Hey folks, subscribe to the channel because today I'm going to show you a cool
and very powerful trick to improve your written English.
It's very easy - so easy that I thought everyone used it.
But when I explain it to people, few have heard of it.
What's this about? People often compliment me on my written Portuguese.
It's not perfect, but it's very good.
They're like "Wow, that phrase you used is so Brazilian! You're practically Brazilian!
Not so much.
It's from using Google. I said Google, not Google Translate, which is also useful,
but you already know that.
So you're probably saying "Ah, you use Google to find a grammar site like Grammar Girl,
and you enter the site, right?
No, no, that's not it: you use the actual search page.
This tip is so great, it could only be from your Amigo Gringo.
OK, let's get to it, here's the Google search page, there's always a different drawing, today it's a turtle
Bah, that's not important.
Whoa.
OK, enough, stop that!
Let's start with something more important than the turtle.
Do you know what quotation marks are used for in a search?
You use them to search for an exact phrase.
For example, if I write a phrase, hmm, let's see...
"The Argentines are extremely dumb."
Look at that, more than one million results, so you're thinking, "Wow, Argentines ARE really dumb," right?
Not so. Look at what happens with quote marks.
"No results found." Nothing. Zero. In other words, no one in the history of the internet ever wrote that phrase.
In other words, the Argentines might be somewhat dumb, but they're not extremely dumb.
You can use the same method to check if a phrase is correct in English.
I'm going to use the example of a comment someone left on a recent video I made with Eric.
Look at this...Eric is hell of funny! I'm laughing so hard."
Um, did you see the error? Yes? No? If not, no worries, Google will show it.
He wrote "Eric is hell of funny" and I understand why.
He must have heard phrases like "Eric is a hell of a guy."
That's correct, and it means it's a cool guy.
So, "hell of funny" must mean "very funny," right?
But all you have to do is write the phrase into Google search, with quote marks, to find out it's not right.
Why? Because the internet is enormous, it's almost infinite
and if it's a common phrase, it will appear many times in the results.
OK, let's do it without the "Eric," of course: I always remove proper nouns and other specific elements.
Let's see here: "is hell of funny"
and, hmm, only 26 results.
So that means it's likely that "hell of" something is not a phrase we use with adjectives.
But I know there's a phrase, I've seen a phrase with "hell" and "funny," it's not "hell of funny" but it's something!
What should I do? Aha! Now remove the quote marks and use the words "hell" and "funny". Let's see.
OK, there are 43 million results, of course, because we didn't use quotation marks, but let's take a look.
There's a series here, "Funny as Hell," Urban Dictionary "Funny as Hell,"
"Funny as hell ideas on Pinterest," "Funny as hell," "Funny as hell." So now we've figured it out.
The phrase is "funny as hell."
OK, now let's just confirm, "is funny as hell" in quotes, and...
Look at that, almost 1.3 million results.
"Is funny as hell..."
So that's our phrase. If you want to be even more sure, and realize just how big the internet is,
let's put "Eric is funny as hell"
and wow, there have been four times that people have used "Eric is funny as hell" on the internet
something so specific, it has to be right.
Now, one more thing, that second phrase.
"I'm laughing so hard."
It sounds good. There's not exactly an error.
But is it the best choice?
Am I, as an American, going to think that person speaks English fluently, like an American himself?
Let's see: "I'm laughing so hard" in quotation marks.
More than a million results, it must be grammatically correct sentence.
But is it the best possible option?
OK, let's see: "I'm laughing so hard," "I'm laughing so hard I just can't take it right now,"
"I'm laughing so hard I'm crying," I like that one...
"I'm laughing so hard right now," "I'm laughing so hard right now," "I'm laughing so hard,"
"I'm laughing so hard right now," "I'm laughing so hard at this,"
Look, I saw "I'm laughing so hard right now" a number of times, let's see how common that is.
Wow, look at that, 1.8 million results for "I'm laughing so hard right now,"
for some reason, there are more results for "I'm laughing so hard right now" than for "I'm laughing so hard,"
which doesn't make sense, but that's showing me that "I'm laughing so hard right now" is much-used phrasing
it means the same thing, and in truth that is what I, as an American, would have written.
Once again, "I'm laughing so hard" is not incorrect, but "Eric is funny as hell. I'm laughing so hard right now"
sounds 100% American. I'd never know it wasn't an American that wrote it
See how it works? Did you like the tip? Share it with everyone that needs help in English,
but let's look at another example, a real-life example that I used a while back when I had to write a short bio
for some work I was trying to get.
I'm going to do it from English to Portuguese so you see how it works the other way around.
So, in English I would write something like :
(Very fancy, Yale University, but it was very expensive.)
That's very formal, and it's the kind of phrase I'm looking for.
How would I write that in Portuguese?
I know several ways to write that first part.
It could be..."He graduated in political science"...[same thing, less formal]
"He studied political science," "He took political science courses."
I think all are correct, but I want to see them in context to see which appears in things most like what I am writing.
18,000 results.
See that, these are all translated pages. I don't want that, I want real life examples.
"He graduated in political science with Norberto Bobbio in Turin University"
"He graduated in political science from Milan University," I see those are all in formal descriptions, which is good.
OK, "Se formou," a more informal version, but I don't know if you all are more informal these days.
2,800 results, much fewer, so I prefer the first one.
"He studied political science in the institution..." "He studied political science at Columbia University,"
it's very common and it is the literal translation of what I wanted to say.
So I'll just check "he took courses in"...just 965 results.
So I'll go with "He studied political science..." but I saw something interesting:
I was going to write "na Yale University," but I'm seeing here that foreign universities get translated.
"In the University of..."
But I've got one last question:
Preposition. Which preposition should I use. Argh! Prepositions!
I don't like them either, I know you don't like them, and I don't like them in Portuguese.
Would it be "He studied political science 'in the' Yale University"? "...'through the' Yale University"? "...'on top of the' 'Yale University'"?
I don't know, let's see.
Let's look at "in the" University of São Paulo.
How many results? 101,000, I think it's "in the" but I'll test "through the".
Look at that, "No results found"
and it's showing me the results for the same words without quotes.
See that? A great way to improve your written English."
NEW YORKESE CLASS
Did you like it? Then share it with your friends that are always making mistakes in English,
and of course, subscribe to the channel and look at our social media accounts here.
And now, your New Yorkese class. "Busca no Google" in English?
Very easy one, right? It's obviously not "search in Google".
It's "Google search."
And there's also the verb
For more infomation >> 윤전추 행정관 공개변론에 대하여|K-News - Duration: 3:04. 
For more infomation >> Videocast: Could we see 60 today? - Duration: 1:55. 
For more infomation >> АТАКА на БОЛОТЕ НЛО сбросило АТОМНУЮ бомбу на хижину Swamp Attack - Duration: 12:47. 
For more infomation >> More warm weather from Omaha to the south Tuesday, including some in the 70s - Duration: 1:52. 
For more infomation >> Las Noticias de la mañana, martes 27 de febrero de 2018 | Noticiero | Telemundo - Duration: 4:43. 
For more infomation >> 2018 Honda CB150 Verza officially launched in India | Mich Motorcycle - Duration: 2:06. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét