Learn English with CHRISTMAS SONGS 🎵

Merry Christmas.

Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video, we have a very special video for you.

I will be teaching you some popular English Christmas songs, and I'll be teaching you

about the grammar and vocabulary in these songs.

So, why Christmas songs?

Well, if you learn Christmas songs, it's always a great idea because they are very popular.

During Christmas time, Christmas songs play on the radio, they play in movies, especially

Christmas movies.

You can find a lot of them on YouTube, on Spotify, or on other apps.

If you're walking down the street in a country that celebrates Christmas, you will probably

hear maybe even people singing Christmas songs.

You might hear them if you're walking around the shopping malls.

So there's a lot of opportunity to hear these songs, and to sing, if you like to sing.

Again, we sing Christmas songs every year.

I have been singing the same Christmas songs since I was a small child, so if you learn

these songs, you will have a lot of opportunity to sing them every single year.

And again, Christmas songs have great examples of grammar as well as vocabulary, so I'm going

to share with you a few songs.

We're going to talk about Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Up on the Housetop, and Last Christmas

by Wham!, and we're going to look at the lyrics, the grammar, and the vocabulary in these songs.

And then I'm going to give you some other Christmas song recommendations to check out

at the end of the video.

So, before we get started, it's important to know some key music vocabulary.

My first word here is "Christmas carol".

So, a carol is a type of song.

A Christmas carol is a Christmas song.

So today, I'm going to teach you three Christmas carols.

That's another way to say "Christmas song".

I have here the word "lyrics", "lyrics".

What are the lyrics of a song?

Well, it's a way to say the words of a song, so "lyrics" means the words of a song.

So, today I will teach you the lyrics of some Christmas carols.

I will teach you the words to Christmas songs.

We also have this word next, "chorus".

And the "ch" here, it sounds like a "k" sound, like a "k" sound.

We say "chorus".

So, what is the chorus?

Well, in a song, sometimes there's a part of the song, so there's some words in the

song that repeat again, and again, and again throughout the song.

The repeated part of the song is the chorus.

So, I'll show you the choruses of three songs today.

Okay, now this is the last word, "off-key".

When something is off-key, it means that someone is singing and the musical notes are wrong,

or it does not sound correct.

So, I'm teaching you this word because today I will be singing, and unfortunately, I'm

not the best singer.

I usually sing off-key, so my apologies.

I'm going to try my best, but you can also listen to these songs on YouTube.

You can just type in the name of the song, and hear a better singer like Michael Buble,

or you know, Justin Bieber, or Mariah Carey sing these same songs.

But I'm going to try my best, so you will get to hear my singing voice, even if it is

off-key.

So, let's get started with some Christmas music.

Okay.

So, our first song is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

So, Santa Claus is a character who wears red, he has a red hat, a white beard, he tends

to be a fat, happy man, and on Christmas, he goes to different houses and he gives presents

to little children.

So, this song is about when Santa Claus comes.

So, I love this song because it uses the present continuous grammar tense.

So, the present continuous is one of the first grammar tenses, or first verb tenses students

learn.

So, this is a great song for beginner students, intermediate students, and advanced students.

All students can learn this song.

So, just to remind you, the present continuous tense is when you have your be verb, and it's

conjugated to "am", "I am", "you are", "he is", "she is", "they are", "it is", so you

have a subject, "I", "you", "he", "she", "we", "it", "they", you have the be verb, and then

you have your actual verb, that is the action, with "ing".

So, let's look at the present continuous in this song.

Well, the very title, "Santa Claus is coming to town", is a present continuous sentence.

So, we have Santa Claus, who's the subject.

We have "is", which is our be verb, and because Santa Claus is a "he", we use "is".

If it was Mrs. Claus, we would still use "is".

And then we have our verb, "come".

We add "ing" to it, so it becomes "coming to town".

Santa Claus is coming to town.

What is Santa Claus doing?

He is coming to town.

So, we have other examples of the present continuous in this song, too.

We're going to look at the lyrics, and I'm not going to teach you the whole song, because

first of all, I don't remember the whole song.

Usually, when you learn Christmas songs, most people remember part of the Christmas song,

but they might not know or remember all the words.

So, this is the most important part of the song to remember.

So, I'm going to teach you the words, and then we're going to sing it together.

So, the first line, or the first lyrics, are "he", meaning Santa Claus, "he's", so remember

when we have an apostrophe and an "s", that's another way to say "he is".

"He's", "he is" is the same thing.

So, "he's making", so there we have our verb "make", and we add "ing" to it, "he's making

a list".

What's a list?

Well, I've drawn a list here, so we have here Santa Claus, and here we have a list.

A list is a paper that has information on it.

And usually, you might have numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and you might have names on a

list or some other details.

So, in this case, Santa Claus is making a list.

This is what Santa made.

What's he doing with the list?

He's checking it twice.

So, we have "he", the subject, apostrophe "s", which means "is", "he is checking", so

we have our "ing" on our verb, "it twice", and "it" means the list, so he's checking

the list twice.

Why twice?

Well, he wants to be careful.

He wants to make sure there's no mistakes on the list.

And the list Santa Claus makes is the nice list, where all the good boys and girls are

on this list in the world, and then he has the naughty list.

The naughty list is for the boys and girls who do not listen, who get into trouble.

So, in this nice list, who's number one on the list?

That's right, it's me, Emma.

And then we have James, who's a great English teacher, and Ronnie, who's another great English

teacher, and of course, all of the engVid teachers would make the nice list.

And then, I don't know who's on the naughty list, in case you're wondering.

That's a good question.

So, let's continue with the song.

"He's", again, "he is", "gonna".

So, "gonna" is a - it's a way in slang to say "going to".

So, "gonna" is an informal way to say "going to".

So, "going to" is in the present perfect continuous tense.

It has -ing, "to".

So, "He's gonna find out who", and then there's an apostrophe "s", so "who is", "naughty",

which means bad, or "nice".

So, here we have a picture of someone naughty and someone nice.

"He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice."

And then, we have the last sentence, "Santa Claus is coming to town."

In some versions of the song, you will hear this part repeat.

It's the chorus.

You will hear, "Santa Claus is coming to town, Santa Claus is coming to town, Santa Claus

is coming to town."

I told you I'm off key.

Alright, well, so now, let's actually sing this song together.

So, you can first listen to me sing it, and then pause the video, go back, and sing it

with me.

Alright.

So, let me just warm up.

Alright.

"He's making a list, he's checking it twice.

He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice.

Santa Claus is coming to town."

Sorry, I'm off key.

The last part, I did not go high enough.

Again, if you want to hear a beautiful voice sing this, check out Michael Buble or Mariah

Carey or Bing Crosby.

There's a lot of different singers you can check out.

Alright, well, this is a great song to memorize.

Again, you don't have to memorize the whole thing, but you can if you want.

There are other examples of the present perfect tense in this song, but this is the main part

people remember.

Now, let's look at our next Christmas song.

Alright.

So, our next song is a great song to practice prepositions.

The song is called "Up on the Housetop".

So, what is a preposition again?

Well, in English, we have words called prepositions, and there's different types of prepositions.

One type of preposition is it's a word that tells you the location of something.

So, for example, on, off, up, down, in, out, over, under, above, below, with, to, at, in,

for.

These are all examples of prepositions.

So, this song has a lot of prepositions.

So, let's look at the lyrics, and remember, the lyrics means the words of the song.

We're going to talk a little bit about some of the vocabulary, and then we are going to

sing it together.

So, and I also have a little house to help you understand where Santa Claus is, where

the reindeer are, and just the prepositions we're using today.

So, the first lyric in the song is "up on the housetop".

So, this, you see the roof, the red part of the house?

That's the top of the house, so we can call that the housetop.

"Up", and we're saying "up" because the roof is high, "up on the housetop", we use "on"

because something is on the roof.

What's on the housetop?

Well, first, we see "reindeer".

So, a reindeer, I know it kind of looks like an ant here, but it's supposed to be a reindeer.

Reindeer are a type of animal that Santa uses to pull his sled.

So, we have our reindeer, we have Santa's sled, and this man up here is Santa Claus.

So, what's on the roof?

Reindeer are on the roof; they're up on the roof.

So, up on the rooftop, reindeer pause.

Pause is another verb for wait.

So, look, this reindeer right here, he's waiting, he's waiting for Santa to do his job.

And what happens?

Out jumps good old Santa Claus.

So, Santa Claus jumps out of his sled.

And then he goes up to the chimney, so this part, this rectangular part of the roof where

smoke comes out and, you know, ventilation happens there, that's called the chimney.

So, Santa Claus goes down the chimney into the house with a bag of toys.

So, we say, "Out jumps good old Santa Claus", "down through", so where does Santa go?

He goes down through the chimney with lots of toys, all - so who are the toys for?

The toys are for the little ones.

Little ones means children in this song, so the little ones are the children.

All for the little ones' Christmas joys, and joy is another way to say happiness.

So, why is Santa doing this? to make children happy.

Now, this is the chorus of the song, the part that repeats.

It goes, "Ho, ho, ho", that's what Santa says.

No one else says this, by the way.

I have never in my life heard someone say, "Ho, ho, ho", other than Santa or people pretending

to be Santa.

"Ho, ho, ho, who wouldn't go, ho, ho, ho, who wouldn't go."

And then we go back to talking about the housetop.

Up on the housetop, click, click, click, so that's the sound of the reindeer's feet.

The reindeer are moving, it's going click, click, click.

Down through the chimney, so we look down through the chimney with old Saint Nick.

Wait a second, I thought we were talking about Santa Claus.

Who's the Saint Nick man?

Well, Saint Nick and Santa Claus are the same person.

Santa Claus is one name, we can also call him Saint Nick, or Saint Nicholas.

Alright, so we've talked about the song, now let's sing the song.

So you can listen to me sing it first, just so you can hear the tune, and then you can

play it again and sing it with me.

Alright, so are you ready?

Okay, let me take a deep breath.

Up on the housetop, reindeer paws, out jumps good old Santa Claus.

Down through the chimney with lots of toys, all for the little one's Christmas joys.

And now it's the best part.

Ho, ho, ho, who wouldn't go, ho, ho, ho, who wouldn't go?

Up on the housetop, click, click, click, down through the chimney with old Saint Nick.

So you can try to sing that, and again, I'm off key, so if you want to hear a better version

of the song, you can look it up on YouTube and practice singing this one.

Alright, so now we have another Christmas song, I really like this one.

It's called Last Christmas, and it's by Wham!.

So this song is from the 80s, but it has stayed popular even till today.

So, what I really like about this song is that you have examples of the past tense and

the future tense in this song, and I think it's a simple one for learners to learn.

Again, the song is longer, but a lot of people just learn this part of the song.

So, let's start and look at the lyrics, and then we will sing it.

So we have Last Christmas, and so last refers to the year before, last Christmas.

I gave you my heart, oh, that's really sweet.

So the singer gave his heart to someone, I wonder what happened.

But the very next day, you gave it away, oh, so that means that the singer gave his love

and his heart to someone, and the very next day, the person he gave his heart to gave

it to someone else, meaning that they went with a different man.

This year, to save me from tears, so I have here a picture of a face, the blue on his

face are the tears, so those are the water that comes from your eyes when you're sad.

I will, or I'll, which is a contraction, that means I will, I'll give it, and it refers

to the heart.

So when you see it in this song, here gave it means the heart, give it is referring to

the heart, to someone special.

Okay, so this song is about a man who had an unlucky Christmas with bad luck with love,

but this year he's hopeful, he thinks he can find somebody new and give his heart again

to someone special.

So let's sing this song, again, you can listen to me sing it first, and then you can sing

it with me, alright?

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, okay, sorry, let's try that one again.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away.

This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special, alright?

So again, feel free to watch the actual Wham music video if I'm a little too off-key on

that one.

Okay, I'm having so much fun singing with you, so I thought let's do one more song.

This is the easiest of the songs you can learn for Christmas.

Why is it so easy?

Well, because you repeat and repeat and repeat the same words.

So the song is "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and this is what we say to people at Christmastime.

We say, "Merry Christmas", and at New Year's we say, "Happy New Year".

So this is important vocabulary.

I should also mention, some students ask, "What does merry mean?"

Merry is an old way to say happy.

We still use it with Christmas, so we say, "Merry Christmas", but we don't usually use

merry in other situations anymore.

Like I said, a lot of words in Christmas songs and a lot of the vocabulary we use for Christmas

have older words in it.

So I'm going to sing this song.

You can sing with me.

We sing the first part three times, and then we sing, "And a Happy New Year", all right?

So you can listen to me and sing along.

All right.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year.

All right, so that's a pretty simple song, and it's one you can use in many different

contexts.

It's a popular one.

So what about other recommendations?

I love Christmas music and Christmas carols.

I've chosen a couple more that you can check out.

I think these Christmas carols are good because of the grammar.

They might have simple grammar in them, or because of the vocabulary.

So the first song I really like is "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas".

This is a great song because it's a slow song, so you can really hear the words.

It's easier for students to listen to this song than other songs, and you'll also notice

it has the present continuous in it.

It is beginning with -ing.

So this is a great song to learn.

Another good option is "Do You Hear What I Hear".

I like this song because you have a lot of the different sense words in this song.

You have "hear", "see", "say", well "say" is not a sense word, but it has a lot of these

types of words in it.

And these are really common words we use when we speak English, so lots of good vocabulary.

And then another option is "Christmas", "Baby Please Come Home".

It's a really sad song, so if you want to listen to sad Christmas songs, this is a good

one.

It's about, I think, a breakup at Christmas time, but it has a lot of great vocabulary

in it, and simple grammar as well.

And then finally, my absolute favourite is a song by Mariah Carey, "All I Want for Christmas

Is You".

This is a really difficult song to sing, I still can't remember most of the lyrics, even

though every year I try to sing this song, but it's a nice one to listen to.

So in the comments you can write, if you listen to Christmas carols, what's your favourite

Christmas carol?

You can also take, visit our website at www.engvid.com, and you can do a quiz to practice what you

learned in this video today.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, I have a lot of other videos on many

different topics, including listening, and grammar, and vocabulary.

This is the only video, though, I have sung in, so this is a special treat, but check

out my channel.

And I also just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate, Happy Holidays,

and a Happy New Year.

Until next time, take care.