Hello. I'm Gill from www.engvid.com, and here we are in London on a rainy day, and we're
going to be looking at the English alphabet. And I have for you an alphabet memory trick
to help you remember. Okay? Because every alphabet in every language is different, so
the English alphabet with 26 letters is... Sorry, that's probably too high, so I'm going
to put that down here. 26 letters is different from other alphabets, and the letters come
in a certain order. So some people start, "Okay: A, B, C, D, E..." So this is to help
you remember all of the letters in the correct order. Okay. So it's like a little poem or
story. And the first word... The first letter of each word is the letter of the alphabet.
So let's just look at the first line, okay?
So we have: "All Boys Can Do Exercise", okay? So that's A, B, C, D, E, the first five letters
of the alphabet. Okay? So it... Because it means something in a sentence, hopefully it's
easier to remember. So: A, B, C, D, E: "All Boys Can Do Exercise". "Exercise" meaning
this sort of thing. Okay? Exercise. Right. Okay.
Second line, continuing: "French Girls Help In June", okay? So: "French Girls Help In
June", the month of June, okay? I always think of French au pairs here. I don't know if you
know that word: "au pair", it's French itself, but it means usually a young woman who comes
from another country to live with a family and help them with their housework, help them
with the children, the shopping, and they're called an au pair, so this always reminds
me of French au pairs, so maybe that will help you remember as well. So: "French Girls
Help In June", and that's in the summer when maybe more French girls will want to come
because the weather isn't that bad in the summer. Okay. So, we've had A, B, C, D, E,
F, G, H, I, J, okay? And then, finally... Because the alphabet is 26 letters long, it
helps to divide it into two and stop halfway, so it's 13 plus 13, and that's how I learned
the alphabet when I was a very little girl at school. So I always stopped halfway and
knew I was halfway. So we're going to do the same here, okay?
So, next one: K, L, M, okay? "Kids Like Milk". Now, if you don't know the word "kids", it's
an informal, casual word for children. Okay? So: Children Like Milk, but it's "Kids". And
a kid is also a baby goat, maybe that's why children are called kids; I don't know. Don't
quote me. A kid is a baby goat, which is an animal-okay?-that you find on the farm. A
baby goat is a kid, but here it means children. "Kids Like Milk". You can also remember this
line because it's K, L, M, and I hope we're allowed to advertise, you may know of the
airline, I think it's the Dutch airline, KLM, that's another way of remembering this line.
If you can't remember about kids liking milk, think of the Dutch airline KLM. Okay? So then
here we are halfway through the alphabet. So, we've got: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,
J, K, L, M, halfway. Right. Okay, ready to go on? Right.
Next line, this sounds strange, but it sort of makes sense, so we have: "Now Our Professor"-our
teacher, our professor-"Quits Reading". Okay? "Quits" means stops. It's another informal
word, it means stops. Okay, so... And the professor, that's usually someone in a university.
So it sounds pretty strange that a professor would stop reading, because that is what professors
are supposed to do, but maybe this professor is retiring, or they got very tired, or they
need a holiday, and they think: "Right, no more books." So: "Now Our Professor Quits
Reading". Okay, so: N, O, P, Q, R. Okay.
Now, the next bit is totally unconnected; it doesn't really follow in the story, but
I'll explain what this means if you're not sure: "Socks Turn Up". "Socks", what you wear
on your feet, okay? Your socks. Sometimes you lose your socks. You think: "Where are
my lovely red socks? I can't find them." And you go for about a week or two weeks, and
you're still thinking: "What happened to my socks?" And then suddenly one day you go into
the kitchen maybe, you open the kitchen cupboard, and there are your socks and you say: "Oh,
my socks turned up." It usually means... If something turns up, this is a verb with a
preposition or a phrasal... Phrasal verb, okay? Phrasal verb. It's slightly an informal
kind of phrase, again, but: "to turn up" it's usually if you have lost something... You
lost your socks and then you find them again. So, you lose them, you lose your socks. You
lose your socks and then you find them. So: "Oh, my socks turned up", so that's the meaning
of this: Socks turn up. Okay? S, T, U. Right? So we've got: N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, and
then to end with...
Now, the last few letters of the English alphabet are quite difficult. Some other languages
don't have a W, for example, which makes it difficult. But anyway, some more advertising:
VW. Okay? VW, you may know the German car, the VW, or Volkswagen is the full name. Volkswagen,
so there's the V and there's the W. But no English person finds the word "Volkswagen"
easy to say, and it takes such a long time, we say: "VW", okay. My Russian... I have a
Russian student who I told her about this, and she said: "Oh, well, in Russia we say:
'Volkswagen'." So, okay but in England, in the U.K. we usually say: "VW", it's easier.
So, VW, car. And then the letter X is very, very difficult to use in English at the beginning
of a word, there are not many words if you look in the dictionary beginning with an X,
so to find something that actually made sense, I had to use a word with X as the second letter,
but never mind, it's okay. So: "VW eXits", meaning goes out, the exit is the way out,
so it goes out of "York", that is a city in the north of England. York. "Zoo", the zoo
where the wild animals are kept. Now, I don't know if there is a zoo in York, but it doesn't
really matter. If it helps us remember the last few letters of the English language,
then that's all that matters. Okay. So: "VW eXits York Zoo." V, W, X, Y, Z.
Okay, so just to go over the second half of the alphabet: N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W,
X, Y, Z. Okay? So, that is the English alphabet. I hope you found that useful and helpful,
and help... To help you memorize it. So please go to the website, www.engvid.com, where there
is a quiz on this topic to help you, to test to see how much you've learnt from this lesson.
Okay? And if you've enjoyed this lesson, please subscribe to my channel on YouTube. And so
that's all for now. Hope to see you again next time. Bye.