He thinks he's so special. There, give him
some horns, a little tail and a beard. Oh, hi.
James, from EngVid. I was just getting ready
for the lesson. Hi. This is a Mr. E Special.
There he is, all perfect again. He's doing a
special because his name is E. He thought
he would do the "Magic E".
When you're learning English, and for many
people learning English, here's something
I've always said when I teach: English is a
very stupid language. You must say everything.
The problem with that is English is not a
phonetic language, which means just because
you write it, it doesn't mean you say it.
We're going to do some lessons, and this is
one of them, where I try to help you with
spelling, because you won't be able to get
it from the words. It's not like Spanish.
One of things is you can use markers. These are markers.
Markers help us find things.
In the English language, we use markers to
tell us something about whether this letter
will make a sound, whether it changes the
sound, or what sound the letter should make.
In this case, we're going to work with the "Magic E".
We have it here. "Markers are letters
that don't represent sounds." They don't say
this is the sound, "...but tell us the sounds
of the other letters in the word." "E" does
that; it's a very, very good friend of ours.
It's special, like this marker. In this case,
we're going to talk about the silent E, or
the "Magic E". The silent E is a marker of
a long vowel sound. That means it's going
to say A, E, I, O, U, instead of "aw", "eh",
"ih", "ah", "uh". Drink too much, you sound
like that. It's going to tell us it's a long
vowel sound of the syllable it finishes. What
is a syllable? It's a vowel sound, from a
grouping, so just keep that in mind. When
you say something like my name: "James"; even
though it's got two vowels, it's only got
one vowel sound, so it's a
single syllable. There.
Okay. The first thing it will tell us is that
it is a long vowel, and let's give an example.
Well, this word is... wrong. There's no "mete"; I meant
to put this, "mat". A "mat" is something you
stand on in your house when you get out of
the shower or the bath, a piece of fabric
that keeps your feet dry or keeps the floor dry, "mat".
When you add the magic E -- that's
why I put the E there
- "mate." All of a sudden that "ah" sound becomes "A"; "mate".
What about the next one? If you like chocolate
cake, like I do, mm baby, you're fat. But
if you meet the doctor -- Doctor Fate
- "ah" becomes "A". Doctor Fate. Go read a comic book.
How about "not"? I often have girlfriends
go, "You're not going there this evening."
I always go, "But I want to." The "aw" sound
becomes "O" when I write her a very nice note.
I write her a note saying, "I love you, baby."
She goes, "Well, you can come here now." No
more nots.
What about the next one, "cut"? If you meet
Mr. E and you touch his girlfriend, he is
going to "cut" you; he's going to cut you real good.
If his girlfriend likes you it
must be because you're "cute".
"Uh" (sound) becomes "U"; cute.
This one; do you know this one? I love when
foreign students try to say this one. They
go "Hoogee. It's a hoogee, right?" I'm like,
"No, it's a hug." To hold someone and to hold
them tight close to you -- hug. I have a bad
joke; I won't say it because my Russian students
are always saying: "You must be more serious,
much more serious when you do these lessons."
"Huge." Insert your own joke. "Insert" means
put in -- put your own joke here. "Huge" means
very big. Once again, "huge"
- "U". "Huge" not "uh" (as in "hug").
Some people tell on me when I do bad things,
and we call those people "rats". They also
live in the basement of my house. Send me
money; I need to move, bad. If you're important
in Toronto, you "rate"; that means you're
important; you get special consideration.
Or we say, "What is the rate? How much do
I have to pay?" "Rate". What is the rate?
Next, "pin". We usually use this for clothing.
Pin things together. Or if you break your
arm, they'll put in a pin to hold it together. "Pin".
I love the smell of "pine" in the morning,
it smells like napalm. No, that's
another movie, "Apocalypse James".
"Rag". My clothes are rags -- I have a hole here.
I don't even want to show you back here, it's got
holes. But I do fly into a "rage", which means
be very angry, like Hulk. "Me Hulk!"... not
really. Hulk is bigger and stronger.
"Rage".
I've shown you examples where I took words,
added the "Magic E", and they went from short
vowels to long vowels. Single syllable
words, so I make it easy for you.
What else does the "Magic E" do? See, I can
speak English and gibberish; those are my
two best languages. Number two, it also tells
us something about the "th" sound. Some of
you have problems with the "th" sound because
it can be either "ffff", more like an F, or
"vvvv", it buzzes. "Vvvvv" -- I
feel Spanish when I say that.
What happens in this part is it vibrates and
it tells us that if you have an E at the end,
it becomes a 'vvvv', a vibration sound, and it
still has the long vowel sound. For instance,
"bathe". When you take a "bath" at night that's
"ah", but if you "bathe", that's more of the
verb sound, more of a verb. "I bathe" -- that's
the action, so by adding the E, not only do
we change it from a noun to a verb, we get
the "v" vibration, and we know it's a verb.
How about "cloth"? Cloth is material, but
you put it on your body we say, "clothe";
you're putting some clothing on yourself.
Once again, it becomes a verb and we get the
"th" sound. Long O
- "clothe". The last one, I "loathe" it. "Loathe" means hate. After
you fly into a rage, you will probably loathe something.
Once again, I'm going to be off for a second
but look. "Lo", as in long O...
"th" vibration because of the E.
I'm quite aware that you didn't loathe that
lesson; I'm sure you loved that lesson. I'm
looking forward to teaching you more. Let's
go quickly over the letter E. When you see
the "Magic E" at the end of a syllable, it's
going to make a long vowel sound -- A, E,
I, O, U. It will also, if there is a TH, make it vibrate
- "vvvv" -- so it's going to help
you when you're reading,
with your pronunciation.
I hope you love the lesson, not loathe it.
By the way, you should bathe -- check out
the "Smell Yourself" lesson, "Clean Yourself"
-- you'll like that one. I think that's about
it. Mr. E, you did a great job. I take it
back, you're not a worm at all; you're a man
of stature. No more ears for you. You guys, you
need to go to the website, which is www.engvid.com,
where you'll see myself and other great
teachers willing and ready to teach you.
You might actually meet a mate because that's your fate.
Take note, she might be cute. He
might be huge and you do rate. Don't pine
over them or fly into a rage when they leave
you. But if you bathe, I'm almost sure when you
clothe yourself just well, you won't loathe
yourself anymore. EngVid -- bye.
Learn English for free
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