Hello! Hello! Hello Everybody! My name is Steve Ford
and today I have a great lesson for you. Welcome to learn English live.
we are going to be listening to a great question, an awesome question
from Camila or as we say it here Camila
from Brazil
Hello Camila and hello Brazil!
I really enjoyed listening to your question.
it's something that I talk about with my students
we're going to focus on "as if"
more than "as though", why?
because "as if" is used much more
and sometimes even "like" is used. We're gonna find out why
and I'm going to explain the grammar and I'm going to give you
so that you can learn this grammar and hopefully remember it for the rest of your life
so we have "as if" and then "as though" which is less commonly used when we're speaking
it's too long "as though", "as though"
it's kind of hard to roll off the tongue "as though"
"as though" nah, it doesn't work
"as if" ah, it's much shorter
just..yeah..rolls off the tongue
as if, as if
he's treating her as if she were the only girl in the world
now that's the grammatically correct form
I doubt that many speakers, native speakers would use it that way
they would say, "he treats her as if she was the only girl in the world"
now in your question
you were scratching your head wondering why
because I learned that using I, you, he, she we should use "was"
all the time
well that's when you're using it in a basic simple past conjugation
but in this case we're using "were" to explain the subjunctive mood
this "were" is just imagining, it's a hypothesis
it's not a real situation
she's not the only girl in the world
so he's treating her as if she "were" the only girl in the world
she acts as if she were the queen
well, take a look at the situation
she's never going to be queen
it's just not gonna happen
maybe in the movies, but not in real life. It's not gonna happen
and it would be "as if she were"
watching him play it's as if he was a pro
well look at him play
he plays like a pro
so there's a strong possibility
in the future
that he will become a pro
do you see the difference here?
between the two
when we're using were, we're just imagining
it's not a real situation
and "was" when there's a real possibility involved
So some of you probably remember the movie, "The Lord of the Rings"
There's a character in that movie..at the beginning of the movie
we don't know his true identity
and that's Aragon
yes, with that lovely fake British Hollywood accent
yes! saying "No" and "Frodo, don't go!"
at the beginning of the movie, Aragon acts as if he was a King
so we have some clues and evidence that this is a possible situation
he's a blood relative
we find that out half-way through the movie
now, why did I use "was"?
because it's a possible situation
why am I using "were"
because it's an impossible situation
I will never be you
and I want to tell you that if you say, "I wouldn't do that if I was you"
it sounds cool actually, it's streetalk
it's used a lot in rap
in a lot of pop music
it;s cool sometimes in music to break the rules in grammar
as if can be used as a conjunction, for example
but more commonly
in English you'd say
we also use "as if" in slang
it means, "yeah right", "I don't think so"
you wanna listen to the intonation there
there's a lot of sarcasm in that intonation
that's something that you wanna make sure you..train that with me right now
good, once again
you could also use this with sarcasm
meaning I don't care
OK Amanda(oops Camila), I hope that that answers your question
if you have a question, you can leave it at the link below this video
you can also subscribe to my Youtube channel
and I look forward to our next Learn English Live video
Bye for now!