First of all, watch the video through so that you can get the gist of what the conversation is about.
Now watch the video more carefully, paying attention to the following:
- Fillers to gain thinking time: Well; you know; er
- Showing agreement: Yeah; That’s right
- Elliptical questions so as not to repeat everything that has been said before: Don’t you [get videos/links regularly?]
- Vague language: more or less; kind of
- Use of really to emphasize the verb and the adverb
- Use of just to emphasize the verb
- Asking for clarification: To watch the video clip, you mean?
- Use of pretty to emphasize the adjective
- Use of actually to introduce a bit of surprising information
- Reacting to what you have just heard: Oh wow; Incredible; It’s true!; OK
- Showing surprise: Yeah?; Really?
- Use of I mean to paraphrase what you have just said. and make yourself clear
- Use of so as a linking word
Now it's over to you. If possible, discuss YouTube with a friend or relative. Are you hooked on it? How long do you spend watching YouTube videos? Is YouTube your first source of information when you want to learn something? Have you ever uploaded a video? Do you have a YouTube account? Don't forget to use some of the features of spoken English we have revised in this video.
I laughed so hard the other day. My sister sent me a link to a YouTube video; just people doing stupid things, falling over.
Well, it’s full of that.
Yeah, it is.
There’s plenty of silly videos to make you laugh. I think I get one, a link every week. Don’t you?
Yeah, more or less, and there are times when my friends and I are a little bit bored and don’t really have any ideas of what to do, and we can just sit there on YouTube for hours watching videos people make in their houses, in the woods behind their houses. But, besides the sort of mindless entertainment value, it’s fantastic for discovering music.
Oh, yeah.
If ever a friend recommends an artist or a song, first stop is YouTube.
For the film clip? To watch the video clip, you mean? The live performance?
Well . . . those are all available. Sometimes it’s just a picture of the artist. The point is, well, in certain cases just to hear the audio clip. And almost every song you have ever heard, and then some, are uploaded.
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. I like it if I need to know how to cook something. You can actually go on there and find . . .
Oh, yeah!
. . . find the cook making the recipe in front of you and you can follow through and make it at the same time.
Oh wow. Yeah, yeah.
That’s right. I just made Thanksgiving, part of Thanksgiving dinner and didn’t know how to roast chestnuts, looked it up on YouTube.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Incredible.
It’s pretty educational.
There are how-to videos for just about everything.
Yeah?
Even dancing.
Really?
Dancing, stretching exercises.. .
Wow, I think I’m going to look up some stretching exercises just to see what’s out there.
Yeah, it’s incredible. Oh yeah it’s really well done, very professional.
And a lot of musicians will take the time to give a lesson on YouTube. Guitar players will say, this is how you play a basic blues chord.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It’s good.
I found this on YouTube, this recorder.
Ah, so it’s kind of like an eBay thing too?
Well, no, I mean I didn’t… I, I found the idea.
Oh, OK.
I looked around on YouTube and I found a guy talking about a Zoom microphone the H2. So then I looked around and there was some more information on the H4n and . . .
So, even advertising?
And I could, I, yeah well it’s not advertising. It was just somebody that has a video channel on how to make better videos.
OK. Another how-to.
Yeah. So it was incredible. It’s like you learn everything on YouTube.
It’s great for nostalgia, too, because . . .
Oh yeah!
People have industriously uploaded ever, every opening credit to every television program ever.
It’s true!
So if, just, you know, you want to go see the opening credit of Twin Peaks.
Or Thunder Cats.
Thunder Cats. You can.
No, and you can watch a lot of scenes, you know? The scene from Pulp Fiction, er…
Oh yeah, the scene . . .
The scene with Samuel L. Jackson and . . .
Or the scene with, erm, Bruce Willis . . . and the weapons.
OK.
Oh yeah.
It’s just, er, incredible. I mean, and then you see people taking some of these things and just creating something new from it, and, . . . but really well done.
Can you remember life before YouTube?
It’s like, was there life before YouTube?
Not that I know of.
