t,

"And I can't wait to go home."

Okay, so you can see.

That you can learn a lot of great pronunciation tips through music.

All you have to do is listen, and listen, and listen, and listen, and then

start singing along following exactly the same pronunciation as the singer.

So, what about grammar?

Before we get into that, if you are enjoying this lesson, please give it

a like and subscribe to this channel for more English learning content.

It really does help me a great deal.

Okay, so, grammar.

Castle on the Hill is all about Ed Sheeran's childhood memories,

which makes it perfect for practising the past simple tense.

So let's look at some examples from the song.

"I was six years old when I broke my leg."

As you can see, Ed Sheeran is using the past tense to describe

something that happened in the past.

'Was' is the past tense of 'be' and 'broke' is the past form of 'break'.

There are also examples of the past continuous tense.

This is when we describe actions that were happening or ongoing

at a specific moment in the past.

For example, Ed sings, "I was running from my brother and his friends."

"I was running."

"I was running from my brother."

The structure here is 'was' plus the verb with -ing, so 'was running'.

Okay, what about phrasal verbs?

These are a combination of a verb and one or two particles

like 'up', 'back' or 'on'.

They're super common in everyday English and Castle on the Hill

gives us a couple of great examples.

In the song, Ed Sheeran sings,

"Take me back to when..."

The phrasal verb here is 'take back', which means, in this context, to

return to a place or a previous time.

He's asking to go back in time to his childhood.

It can also mean that you've been reminded strongly about a time in the past.

You might say,

"Oh, that smell of roses takes me back to the dressing room of

the Adelphi Theatre in London."

It reminds me of that place and that time.

Another example in the song is,

"Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long."

Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long.

The phrasal verb, 'thrown up', means, to vomit.

Let's move on to general vocabulary.

One of the main themes of Castle on the Hill is nostalgia, and we can all be

a little nostalgic from time to time.

Ed Sheeran is looking back on his childhood with fond memories, and there

are a few useful expressions that you can learn to talk about your past.

He sings,

"When I was six years old."

And he uses this to start the story about his childhood.

This is very common.

I would say,

"Hey, you know, when I was 12 years old, I spiral fractured my femur.

It was a really bad break."

And that is a true story.

I talked about it in another video, I can put a link below.

Another common phrase we would use when being nostalgic is,

"Ah, those were the days."

Which we often use to talk about good times in the past.

It means that you are just remembering it with fondness.

Like if I say,

"Ah, I remember the days before we had children when I could go to

bed whenever I liked, have a lie in on the weekend, go out on a whim.

Those were the days."

So I'm saying, I remember those fondly.

I remember that time fondly.

Other vocabulary he uses to express nostalgia include, 'I still remember'.

He sings,

"I still remember those old country lanes."

And what he's saying is, I don't just remember — I STILL remember.

This adds a sense of love to the memory saying, I've held onto this.

I still have it.

I do still have this with me because it was so profound.

It affected me so deeply.

I loved this place.

I loved this time.

So I still remember it.

You could use it in the negative as well.

It's about the profoundness of the memory.

I still remember the days when I went to bed hungry because we

didn't have enough food to eat.

I still remember that.

It affected me so deeply, so profoundly that that memory

will stick with me forever.

I still remember it.

Another phrase he uses is, "And I miss the way you make me feel."

"And I miss the way you make me feel, it's real."

So when you say you miss something, then you're expressing that feeling of loss.

That you wish you still had that thing, or that you could still experience it.

I miss it.

I miss the way you make me feel.

I miss the roaring fields and the smell of the grass.

I miss it.

Okay, now, your homework is in two parts.

Part one, you have to write a few sentences about your childhood.

It could be a fond memory, the place where you grew up.

A game you used to play with your friends, anything, post it in the

comments below and take a moment to read some of the other comments too.

Part two of your homework is to go to the link that I've put in the description and

listen to Ed Sheeran singing this song.

I want you to listen over and over again while reading the lyrics.

Then sing along until you know this song off by heart and make this your shower

song for at least the next seven days.

And that my friend is how you are going to improve your English.