Hi, everyone. In this lesson we're looking at uses of "from". "From" is a really common
word in English, you see it all the time, but do you know when to use it? We use "from"
as a preposition, and we also use "from" in phrasal verbs, so let's look at all the different
situations where we use "from".
We'll start with a phrasal verb, which is: "come from". Somebody asks a question to you:
"Where do you come from?" That means: "Where were you...? Where were you born and where
did you live when you were younger?" So, I come from London. Where do you come from?
"Where do aliens come from?" Aliens are the ones with the big eyes and sometimes they're
green, or sometimes they're reptiles. "Where do aliens come from?" Aliens come from outer
space, out there where the UFOs live.
Timespan. "Timespan" means between this time and this time. "Yoga is from 7 to 9am in the
pagoda." Yoga pagoda, it rhymes. A "pagoda" is a kind of... A kind of... Imagine the kind
of building where some Hippies would go and do some yoga, with a pointy roof, and maybe
made from wood or something like that. That's a pagoda, anyway. "The wedding season is from
May until September." This means that between May and September that's when most of the
weddings happen. We're really busy with weddings between May and September. So, the wedding
season is from May until September.
Now we're using timespan for an historical event, something that happened a long time
before, something that happened in history, something that we know as a fact. "World War
I was from 1914 to 1918." And: "Queen Elizabeth 1st", let me say that one again. "Queen Elizabeth
1st reigned from 1558 to 1603". "Reigned" is a word... "To reign" is the word we use
to say a queen or a king was in power for that time. So we could say: "Queen Elizabeth
1st was in power from 1558 to 1603", but "reigned" is a specific word that means that.
Now we have "made from". This one is also a phrasal verb. When something is made...
We use "made from" to say how we get a thing. So, my jumper is made from wool, and wool
comes from sheep. Here's some other things: "Plastic is made from oil." You take oil,
you do something to it, after you get plastic. "Paper is made from wood." Wood is the first
thing you have, and you do something to it in the factory, and after you get paper.
Now let's look at distance. We use "from" as a preposition to talk about the distance
to a place. "We are 10 minutes from the lake." Here's the lake, we are 10 minutes over here.
A lake, if you don't know it, is a natural, large area of water. It's bigger than a pond.
A pond... A pond... A pond you would never swim in, and a pond is usually what you see
in a person's garden if they have a nice garden. But a lake is much too big for most people
to have in their gardens. Maybe if you were Queen Elizabeth 1st, you would have a lake
in your garden, but not many other people.
"The moon is 385,000"-zero, zero, zero-"kilometres from the Earth". Here's the Earth, let's get
in our rocket and go 385,000 kilometres, if we survive, we make it to the moon. And the
last example here: "How far away is Tom's house from Steve's?" What that sentence means
is: How far away is Tom's house from Steve's house? But we don't need to repeat the word
"house". So, we could answer the question: "Tom's house is 10 miles from Steve's house."
Coming up: More examples of "from".
Now we have the origin of something when we're using "from" as a preposition. "Origin" is
a more formal way of saying where something begins, where something starts. So: "I have
a letter from the bank." Here's my letter, coming from the postman, he puts it in my
letterbox, here's my letter from the bank. "I have a present from my Mum." Oh, thank
you for my present. What a lovely... What a lovely scarf you gave me. And: "I got a
call from Tom", as in phone call. Now, a phone call isn't a real object, like a scarf or
a letter that we receive, but we can use "from" in this case.
Now let's look at using "from" to describe a transport route. This is also a preposition.
"You can catch a train from London to Brighton." Perhaps you want to know how to travel to
Brighton, you haven't been there before. That's a town in the English seaside. The answer
is: "You can catch a train from London to Brighton." We can also use the verb "take":
"You can take a train", and actually we can also use the verb "get" if we want: "You can
get a train from London to Brighton." But I feel the most common use is "catch", because
"catch" is when you're travelling somewhere, it at least has the sound that you do it quickly,
so you want to catch the train. In my opinion "catch" is the most natural one to use in
that sentence.
"Take the bus from the mall." So, perhaps there's a bus stop at the mall, if you go
there you can take the bus from there. The mall, we don't usually say that a lot in the
U.K. because we don't have so many malls, but in places like the USA, they would say:
"mall" and also in Dubai where there are lots of malls, you would hear that, but in Dubai
you probably wouldn't take the bus from the mall. Anyway, moving on. "I'm getting the
coach from Amsterdam to Paris." That's the way I'm travelling, and if you... You can
also take the coach. Same as before, you can take the coach or catch the coach.
Let's look at the cause of an ailment or disease. "Ailment" means something, like, sickness.
The thing that's wrong with you at the moment, and it's not generally as serious as a disease.
An ailment is something that you have at this moment, it's not as serious. I can say: "I've
got a headache from the noise." Or: "I've got a headache from all the noise". "I caught
the flu from grandma." Grandma is always coughing around, she's a bit gross like that, and she...
Because grandma is always coughing, I caught the flu from grandma. And I could also say,
talking about someone who's always smoking their cigarettes, 40 cigarettes a day, I could
say: "He got lung cancer from smoking."
Next we have: "Come up from behind". This is a... This is a phrasal verb, and we use
this phrasal verb when there are two... Two things, perhaps in a race, where one comes
in front of the other one, so it speeds up, it goes faster, or in some way it comes in
front of the other one. So, in this sentence: "Redrum came up from behind to win the race."
Redrum was a famous English racehorse that won a long time ago. I think this happened
when I was a child, but this horse is still famous. It ran... It ran in a race called
the Grand National, which is the most famous horse race in England and it won the race.
I don't know if it did win the race in this way; I just made that sentence up. So I don't
know if Redrum came up from behind to win the race or he just won it, he was such an
amazing horse. Anyway, he's a famous horse. And if you think about... Look at this word:
"redrum" and you read it backwards, it says: "murder". Anyway, famous horse. Another example
is: "The truck came up from behind"... I'm driving here in my car, the truck came up
from behind and then hit me. If you had a car crash, perhaps that could be how it happened.
Now, the last example here, this one is... I needed to tell you this because I often
have heard non-native speakers of English use something like this phrasal verb: "Take
from behind" in a way where they don't realize they're saying something that sounds something
really sexual, so they might be saying, like: "In my car I take from backside. I driving
over here, I take from backside". "Take from behind" or "Take from backside", and always
when you hear it it's like they don't mean... I don't think they mean something sexual,
but it is a little bit funny. So if you ever say: "Taking... Taking something from behind",
it does sound like a sexual act, which our kind doggies here are describing for us, but
I'm not going to say any more about that. We're going to move on to more words with "from".
Now let's look at advanced expressions using "from". Starting with the expression: "From
A to B". Let's say you were going to a big park and you were going to walk around, and
you wanted to know... Or I'm coming in this gate, but I want to know... To leave over
there. You could say: "How are we going to get from A to B?" Meaning: How do we get from
here to over there?
The next expression: "From A to Z", in my pronunciation, some people might say: "From
A to Z", that means including everything. There used to be a map... It probably still
exists. There used to be a map of London called: "The A to Z", and this map used to-if it still
exists, I don't know-have all the street names of London in it. It was a big map, many...
A big, thick map and you could always find where you needed to go in that map. This was
before Google Maps came along and I suppose now more people use their phones or maps on
the internet. But the map was called "The A to Z", because that map included everything.
So, another example could be if you wanted to study something about computers, you could
take this book and learn everything from A to Z about computers in this book, it includes everything.
Now, the next example is: "From dusk to dawn" or "From dusk till dawn" it could be. "Dusk"
is when the sun goes down at night, and "dawn" is when the sun begins to rise again the next
day or at the beginning of the day. So when we say: "From dusk to dawn", that means all
the time, never stopping, so this... This place could be open from dusk to dawn, never
stopping.
We could also say: "From zero to hero", this is somebody who's turned their life around.
Before they were zero, they were nothing; but now they're a hero, they're a champion.
So it could be that they've gone from just having nothing in their life and no girlfriend,
no money, being really, really fat, and then they've become some famous male model or something
like that. That man would have gone from zero to hero.
Next we've got: "From beyond the grave". "Beyond" means after, and "the grave" is where you
go when you die. So, to receive a message from beyond the grave would be when you've
been contacted by a spirit or receive an intuition from a dead relative or something like that,
this would be a message from beyond the grave; not from living people. And it's usually...
It's usually about a message, but it could be just seeing... Just seeing a ghost as well.
You saw a ghost, you saw something from beyond the grave.
And the last example here: "From now on" means all the time after now... From now all the
time in the future. So, from now on you're going to learn English with me on my channel
every single day.
And I have here some examples of using "from" that come from popular culture, so they come
from films, "f" for film, "s" for song, and "b" this is the name of a band. "From" is
often used in titles, I think because it's quite catchy is the first reason to use it
in a title, and also because "from" is a preposition has that idea, you know, we start here and
we go over there. If we use that in a title of a film it makes us think of a journey or
something changing in that film. The first film, From Russia with Love is a James Bond
movie. The next one is a famous film, I've never seen it, From Here to Eternity. "Here"
is here obviously, here and now. "Eternity" means forever and all time. So... And never-ending.
So you start here and, you know, I guess maybe it's a really long film, I don't know, I've
never seen it. I don't think it is, but it just gives us the idea that something really
big and important must be happening in that film.
From Dusk till Dawn, I already explained what "dusk" and "dawn" mean. This is a film about
vampires in a... In a bar. And I watched this film probably about 50 times when I was a
teenager. I used to really love George Clooney back then, and I thought it was really cool
to be in the kind of bar where you just fight vampires. Then there's a song: "From Paris
to Berlin", it's a kind of dancey, dancey track I think about.... more than 10 years
old now. And the last one is a band: "From First to Last".
So, you can leave a comment if you've seen any of these, any of these films or heard
these songs, let me know. And what you can do now at the end of the lesson is go and
do the quiz on this. And I'll see you again soon. Bye.