How To Learn English, Pronunciation & Vocabulary | Information Is/Are? | QNA #1

What’s up guys and welcome to the first QNA video. QNA means questions and answers. This means we are answering your questions about English.

Just recently, we put out a story on Instagram asking you for your questions about English and we got hundreds of questions. So in today’s video, we answer some of those questions.

If you like this kind of video, please comment down below and let us know and we will make more of these QNA videos.

Also, if you have a question about English, please comment that down below as well and we will try to answer all of your questions in the next videos.

Okay! Let’s look at the first question for today.

Question #1

Question number one. Sam he said, ‘I want to speak English. How I seek it?’ So I think this question is just asking ‘How do I learn English?’

Now, to learn English, you first need to learn the basics. The basics of English are pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

You need to learn pronunciation because if you can’t make the sounds of English, how can you communicate to native speakers so that they understand you? You probably can’t, right?

Just recently we put out an English pronunciation course which will teach you how to make every sound of English like a native speaker. And you can check out the link in the description below.

So after you’ve learned pronunciation, you should learn vocabulary. That means really understand the meaning of basic words in English. Basic words like ‘and’. Basic words like ‘or’.

You need to really understand these words and then when you’re communicating with native speakers, you won’t have any problems in being understood and you won’t have any problems in understanding what a native speaker is saying to you.

After you’ve learned pronunciation and you’ve learned basic vocabulary, now you can start making some sentences. And to make sentences, you need to understand grammar because grammar is what helps us to give meaning to our sentences.

You should learn basic tenses in English like past perfect, present simple, future continuous.

And after you learn and really understand these tenses and why we use these tenses, then, again, you can communicate to native speakers and you will understand what native speakers are saying to you.

You won’t have to guess the meaning of sentences. You will understand what the person is saying to you.

You will know if it happened one time or many times. You will know if it’s happening now. You will know if the person is talking about the past, the present or the future.

After you’ve learned the basics of English, then you can start learning some intermediate and some advanced English.

You can learn things like idioms. You can learn things like slang words. But if you try and learn these things first, this will be a big problem because firstly, you haven’t learned English pronunciation.

Secondly, you don’t understand basic English vocabulary and thirdly, you don’t understand basic English grammar.

So learn the basics first and then move onto intermediate and advanced English.

Question #2

Question number two. Muhommad he says, ‘How to improve pronunciation?’ Well, the first thing you want to do if you’re looking to improve your pronunciation is to learn every sound of English.

All words in English are made up of one sound or more than one sound. So if you know how to pronounce the sounds of English, how to make the sounds of English, you can pronounce every word correctly.

After you’ve learned how to pronounce every sound in the English language, you can start learning more intermediate and advanced pronunciation skills like connected speech.

The best way to do this is to listen to native speakers and copy them.

For example, look at this phrase here. It’s pronounced ‘What are you doing’, right? Yes that’s right but when a native speaker says this phrase really quickly, he will say, ‘Woddayuhdowing?’ Woddayuhdowing?

You can see how all of the words, they come together. We don’t say ‘What are you doing?’ We join them all together and we say ‘Woddayuhdowing?’

So learn to make all of the sounds of English first and then move onto more intermediate and advanced pronunciation.

Question #3

Question number three. Stubborn reet, he says, ‘How to improve vocab?’

I think the best way to improve your vocabulary in English is to listen to native speakers. You will see which words they use and then you can copy them and you will also see, which is actually more important, what words they don’t use.

Because sometimes when we’re learning a language, we take the words from our language, translate them into English and then use them. But this may make your English sound a little bit weird because some words from your language might not be used in English.

The second best way to learn vocabulary is by reading books. This is a great way to learn because it’s very relaxing.

You don’t have to worry about speaking to a native speaker. You don’t have to worry about listening. You can just sit there and read your book in your own time, at your own pace.

But there’s one problem with learning vocabulary from reading books and that is some of the words and phrases in books may be a little bit formal and not really used in day to day life.

So just be careful. When you’re learning vocabulary from books, the words and phrases might be a little bit formal.

Question #4

Question number four comes from Nyoman Art and he says, ‘The accent you use is British or American?’

I am from Australia and I definitely do not use an American accent. My accent is a bit of a mix between an Australian accent and a British accent.

Question #5

Question number five comes from Khin. She says, ‘What is the difference between “responsibility” and “accountability”?’

This is a really good question because these words are similar but they are different.

‘Responsibility’ normally talks about when you’re actually doing a task. When you’re actually doing something. For example, ‘You have a responsibility to do the best that you can.’

This is talking about actually doing something. It means you have a duty, when you’re doing that thing, to do the best that you can.

The word ‘accountability’ normally talks about what happens after a situation is finished. For example, after you finish your task, you have to take ownership for the results.

That means if something bad happens, it’s your fault. If something good happens, it’s your fault. So accountability means you need to take ownership for what happens after the task has finished.

Question #6

Question number six comes from Shun and says, ‘How do native English use phrasal verbs in different ways?’

Phrasal verbs are not difficult if you understand how to use them. Phrasal verbs are made up of a verb and an adverb or they can be made up by using a verb and a preposition.

Phrasal verbs need to be used in the same way as normal verbs. That means sometimes you will have to change the tense of a verb.

For example, a common phrasal verb is ‘turn up’. An example sentence with this phrasal verb could be ‘He turned up the music.’ You can see here that we changed ‘turn’ to ‘turned’ because this sentence is talking about the past.

Now, when using a phrasal verb with a verb and an adverb, the object can be between the verb and the adverb.

For example, ‘Turn the music up.’ Sometimes, it is after the phrasal verb. For example, ‘Turn up the music.’ Both are correct.

But if the object is a pronoun like ‘him’ or ‘her’, the pronoun must go between the verb and the adverb. For example, ‘She took it off.’ We cannot say, ‘She took off it.’

Now, when using a phrasal verb with a verb and a preposition, the object must go after the preposition. For example, ‘They look after my children.’ We can’t say ‘They look my children after.’

Question #7

Question number seven from Denisse and says, ‘How to use “both”?’ ‘

Both’ means two people or two things. So if you ever hear the word ‘both’, you know it’s talking about two people or two things.

For example, I could say, ‘John and Paul are both my friends.’ This means I am talking about two people – John and Paul.

Another example could be ‘Would you like milk, sugar or both?’ So if you say ‘both’, that means you want two things. You want the milk and you want the sugar.

Question #8

Question number eight comes from Ab Visual Perspective and says, ‘What is the correct form for the verb used with a noun without plural form? The information “is” or “are”?’

Uncountable nouns are considered singular. That means if you use an uncountable noun, you normally need to use ‘is’ because ‘is’ is a singular verb. We use it with singular subjects.

So the example in the question: ‘The information is or the information are’, we should say, ‘The information is …’

Another example could be ‘The furniture in this house is very beautiful.’ ‘Furniture’ is uncountable so we use ‘is’. But if you put something before the uncountable noun which is plural, then you should change ‘is’ to ‘are’.

For example, if you say, ‘The five sets of information’, then after that, we would need to use ‘are’. For example, ‘The five sets of information are over there.’ We use ‘are’ because ‘five sets’ is plural, it’s more than one.

Question #9

Question number nine comes from Inst Shab and he says, ‘What’s the easiest way to speak English fluently?’

Speaking English fluently is something that takes time and practice but it is possible. Many people in this world have learned to speak English fluently so that means you can too.

From my experience of teaching languages and learning languages, the best way to become fluent in a language is by first learning the basics. The basics of English are pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

If you can’t make the sounds of English, how can you speak in English?

If you don’t know any words in English, how can you make sentences?

If you don’t know any grammar in English, how can you understand the meaning of sentences in English?

After you have learned these three things, you can immerse yourself in English content that is made for native speakers. You can watch, listen and then copy what you hear. This will help you to start sounding like a native speaker yourself.

But for example, if you try and learn idioms and slang in English before you understand pronunciation, this is going to make learning English very hard for you because you’ll always be thinking about your pronunciation.

So in summary, learn the basics first and then start learning more intermediate and advanced English.

Question #10

Question number ten comes from Jules and says, ‘What’s the difference between “land” and “country”?’

The word ‘land’ means part of the Earth, the surface of the Earth which is not covered in water. So for example, right now, I am on land because I am not on water.

But in some situations, ‘land’ can also mean country. For example, ‘He wants to be the best boxer in the land.’ This means he wants to be the best boxer in the country. Normally the word ‘land’ isn’t used like this but it’s always good to know.

Now the word ‘country’ means a certain part of land which has one government, one army, one police force and other things like that. For example, my country is Australia. Some other examples of countries could be Canada, China and Brazil.

Conclusion

That is the end of the first QNA video. Thank you so much for watching. Please comment down below and let us know: Do you like this kind of video? If you do, then we will make more of them.

If you have a question that you want us to answer, please comment down below as well but please be patient because we get hundreds of questions and it may take some time to get to your question.

Make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video. If you’re having problems with English pronunciation, check out our English pronunciation course in the description below. This course will teach you how to make every sound of English like a native speaker.

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Then you can learn some intermediate … Question number four. six comes from Shun init …