Hello, my name is Ronnie, and I'm going to teach you about a very important basic verb
in English.
This is really, really good if it's the first verb you ever learn in English, or if you
have learned English before and are reviewing your English lessons.
I know also you may think, "I don't need this, this is easy."
I am very surprised the number of people who are really, really advanced English speakers
who make mistakes using "to be."
So, I will help you to learn it or to review it.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you the positive, the negative, and also the
question form, just to help you out.
The first thing we have to do is go through the positive.
We say, "I am," or you can also say or write, "I'm."
It's the same thing.
With "he," and this is a man or a boy, "she," who's a girl or a woman, and "it," we have
to use "is."
Now, "it" is a singular noun, so that means one of something that is not a person.
For example, my marker, I can say "it," "it is red."
When we say "he is" or "she is" or "it is," we can shorten it and we can say "he's," "she's,"
or "it's."
These are the shortened versions.
When we use "you," "we," and "they," we have to use "are."
"You" is "you," "we" includes myself and another person.
"We" is plural.
There's always at least two people, including you.
"They" is also plural for people.
It means more than one person who is not yourself, so I can say, "They like pizza."
The other meaning we use for "they," I told you that "it" is for a singular noun or singular
thing.
We also use "they" for plural nouns.
So if the noun is plural, it's going to have an "s" on the end.
For example, I told you that "it is red" for one marker.
Magic, I have two markers.
I have to say "they are" black and red.
So "one" is "it," "two" or "more" are "they."
We can also break these down and make them shorter when we speak or when we write.
Both speaking and writing is acceptable.
We say "your," "we're," and "their."
We're going to go on to the negative form of these.
So this is positive, and as you can tell here, this is negative.
So positive is "I am" or "I'm."
What we're going to do with the negative is we're only going to add one word, and it is
the same for all of the subjects.
To make it negative, we'll put "not."
So for this one, we're going to write "I'm not," or you could say "I am not."
It doesn't matter.
Normally when we speak English, we would say "I am not."
For "he," "she," and "it," all we're doing is adding "not" with "is."
So I'm going to write "he is not," or you can say "she isn't."
These two are exactly the same, and then you say "it isn't" or "it is not."
And the last three are "you are not," or we can say "we are not" or "we aren't."
I can say "they are not" or "they aren't."
If it is difficult for you to say "aren't" or "isn't," don't worry.
Just if you want to try and start, you can practice saying "he is not," "she is not,"
"I am not," "you are not."
Then when you feel comfortable, you can change it and shorten it.
It'll be easy once you practice a couple times.
The last thing that you're going to want to learn are the question forms of "to be" verbs.
The first one we don't really use a lot in speaking, but we do use it when we talk to
ourselves.
Yes, you do, or as I like to say, your inner voice.
A lot of people ask me, "Ronnie, when will I ever become bilingual in English?"
One of the first ways that you are on the path to becoming bilingual is when you begin
to think in English.
So your inner voice or your thinking, the language actually changes of how you think.
This is a very good indication that you are slowly becoming bilingual.
It takes time, so please do not think, "Oh my God, Adora!"
Don't worry, it'll take a while.
So once you have done that, you're going to start thinking to yourself, "Am I speaking
English well?"
Yes, you are.
When we use the question form, all we do very easily is we switch the verb and the subject.
Try and do this one.
If we switch the verb and the subject, "He is" changes to, "Is he?"
We also say, "Is she?" or "Is it?"
It's very unusual if we would start a question with, "Isn't it?"
We do say that sometimes, but it's not usual.
What I want you to concentrate on is just the regular questions in the affirmative or
in the positive.
You are, do you know the answer to that one or the question to that one?
This one would be, "Are you?"
We are would be, "Are we?" and plural noun, "They are" would be, "Are they?"
One very important thing as well is when you're asking a question, when you're writing the
question, you always need one of these beautiful things at the end called a question mark.
If you don't put a question mark, it's wrong.
So always remember your beautiful question mark at the end of every question.
When you are speaking, the way that the listener knows you're asking a question is your voice
goes up.
For example, I would say, "Is she okay?"
My voice has to rise at the end so that the listener knows that I'm asking a question.
If you have a question to ask me, go to www.engvid.com and you can ask me.
I hope you understand all of this.
I am leaving.
Bye.