Hey, this is Alex, thanks for clicking, and welcome to this English lesson on the word
"ain't".
"Ain't" is one of the most versatile words in the English language, and you've probably
heard it in films, in songs, and everywhere on the street you go if you are in an English-speaking
country.
Now, the word "ain't" does not have one single meaning.
It's one of those words where you have to listen to the context to fully grasp what
it actually means.
So on the board, I have five sentences, you've probably taken notes and read them already,
but we'll go over them together.
The first one is, "I ain't going to the concert."
The second one says, "She ain't angry at me, is she?"
The third one says, "He ain't got a car."
The fourth one says, "I ain't been to Estonia."
And the final one says, "I ain't done nothing."
Okay.
So let's go back to the first sentence here, "I ain't going to the concert."
Now, if you heard this and spoke in English in a conversation, or in a film, or speaking
with your friends, what do you think their meaning would be if someone said, "I ain't
going to the concert," okay?
You're going to be using the verb "ain't" in your mind.
So "ain't," you have to translate it in your mind to actually be a different auxiliary
verb.
So "ain't," in this case, means, "I am not."
So you see, "ain't" is actually a negative word in this case, "ain't" is always negative
because of the contraction meaning "not," but the auxiliary is actually going to change
depending on the context.
So in this case, "I ain't going to the concert" means, "I am not going to the concert."
This one, "She ain't angry at me, is she?"
She is not angry at me.
So we're still using the verb "to be" in this one, we're just conjugating it because of
the "she," okay?
So "ain't" a lot of the time can be used to substitute for the verb "be."
The third one, however, is different.
So we have, "She ain't got a car."
That means that she doesn't have a car, right?
If I say, "She ain't got a car," I cannot say, "He," sorry, "He," I cannot say, "He
is not got a car."
No, in this case, "ain't" actually becomes a different auxiliary verb.
So this actually means, "He doesn't," you could say, "doesn't got a car."
It still sounds a little bit slangy, like very, very much a slang term.
So really, the grammatically correct explanation is that this means, "He doesn't have a car,"
and that includes "got," okay?
So "He doesn't have a car," in spoken English, you can say, "He ain't got a car."
The final, sorry, the fourth sentence we have here is, "I ain't been to Estonia."
Now I haven't been to Estonia, and as you heard the answer in my voice just now, this
means "haven't."
I haven't been to Estonia.
So here you see, we can actually use "ain't" to substitute for the verb "to be," as in
the first two examples.
We can substitute it for the verb "do," or we can substitute it for the verb "have."
So "ain't" is actually extremely versatile, but in the spoken word, it's one of those
words you have to hear more of, and you have to hear the context to really understand what
is the translation, which verb is the person you're speaking to actually intending to use.
And finally, the last sentence, this is something very, very commonly done by native speakers.
It's actually a double negative.
So if you say, "I ain't done nothing," okay?
What do you think "ain't" substitutes for here?
Is it, "I am not done nothing"?
Is it, "I don't done nothing," or "I haven't done nothing"?
Okay, the one that sounds closest to being correct is "I haven't," right?
I haven't done nothing.
So "I haven't done nothing," "I ain't done nothing."
This, grammatically, is still incorrect.
So if someone tells you, "I ain't done nothing," "I ain't," "I have not done nothing," it means
that I have done something, grammatically, okay?
So this actually means, what they're trying to say is, "I have not done anything."
In the spoken word, that is their meaning.
So if someone ever tells you, "I ain't done nothing," it means that I haven't done anything,
okay?
And that's it.
So just to review, you can use "ain't" to substitute for the auxiliary "be," you can
use it to substitute for the auxiliary "do," and to substitute for the auxiliary "have."
And be careful with these double negatives, because sometimes if you go to the grocery
store and you ask for apples, the person at the grocery store might say, "We ain't got
no apples."
We ain't got no apples.
That means you have apples, grammatically, but what they mean is, "We do not have any
apples."
Alright, so if you ain't confused yet, please go to engVid and check out the quiz to test
your knowledge.
Thanks for watching, take care.