Aw yeah! What's up everybody, I'm Ollie and today we are learning all about your favorite
prepositions to and for while watching some of my favorite TV series like Suits,
Brooklyn 99, Enola Homes and much more! Let's take a sneak peek
Now as an English teacher I often hear my students tell me just how confusing prepositions are and
that's why watching your favorite TV series and movies is a really good way to master prepositions
as you'll get to see them in real situations. So in today's lesson I've invited my student Maria
who has had some difficulties in distinguishing the differences between to and for and in this
lesson I'm going to teach her and you one of the main uses and the pronunciation of to and for
and make sure you stay right until the end because I'm going to test your knowledge with a to and
for quiz. But before we get started I want to tell you that every week we help you understand
fast speaking natives by watching your favorite TV series and movies without getting lost, without
missing the jokes and without subtitles. In fact Peter says that our channel is a killer channel
and since discovering our channel his English has revolutionized for the better. So join Peter and
our global community. It's really simple, all you need to do is hit that subscribe button and
the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons. The prepositions to and for can be
used to express many different ideas for example direction, destination, time, goals, benefits,
favor, motivation, reason and so much more. That's why our focus today will be on the motive or the
reason for doing something. For example I could say I'm here to teach you. Teaching is the reason
or the purpose why I'm here. Or I bought these flowers for her birthday. Her birthday is the
reason why I bought the flowers. So how do you know which one to use? Let's take a look at some
short clips and I want you to pay close attention to the word after the prepositions for and for.
What's the word that comes after for?
I wouldn't say I'm a morning person but I can make myself get up early if necessary.
Usually that's for an early meeting at work.
I came here to see you.
She told your mother for your own good.
Now that's not incorrect but we tend to use these strong forms when we want to emphasize something
Check out these examples.
If you find it difficult to watch your favorite TV series and movies without subtitles
then I reckon you should check out this lesson that we made. To watch it after this one
you can click up here and I've also linked it in the description below
However, prepositions like to and for are usually not stressed
and the reason behind this is because they are function words. Function words are the
words in a sentence that don't contain a lot of important information. Function words in fact
help to connect the other words together. In practical terms, if you don't hear the function
words fully stressed then you're still probably going to be able to understand what is being said
when words are not stressed some of the sounds can be reduced so the preposition to will become
Now, a nice way to practice is by imitating an
English speaker. Let's try this together. First we're going to watch a scene and then after the
scene I'll help you with some pronunciation of the reduced form of to and for. then I'll repeat
Then I'll repeat the sentence, and then it will be your turn after me to repeat what I say.
Ready? Let's go.
Now the name of the activity that we did is called shadowing
and it's one of the most efficient ways to help you improve your pronunciation
and to help you speak more clearly. So I sent this scene to my student Maria for
her to watch and then I got her to do the shadowing exercises. Let's see how she does
What the hell's a paleontologist need a beeper for
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If you want to learn more about the special deal that our friends at ELSA SPEAK have made for you
our learners all you need to do is click up here and there is also a link in the description below.
So, as promised, it's time for the to and for quiz. There's going to be two types of questions:
the first type of question you'll be asked to choose between to and for and in the second type
you're going to be asked whether two or four is stressed or unstressed. And lastly I want
to thank you for joining me in today's lesson and don't forget to hit that like button as
well as the subscribe button and the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons.
So this ed suffix can be pronounced in three different ways either as a "t" sound
a "d" or the syllable "id". Now the common mistake I've seen in my students and
learners in general is over using the extra syllable it so they'll say