Hi, James from engVid. How are you? Normally I read a newspaper, as you know, but today
I'm reading the engVid lesson plans. The engVid manual for all the lessons that we'll teach,
we have taught, and will teach. You can order these right now. It's called 1-800-MAKE-JAMES-RICH.
Okay, so, just joking, but you can order it. Try. Here's where we're going to do a lesson
today on description. I am thinking that you found me very interesting when I started this
lesson. Some of you will be very interested, and you're probably going, "What's the difference
between 'interesting' and 'interested' or 'bored' and 'boring'?" Now, I'm going to give
you a general lesson, but if you want to know more about 'bored' and 'boring', we have one
on the engVid. Oopsie. It's in the manual. Go to the website. You'll find a lesson specifically
on 'bored' and 'boring'. But I will give you the general way of looking at it, because
many students don't know the difference between why on an adjective ending we use -ed or -ing.
They get confused. Is he boring or is he bored? Today, I'm going to clear that up for you.
Clear that up means make it easy for you to understand.
So first things we have to look at is it's an adjective ending, but these are formed
from verbs. So we'll have a verb word like "bored", "tired", "excited", but then they
will be used in a way to describe, and that's what they do. They describe a noun or actually
what the noun is receiving or feeling or doing, right? The action of the noun or what the
noun has received. And what we're going to do is go through each one, and I'm going to
give you the grammar points to help you as well to further your learning. So this lesson
could be for a beginner. You'll learn this. And intermediate and advanced, we'll go further.
So let's start off with the easy one. We'll start off with the -ed. -ed means past tense.
Past tense means something is finished. Stopped, worked, in the past, from before. The reason
why, in this case, as an adjective, something has already happened, right? The action has
already happened, and it hasn't had an effect on something. In this case, what it means
is you receive the action. You receive. You're not actually doing anything, so it's coming
to you. So we say this is passive. Passive means to receive, not actually doing anything.
Now, we go from passive to received. What do I mean by that? You receive it. Something
is impacting or affecting you, okay? So you get a feeling. Notice I put this in the past
tense. Felt, not feel, because it's already happened. It makes you bored or tired, whatever
the action that happened before was. So if someone is telling a story that's very long
and very uninteresting, you will become bored. The story is uninteresting because it's active,
it's action, but you become bored. See? Stop. This is the place where it stops. It leaves
you at these places. Next, the action, as I said, is finished. So this finished action
makes you feel bored or tired. Okay? We good? Let's go over here. It's not just receiving,
because sometimes there's not something actually happening to you. We want to describe a situation
as it is. It is this way now because something has, once again, happened before, and it has
made the situation as it is now. So that action is finished. Once again, we go finished. And
the situation that is happening is present. So we talk about condition. A condition, or
another word is situation. What is the situation now? So what has happened before, so the situation
is now, what is present. Okay? In this case, we can give you two good examples. A crowded
room. Now, obviously, I hate the word "obvious" because it means clear, easy to see, but if
you're learning English, it's not obvious. You see many, many people. Well, these people
all had to come in the room. That's the "ing" part, action. But when they're in the room,
they are not moving anymore. And because they're not moving and there are many people, the
room is now crowded. The action is finished, the moving, so the room becomes crowded. There's
nothing to be received. I guess we could say the room has received the people. You could
say that. But really what's important is the condition, the situation. Heated argument.
The argument, people are angry, angry, angry, angry because they've been fighting. That's
the action. It's still going on, but we say the actual situation is heated, hot, warm,
very warm argument from the fighting, yeah? Don't take off your clothes and get all naked
or anything because it's hot. I'm just saying the argument, not the room. They're not together,
okay? All right, moving on.
So this is when we look at the passive and ED, all right? So a quick recap. A recap is
to go over the lesson to make sure you understand. ED means passive or received action. You are
not doing anything. It has come to you. Usually, this action is finished, so it is the final
effect on you, final effect on you. So effect is with E for end. It's ended, which will
make you tired or bored. It also describes conditions or situations. There is a crowded
room. It is a heated argument. You like that? Good.
Time to talk about the active because passive means receiving while action means doing,
so let's do something, okay? So we'll go over here. Red for stop, green for go. Go is for
action. Why? I-N-G is active. You already know this because from grammar, you know I
am eating, I am sleeping, I am going, I am reading. All of these things mean I'm doing
an action. I am being active, right? Active. So what we say is active is having an effect
A for A, action for affecting others, and when is it affecting them? Present. Unlike
over here where we say it's finished, this action keeps going, right? So you are boring
me. It's not bad enough that you started an hour ago, but you're still boring me. You
keep going, and these lead to my feelings, I-N-G, because my feelings are what I feel
in the present or my emotions, presently feeling, yeah?
Now, remember I said active keeps going on action? Well, notice another I-N-G, an ongoing
performing action. I've got I-N-G again. Why do I have these? Well, you are boring,
you're da-da-da-da-da. But if I say I have a growing business, I'm not actually saying
the business is growing as in a feeling or an emotion. I'm saying the business is expanding
or getting larger, so it's describing the movement of the business. And I'm saying,
which is more important, that this is continuing. It's not stopping. It keeps going and going.
An ongoing business, or if you are aging well, you keep aging, getting older, and you're
doing it in a good fashion. It doesn't have to do with emotions or feelings.
So sometimes the I-N-G, when we're talking about active, can be talking about emotions
or feelings, or an ongoing action, similar to over here where we talked about situation,
yeah? So far so good? Good. Green is for go, ongoing and moving. Red is for stopped and
received. Now, this is when we go from the babies to
the advanced league, so my voice may speed up a little. But I know you can do it. Just
follow along. This is nice. Now I believe you understand it. And if you can't, just
follow the lines. It'll help you. But let's go back to something. How does this affect
me with grammar? Well, what did we say? These are formed from verbs but are not verbs, right?
And they describe the noun or subject, or they describe the action of the noun and subject,
yes? So let's look at how it would affect our
grammar. When we look at grammar, we'll go, "Well, it affects word order." Word order,
huh? Well, simple trick. If it's a noun, you put it before. Notice I have "before the noun."
See, a little trick. "Before" is "before the noun" because you put it before the noun.
So you put it before. "Interesting man." This adjective goes before the actual noun,
yes? Or you'd say, "Surprising person" or "Surprised smile." "Dazzling eyes." It goes
before the noun, okay? Now, what about the verb? Because we said
it's a verb. Well, remember, it's not really a verb. It's made from verbs, so it goes after
the verb, right? Like usually adverbs. So what kind of verb, though? We say usually
linking or transitive verbs. "He seems interested." "He seems interesting." Okay? The linking
verb is "seems," which means "look like," and we're saying it's linking the subject
with the action. So "seems interesting," "seems interested." And it goes after the verb. So
right now, you know before, noun, after, verb. And there's your word order for grammar.
What about adjectives and adverbs? Well, silly, it's an adjective. But we do have adverbs,
and we do use these adjectives with adverbs. There's a lesson on engVid about adverbs.
Check it out, and you'll notice there's a correlation. Correlation means something that
goes together or works together, okay? With an adverb, we can use these adjectives
to help out with degree. I forgot something for most of you guys. Degree, right? Temperature.
Hot and cold, how much, difference. In this case, "degree" could be "so" or "very."
For instance, "He is so interesting." To what degree? It means "very." Or, "I am very bored
of this lesson." You're not. I might be, because I want to move on to the next one.
I'm joking here. It's a very interesting lesson. To what degree? Medium or high, yeah?
We also have the superlative. Superlative, right? "He is the most interesting actor in
Hollywood," which might be Brad Pitt, I think. So superlative would be the most, the highest.
We have "so" and "very," then we can go to the superlative. Look, there's Superman because
he's super, the most super person on the planet, right?
So superlatives, we can talk about degree with adverbs, "so" and "very." We can also
talk about the word order, before nouns and after verbs, okay? Don't forget the "ing"
is "active action" from your normal grammar, right? Ongoing in the present, okay? It has
an effect, "a" and "a" on others, or it's an ongoing action into the future, okay? We've
got our passive because it receives the action, yes? Because it's the end of an action and
you receive it, so you become bored or tired, right? And we talk about condition in a room,
a crowded room or a heated argument.
Hope you enjoyed the lesson. I believe it was interesting for you. I don't think it
was too tiring because you're still watching, and I know it's going to make the next one
you watch rather boring, I mean, from other people, of course. But where I want you to
go to is www.EngVid.com, where you will meet Mr. E and myself and other fine teachers to
help you improve your English. It will be an ongoing thing, I'm sure. There's a test
and a quiz. Take the quiz. See how well you do. Okay, I'm sure you will because I've always
found teaching grammar to be interesting. I think you will, too, now. Ciao.