Look who's back! It's Ed Sheeran!
He's back again Eat Sleep Dreamers. Ed Sheeran is here to teach us some English from his
amazing songs. Today we're looking at his hit single 'Perfect'. It's a romantic love
song that's full of fantastic vocabulary. So if you're ready, let's let Ed do his thing.
'Darling just dive right in and follow my lead'. Here we have two fantastic phrases.
The first one 'dive (right) in'. This means to do something without stopping to think.
So whenever I get something from Ikea, like a bed for example, I won't stop to read the
instructions I'll just dive right in. I will just start trying to put it together without
stopping to have a look at the instructions, to think, to take my time. I just dive right
in, I just start doing it without stopping to think. 'Follow my lead' means kind of do
as I do. Use me as an example. I context for follow my lead that's quite common is dancing.
So one person maybe an expert knows how to dance and the other person is learning. The
expert would say 'follow my lead'. So I'll show you how to do it and you just do as I
do, you follow my example. So yeah that's a really common use of follow my lead. And
in fact in Ed Sheeran's official video for this song he is dancing with his partner so
maybe that's part of the reason.
Obviously we've got kids which is a short form for children. I'm sure you know that
one. And then we've got 'I will not give you up this time'. To give someone up. So to give
up in the general sense, we often associate with a bad habit so 'I need to give up smoking'
or 'I need to give up picking my nose' or whatever it might be. Now if you give someone
up, there're a couple of meanings there. I guess the idea is here that he's not losing
hope with this person, that he wants to keep this romance going. In this sense, I don't
want to give you up means like this relationship is great, let's keep it going, like you are
too important to me to stop loving. So I don't want to give you up, that's what it means.
Woah! Ed stop right there! Ok, now if we are going to do we're going to do this right.
Sometimes in songs, they use incorrect grammar and this is an example of incorrect grammar.
Certainly in British English. We have kiss, it's a verb. After a verb, to describe how
we do that verb, we need an adverb. So we would need slowly, kiss me slowly. Not kiss
me slow. Slow is an adjective and that should be describing a noun. Now in American English,
it's much more common to use an adjective to describe a verb so 'we did good' for example.
Now I'm not going to tell you what's right and wrong in terms of what you should say
but if you want to know the rules in British English we would say 'kiss me slowly'. Because
you need the adverb to describe the verb. Now Ed Sheeran is a an award-winning artist,
I'm not going to tell him what to right and wrong in English but just FYI Ed, it should
be slowly, but I'm not saying anything. No, Ed can do what he wants. I'm not telling him
what to do. It should be slowly though.
'And in your eyes you're holding mine' it's a very romantic line here. Ed is saying here
that they both keep looking at each other and they continue to look at each other, keeping
their attention. Now we've got 'to hold someone's gaze' which is the same, kind of the same
meaning here. It means that you keep looking at someone who is looking at you, so a lover
or two lovers would keep looking at each other in pure love. They would hold each other's
gaze. You could hold someone's attention as well. So you keep their attention on you,
you continue to hold it. So this is the same kind of thing. In your eyes you're holding
mine just means we are kind of looking at each other and I can't stop looking at you
and you can't stop looking at me. It's a very romantic phrase.
Barefoot can be used as an adjective or an adverb to describe when you are not wearing
anything on your feet. So no socks, no shoes. You can walk barefoot, so you are walking
with no shoes or socks. So Ed Sheeran is barefoot in the grass so he's dancing in the grass
without any shoes or socks on. 'When you said that you look a mess' now a mess is a great
*noun (not adjective) we use in every day English to describe when you look untidy.
Your hair is everywhere, you've got bags under your eyes, you look tired you don't look yourself.
Usually in the morning, if I think about the moment that I wake up, you know, I look a
mess. I haven't got my hair sorted out, you know, just yeah, I look a bit of a disaster.
Here's a fantastic phrase 'to whisper underneath your breath' or 'to say something underneath
your breath.' The idea is that you say something very quietly so that only you hear it or someone
very close to you hears it. So you speak a bit like this, but you don't need to put your
hand there obviously. You just kind of say something very quietly so that only maybe
the closest people to you can hear or just yourself. So in this case Ed is saying 'you
look perfect tonight' but he's saying it very quietly 'you look perfect tonight'. So that
no one else can hear. So to say something underneath your breath or to say something
under your breath, same meaning.
Against all odds. If something is against all odds it's not likely to succeed. It will
probably fail. So here in Ed's example he's talking about our love. Now this love is against
all odds, there are so many problems. So many difficulties but we've succeeded, it's incredible.
You could have it in a sport for example a small team playing a bigger team. The small
team, they are against all odds. There's very little chance of them winning but if they
win, they won against all odds. They won even though it was unlikely and there were so many
problems. So if you do something against all odds you do it despite the fact that it was
really unlikely to happen and very difficult to do. Alright, how was that for you guys?
Did you enjoy learning English with Ed Sheeran? It's a beautiful song, very romantic.I hope
you enjoyed it, I hope you learned lots of new vocabulary and phrases. I've done two
other Ed Sheeran videos, please check them out. I did 'Shape of You' and I also did 'Castle
on the Hill'. Check them out. I'm sure you will enjoy them as well. They are a bit of
fun. I think music is a great way to learn English so check them out, see if you enjoy
them, let me know in the comments below. This is Tom the chief dreamer saying goodbye.