Hi, I'm Ronnie.
Nah, I'm not James, I'm Ronnie.
I have a book - it's really cool.
It's cool because when I was a kid, these were the books that we had to write in in
our class, and it has a map of Canada, so if you want to buy this, just talk to the
website ( www.engvid.com ) and you can buy it.
I'll sell it to you for, like, ten bucks, cool deal.
It has my notes in it too, so maybe twenty bucks, twenty dollars.
So: I want to talk to you about something called friends.
Do you have friends?
I hope you do.
If you don't have friends, that's fine too.
It doesn't matter, sometimes you don't need friends.
I like my friends, they're pretty cool, but I want to teach you something about learning
vocabulary.
So, many people say "Ah man, how can I learn vocabulary?
Vocabulary's so important when you're trying to learn a new language.
It's the basis of anything.
The first thing that I would do if I was trying to learn a new language is learn some vocabulary
words.
Now, if you speak Spanish or Portuguese, or French, you are extremely lucky.
Why?
Because English steals or borrows a lot of words from Latin origins.
This means that if you speak Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, we're stealing a lot
of your words, so you are at a huge advantage to people that don't have - don't speak a
Latin language, and you have the same alphabet, so you are five steps ahead of anyone from
countries that use a different alphabet or are not a Latin based language.
We have these things in English called "friends", and I'm not talking about your mate, I mean
friends that the words are so almost similar that it's ridiculous.
But, there's one bad thing about your friend.
Your friend has terrible pronunciation, so although these words are going to look very
similar, the sound will be similar, you have to watch out for this pronunciation, the pronunciation
of these words, so the lesson is "friends" of Spanish and Portuguese people, guess what,
you get to play a game, okay?
You guys get to see "Oh wow, oh my God, Portuguese, Spanish, super similar", okay?
So, you guys listening or watching in Portugal and Brazil, you guys watching from Spanish
speaking countries and America as well, anywhere you are, doesn't matter.
If you're in Japan, Korea, but look at this, you can learn Spanish and English with me!
I've done everything!
You learn everything, it's amazing!
So, the first one is - so, I've thrown my book and I need the book because I need to
practice my Spanish pronunciation.
The first one in English, we have "accident".
Can you say "accident"?
In Spanish, "achi-den-te", very similar, "achi-den-te", "el achi-den-te", we say "ax-eh-dent".
Damn, that's close.
The next one: "blando".
Hey, guess what, you take off the "o", and you have the English word "bland".
Bland means a mild thing, usually we use this to talk about food.
For example, water is bland.
It doesn't have a strong taste, it has a very mild taste.
An accident is an "achidente", an accident is when you do something by mistake, maybe
there's a car accident, a car crash.
The next one, when you're telling someone to relax in English, we say "calm", and hmm?
There's an "l", we don't say "cALm", we say "cahm", so this is a very, very strange pronunciation
in English, it's like ".com", almost.
Calm, hm.
In Spanish, you say "Call-me".
So, you guys have actually said it correctly.
In English, we're just like "Nah, we're just not gonna say the "l" to make it difficult",
so in Spanish you say "la calma", we say "calm".
In Portuguese too, ahem.
The next one, this is hard for me, check this out.
"De-say-ent", is that right?
In English, we say "de-cent", same word except look at it, just take out the "e", so you
say "de-cee-ent-eh", I get it now, there's an "e", you guys say the "e", we don't.
If something is decent, it means it's passible, it's okay.
It's not amazing, it's alright, it's acceptable.
But funnily enough, when I was a child, I had slang, and if I was like "Wow, that's
decent, man!", that meant it was really, really cool.
So, even when I was a child, I was changing our language and making things that were just
okay really good, haha.
It all started as a youth.
The next one is "el"... mmhmm, "ex-treme-oh".
El extremo, I can't say it.
In English, I can say, in English, "ex-treem".
You guys will hear things like "extreme sports".
Extreme means something that's very, very strong, or very, very crazy.
"Es-treme-oh", there you go.
Something that's not normal.
Look at this one, even has a bonus because it has the same spelling, yes!
Except you guys say "Fi-nal" and we say "Feye-al", so again, it's not "fi-nal", it's "feye-al".
We have to be careful in English with the "I".
You guys pronounce it like an "e", we pronounce it like an "I", so it's "fine-al", it means
"the end", but it's not the end of this ABC lesson.
The next one: "La gas-oh-len-ah".
Oh, this is easier!
We just say "gas".
Hey, I gotta get some gas.
You've gotta say "Wow, ten la gas-oh-len-ah", we just say "gas", it's easy.
Now, this might be a terrible pronunciation, the "h", honest in English, "Onest".
You guys might say "hon-es-to".
Are you "hon-es-to"?
We say "Onest", we just take out the "o", easy.
"La" hm hm hm hm "eh-de-ah", "la eh-de-ah", we say, again with the "I", we say "I-de-ah",
not "eh-de-ah", we say "i-de-ah", so again we're changing with the "o" sound - with the
"I" sound and the "e" sound, we're changing it in English, so you say "eh-de-ah", we say
"i-de-ah".
Be careful, the vowels, they will get you every time.
The vowels are not your friends.
You guys say "Ju ju ju ju-lio", but you say "hu-li-oh", me and Julio, and we say "July",
so you guys have to be careful, remember if you have a "J", say "J", you guys say "H".
Why do you do that?
You're doing that because we're making it difficult for you to learn English!
So, you guys go "Guess what?
We're going to make Spanish difficult, we're going to write a "J" but we're going to make
you say an "H" and we're not gonna tell you.", hey, that's fair, that is fair because "July",
hm, "hu-li-oh", we're good.
We have more difficult, I think, in English than you guys do speaking Spanish, so hey,
bring it on.
Kilometer, yeah, in English you say "kilo-meter".
You guys might say "ki-lo-met-re", I don't know, how do you say it?
Uh-huh, okay.
And we say "kilo-meter", so we say it really fast, "kilo-meter", like you're killing a
meter, ten kilometers.
Legal, so I know in Portuguese, you guys say "le-gall" and that means "that's cool" and
I thought "Oh hey, something's legal, that's good.", this is slang.
"Le-gall" is the same in Spanish, you guys say "le-gall", we say "le-gal".
If something is legal in English, it means it's okay for the law.
If you do this, the police maybe aren't going to come and get you because it's legal, it's
okay.
It doesn't mean it's good, it means it's okay.
"Ma-hee-co", guess what, we don't use accents.
You guys use accents, I haven't figured those out yet.
"Me-heh-co", that's Mexico.
"Ma-hee-co".
And we say "mah-gic".
Oh.
That's your new friend that isn't really your friend yet, but they're trying to be your
friend.
It's very different in the pronunciation but the word spelling is very similar.
I think this one of the first Spanish words that I learned: "nes-sis-sar-io".
I probably said that wrong.
"Neh-say-sar-ri-oh" "Neh-say-sar-ri-oh".
And we say "Nes-sis-sary", ours is shorter, but it has the same meaning.
Again, if you can perfect your English pronunciation, you are going to ace this crazy language,
so "Nes-sis-sary".
Necessary.
"Mah-gic".
"Le-gal", we say it really quickly, and this is "kilo-meter", you're killing the meter.
"La O-li-va", yeah, "Oh", "O-li-va", we say "All-liv".
Again, in English, be careful.
We never say the "e" at the end of the word, so we say "All-liv", you say "la o-li-va",
we say "all-liv".
Do you like olives?
I do.
When I was a kid, I didn't like olives a lot.
I had them on pizza and I was like "Ew, who put olives on my pizza?
Oh, it was me, okay", but now, I love olives!
So, if you want to throw some olives at me, I'll... do it, let's go.
La palma.
Mm-hmm.
English - "pahm", cool, again, we don't say the "L".
In English, I guess we're just like "Nah, do you know what?
That "L" in calm and palm, we're just not going to say it.
You guys say it, but in English, we decided we don't like it", so "pahm", like a tree,
you say "la palma", we say "pahm".
"La re-ac-ch-i-on", Nah, that sounded French.
La reaccion, that's French again.
In English, we say "re-act-ion".
So, your reaction is how you react to someone, or how something happens and you, what do
you do?
How do you react?
How do you visualize what you're thinking?
This word: "sah-ver-i-oh", hm, that sounded really good, just let me check.
"Seh", no, it's wrong, "Seh-ver-io", we say "suh-ver", so if something is severe, it means
it's very serious.
Just like this.
This is cool, oh, I like this one: "el taxi", Uh, no, yeah, it's almost the same: taxi.
We say "taxi", you might say "Tax-see", same, good.
"La oon-i-yon", that sounds like "onion", "La oon-i-yon", we say "you-yin", mmm.
So, it's like "you-yin", union, you know, that sounds like "Ying-yang" now, so we say
"you-yin".
And the last one, this one's fun too: "La zon-ah", we say "zohn".
Have you noticed that we don't have some letters on the board?
Q?
Hmm, we don't have X, and we don't have Y.
Why?
Because you guys don't have these in your language, so we actually get extra words,
extra letters to put in our alphabet to make it even more difficult, but what I want you
guys to understand is that learning English vocabulary can be easy, because we have so
many words that are so similar, so how do you learn vocabulary in English?
One very easy way is to look at "friends", words that are quite similar, have the same
meaning, very same spelling, in English as your language, but be careful of the pronunciation.
Let's do this one more time.
"Zohn".
"You-yin", "Taxi", "Suh-ver", "Re-act-ion", "Pahm", "All-liv", "Nes-sis-sary", "Mah-gic",
"Le-gal", "Kilo-meter", "July", "I-de-ah", "Onest", notice we don't say the "H", we don't
say "Hhhonest", we say "onest", "Gas", "Feye-al", "Ex-treem", "De-cent" "Cahm", .com, "Bland",
and "Ax-eh-dent".
So now, Spanish and English are friends!
They're friends of language and Portuguese, you can hang out too.
Everyone else in the world, I have a challenge for you.
I want you to find words in your language that you think maybe are similar to English.
This will help you a lot.
Example, when I was in Japan, I had the - you guys have the "bimbo", "bimbo" means "broke",
but in English, "bimbo" means a silly stupid person, a silly stupid girl, so I was like
"Oh my, wow, I know this word!", even if the meaning is different, it doesn't matter.
You have got this word that will help you achieve your English dreams and your English
goals.
I'm Ronnie, I'm out of here.
If you have questions, ask me!