Learn & Remember the English ALPHABET: A, B, C, D, E, F...

117,751 views ・ 2018-07-14

Learn English with Gill


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

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Hello. I'm Gill from www.engvid.com, and here we are in London on a rainy day, and we're
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going to be looking at the English alphabet. And I have for you an alphabet memory trick
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to help you remember. Okay? Because every alphabet in every language is different, so
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the English alphabet with 26 letters is... Sorry, that's probably too high, so I'm going
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to put that down here. 26 letters is different from other alphabets, and the letters come
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in a certain order. So some people start, "Okay: A, B, C, D, E..." So this is to help
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you remember all of the letters in the correct order. Okay. So it's like a little poem or
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story. And the first word... The first letter of each word is the letter of the alphabet.
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So let's just look at the first line, okay?
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So we have: "All Boys Can Do Exercise", okay? So that's A, B, C, D, E, the first five letters
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of the alphabet. Okay? So it... Because it means something in a sentence, hopefully it's
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easier to remember. So: A, B, C, D, E: "All Boys Can Do Exercise". "Exercise" meaning
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this sort of thing. Okay? Exercise. Right. Okay.
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Second line, continuing: "French Girls Help In June", okay? So: "French Girls Help In
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June", the month of June, okay? I always think of French au pairs here. I don't know if you
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know that word: "au pair", it's French itself, but it means usually a young woman who comes
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from another country to live with a family and help them with their housework, help them
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with the children, the shopping, and they're called an au pair, so this always reminds
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me of French au pairs, so maybe that will help you remember as well. So: "French Girls
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Help In June", and that's in the summer when maybe more French girls will want to come
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because the weather isn't that bad in the summer. Okay. So, we've had A, B, C, D, E,
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F, G, H, I, J, okay? And then, finally... Because the alphabet is 26 letters long, it
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helps to divide it into two and stop halfway, so it's 13 plus 13, and that's how I learned
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the alphabet when I was a very little girl at school. So I always stopped halfway and
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knew I was halfway. So we're going to do the same here, okay?
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So, next one: K, L, M, okay? "Kids Like Milk". Now, if you don't know the word "kids", it's
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an informal, casual word for children. Okay? So: Children Like Milk, but it's "Kids". And
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a kid is also a baby goat, maybe that's why children are called kids; I don't know. Don't
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quote me. A kid is a baby goat, which is an animal-okay?-that you find on the farm. A
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baby goat is a kid, but here it means children. "Kids Like Milk". You can also remember this
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line because it's K, L, M, and I hope we're allowed to advertise, you may know of the
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airline, I think it's the Dutch airline, KLM, that's another way of remembering this line.
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If you can't remember about kids liking milk, think of the Dutch airline KLM. Okay? So then
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here we are halfway through the alphabet. So, we've got: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,
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J, K, L, M, halfway. Right. Okay, ready to go on? Right.
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Next line, this sounds strange, but it sort of makes sense, so we have: "Now Our Professor"-our
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teacher, our professor-"Quits Reading". Okay? "Quits" means stops. It's another informal
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word, it means stops. Okay, so... And the professor, that's usually someone in a university.
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So it sounds pretty strange that a professor would stop reading, because that is what professors
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are supposed to do, but maybe this professor is retiring, or they got very tired, or they
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need a holiday, and they think: "Right, no more books." So: "Now Our Professor Quits
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Reading". Okay, so: N, O, P, Q, R. Okay.
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Now, the next bit is totally unconnected; it doesn't really follow in the story, but
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I'll explain what this means if you're not sure: "Socks Turn Up". "Socks", what you wear
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on your feet, okay? Your socks. Sometimes you lose your socks. You think: "Where are
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my lovely red socks? I can't find them." And you go for about a week or two weeks, and
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you're still thinking: "What happened to my socks?" And then suddenly one day you go into
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the kitchen maybe, you open the kitchen cupboard, and there are your socks and you say: "Oh,
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my socks turned up." It usually means... If something turns up, this is a verb with a
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preposition or a phrasal... Phrasal verb, okay? Phrasal verb. It's slightly an informal
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kind of phrase, again, but: "to turn up" it's usually if you have lost something... You
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lost your socks and then you find them again. So, you lose them, you lose your socks. You
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lose your socks and then you find them. So: "Oh, my socks turned up", so that's the meaning
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of this: Socks turn up. Okay? S, T, U. Right? So we've got: N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, and
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then to end with...
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Now, the last few letters of the English alphabet are quite difficult. Some other languages
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don't have a W, for example, which makes it difficult. But anyway, some more advertising:
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VW. Okay? VW, you may know the German car, the VW, or Volkswagen is the full name. Volkswagen,
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so there's the V and there's the W. But no English person finds the word "Volkswagen"
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easy to say, and it takes such a long time, we say: "VW", okay. My Russian... I have a
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Russian student who I told her about this, and she said: "Oh, well, in Russia we say:
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'Volkswagen'." So, okay but in England, in the U.K. we usually say: "VW", it's easier.
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So, VW, car. And then the letter X is very, very difficult to use in English at the beginning
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of a word, there are not many words if you look in the dictionary beginning with an X,
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so to find something that actually made sense, I had to use a word with X as the second letter,
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but never mind, it's okay. So: "VW eXits", meaning goes out, the exit is the way out,
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so it goes out of "York", that is a city in the north of England. York. "Zoo", the zoo
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where the wild animals are kept. Now, I don't know if there is a zoo in York, but it doesn't
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really matter. If it helps us remember the last few letters of the English language,
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then that's all that matters. Okay. So: "VW eXits York Zoo." V, W, X, Y, Z.
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Okay, so just to go over the second half of the alphabet: N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W,
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X, Y, Z. Okay? So, that is the English alphabet. I hope you found that useful and helpful,
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and help... To help you memorize it. So please go to the website, www.engvid.com, where there
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is a quiz on this topic to help you, to test to see how much you've learnt from this lesson.
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Okay? And if you've enjoyed this lesson, please subscribe to my channel on YouTube. And so
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that's all for now. Hope to see you again next time. Bye.
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