Hello all of my dear students!!!!

Learning EnglishTV Lesson 5

Hello all of my VIP students. This week’s Lesson is about technology!

Here is the script! You will see that I edited out some of the parts, which is great as you can see part of the editing that

goes on with my videos!!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um_bRgJwRl8

Hello! Hello! Hello and welcome to Private English Portal.com

my name is Steve Ford and welcome to Learning English TV Lesson 5. My question comes from 5 different people from 5 different parts of the world. From Mike from Switzerland, from Giuseppe from Italy, from Marcos from Brazil, from Maria from Roumania and Anwar from Pakistan. Today we are going to be reviewing and expanding upon ‘used to’ and ‘to be used to’ from peppy 15. So let’s go!

Today we are going to be talking about one of the biggest pop stars to date. It kind of gets me right here or right here. What I want to say about this pop star is that people line up, they queue up for kms just when this pop star comes to their city or town. People will even sleep on the sidewalk or pavement just to have the opportunity to see this phenomenal pop star. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

Attractive to men and admired by women, this pop star has universal appeal. She hasn’t been around long and it’s hard to imagine how fans used to live without her. People used to be so different without her and many would dream that one day she would come and she did. And her name, its name is technology, yes the modern pop star.

So what did we use to do without her? Let’s talk about communication.

Pay attention to the grammar note. Used to is a structure used for describing repeated actions in the past

it can also be used for describing stative verbs like ‘be’ or ‘have’ now, back to the main part of the video

thousands of years ago we used to take our time. Yes, as early as 500 BC, people were already starting to write letters. So we’ve been used to sending letters by post or other means for a long time.

Grammar point number 2. to be used to , to be used to doing something in this case it means that you are comfortable with doing something. It is part of your daily living.

With time and progress our pop star started to grow in popularity. Throughout the 80s we started sending faxes, we started through the 90s sending e-mails with dial-up connections, remember those?

And also text messages. Yes, I can remember having a pager in the 90s. Where did those go? and up to present we are also sending e-mails and sending text messages. Texting People!

My question to you! Did you used to call people and send more faxes more than you do now?

Grammar point number 3, when you use ‘did’ in a question with ‘used to’, please remember to drop that ‘d’. Let’s go back to the video. Presently I send e-mails to people. That’s my preference, I don’t send a as many letters as I used to. It’s just more convenient that way. How about you?

Now I can remember a time, many years ago, I would send letters to friends and I would wait very patiently. Very happily to get a letter back. And it was very exciting at the time, it seemed exotic. I was getting a letter that had travelled the world sometimes it had travelled over oceans and I could hear the waves in that letter I could smell the sea air or hear the wind in that letter. It’s no big deal now and I receive e-mails from all parts of the world, it’s very commonplace. So you could say that I would send letters quite a bit when I was younger, but I preferred to or I am used to sending e-mails now.

Grammar point number 4, you can use would in place of used to for a repeated action in the past. I would send letters by post regularly to my friends and family.

So time started to march on, we started to get dial-up connections, do you remember those? I sure did, wait, wait, wait wait and finally we would send. an e-mail. Yes our very first e-mails with an attachment, a 36 KB photo. Yes and wait very patiently as we saw it being zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sent.

Yes it would take a long time for it to be sent, but somehow it was new and exciting. But we wanted more from our technological pop star.

Next grammar point, we can only use used for stative verbs like ‘have’ or ‘be’. It would be incorrect to say, ‘ we would have slow connection speeds in the past’. Using would with have in this case completely modifies the meaning compared to used to. So be careful!

Now with all the changes in communication technology, the way that we socialize and do business has drastically changed. Of course there is still a percentage of the population that is still used to getting together, socializing, chatting face-to-face, talking over the phone ( take out kind of the old fashioned way)

But we know that with our new technological pop star, she is hot, hot as can be. And a s a result, social networks have become very hot and many people now have online friends, they get together online, they even have online romance. Who would have thought that this could be possible, but certainly a lot of people are used to doing that. In fact some people aren’t just used to being online with their online friends, they are in love with it. It’s a love affair with technology. Last but not least, how could we forget how technology has changed the way that we access entertainment.

If we go back to Greece, yes ancient Greece, yes the birth of theatre, of the famous Greek tragedy of acting where actors would project their voice to an open amphitheatre Things have changed quite a bit since then. In the 20^th century we had television and we had radio, we had video cassette players then we had DVD s and now we have YouTube. Yes uploading videos and watching videos online has become extremely popular. One of the main reasons for that is that people are used to choosing their own content. They can watch what they want, when they want to watch it. It’s a goldmine of information and many people are used to accessing YouTube on a daily basis. And now people access those videos from their i phones, i pods, i pads making video so portable that you can take it everywhere you go.

So up and up she goes, where technology stops, nobody knows.

Today we talked about how people are used to accessing our hottest pop star technology in socializing, communication and entertainment. I hope that at the same time that you enjoyed yourself, you were able to review with me, used to, to be used to and if you need some more help with that, you can always go back and watch Peppy 15. So, I look forward to our next lesson and have a great week!

Bye! Bye!

Learning English TV Lesson 4

Hello! Hello! Hello and welcome to Learning English TV with Steve Ford Lesson 4. This week we are going to be talking about Tongue idioms. So let’s go

My first question comes from Aymen from Saudi Arabia! Aymen would like more clarification about ‘to speak with a forked tongue’. He says, would it be correct to say that sometimes for example a salesman, or a salesperson such as a car salesperson, could speak to you with a forked tongue?

Well I guess that depends on your own experience there Aymen. I have heard stories of people who were being guaranteed that they were buying good used car when in fact, a week later or two weeks later the car ended up being a lemon. The car in fact was not in condition at all. Your second question to me is whether there is another idiom with parts of the body related to ‘forked tongue’ that could be used in the same way. And there certainly is, you could say ‘to be talking out of both sides of your mouth’.

In both cases, it means that somebody is telling you one thing and actually they’re saying an opposite thing at the same time. So they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Quite often we hear about these stories of antiquity of people who are manipulated, who are ‘talked into something’ by a snake who has a forked tongue and is able to ssseduce somebody and manipulate then in order to get them to do what that snake wanted he or she to do. To be speak with a forked tongue, be careful!

My next question comes from Rafael from Poland. Rafael would like to know if it is essential to practice tongue twisters in order to improve your pronunciation in English. I don’t think so necessarily Rafael of course if you are able to do it, great! Please keep in mind that there are a lot of native speakers who have trouble saying tongue twisters and this is why we make a game out of it. So if you are racking your brain trying to say, ‘she sells seashells by the seashore’ 3 times, don’t worry about it.

My next question comes from Donya from Iran who presently lives in the United States.

Her problem is that Donya often has to give presentations to a large group of people, sometimes as many as 200 , 300 people giving a power point presentation. And at times she feels like she gets a little tongue-tied even when she is reading from a script or she’s reading from the screen. She wanted to know if there’s any way that she can improve that. Well thank you very much for your question Donya.

The first thing that I would like to point out is ‘to be tongue-tied’ is when you have difficulty pronouncing words and you start to get stuck. You start to trip over your words. There are some ways to solve that. In Peppy Pronunciation 1 and 2 I do give some good tips about trying to use the correct vowel sounds. Normally with vowel sounds, word stress and stress on the correct syllable. Those three things, when you become more aware of them, will help you to identify your errors, start to do some self-correction and then you will build more self-confidence and as a result, you will become less and less tongue-tied as you are giving your power point presentations. So, i hope that answers your question.

My next one is ‘on the tip of my tongue’. What a minute, I did that one actually…in my mouth idioms video……mouth idioms…mouth idioms flashback

OK, so you remembered with me ‘on the tip of my tongue’ so I don’t need to explain it again, how convenient!

OK here come the extra tongue idioms

My first extra idiom is ‘a slip of the tongue’ we have many words that can be synonymous with that including some phrasal verbs using slip. You could say when something slips out or when you slip up

according to psychologists we quite often will have a slip of the tongue. What this means, well here is an example of a dialogue

Mary: Hi John, what time would you like to go over the project today?

John: How about sex? Oops, sorry, I meant to say six!!!!!

Yes John just had a slip of the tongue and at the same time he put his foot in his mouth. You’ll be sleeping in the doghouse tonight Johnny!

My next extra idiom is to give someone a tongue lashing. To lash, literally means to whip(crack), to whip, to whip, to whip, yes to give someone a tongue lashing in a figurative sense means to angrily or to whip someone with your tongue(words). Sometimes it’s difficult to get a tongue lashing at school or work from a superior when it is not your fault.

An anecdote that comes to mind long ago when I was teaching a student from Germany, he(add in he) mentioned to me that he had a supervisor who would quite often give him a tongue lashing when in fact he had done nothing wrong. And I had asked him, “How were you able to deal with such a tongue-lashing and he said that every day after work he would go running in the forest.

So here is a good example of someone who received a tongue lashing and he was able to take that negative situation and transform it into a positive situation by running off his anger so that’s a great little anecdote to remember tongue-lashing.

My next extra idiom is ‘to roll off your tongue’ when the words or something rolls off your tongue. This is an antonym for tongue-tied. This is where everything starts to flow correctly. It’s like you are conducting an orchestra and everything flowing likes music( classical music) Yes song writers have this secret, they know how to make words flow together. My last extra idiom for tongue is to speak in a civil tongue. I would like you to remember with me my pyramid of formality. With that pyramid of formality we can go all the way from street talk to formal or academic English. So you could start at the street talk or slang levekland say, “ Hey What’s up” ( Hey Wuzup) You can move to the semi-formal level and say “ Hi how’s it going” You can move up to the formal level and say “ Hello it’s a pleasure to meet you” and you can move to the very top of the pyramid seldom used but I have heard that it is used in some circles “ how do you do?” So you can see with the different levels of formality, to speak in a civil tongue/keep a civil tongue would be right at the top of formal or academic English

A little footnote that I would like to add here is that many students will write me a message asking, “ Are you OK?” “Hi, are you OK?” I would like to point out that in North America this would be incorrect as a greeting. When you say, “ Are you OK?” It implies that there is something wrong. “ Are you OK? Are you sick? What happened to you?” So be very careful what greeting you are using.

Other common misconception is “ Howdy” Do all North Americans say “ howdy partner’. No, this is used only in certain regions of the US. Don’t try using it everywhere you go in North America or they might laugh at you. ( hahahahaha). My question for UK residents, would be the same as using the common London greeting “ Alright mate?” for the entire UK.

Well that’s it for our lesson today. I hope that you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. I’m sure that I will set many tongue wagging talking about these tongue idioms in comments below this video. I look forward to our next lesson next time. Please send me any of your questions to info@privateenglishportal.com

Bye! Bye!

Peppy Pronunciation 3 is here to tide you over until Steve TV 4 is ready. Enjoy!
Here it is!
Steve’s latest pronunciation lesson to help you with your English:

If you liked it, you can help Steve by posting a comment for this video on youtube at:

Have a great day!

Steve

Steve TV for Aug. 13th is here.

Head idioms and phrasal verbs are numerous and I have made a video online for you to remember many of them
hopefully for the rest of your life.

Here is the entire script from the video:

Hello! Hello! Hello! and welcome to PrivateEnglishportal.com My name is Steve Deane Ford.
Yes, I’m your online English teacher and also your personal entertainer. Today we are going to be reviewing some head idioms from Peppy 21 and we are also going to be reviewing more head idioms in the context of questions from you, my online English learners. So, let’s roll that clip!

My first Peppy Question comes from Khaled from Egypt. How’s the weather today over there in Egypt Khaled? Khaled’s question is about the idiom ‘to bury your head in the sand’. Khaled’s question is, “is it also correct to say bury your head in the sand?”. He says that he has heard bury. Thank you very much for your question Khaled. My answer is that you can use both. My preference tends to lean toward bury.
As a review ‘to bury your head in the sand’means that you do not like to ‘face up to’ your problems.
You do not like to confront the reality which is in front of you.

My next question comes from Irina from Georgia. Irina would like to know if it is possible to say not only ‘hard headed’, but also hard head. In my experience with other languages Irina, there does exist that equivalent, “hard head” ( as an adjective), but in English we would say “hard headed” There should be an ‘ed’ at the end. In review of that, hard headed means somebody that is stubborn. Irina’s second is whether hard headed is absolutely negative in its connotation. It really depends on the situation. If you are confronted by a hard situation……sometimes life can be difficult, it can be tough and sometimes you need to be hard headed and stubborn to get things done. So, it depends on the context. Of course when we are trying to negotiate, brainstorm and do things together with other people to come to an agreement; being hard headed of course can be a disadvantage. So it depends on the situation. Hard headed!
My next question comes from Mohammed from Pakistan, Thank you very much for your question Mohammed. Mohammed would like to know if I can name five situations where it would be taboo, where it would be a major ‘no-no’ to laugh your head off. And we can think of this as a game show. It reminds me of a game show where you have to give the top 5 or top 10 answers. So top answer

A place where you should not laugh your head off
Number 2
Number 3
and lastly in a very dramatic scene where the hero of the story is dying
My last question for the review comes from Kenji from Japan. Thank you very much for your question Kenji. Kenji would like to know if there are other idioms related to parts of the body that are an equivalent to ‘two heads are better than one’ And one that comes to mind Kenji is the idiom ‘many hands make light work’ they both have the same connotation that when you do something in conjunction/together with other people. It is easier. You do not need to make as much effort. Other examples are to: pool your ideas, to brainstorm together, teamwork. These are great expressions that can be used in the classroom and in the office.
OK let’s go to those extra head idioms. The first one is off the top of my head. This is one that you can definitely put in your treasure chest of knowledge, it’s definitely one of my favourites/favorites. Off the top of my head means that I’m just remembering approximately. I’m not absolutely sure. Many times we have to do things off the top of our head. We have to sometimes improvise and hope that everything will work out OK. It’s a question of using both sides of your brain so that you can use your ‘creative intelligence. Just like in any profession, although you have a plan in front of you, most of the time it’s off the top of your head. This is a balancing act which requires a lot of confidence based on past experience. And if you are able to do things off the top of your head, you can give yourself a pat on the back for that one.

This is my footnote for ‘off the top of my head’, you my online students, you all need to be daredevils when it comes to learning English. I receive questions every day ‘how can I learn English quickly?’
Many times you have to do things off the top of your head. You have to go for it.

My next one is ‘it’s hard to get your head ’round that’ and that can be used for both sides of the Atlantic. To get your head ’round something means that you try to comprehend something, accept it, absorb that idea. A good example is recently in quantum physics where they have proven(US) it is possible for a particle, a single particle to exist in two different locations at the same time. It’s hard for us to get our heads ’round that. It’s hard for me to get my head ’round that. But on the other hand, it would be kind of nice to be able to multitask and be in several different locations at the same time. Giving classes online, shooting my videos, editing my videos, recording my music for my videos. Doing so many things multitasking, actually I think that would be a nice deal. Two heads are better than one and many hands make light work, so we can all muck in together.

My last 3 head phrasal verbs in this case are head for, head out and head off to, they all have similar meanings in terms of leaving a location. It is quite common here in North America and in England to say head off to somewhere else. It simply means to leave one location to go to another location. I’m heading off to the supermarket. I’m heading off to the shopping centre/center. You could also say, ‘I’m heading out, I’m leaving now’. Kind of a semi-formal, informal way of saying ‘I’m leaving’. Another way of saying it is ‘head for’. I’m heading for the liquor store, I’m heading for the supermarket. All of these are very appropriate for leaving one location and going to another. So if you were worries about what preposition to use, well this is great because you have a great option of prepositions which will mean the same thing.

My last extra head idiom, one of my favourites/favorites. It reminds me of a student who was telling me the other day that some people do know when to ‘quit while they are ahead’. To quit while you’re ahead means that you are winning, but you know when to stop. Maybe you have seen people in a casino, in a game, a card game. They start winning, they continue to win, but they don’t know when to stop and they end up losing it all. We can find many examples of this in history. Many wars have been lost this way and it is essential that we know when to quit while we are ahead. And speaking of which, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. I’m going to present to you now a special song that I have recorded so that you can remember all the head idioms and extra head idioms That I have talked about today. Thank you for all of my online English learners for watching this video and sending me your questions. Feel free to send me more questions at info@privateenglishportal.com and we’ll see you next time.

Bye! Bye!

Thanks and enjoy!

Steve

SteveFordTV-Episode-12-Head Idioms

SteveFordTV-Episode-11-Mouth Idioms

SteveFordTV-Episode-10-Eye Idioms

This show was recorded live and will be posted on my LearningEnglishTV Channel

Get ready for eye idioms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Review the idioms before the show

Peppy 19 Idioms were……….

-give someone the evil eye
- give someone a black eye
- to see eye to eye to with someone
-to keep an eye on someone
- to have eyes in the back of your head

1. If someone gives you the evil eye, how would you feel? ( question comes from TOAN from Vietnam)
2. Steve, I heard you played hockey when you were younger, did anyone ever give you a black eye? (Ricardo, Brazil)
3. I don’t see eye to eye with my supervisor. Do you think other people have the same problem? ( Isabella from Italy)
4. Is it hard to keep an eye on
5. Steve, when you were a teacher in the classroom, did you have eyes in the back of your head? (Vladimir, Russia)

Additional eye idioms for today:

1. to only have eyes for someone eg. I only have eyes for you
2. eyesore eg. Some modern architecture, art can be an eyesore there are great sites with pictures which show the 10 ugliest buildings in the world
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1229540/Top-ugliest-buildings-world-unveiled–beautiful-cities.html
3. to have a bird’s eye view eg. When we went up the gondola/skyride in the Rockies, we had a bird’s eye view of the city below
- mountains
-planes
-parachuting
-hang gliding
-zip riding
- tree bridges
4. in the wink of an eye
- name 5 things that can happen in the wink of an eye
- name 5 things you can do in the wink of an eye
5. eyes are the window to the soul
6. look me in the eye when you say that
7. to be in the eye of the hurricane

pronunciation difficulties with eyes plural and ice

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Episodes 1-9

Well that’s it for our lesson today. I hope that you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. I’m sure that I will set many tongue wagging talking about these tongue idioms in comments below this video. I look forward to our next lesson next time. Please send me any of your questions to info@privateenglishportal.com Bye! Bye!