Hey welcome to another edition of EWOD, brought to you by Skills Language Academy, here in
Taiwan. Today's EWOD is going to be pretty quick and easy. But even though it's easy
I see this mistake happening a lot in my classes.
The whole idea for this video came about because I was on the train the other day and a sweet
little old lady next to me, started up a conversation, and she asked me the question "Are you like basketball?"
Now, I really enjoyed talking with her, because she was really nice, but actually her question
was grammatically incorrect. But like I said, I see this mistake a lot, it's very common.
So hopefully, after this video you can get a better understanding and avoid making this
mistake yourself.
Ok, so what am I talking about here? I'm talking about the verb "to be" versus the verb "to
do", and when to use them.
So let's get right into it. Let's talk about the verb "to be". What is the verb "to be"
first of all? It's I am / You are / He-She-It is / We are / They are . So when do you we
use the verb to be? First of all we're going to use it with "nouns". So in the example
here, we have "I am a teacher." "Teacher" is a noun so we're going to use the verb "to
be". Same thing here, "Tina is an artist." "Artist" is a noun because it's a person,
so we're going to use the verb "to be" "is".
Next one, "He is fat", "fat" is what is called an adjective, it describes a noun. So because
"fat" is an adjective, we're also going to use the verb "to be". Same thing here, "She
is tall", "tall" is an adjective is we're going to use "is" - the verb "to be".
Also, we're going to use it with verbs, but only "-ing" verbs. Only "-ing" verbs. Ok,
so we've got "I am going to work", "going" is an "-ing" verb, so we're going to use the
verb "to be". Also, "Are you doing your homework?", "doing" is an "-ing" verb, so we're going
to use "are" : the verb "to be".
Ok, so that's basically the verb "to be". We use it for nouns, adjectives, and verbs
ending in "-ing".
Now, the verb "to do". The verb "to do" is pretty easy, because we use it for verbs only.
But we use it for verbs that don't end in "-ing". So again, if it ends in "-ing" we're
going to use the verb "to be". Any other verb we're going to use the verb "to do".
Ok, now real quick, this is the verb "to do" is what's called an auxiliary verb, which
is a hard word to say even for myself. You can also call it a helping verb. So as you
can see here, we have the verb "to do" but this is the main verb in the sentence, so
it's not a helping verb. A helping verb, is when we have a main verb, in this sentence
here, "Do you play basketball?", "play" is your main verb, that's the action, we also
have the verb "to do", which is acting as a helping verb. It's helping the main verb.
So that's what I'm talking about when I say the verb "to do", I'm talking about the helping
verb. So, again, we use it for verbs not in "-ing". So, "play" is your verb it's not "-ing"
so we're going to use the verb "to do."
Ok, so this is what that little old lady should have said. She should have said, "Do you play
basketball?" and not "Are you play basketball?"
Ok, another example. "He doesn't eat breakfast." We have the verb "eat", it doesn't end in
"-ing", so we're going to use the verb "to do". Here it's in the negative, "does not".
Ok, that's pretty much it. Like I said, quick and easy. The verb "to be" versus the verb
"to do".
Alright now for your homework, what I want you to do is, in the comments below, I want
you to make one sentence using the verb "to be" and one sentence using the verb "to do".
If I like your comment that means it's all good. If it's incorrect then I'll make the corrections.
Ok, catch you next time!