English A1 · The verb to be
Tiếng Anh A1 Chủ đề 1 9:12 Giọng đọc tiếng Anh · phụ đề tiếng Anh + 中文 được ghi trực tiếp
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Biên bản ghi âm
Good news: you already know this grammar. In Chinese you say wo shi xuesheng, and English has the same idea: I am a student. There is only one difference, and it is the whole topic. The Chinese word never changes, but the English verb be changes its shape. Be is a shape-shifter: same verb, three costumes, am, is and are. After this lesson you can say who you are, who your friends are, and that your homework is, sadly, real.
Look at the pair. Wo shi xuesheng. I am a student. Same idea, same order, same everything, except one detail: where Chinese keeps one comfortable word, English reaches into the wardrobe and picks a costume. Am for I, is for one person or thing, are for everyone else. If you can remember a three-item shopping list, you can remember this.
Here is the whole topic in one table. I takes am. He, she and it take is. You, we and they take are. Am and I are best friends; never separate them. Is serves one person or one thing: Tom, my cat, your lunch. Are serves you and every plural. Learn it as a chant: I am, he is, the rest are. Say it three times now, because you will say it for the rest of your English life.
Build a sentence the way the table does. Pick the person: she, one person. Pick the costume: one person takes is. Add the rest: a doctor. She is a doctor. The same machine builds It is a big dog and They are classmates. Person first, then the shape, then the rest, and the sentence never falls over.
Pause and choose. They are my classmates. They is a plural, and plurals take are. Am belongs to I alone, is serves one person or thing, and be itself never appears in a sentence in its pyjamas; it always wears one of its three costumes.
English speakers are lazy in a hurry, so be has short forms, called contractions. I am becomes I'm. She is becomes she's. They are becomes they're. The little apostrophe marks the letters that ran away. You will hear these forms in every conversation, every film and every song, so learn them as the default, not the exception.
Short forms have a register. Speaking to friends, texting, writing a friendly email: I'm, she's, we're, all day long. But in an exam essay or a letter to a university, be dresses formally: I am, it is, we are. Same meaning, different clothes, exactly like the difference between classmates chatting and a school assembly. When in doubt in formal writing, write the full form.
Pause and choose. It's Friday, so I'm happy. The contraction it's means it is, with the apostrophe standing in for the missing i. The spelling its without an apostrophe means belonging to it, as in the cat eats its food. English learners mix these two so often that teachers have a special tired face for it. And option four has no verb at all, which in English is not a sentence, it is a pile of words.
To say no, build a wall with the word not, and the wall stands right after the verb. She is busy becomes she is not busy, or in the short form, she isn't busy. They are here becomes they aren't here. One gap in the system: I am not has no short form amn't in standard English, so please do not invent it at two in the morning before a test. Just say I am not late, proudly, in full.
Pause and choose. They aren't at home. The wall goes right after are: are not, or the short form aren't. Option one puts the wall in front of the verb, where it blocks nothing. Option two brings in do, but be never needs do; be is self-sufficient. Option four lost its apostrophe somewhere on the road.
Chinese and English both make yes-or-no questions easily, but with different machines. Chinese adds a small word at the end: ni shi xuesheng ma. Nothing moves. English adds nothing; instead it flips the verb to the front: you are becomes are you. Two elegant machines. The only way to fail is to mix them, which produces you are a student-ma, a sentence in no known language.
The flip, step by step. Start with a statement: you are ready. Find the verb: are. Move it to the front: are you ready? Done. Nothing else moves, and no new word appears. The same flip works for is: he is tall becomes is he tall. Once your mouth learns the movement, questions stop being grammar and start being habit.
Short answers keep the verb. Are you a student? Yes, I am. Is she Chinese? No, she isn't. One strange rule, and it is absolute: a short answer never ends in a short form. Yes, I am is correct; yes, I'm is not. The contraction is shy and refuses to stand at the end of a sentence, like a singer who will not take the final bow. In a no-answer the short form is fine, because something follows it: no, I'm not.
Pause and choose. Is he ready. The verb flips to the front. Option one with a question mark is spoken surprise only, the English cousin of ni zhen shi xuesheng. Option three brings do to a party where be is already the host. Option four picked the wrong costume for he. One verb, one flip, one question.
Here is the number one trap for Chinese speakers, and it catches almost everyone once. In Chinese, adjectives work alone: ta hen gao needs no verb. In English, an adjective cannot carry a sentence by itself. He very tall is not a sentence; it is a wish. English needs he is very tall. She is beautiful. The food is hot. I am fine. Every English sentence needs a verb, and when there is no action, be does the job.
Three classic traps. First, he very tall, because Chinese adjectives stand alone. Fix: he is very tall. Second, he a teacher, because wo shi xuesheng maps so neatly onto word order that the verb feels optional. It is not: he is a teacher. Third, they is here, because Chinese uses one word for all persons while English uses three. Fix: they are here. Catch each trap once, laugh at it, and move on; that is genuinely how this grammar is learned.
Pause and choose. He is very happy. The adjective happy needs its verb, and he takes is. Option one is the Chinese sentence wearing an English hat. Option three brings have, which belongs to a later topic and a different meaning. Option four picked the plural costume for a singular person.
Now make the grammar yours, aloud. I am, and your name. I am from, and your city. My best friend is, and a name. One true negative: I am not a morning person; for most of us that is sadly accurate. Then record yourself once on your phone and listen. If you hear am, is and are in the right places, you have already won this topic, and the rest of English gets easier from here.
Pause for four checks. She is a doctor, because one person takes is. They are late becomes they aren't late, with the wall right after the verb. You are free tonight becomes are you free tonight, one flip, nothing added. And ta hen kaixin becomes he is very happy, because an English adjective needs its verb. Four checks, four costumes, one shape-shifter. Next topic: the words that stand in for names, the pronouns.