How to Describe a Video in English

So I know many of you watch videos on YouTube.

You're watching one right now.

And I know many of you watch English lessons on YouTube,

so I thought in this English lesson

I would help you learn how to describe those videos

if you're talking about them with a friend.

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Let's start by talking about the speed of a video.

When you describe the speed of a video you could say,

"The speed of the video is too fast,"

"The speed of the video is too slow,"

or you could say,

"The speed of the video is just right."

But if you're talking about the person who's in the video,

you would then use the words quickly and slowly.

You would probably say something like this:

"He speaks too quickly in his videos,"

or, "She speaks too slowly in her videos."

I like to think that I speak at exactly the right speed,

that the speed I speak at is just right.

Anyways, if you're talking about speed with a friend,

you're talking about the speed

of a video you've been watching,

you can use too fast, too slow.

And if you're talking about the person,

too quickly or too slowly.

Let's talk about length.

Let's talk about the length of the videos.

Sometimes you watch English lessons on YouTube

and you would say, "The video is too long."

Sometimes you watch an English lesson on YouTube

and you would say, "The video is too short."

So those are the two ways to describe the extremes.

And once again, in the middle,

you could say something like this:

"The length of the video is just right."

I've been playing around with the length of my videos.

I've been making them a little bit shorter.

They're only about five or six minutes long,

and I used to make them eight or nine minutes.

What do you think?

Are my videos too long?

Are my videos too short?

Or are they just right?

Let me know in the comments below.

When you're watching a video on YouTube,

especially if you're watching it to learn English,

you might want to describe how difficult you think it is.

In that case, you could say something like this:

"The video is too difficult," or, "The video is too easy."

You could say, "The video is too complex,"

or you could say, "The video is too simple."

Hopefully, though, the video is right in the middle

and you could say,

"The difficulty of this video is just right.

It's a little bit difficult for me,

but it's also easy for me to understand a lot of the words."

It's important when you're learning English

to read and watch things

that are always a little bit difficult

but not too difficult.

But you also don't want them to be too easy.

When you're watching a video on YouTube,

it often will have graphics and words on the screen,

again, especially if it's an English lesson.

And you might want to be able to describe that,

so you could say something like this:

"There are too many graphics on the screen."

Or you could say,

"There are not enough graphics on the screen."

You could say, "There's too much text on the screen,"

or, "There's too many words on the screen."

Or you could say, "There's not enough text on the screen,"

or, "There's not enough words on the screen."

When it's an English lesson,

we as English teachers, when we make videos,

we try to put as many visual hints and cues

on the screen as possible.

I wonder with my videos

whether you think there's too many or not enough,

so let me know in the comments below

are there too many words and graphics on the screen

or are there not enough?

Or is it just right?

And don't say just right just to make me happy.

Please be honest when you leave comments.

I have a thick skin.

I'm always interested in knowing what people think

so that I can make things better.

You can also talk about how often

a YouTuber puts a video on YouTube.

You can talk about the frequency

with which they make new videos.

I usually make one new video a week

and I do a livestream a week,

so the frequency at which I make videos is two per week.

So you could comment on this by saying,

"This YouTuber puts videos out too often."

"This YouTuber doesn't put videos out often enough.

I would prefer it if they put out more videos."

So you could also, of course, say,

"This YouTuber puts out just the right amount of videos."

So when you're describing the frequency,

when you're describing how often

a YouTuber puts a new video on YouTube,

you can say too often or not often enough or just right.

When I make a YouTube video,

I like to stand somewhere where there's a nice background.

When you describe the background in a video,

you're talking about everything that's behind the person.

You could say something like this:

"The background is too boring."

You could say, "The background is too distracting."

Maybe the background is more interesting

than the person who is talking.

You could also say, "The background is too busy."

Sometimes YouTubers will sit in their studio

and there will be a lot of things behind them,

too many things behind them.

In that situation, you could say,

"The background is too busy."

So hopefully you enjoy the backgrounds

in the videos that you watch.

Hopefully they're not too busy

or too distracting or too boring.

But hopefully you also are interested enough in the speaker

that you don't just look at the background the entire time.

When I make a video, I stand about this far from the camera.

You can't see this.

I stand about this far from the camera.

Some YouTubers will stand like this.

Some YouTubers will stand right here.

And when you describe the distance,

you can say that the person is too far away

or that the person is too close.

I like to stand here

because it works really well for the audio.

My mic is able to pick up what I'm saying.

And I also don't want to fill the frame.

I wanna make sure you are able to see me and the background.

So when you describe the distance

that a person is standing from the camera,

you can say they stand too close,

too far away,

or you can say the distance is just right.

When you watch a video there's lots to see,

but you're also listening to the video.

So let's talk a little bit about volume.

Let's talk about how loud the person is talking.

Let's talk about what you can hear when you watch the video.

There are some YouTubers I watch

where the volume is too loud for me.

I have to turn it down.

There are some YouTubers I watch

where the volume is not loud enough for me

and I have to turn it up.

Sometimes you can describe the volume not being loud enough

by saying it's too soft or too quiet,

but I think the most common way to describe that is to say,

"The volume is not loud enough."

So when you describe the volume you could say,

"The video is too loud,"

"The video is not loud enough,"

or hopefully you can say, "The volume is just right."

Every video you watch has a unique style.

The way the video is edited, the colors that are used,

the font that is chosen, the video has a style,

and hopefully it's appealing.

When you describe the style of a video,

you can describe it in a couple of ways.

You could say, "The video style is too much."

So we're not using a lot of words to describe it,

we're just saying the style is too much.

That means you don't like the fonts or the colors,

or maybe there's just too much going on.

At the other end of the spectrum you could say,

"The video is too plain.

It's just a person talking for seven minutes straight.

There's no words on the screen.

It's not edited very well.

The video is too plain.

The style of the video is too plain."

I really enjoy the style of my videos

but I'm always willing to change things,

so if you have ideas

about how to make my videos look a bit different,

let me know in the comments below.

Anyways, thanks for watching this little English lesson

about how to describe a video in English.

Hopefully you can use it

to leave me some really nice comments.

Hopefully you enjoyed it

and were able to learn a little bit more English.

And remember, if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red Subscribe button,

give me a thumbs up,

and I'll see you next week with another video.

Bye.

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