Basic English Grammar - "Is" or "It's"?

Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "is" and "it's."

Now this is a different lesson from "it's" and "it's." That lesson can be seen on

engVid, so you can check it out there as well.

Now today, we're looking at "is" and "it's," which is a grammar point. That is

really important for you guys. I have five sets of sentences on the board, and

this is a mistake that is often made by Spanish speakers. So if you are a

Spanish speaker, and if some of these sentences look familiar to you, that's

good, because that means you can recognize your mistakes today, and you

can fix them for the future. So here, let's look at the first one. This is one

that I hear all the time. Now, "it's good" or "is good"? Which one is correct? Okay,

this one is correct. Now, why is this not correct? "Is good." In English, you need to

identify a subject, okay? If you have just a sentence that begins with a verb,

like this, "is good," you can't do it. I will ask you, "What is good?" You have to tell

me what is good. In this case, "it is good." "It's good." So if you're eating

something, and if you say, "Mmm, it's good," right? You don't say "is good." I know in many

languages, including Spanish, including Polish, and I'm sure other languages as

well, you can begin a sentence with the verb "to be." In English, you can't, okay,

unless it's a question. That's the only time you can begin a sentence with the

verb "to be" is if it's a question. So knowing that, let's look at the other

examples. Here, "It's cold today." "It's cold today." Which one is correct? Correct.

The second one, "It is cold today," right? The day is cold. If you just say, "Is cold

today," my question is, "What is cold today?" Okay? Here, a very similar example, "The

weather is cold." "The weather, it's cold." It's similar but different. Here, what do

we have? We have "the weather." "The weather" is a subject. Now, common sentence

construction, of course, is subject plus verb. Subject, "the weather," plus verb, "is."

This is good. Here, "The weather, it's cold." Why is this incorrect? Well, because you

have subject, "the weather," plus subject, "it," plus verb. This is redundant. You are

repeating information. Okay? So you just have to say, "The weather is cold," subject plus

the verb "to be." Okay. "Is the reason I moved here." "It's the reason I moved here." Which

one is correct? Correct. The second one, if you say, "Is the reason I moved here," my

question is correct. "What is the reason?" "What is the reason?" "It is the reason."

"That is the reason." "This is the reason that I moved here." You can say, for example,

"The restaurants are the reason." Okay? Or, "He is the reason." "She is the reason." "It

is the reason I moved here." Right? "It is the reason I moved here." "It's the reason."

Finally, "I want to see it, but it's scary." "I want to see it, but it's scary." Here,

you have a bit of a different sentence because you have a construction where you have a comma,

right, and a conjunction. Now, if you have a conjunction, right, you need to start a

new idea, a new topic, a new thought. You have to have a subject again. So here, knowing

"but," what do you think is the correct sentence? Right. "But it's scary." So I want to see

a movie, right, but it's scary. So here, but you say, "Teacher, you said I want to see

it." Right? "It." I understand. It's "it" already. Why do I have to repeat "it" again?

Because you used a conjunction. Okay? You used a connecting word like "but," like "and,"

like "or," like "so." If you do that, you have to use "it" again. Okay? "I want to see

it, but it's scary." If you have this, "but is scary," my question again is, "What is

scary?" "But it, the movie, is scary." Okay? All right, guys. So to test your understanding

of when to use "is," when to use "it," and make sure you never make this mistake again,

check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. Good luck, guys, and see you next time.