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http://www.engvid.com/ If you want to have fun while learning some advanced English vocabulary, hear a bad English accent, help celebrate my 100th lesson, and are curious about the origin of Mr. E... watch this video NOW! http://www.engvid.com/james-100/

http://www.engvid.com/ Learn why some adjectives in English end in -ING and others in -ED. You will understand when we use each of these endings, as well as the correct grammar and structure for each. I think you'll find this lesson very interestING. Take the quiz here: http://www.engvid.com/adjective-endin...

http://www.engvid.com/ It's time to get off your ass, and pull off some advanced English learning! Learn a whole lot of new phrasal verbs, all using 'off'. Don't wait. Watch this lesson now... before someone makes off with it! http://www.engvid.com/phrasal-verbs-off/

http://www.engvid.com/ Do you always know which words are verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs? If not, this grammar lesson on suffixes, or word endings, will help you. I'll also teach you the 3 most useful word endings that will make learning English much easier. Take a quiz on this lesson here: http://www.engvid.com/english-grammar...

Teacher favorites. What should we do now? Hi. James, from EngVid. Looking for classroom stuff because you know we have so much here for you. But before I forget, I can't do my job without my favorite pal in the world, Mr. E. And this lesson today, actually, guys, it's sort of a lesson that we did before, and it's a second part. I didn't say it was a second part, but it is. You'll go back -- if you go to EngVid, you can see the lesson on prefixes, which funny enough, is the beginning of the word, and this is the end of the word, which are called "suffixes".

Let's start from the beginning. What are suffixes? Let's go to the board. A suffix: "suf" means -- this part of the word here actually means "under". It means "under" or "lower". Why? When we did prefixes, prefixes meant "before", which meant you put two, three, or five letters in front of a word. And that actually changed the meaning of the word if you remember. If we did "do" and "redo", they're not the same meaning. "Do" -- one time, "redo" means "start again".

When we do suffixes, a suffix goes on the end of the word. And I'm going to try to explain to you by going here first. Grammar suffixes. You've seen these before. S, ED, and ING. When we have S -- you know if you see a pronoun ending in S, like -- sorry. A verb, I should say. "She is", "he goes" -- you know by seeing the S on the end of that verb that that verb is taking on a third person singular. In other words, it's talking about a person we don't know, right? And it's a singular person. So that's the grammar suffix, one letter added on. When you see ED on the end of the word, you know that that means this verb is in the past. "I watch TV all the time." "I watched television last night." "I stopped my car in front of the house." This is something that happened in the past, not now. When we have the third ending you're familiar with, ING, they're used for gerunds. And you know the gerund has three uses: It's either a present participle -- working, talking, singing; an adjective -- a climbing tree or a swimming pool; or just a noun -- cooking. Yeah, I know. All end in ING, but they have three different functions.

Well, these are examples of suffixes -- letters at the end of the word that change the class or the verb function, you might say, or the grammar function. But it doesn't actually change the meaning of the word. "Swim", "swimming" -- similar. Okay?
Now, how do I explain this? Well, when we do this, we do the same thing here, which is grammar, specifically, but now, we can change the word class. What I mean is going from -- this is just changing a verb. We're actually going to change the class from, maybe, a noun to an adjective or an adverb, okay? With me so far? It's easy. We're going to add a few letters at the end of the word, and it will change what type of word it is. Is it a noun? Is it a verb? Is it an adverb? Is it an adjective? That's it. And by doing these -- adding some of these, that's how we do it in English. Excuse me. So let's take a look.

These are the top three that you'll find in English. On the last video, at the end of the video, I told you, like, we don't use these for 95 percent, so I'll fix this now. These are the most common, and what I mean by "common" is "most useful for you." There are many other suffixes. But these are most useful for you to kind of figure out or understand words that you'll see because this will tell you what's, basically, the meaning. So I'm going to help you with what the meaning is and how it changes it. So you can look at words and kind of go, "Okay, this must be a noun because I see this ending. Or this must be an adjective." Sound cool? Let's go to the board.

Mr. E, help me with the class. It's a joke. See, you're the class now and "word class". Anyway. The first one we're going to look at is MENT, m-e-n-t. "Government", "improvement", all right? When we add MENT to the end of a word, it's used to make nouns. So what you'll see is this added to a word becomes a noun. And what does it mean? Well, it means an action or process. Okay? So we talk about government, you think, "Okay, now, it's the people, like the president -- President Obama, President Reagan, Prime Minister Harper." Yeah, I like him. Anyway. Sorry. It's a process. So we talk about government is helping the people. That's what they do when they govern. When we put MENT in, we talk about the institution or the group of people that help the People. Cool? So "governing" the verb means to help the People; "government" is the group of people or institution of people that help the People. That's one example.

Imperative verbs are used for giving orders, but they can sound rude and offend others if you are not careful. This lesson is designed to teach you how to get what you want using imperative verbs while being polite. After watching this video, please practice by doing our quiz. Expect great results with little effort in this essential English lesson. Take the quiz here: http://www.engvid.com/how-to-give-com...

TRANSCRIPT

Straighten that spine! Stand up straight! Imperatives. Welcome. James, from EngVid. If I seem crazy, I was giving orders, sir! Okay? An "imperative" is a command. I mean, we have statements in English. We have questions. You know, we've done lessons on those. An imperative is usually a command. I'm going to give you a quick primer, or quick lesson, on imperatives. Nothing special. And then, I want to do something a little different. I want to show you how to modify it. So let's look at imperatives.

What is an imperative? As I said, it's a command. You tell somebody to do something. You do not ask. You just tell them and expect it to be done. "Shut up. Sit down. Get out." That's it.

Next, how do we make an imperative? Well, when I said, "Shut up. Sit down. Get out", you notice the verb is in the infinitive form minus "to". There is no "to". "I have to", "got to" -- nothing. Just the verb -- or you could say "base form". Right? No particle "to".

Next, an imperative, when given, it's in the second person. I know not everybody understands the second and third person, so I'll be quick, but hopefully easy. I'll make it easy for you. First person is "I". I am the first person. You speak about yourself. The third person is when you talk about groups and others. Right? "They" or "them" or "we". The second person is a strange one. It's "you". Well, sometimes, you want to say to someone, like, "You can do this. You can do that." That's the second person because I'm speaking to someone directly, and that's you, you the audience. "You" can be either singular or plural. When we talk about imperatives, we're talking about "you". "Sit down. You sit down." We just don't say it. Right? So when somebody tells you to sit down, really, they're saying, "You sit down." They just don't say it. It's understood. And a command is direct. You cannot interpret -- which means trying to translate or figure it out -- you're just supposed to do it. Right? "Drive slower." Don't try to translate. Just do it. Right?

Now, also, one other small thing. Usually, imperatives are not given with modals. There's a small exception. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes, we use "be able to". But when we use "be able to", it's very specific. Here we go. Okay? Your instructor or coach at the gym might say to you, right, "You need to be able to do 100 pushups tomorrow." "Be able to". It's an order. It's not asking you. It's not "can you do them?" It's, "Be able to read this or recite this tomorrow." You must do it. It's an order. It's the only exception, really, with modals. Otherwise, we don't. And this is rarely used. But I know there are some of you out there who will go, "I heard" -- and I'm telling you. So got you. All right? This is the rare exception. Otherwise, modals aren't used with imperatives.

That's a quick imperative lesson. So we use imperatives all the time. But if you use them -- and I see students doing it regularly -- you offend people because they are strong. They can be rude. I know in many of your cultures, you have a language for politeness. In English, we don't necessarily, but we can modify the imperative to make it more polite. I'm going to show you today a few ways to do that. All right? So let's go to the board.

Private E, stand down. All right? Let's start off with "please", "please and thank you". You hear this all the time. "Please, please, please, thank you, thank you." You know this is polite. Well, how do we use "please" with an imperative, right, to make it soft? Well, one of the first things I want to tell you is when we use the imperative like "sit down", "sit down" is an order. It's not nice. "Sit down!" Right? "Behave!" But if I say, "Please sit down", I'm offering it to you. I'm still telling you what to do, but I'm being polite. So when we really want to be polite but still followed -- right? You still want to do it -- you put "please" at the beginning of the sentence. "Please sit down. Please introduce yourself." If you drop the "please", listen to what I'm saying. "Please sit down." "Sit down." "Please introduce yourself." "Introduce yourself." I'm still saying you must do this, but what I'm actually doing is being polite by saying "please" first.