STOP giving advice in English!

Hey there.

I'm Ronnie, and I am here to give you some advice.

I don't know about what, but I'm sure something - Oh, English.

Yeah, I'm an English teacher.

I'm here to give you some advice about giving advice in English.

So much advice happening right now.

Maybe you like to give people advice, or maybe you have a problem and you ask your friends

for advice.

Oh, I don't know what to do, you know.

I'm really bored at home.

I want to do something.

Friend, what should I do?

Okay?

So, your friend's going to tell you, "Ah, I've got a good idea for you.

You should go to the bark."

Brilliant, I'm out of here.

I'm going to the park, guys.

Nah, just joking.

Giving advice is something that we all do.

Some of us like to do more than others.

Mostly mothers, mmhmm.

And when we do that, we have specific grammar that we use.

We're going to use these modals - should, could, and would.

Now, these are modal verbs in English.

And an important thing to remember is that when we use these modal verbs, we're always

going to use a base verb.

So, we can't put -ing, we can't put the past tense.

Leave the verb alone, please.

Just use the base verb.

So, giving advice example.

I would say, "Oh, do you know what?

You should go for a bike ride."

You could go to the park.

I would.

You can say in a long sentence, "If I were you, I would go to the mall."

But I'm not you, and I would never go to the mall.

Bad advice, Ronnie.

So, you should or you could are exactly the same.

And I would, they all mean the same things, but the problem is when we have the subject

"I", you can't say "should" or "could".

With the subject "I", you can only use "would".

So, "I should" would be giving advice to yourself.

When you can do.

Wow, I should really do this.

Or, I could, you'd be talking to yourself.

But, if you're giving advice to another person, you would use "you".

You could use "he"; you could use "she" or "they", but be very, very careful.

"Would", we only use with the subject "I".

We could also ask the person a question.

We say, "Hey, do you know what?

Why don't you go to the park?"

If you wanted to use another person, we have to be careful and we have to make sure that

our verb and our subject agree.

I can say, "Oh, you know what?

Why doesn't he", or "Why doesn't she?"

So, be careful with this.

Basic grammar points that, a lot of the time, we make mistakes with.

But that's okay.

So, if you want to give some person advice, be my guest.

Have fun doing it.

You can also use "should" and "would" in the negative form.

So, if your friend says, "Oh, do you know what?

I really want to go on vacation, but I don't have enough money."

Say, "You know what?

You shouldn't go on vacation."

Most of the time, we're going to shorten "not" to "n't".

If I wanted to speak very formally, or emphasize something, I would say "You should not go

on vacation."

We cannot use it here, but we can use "would".

If I were you, I wouldn't go to the mall.

If I were you, I would not go to the mall.

It makes it much stronger.

This sentence, we would not change, because that's the only way we've got it.

But I have a problem, and my problem is especially, nowadays, that people think they know things

about everything.

They think they have all the information, because they googled something.

Or it's on the internet.

Guess what?

You don't know jack.

Who's Jack?

Ronnie, who's Jack?

"You don't know jack" is a slang expression to say, "Hm, you don't know what you're talking

about."

So, this lesson is actually, oh my god, please stop giving people advice if you don't know

what you're taking about!

Okay?

People, humans.

You can say to people, do you know what?

You have no idea what you're talking about.

So, your advice is absolutely useless.

You've got no clue!

These two are very similar.

They mean the same.

It means, you know what?

You don't have the knowledge to talk about this subject, so please stop giving me advice,

Mom.

No, Mom, no, I'm not saying that!

Very, very formally, and maybe if you're a little bit angry with someone, you could say,

"Do you know what?

You just can't comprehend what I'm going through.

You just don't understand my situation, so your advice doesn't help me."

Then we get into some slang.

You're talking bullsh*t.

Ronnie said a bad word again!

So, you can say "You're talking bull", which actually is a long from of bullsh*t.

So, "You're taking bull" means you're telling lies.

You're telling things that are not true.

You can say to someone, "Stop running your mouth."

Running, mouth, what, my mouth isn't running.

Running your mouth means you're talking about things that you have no idea or no clue about.

You don't know.

You're making it up as you go along.

And you're not helping the people.

As I said to you at the beginning, "You don't know jack!"

Now, if you're going to be super slang, you can say, "You don't know jacksh*t".

I don't know who Jack is, but apparently, he doesn't know you and he's really good with

advice.

So, if you have a friend that is always running their mouth, but they really have no clue

or no idea what they're talking about, stop getting advice from them.

Figure it out on your own, and please, people, educate yourselves to be intelligent humans.

If you think you know the answer, you better be damn sure.

Alright.

I'm done.