Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "is" and "it's."
Now this is a different lesson from "it's" and "it's." That lesson can be seen on
engVid, so you can check it out there as well.
Now today, we're looking at "is" and "it's," which is a grammar point. That is
really important for you guys. I have five sets of sentences on the board, and
this is a mistake that is often made by Spanish speakers. So if you are a
Spanish speaker, and if some of these sentences look familiar to you, that's
good, because that means you can recognize your mistakes today, and you
can fix them for the future. So here, let's look at the first one. This is one
that I hear all the time. Now, "it's good" or "is good"? Which one is correct? Okay,
this one is correct. Now, why is this not correct? "Is good." In English, you need to
identify a subject, okay? If you have just a sentence that begins with a verb,
like this, "is good," you can't do it. I will ask you, "What is good?" You have to tell
me what is good. In this case, "it is good." "It's good." So if you're eating
something, and if you say, "Mmm, it's good," right? You don't say "is good." I know in many
languages, including Spanish, including Polish, and I'm sure other languages as
well, you can begin a sentence with the verb "to be." In English, you can't, okay,
unless it's a question. That's the only time you can begin a sentence with the
verb "to be" is if it's a question. So knowing that, let's look at the other
examples. Here, "It's cold today." "It's cold today." Which one is correct? Correct.
The second one, "It is cold today," right? The day is cold. If you just say, "Is cold
today," my question is, "What is cold today?" Okay? Here, a very similar example, "The
weather is cold." "The weather, it's cold." It's similar but different. Here, what do
we have? We have "the weather." "The weather" is a subject. Now, common sentence
construction, of course, is subject plus verb. Subject, "the weather," plus verb, "is."
This is good. Here, "The weather, it's cold." Why is this incorrect? Well, because you
have subject, "the weather," plus subject, "it," plus verb. This is redundant. You are
repeating information. Okay? So you just have to say, "The weather is cold," subject plus
the verb "to be." Okay. "Is the reason I moved here." "It's the reason I moved here." Which
one is correct? Correct. The second one, if you say, "Is the reason I moved here," my
question is correct. "What is the reason?" "What is the reason?" "It is the reason."
"That is the reason." "This is the reason that I moved here." You can say, for example,
"The restaurants are the reason." Okay? Or, "He is the reason." "She is the reason." "It
is the reason I moved here." Right? "It is the reason I moved here." "It's the reason."
Finally, "I want to see it, but it's scary." "I want to see it, but it's scary." Here,
you have a bit of a different sentence because you have a construction where you have a comma,
right, and a conjunction. Now, if you have a conjunction, right, you need to start a
new idea, a new topic, a new thought. You have to have a subject again. So here, knowing
"but," what do you think is the correct sentence? Right. "But it's scary." So I want to see
a movie, right, but it's scary. So here, but you say, "Teacher, you said I want to see
it." Right? "It." I understand. It's "it" already. Why do I have to repeat "it" again?
Because you used a conjunction. Okay? You used a connecting word like "but," like "and,"
like "or," like "so." If you do that, you have to use "it" again. Okay? "I want to see
it, but it's scary." If you have this, "but is scary," my question again is, "What is
scary?" "But it, the movie, is scary." Okay? All right, guys. So to test your understanding
of when to use "is," when to use "it," and make sure you never make this mistake again,
check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. Good luck, guys, and see you next time.