Hello, everyone.
My name is Chris
and welcome back to Learn British English Free on YouTube.
This lesson is about a song, the national anthem of the UK,.
and other Commonwealth countries.
Is is, of course, God Save the Queen
and this is for Dani after our recent conversation on this subject.
'God Save the Queen' - it's interesting language and it comes from far back in history from
the Bible,
which is why we use God Save the Queen -
it's not the normal structure of the verb, is it?
It can be God Save the Queen because we have
Queen Elizabeth II right now.
It can also be God Save the King if we have a king in the future
or as we did in the past.
People sing this song in different situations.
In the description - please have a look - you can see
the performance at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding.
It's also normal that the players sing it before and England football match.
Later on today, England will play Colombia in the World Cup -
the players will sing it before that match.
There are three different parts.
They are like paragraphs in writing
but in songs we call them stanzas or verses
and we normally sing only the first one because it's too long otherwise.
So I'm going to explain this one and I'm not going to sing it (fortunately).
Let's start.
You can read in the description or make sure captions are enabled:
the words will be on your screen if you do that.
God save our gracious Queen
gracious is a very positive word - describes someone who's polite and kind and nice
important qualities for British people:
God save our gracious Queen.
Long live our noble Queen.
Noble - somone who is of very high social rank or class
and of course it doesn't get higher than the Queen.
Again, noble can also describe very good behaviour; honourable behaviour.
God save the Queen.
Send her victorious.
Victorious - having won; full of victory.
Happy and glorious.
Glory - fully of glory.
Long to reign over us.
Reign is a verb.
It sounds like 'rain' (water that comes from the sky), but it is spelt differently
so please take care.
Reign is what a king or queen does.
They are in charge; they are the boss
and they reign.
For example: Queen Elizabeth II has reigned for more than 60 years.
Long to reign over us.
God save the Queen.
That is the normal part of the national anthem that the English players
will sing before the match.
You can watch it later if you are in time.
Thank you very much for watching.
What about your national anthem?
Tell me about it if you like - you can write a comment.
Thank you also to Dani for the idea to make this video.
I hope that it was useful.
I will be back on Learn British English Free quite soon -
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Please look in the description again: at the bottom, below the text for the song we have
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My name is Chris, I appreciate your time and support like always.
See you soon.
Bye for now.