Why English is easy to learn

56,095 views ・ 2020-08-15

English with Alex


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Is it ìle tableî, or ìla tableî in French?
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Man, learning a language is really, really hard.
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I know that language, and you will too!
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Hey everyone, Iím Alex, thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on some reasons
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why English is not that difficult and maybe even easy.
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So, there are many languages that have some different rules, different conventions, just
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different ways of working that make them really challenging.
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Now, English has these things too.
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You can probably mention many, many reasons why English is something that is very challenging,
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very difficult, and detestable maybe, even, depending on who you are.
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But today, I want to tell you why English is actually easy in many ways, when you compare
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it to other languages that maybe you know or that you have studied in the past.
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So, letís not waste any time and letís find out why English is not so bad.
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Number one: gender neutrality!
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Thank you, English!
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Now, gender neutrality affects a lot of different things.
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So, number one: adjective conjugation.
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This is wonderful.
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All subjects, one adjective.
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This means Iím cold, youíre cold, heís cold, sheís cold, itís cold, weíre cold,
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theyíre cold.
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You donít have to conjugate the adjective at all!
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One adjective, all subjects, it doesnít matter.
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Now, this differs from many languages such as Polish, such as French, for example.
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So, you can be very grateful for gender neutrality in English.
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Number one: adjective conjugation.
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This is a pretty great part about learning English, because it reduces the amount of
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vocabulary that you have to memorize.
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Letís look at more gender neutrality in number two.
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Verb conjugation, okay.
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This is great.
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Subjects do not affect how you conjugate a verb in English, with one exception.
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So, I did say all subjects, only exception, third person present simple excluded.
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Iím going to get back to that.
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So, in the past simple, in the continuous, in the present perfect, the past perfect,
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it doesnít matter which one you use.
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Yes, they have a different verb form.
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You might be using the past form or the past participle form, but the subject does not
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change the verb.
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For example, past simple ñ I ran, you ran, he ran, she ran, it ran, we ran, they ran.
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Ran, ran, ran, ran, ran, ran, ran!
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Ah, it feels so good.
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You only have to memorize one simple past verb when youíre learning how to speak in
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the past in English, or learning the present perfect in English.
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Again, the only thing you need to remember when it comes to subjects affecting the conjugation
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of a verb is the third person present simple.
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Thatís it.
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Just add an ìsî.
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I run, you run, we run, they run.
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Okay, he runs, she runs, it runs.
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Thatís it!
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Thatís it!
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Itís so beautiful.
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Itís so easy.
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Ah.
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Letís move on to number three.
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Definite article ñ the.
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One definite article.
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No ìlo, la, leî like French, for example.
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And Spanish is similar, right?
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Think, yeah.
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So, in English, you have the man, the woman, the men, the women.
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Male, female, singular, plural.
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English doesnít care, it doesnít matter!
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Youíre ìthe, the, the, theî.
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You donít have to even worry about it.
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Itís so great, so, so, great.
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Letís keep going.
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Number four.
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Alright.
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Noun conjugation.
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This is pretty cool too.
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Now, many languages share this trait with English, but let me tell you about Polish
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a little bit, okay?
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So, in English, ìI have a kitchenî, ìIím in the kitchenî, ìThis is a kitchenî.
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Kitchen, kitchen, kitchen all day long.
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In Polish, you would say, [Ö] Itís ñ you have to conjugate nouns.
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In English, this does not exist.
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A kitchen is a kitchen is a kitchen forever and ever, okay?
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The only exception you have to remember when conjugating nouns is plurals, add ìsî, right?
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One kitchen, two kitchens.
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For possessive, add ìísî.
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The kitchenís stove, whatever you want to say there.
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Not a great example, but I think you get it.
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So, noun conjugation.
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One noun.
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Donít have to conjugate it.
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Itís pretty good.
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Number five.
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Resources are everywhere!
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Now, depending on how you feel about cultural imperialism and linguistic hegemony, this
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is a good thing or a bad thing.
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However, it doesnít change the fact that English is everywhere.
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Whether youíre looking at books, movies, listening to music, searching the web.
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If you are watching videos, if youíre on www.engvid.com , English lessons, English
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learning materials are freely available to everyone.
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This is not the case for some languages, where you have a very limited number of resources
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that you can use.
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Speaking of www.engvid.com , did you know that on www.engvid.com we now have over 1,500
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videos that you can use to improve your English for free?
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I have over 200 videos alone!
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So, check it out because Iím telling you, resources are everywhere.
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You can learn this language with the help of all of these free, wonderful resources
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that are readily available to you.
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That is pretty great.
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Oh, whatís that?
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Oh yeah, thereís one more.
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Number six.
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The alphabet.
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Regardless of where you are in the world, if you are watching this video on the internet,
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you are probably already familiar with the alphabet.
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It is everywhere and itís only 26 letters, which is wonderful if youíre learning a language
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for the first time.
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Especially if you compare it to some other languages in the world that have more letters.
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For example, Khmer (Cambodian), which has the most letters of any alphabet in the world,
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has 74 letters.
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Very impressive, right?
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Difficult to learn if youíre starting from scratch and youíre not a native-born Cambodian.
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So, Russian has 33 letters.
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Arabic has 28 letters, only two more than English, but you know, 26 is still a little
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less.
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So, because English is everywhere, the alphabet is everywhere.
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Youíre probably already familiar with it, which gives you an advantage immediately when
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youíre starting to learn it.
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So, Iíve given you six reasons why English is easy.
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Iím not saying itís the easiest language in the world, okay?
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I know there are difficult things about English, and I will cover those in another video.
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The purpose of this video is to grow your confidence by letting you know, ìYou know
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what?
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There are some things that make learning English kind of fun, kind of easier than learning
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another language.î And I just want you guys to feel good about yourselves and to feel
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good about learning along with me and learning along with all the www.engvid.com teachers
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and all the amount of resources that you have available to you on our website and in the
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world, basically.
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So, if you want to test your understanding of this material, your comprehension of everything
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I have talked about today, as always, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com , where
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we have, like I said, over 1500 videos.
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1500!
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I donít know how to ñ 1500!
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I think thatís right.
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And check those out.
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And check me out on YouTube, subscribe to my channel, hit the notification bell, go
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to Facebook, go to Twitter, search for ìAlex EngVidî and youíll find me there too.
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Until next time, thanks for clicking and good luck with your studies.
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