I Answered Your English Questions! | Real Advice for Real Learners

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi, James from EngVid. I'm not at my usual place.

[00:00:04]I'm doing James Q&A. Q&A as in question and answer.

[00:00:09]You guys send in some brilliant questions, and I've decided to answer as well nine questions in a particular order. I'm going to get to that in a second, but first of all, thank you for sending the questions. We're not in our usual space, but you know, not our usual space or place, but E is here with me. All right, cool. So first I'm going to do this. I'm going to answer quick questions that, questions that were unique in that when you ask the question, you asked in a kind of a strange way. So I could understand why you probably weren't able to find a direct answer on Google or, or Chat GPT or what have you.

[00:00:50]And that's actually an issue for people, right?

[00:00:53]How to phrase a question in order to get the answer you want. And that's probably why you came to me, right? Number two, the second section is recommendations. Yes, I'm going to answer your question. I'm not going to do it directly here.

[00:01:09]What I'm going to do is refer you to videos I've done, because I think a one minute answer isn't going to really serve you well. So I think it's better if I give you videos that are, you know, 20 minutes, but will really help you out. And the third part is I want to do a couple of shout outs to some people who said, thank you. And I appreciate that. So I want to take the time to say thank you back. But before I go, I'm going to start with our trusty book and see what notes we have in here from who we have. So let's start off first. First question was from Rizamizi.

[00:01:46]Okay, so you're in a US exchange students, and you had a question on grammar for essays.

[00:01:53]Okay, yours was an interesting question. You wanted grammar for essays.

[00:01:58]Okay, my friend, I have to say this to you, before we even think about essays, because that's formal and academic writing. I got a couple notes here. And if you don't mind, I'm going to look at them and give them to you.

[00:02:11]And I think we should start here. And if we start here, you're going to get a lot further. And then I can address your essay questions, because I do have videos and essays. But I don't think I want to start there with you. Okay, so this is to help you out. Okay, so you suggested you wanted some grammar for essays. Essays are basically mostly grammar. But what I noticed just looking at your notes were, number one, I wanted you to get some basic grammar like SVO. And if you're asking what SVO is, we have to start there. That's subject plus verb plus object. You weren't really good at structuring your sentences to start with.

[00:02:49]So I think we have to pull it back a bit. Yeah, that will help you with the academics, believe it or not, you may not need more information.

[00:02:56]But a proper organization of your sentences will make it easier for people to understand. You also had a run on sentence.

[00:03:04]You started a brilliant, I mean, I loved your question, but it went from I almost died from the breath. And that's what a run on sentences is no punctuation.

[00:03:16]So we have to look at punctuation. And that brought me to my third point, which is you didn't end your sentence with a period. So with these three things, what I noticed, as I said, you had a run on sentence. Oh, I forgot the other one. You capitalized grammar. So your capitalization wasn't great, right? USA you can capitalize, your name you can capitalize, but the word grammar? No. Now, if you spoke and you were German, I would understand that.

[00:03:46]Because in Germany, they capitalize nouns, but we don't in English. Okay. So anyway, brilliant question. Thank you very much. My answer to you is, before I give you specifics, even before I recommend a video, because I could have done that and put you in the other section, I would love for you to go over some basic, basic grammar points. SVO, right? What is a subject? What is a verb? What's an object? And going into subjects, looking at nouns, right? Person, place, and thing.

[00:04:13]I got many videos on that. So if you want to go take a look at the site, please do.

[00:04:18]EngVid.com. So hopefully that's helpful to you, okay? Because I think I would not be doing you any justice or helping you if I started telling you about topic sentences and supporting sentences and the grammar, you know, using words like "although" when the basics aren't there just yet.

[00:04:36]But it looks like you want to try, and my job is to help. Okay? So looking forward to you.

[00:04:44]Once you look at those things, come back again, ask another question. All right? All right. Now, the next person I want to talk to is Arthur.

[00:04:52]You're watching from YouTube in northern Odessa, Russia, and you speak Ossetian. Interesting.

[00:04:59]I've heard of Odessa. There's one in New York, I believe. Now, your question was interesting to me, because you were asking about using the second person, and you were talking about using "were" with the second person.

[00:05:19]Okay. So I'm going to answer your question a certain way, and this goes back to how I started this video. Sometimes we don't necessarily ask the question in a way that's going to get the answer you want, so I'm going by what I think your intention was. You were looking at "you were."

[00:05:40]Now, "you" is the second person, and when we use the second person, it can be used in a singular or a plural way. In your question, you wanted to use it in the singular, and you saw "were," and I think you were thinking "were" was plural, therefore, you couldn't use it, and you wanted singular, because you mentioned "thou," "thou art," whatever, and I'm like, "Yeah, you're right. It is archaic." For anybody who doesn't know this, because my man Arthur is kind of bright there.

[00:06:08]He went back to old English. "Thou" was a way we would say "you." We don't do that anymore, unless you're reading Shakespeare.

[00:06:16]So, Arthur, to answer your question, we just use "are." "You are," because I'm talking to someone, to the audience, as I'm talking to you, and I said, "You are asking a good question."

[00:06:27]If I say, "You were asking a good question," I would be talking about the past. So, when we say "you were" now, it's about the past, something that's happened before. We say "you are" for present situations. Now, my confusion might have been, or not my confusion, to be honest, because it's how you phrase the question. I'm thinking you might have been confused with the imaginary. When we say in English, "If I were you," right? And it's like, "Well, why wouldn't you say, 'If I was you'?" Well, if I was you, that would be simple past. If I were you, I am not you.

[00:07:02]This is not a real situation. That might have been your confusion. So, I hope that cleared that up.

[00:07:08]Using "were" is simply for the past, and it's the positive. "You are," "you were." Okay? Hope that helped. Now, I've got the third person I wanted to answer a question for, and his name is Nasriyala.

[00:07:26]I'm thinking like Nutella. Hopefully, I got it right. Sorry if I'm bastardizing your names, or, you know, not saying your names correctly. I didn't hear them, so I'm going by my best guess, but I greatly appreciate that you took the time to give us these questions, right?

[00:07:46]You're not? Okay. So, let me get to your question, Nasriyala.

[00:07:51]"You are from Kabul, Afghanistan," yeah?

[00:07:53]"And you wanted to know about live sessions."

[00:07:58]Well, this is the closest I've done to a live session. We're not doing that right now, but you never know in the future, right? So, I want you to come back and check in, because maybe enough people asked for it. We'll do a live Q&A, right? Anything's possible. We're doing a Q&A now, question and answer with J, right? And E. And we could do that in the future. It's a possibility, right? I want to get to another section, which is, I'm going to answer your question, but I'm also going to give you a reference to a video that I may have done. And I've got a, you know, I'm on EngVid, and there are so many brilliant teachers. So, I've found one teacher that's going to answer a question. So, it's not me getting away from you. I know you asked for my help. But it doesn't mean I can't give you advice for someone who's equally as good, right? Okay.

[00:08:55]So, let's go to the first person. And this is the wheelchair guy. You didn't say your language, but I'm assuming it's English, and you're a teacher in the United States, right?

[00:09:06]I want to start off with saying, how are you?

[00:09:08]Thanks, you, for your question. And you were asking about have, have had, has had, right?

[00:09:14]Or had had. And you were asking, basically, about the present perfect, the past perfect, and the future perfect. I don't think you put will have had, but I'm going to assume it's there.

[00:09:27]Here's the deal. For me, I found it easier to start with something simpler. And I said simple for a reason. It doesn't mean I'm not going to give you a video or any advice. But I have a video on, and by the way, all the videos I'm going to mention now, they are going to be in underneath in the comments section, right? So, you can just go quickly, go take a look, get the link, and you can go visit the video right away.

[00:09:57]All right? I feel it's best to do simple past and present perfect and introduce one of the hads.

[00:10:06]As a teacher, you already know these verb tenses, right? Have had, will have had, and has had.

[00:10:15]Or, and has has, right? Has had. But it sometimes is a bit daunting or difficult for a new student because they see the word repeated, and they're not understanding what is the verb, and we're using one as a past participle. Even I can't say it. However, starting with the simple past, and moving to the present perfect, we can differentiate or make a difference, so let them get to understand that these are times we're talking about. And then it's easier to move to the past and the present from there.

[00:10:53]So, the video I have for you is on the simple present and present perfect. It's listed below.

[00:11:00]Just go there, take a look. That will give them a good introduction. And, wheelchair guy, you have inspired me to do a video because I did look over the catalog I have, and I never did a video on all three together. Kind of an oversight, don't you think? Like, I wasn't paying attention, or I don't know why I would assume that students would know all three. And you brought up a great question. So, I'm going to do a future video on have had, has had, will have had, to show the time differences and why we use them.

[00:11:39]Thank you very much for that question. Okay, so, next guy I have here is Makar Privet. He's from Russia. He came to us from YouTube. And, Makar, I'd like to answer your question, because your question was really interesting. I'm going to read it to you, and then go over why I found it interesting. Makar has said that he can read and write English, but he has difficulty speaking and listening. All right. So, his problem is kind of a mixed problem, because reading and writing is, let's say, mixed from reading is passive, writing is active, listening is passive, speaking is active. So, he's got a mixed problem, because usually, if you can read, you listen well, and you have trouble with speaking and writing. He's got both. But, I love it, because I recently did a series on reading and writing is not what you think.

[00:12:50]Now, his ability to write means he can express himself, and he can read. But, although I, if you watch the videos, I give you different pieces of information, this is going to make a lot of sense. Quite easily, it goes like this.

[00:13:06]When you read, you have time to think. You think about it. You don't just read.

[00:13:13]No, you read, and you might stop and go, I didn't understand that. Let me go back and look at it again. And when you write, you definitely, because writing is just thinking on paper. That's what writing is, thoughts on paper. And you can do something like I did with my little book, erase something, and fix it. Now, let's look at Makar's problem. I have trouble what?

[00:13:36]Listening and speaking. Well, these are real life events. They happen in real time. What that means is, you do not have time to press pause. Even in this video, you can press pause, rewind it, and listen to what I said again. Rewind it, and listen. I'm joking.

[00:13:59]So, he's not really having a problem. He's noticing a difference from doing the input and practicing when he has time and space to think, to being subjected to real life, where it's difficult. Now, Makar, I'm going to assume a part of the problem is also, let's just say, a little bit of stress, because you have this ease, because you have the time when you're reading and writing to think about it, which is great practice, by the way. And please, watch the video series, and you'll understand why it's great practice, and continue doing it, because you're really doing good work. But then it's also going to show you why you'll have difficulty when you're speaking and listening, because, well, it makes you nervous. And when you get nervous, okay, Makar, I'm going to give you my recommendation, and I'm going to break my rule and give you a little bit of a lesson, okay?

[00:14:54]When we get nervous, we have two parts of our brain, okay? The prefrontal cortex, which is the front of your brain, hey, stay still, and the amygdala, which is the back of your brain. Now, you can think of the amygdala is afraid, afraid, and when it's afraid, it shuts down your prefrontal cortex. And you might say, why are you saying these big words in English? Well, your prefrontal cortex, prefront, it means here, front of your brain, it controls how you think when you're not scared. Unfortunately, when you're stressed, the amygdala gets, it doesn't grow bigger, but it gets more control, and it shuts down this. So all the languages you learn is in the prefrontal cortex, and it gets shut down.

[00:15:40]So therefore, it's going to make it harder for you to listen because you're a little bit stressed and to speak, okay? Now, the videos I'm going to suggest will help you understand the processes, and from there, you'll get confidence because fear usually comes from not understanding.

[00:16:00]So right now, I'm giving you a little bit for you to go, oh, my English is not bad. No, it's not. You're reading and writing. You're doing such amazing work. That's the work that most people don't want to do, right? And it helps a lot. But understanding that means you have all the information in your head to speak better and listen. Now, I'm going to give you a little exercise right here and now, okay?

[00:16:23]That'll help you. It's just a breathing exercise, and you can give it a try before you go out and speak, okay? And all you have to do is inhale.

[00:16:32]Let's breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Release for eight.

[00:16:50]And do that about three times. When you do that, your body will calm down. Tell your amygdala, the afraid part, to calm down so your prefrontal cortex can click in.

[00:17:03]You do that, you'll find that your mind is quieter because I'm sure you're going to pay attention after I say this. You're going to notice that when you're speaking, there's a part of your brain going, "This is hard. They won't understand me. This is going to be difficult."

[00:17:16]Or when they're speaking, you're saying to yourself, "He's talking too fast. I don't understand him." And that voice is going to quiet down and give you the space you need to listen and speak, okay? I thank my long-time students who've given me the time to stay to notice that some of the things that seem crazy that I teach, it's because after teaching for, oh God, Lord, I've been teaching 25 years all totaled. But for teaching for a long time, you start realizing that things that don't seem directly to affect the work you're doing can give you more help than just working more on speaking and listening.

[00:17:55]Getting control of this will allow you the power to do the other things, right? So try that breath four, seven, eight, okay? Inhale for four, hold for seven, release for eight.

[00:18:10]Because what you're doing is you're actually, funny enough, inhaling, filling your lungs. That's like energy, let's just say. There's more to it than that.

[00:18:19]But when you hold it, it's pressure, just like the pressure you experience when you're talking to someone. And then you slowly release and let that pressure go so you can relax and you'll get access to this part. Okay, that was a long answer for something I didn't want to answer. But the video I have for you to look at is called "The Secret to English Fluency". It's not speaking. Funny enough, it's about speaking and listening. There, I told you I would help you. Watch the video. It'll go into what speaking can do. And there's other videos, as I said, there's a speaking component as well.

[00:18:58]Watch it and watch the one on reading and writing.

[00:19:00]It's a four-part series. It'll help you, okay?

[00:19:03]And thank you for the question. It's a really good one because I think a lot of people have this difficulty and they don't know what to do.

[00:19:12]And someone just saying, "Study more English" isn't really helpful, right? Okay, so I have one more person I want to talk to and it's Sebastian.

[00:19:23]And you're from Germany. Guten Tag, mein Herr.

[00:19:26]Okay, so your question was how to prepare for a job interview in English. Okay, well, you wanted to learn how to quickly prepare.

[00:19:40]That's an interesting question. I don't think it's a great idea to quickly prepare for something that you really want, right? Because basically, the person's saying, "Would you like to make $100,000?" And you're like, "Let me prepare quickly." I would say, "Slow down so you can get that job." And if you can get 21 minutes, I have a teacher named Emma who's also an EngVid who has a brilliant lesson on approaching a job interview. It's brilliant in two ways. One thing that she does is that she gives you the example questions and tells you what's behind that question. But she has another part in the same video where she gives you practice to listen to the questions so you know what question you're being asked. She even invites you to write things down. It's 21 minutes. So it's not quickly, because if you're looking for five minutes, but I think it's well worth that you watch the video for 21 minutes, and that will speed up your ability to respond in an interview, which is really what I think you're asking, right? Okay, yeah, that will be linked in the bottom. I'm just checking my notes here. Yeah, it's a brilliant lesson. Absolutely brilliant. I think you'll enjoy it. Okay, so I did, you don't notice it, but I have a blue section and a green section of notes for you guys. My final section is a yellow section. Why yellow, you might ask? Well, not everybody had a question, and I didn't have a recommendation for everybody.

[00:21:18]People, some people just wanted to say thank you, and I really appreciate that. I've been doing it for a little while, and it was surprising because I asked for questions, and a whole bunch of you were like, no questions, just thank you. So I think it's on me and E to say thank you to you for being with us this long, and some of you coming back and watching, but let me get through this, and let me give you some people who said hi, because I want to give a shout out to them, all right? I think they deserve it as much as I deserve, well, not deserve, appreciate. I have gratitude for your thanks. I want to give it back, okay? So first person is a Facebook user. It's Mohamed from Morocco. He speaks Arabic, and he studied English in the Institute of America, and he just said thank you, and I want to thank you for your appreciation, Mohamed. Thank you.

[00:22:14]Thanks for watching and letting us know where you're from and what you're doing. The second person I'd like to give a shout out to is Serhii in Ukraine. You commented on YouTube with a smiley, okay? So a little smile. Yeah, you don't always have to speak. Sometimes just a good emoji will make someone's day. It made my day. Greetings from Canada. Hope you're having a brilliant day, and my third person is Wilk, like milk. Bonjour. You're from Gabon, Libreville, and you speak French, and you left your message on Facebook, and I want to say thank you for watching, and I have one more person I want to say thank you to.

[00:23:07]You. You watching the video right now. I reached out and said give me some questions. I'll try and answer your questions, and I was overwhelmed by the response. A lot of people got back, and sorry if this video took a little time to get back to you, but we wanted to make sure that it actually went through, but I made a decision, and my partner made a decision, which was that this video isn't long enough to answer your questions, so I'm going to answer more of them in the future, and it looks like if you guys like this, and you ask for it again, and you can leave comments in this video. We left a hashtag in the last one. We will do this again. We'll do another Q&A with Jay and E, and answer more of your questions, so look forward to the next section from just these questions we received. Got a lot of them. I'll answer some more of those ones, and I'll let you know when the next one's coming up. Anyway, thank you. It's been quite a trip.

[00:24:12]Appreciate your questions. Appreciate your appreciation, and I look forward to serving you again. Ciao.