YouTube NextUP, Q & A and Ronald Grump: Learn English with Simple English Videos

So this week's lesson is a little different to normal. We're just going to chat and hang out

Now Vicki's been in New York City all week

and she's gonna tell us about that. Yeah, I'm going to tell you about that, and

then we're going to have some viewer's questions. And then we have a special guest star visiting.

What is it? Ronald... Ronald Grump.

Ronald Grump. Here's Ronald. OK, so hang on for that.

You left me for a whole week! Why did you go to New York?

I went to New York for the NextUp contest. Do you remember?

Yes. Well, of course you do. Erm. I went to New York

because we won a YouTube competition, and so I was able to have classes at the

New York studios for YouTube in production lighting, sound, erm, set design, erm.

Camera techniques too, right? Camera techniques. Green screen. Green screen lighting.

Our videos are going to get a whole load better.

Did you meet anybody while you were there? I met tons of people and I made a lot of new friends.

Well, let's go to some viewer questions now.

OK. We have from Lindomar Lima... Mmm. ...a really interesting question. Are you Rachel's mother?

No, I'm not. For those that don't know, Rachel

is someone who often appears in our videos if we can get her. And Rachel has a wonderful

channel on pronunciation. I'll put a link up in the top corner for those of you who

don't know. We would be privileged to be her mother. And father.

And father. But no, she's just a friend and she lives in Philadelphia too.

So here's another question. Greetings from Slovakia. We've watched your videos and figured

out that we're teaching from your book, 'Tech Talk'. That is so cool. OK. Yes, that's me,

it's me! Erm, before I started making videos I used to write textbooks, language teaching

textbooks, and I wrote a lot of books in Business English, and other ones as well. Erm, 'Tech Talk',

'Business Objectives', 'Business Opportunities', 'In at the Deep End', 'Lifestyle', yes. About

thirty of them, I think. OK, here's another question from Claudio Santos

from Brazil. Yeah. Claudio says I love your videos. I have a question. Can I say

'Would you mind stop doing this'? Ah! We didn't cover that in our 'Would you mind' video. Sorry

about that. Erm, actually you can't. 'Would you mind stop doing this?' is wrong.

What we'd have to do is we'd have to make a negative sentence with 'not'. But we'd have to say

'Would you mind not doing this?'. So 'Would you mind not doing this?'. 'Would you mind

not doing this?" Go away Ronald Grump! OK. All right, so we have... we have another question

from Claudio. Actually it's a comment and a question. He said if I had teachers like

you, I would learn English faster, for sure. Oooo, that's nice. He says I'm 49 years old,

I've been learning English by myself by watching videos on YouTube and DVDs.

Well watching videos on YouTube and DVDs is a really good way to be going actually.

And congratulations to you Claudio for... for learning so much because his English is very good.

Well he says sometimes I think I'm doing fine. Sometimes I think that I will never

be good enough to make a trip abroad without being afraid.

Claudio, it's not going to be like that. I'm quite sure that if you keep on, you are going

to feel very confident. Actually you should feel pretty confident already.

Jay and I really want to help you learn English. We want to help all of you learn English.

Perhaps what we should do here Jay is take onboard these comments and try to make some

videos about how you can build your confidence in English, and tips for learning, so that

it makes it easier for you if you're an independent learner.

Now here's another question from Maruma Anwar. And she says what about the verb 'match'? That's

to do with the video on... 'Fit' and 'suit'. That's right. OK. We did a video about 'fit'

and 'suit' where your clothes fit you, and then they're the right size and shape, or

your clothes suit you and then you look attractive in them. And, erm... But she's quite right,

there's another verb that's got a very similar meaning, which is 'match'. 'Match' means when

two or more things have the same colour or design, then they match. They're similar.

They go together. They go together. Like Jay's socks never match. I'll tell you what. I'll

show you Jay's socks. We have a question from Omer Adam. And Omer

says 'Hi, today is the first time I've watched your videos. It's very useful.' Oh good. 'I

really enjoy them. I have a question. I've got a speaking problem. Could you tell me

please how I can speak fast?' Fast. I don't think he means fast I think he means fluently.

So without pauses and hesitations, and that's really hard when you're learning. Obviously

you're going to have to think about what you're saying as you speak. But you know, that's

something else that we should talk about in future videos. Because there are things that

we know about language learning, from reserach and from all the students I've taught as well,

that can help you. So hold on, and we'll try and do our best to make a video to help.

Now I think it's time for us to say goodbye. Uhuh. And the person who's going to take us

out of this little video is our new cast member, Ronald Grump. So Ronald, take it away! Bye!