Why Comprehensible Input
Did you know that comprehensible input is four times more effective than traditional learning methods? In this slow English comprehensible input vlog for beginners, you will learn new English words, pronunciation, and how to speak naturally in English. This video is part of my 3,000 most common English word series designed to help you understand up to 95% of spoken English.
Let’s get started.
Describing the Grass
What is this right here? This is grass. How would you describe this grass? It’s green. Yes. So three sentences you can use to describe this grass are: the grass is green, that’s one. The grass is very short — it’s not very tall — that’s the second. And the third sentence: the grass looks very healthy. It looks very healthy.
Now I want you guys to make one sentence and put it in the comments to describe the grass.
Parts of a Tree
What is this right here? That is a tree. Correct. This is a tree. What is this main part of the tree called? That is called the tree trunk. This tree is a little different — it looks like a palm tree or a coconut tree. I’m not a tree expert, as you can tell, but most trees have roots that go in the ground. The roots are spread throughout the ground. Usually you cannot see the roots because they are underground.
A tree has roots that are underground, and then it has the tree trunk that’s above ground, and from the tree trunk there are branches, and at the end of the branches there are usually leaves. If there is just one leaf, you would say, “There is a leaf.” More than one, “leaves.”
That right there is a white wall. There’s also some sort of pattern on the upper part of the wall in the shape of a diamond, but that is a wall.
What am I doing right now? Standing. Correct. I am standing still. You can say he is standing, she is standing, they are standing, or I am standing. I’m standing still.
Into the Park
Now we’re going to walk into a park that has many trees, lakes, and other animals, and we are going to describe them in slow English using comprehensible input. Let’s go.
Right now we are walking on this nice path. The path is easy to walk on because it is paved. To the right of me is a building — a big white building. And right here, this is an underpass. So now we are going to walk under here. You can see in here on the ceiling there are LED lights — these very bright, almost blue lights. And it is dark inside this underpass, but it is also cool.
On the outside it’s very hot because the sun is beating on your skin and it’s very humid. So it feels refreshing to go underground in the underpass and be protected from the elements.
Monkeys at the Botanical Gardens
This right here looks like the main gate, doesn’t it? Or maybe not the main gate, but a gate. This is a gate. We’re going into the botanical gardens. And you can actually see right on the path there — there are monkeys. I did not know there were monkeys here. Did you? I had no idea. They look mischievous, do they not? I don’t want to get close to them because they will try to steal my backpack. These ones look worse than the ones we saw at Monkey Beach. Yeah, these ones definitely have more human contact.
This right here is a map. On the side here, we call this a legend. “Legend” has multiple meanings in English, but in this case, it is just a place that has all the items on the map listed. So you can see number 22 — edible garden. A legend.
You can see the monkeys over there. The monkey just climbed up that tree. You got to hold on to that camera tight. Oh, that one there is eyeing you up. Look at the monkey. I’m going to take out my phone, open up my camera, and I’m going to take a video of the monkeys. They look kind of chill now that we’re closer to them. But look at this tree — those look like roots, but I’m pretty sure that’s just the way the tree is.
Organic vs. Inorganic
Now, a question for you. What is the difference between that green part and this paved part? Can you give me three differences?
The first and most obvious, in my opinion, is: this is organic and this is inorganic. Another way to say that — this is natural. Grass just grows without you needing to do anything. Grass is natural. This, however, is not natural. It is not naturally formed in nature, especially in a perfect path like this.
Second, this grass is colorful. This just looks gray and dead.
The last one: this is a living organism. It’s alive. This is not alive. There is no life in this. Grass is alive — that’s why it can grow. Even if you cut it, it’ll grow. However, pavement and cement is not alive.
The Gazebo and the Fountains
This right here is a gazebo. A gazebo is an open-air structure like this — usually where you can eat and have barbecues, or just sit and relax. It is a lot cooler in the shade of this gazebo. Up top there you can see an LED light. Tell me guys, is the light on or off? The light is off.
Over there in the lake — what do you guys see? What is that? That is a fountain. How many fountains are in this shot? There appears to be one, two, three, four, five, six fountains. So if there is more than one of something, you say, “There are fountains.” If there is just one fountain, you would say, “There is a fountain.” Plural: there are fountains. Singular: there is a fountain.
A Quick Quiz
Time for a quick quiz. What do you call this part of the tree? The tree trunk. What do you call the part of the tree that is underground? The roots. What do you call the part of the tree that grows out of the tree and usually has these small green things on them? The branches and the leaves.
This lake looks to be naturally formed. The color of the lake is green. It is not blue — it is green.
Wildlife and Rocks
There is a lot of wildlife in this park. When we were walking here, we saw about four or five monkeys, right? Yes, they were kind of big too. They were running across the path, but they seemed pretty calm, and I think they might be scared of people.
Right on the ground here, you can see all these rocks. These rocks are very smooth and shiny. But this is uneven. If you’re walking, it doesn’t feel that comfortable to walk on since it is uneven. These benches are made of very tiny rocks and cement. The floor is made of bigger sized rocks and also cement, but it is not smooth. So you can really see the difference. These rocks are tiny. Those rocks are about normal size — they’re not very big, but they’re also not tiny.
Ceiling vs. Roof
As you guys can see, the ceiling of the gazebo is broken. It’s broken, or it is damaged. The inside part here is the ceiling, and the outside you would call the roof. What material does it look like this ceiling is made out of? I’ll give you a hint — it’s made out of the same material as this pillar: wood. It is made out of wood. The ceiling is made out of wood. The roof is made out of clay tiles.
Rats of the Sky
There are a lot of pigeons just chilling. Another one just flew down. Pigeons, in my opinion, are kind of like a dirty animal. A lot of people refer to pigeons as rats that can fly, or rats of the sky, because they are kind of like a dirty animal. I agree with that. They are always digging through garbage, and there are a lot of them. So it makes sense why people call them rats of the sky.
But there is a nice breeze where we’re standing. I can just feel the nice cool breeze just hit me. And it’s very relaxing, because it is hot. I’m sure you guys have heard me say that about a million times. That right there is an exaggeration. I didn’t actually say it a million times, but it’s an exaggeration. It’s very normal in any language, I believe, to exaggerate a fact or to exaggerate what you’re saying. But that breeze feels very nice.
Dirt, Soil, or Earth
We are currently at the very beginning of the park. You could walk around this whole lake, and if you go further that way you will find more lakes.
What do you guys call this? You can call that dirt, or soil, or you can call it the earth. But people mostly call it dirt or soil. Here I would just call it soil, since it’s beneath a tree, but you can also call it dirt. They pretty much mean the exact same thing — dirt and soil — or if you want to get fancy, earth.
Walking vs. Strolling
When you walk through a park, you can either say you’re going for a walk, or it sounds a little bit better if you say you’re going for a stroll. A stroll is similar to walking, but it’s just like a relaxed form of walking. You’re not really walking anywhere in particular. You’re just going for a stroll around the park. “Oh, I’m going to go for a stroll in the park.” It’s more for pleasure rather than specifically going somewhere.
Ditch, Jump, Hop
You can see this small little ditch here — a ditch for water. When it rains, the ditch will fill up and the water will flow into the lake instead of flowing onto the path where people are walking.
Right now, I want you guys to guess what I’m doing. Tell me what action this is. There are a couple correct answers, but I just want one. What did I just do? You can say, “I jumped,” because I did. Or, “I hopped.” I just hopped over this ditch. So instead of saying, “Oh, he jumped,” you could say he hopped — which is like either small hops, or what I just did. You can refer to that as a jump as well. But you also use “jump” when you jump higher. So if I ran and then jumped, you would say “jumped” — that’s not really a hop. A hop is not as high as a jump.
An Overgrown Path
How would you describe this right here? The path is blocked. You could say the path is blocked, or you could say the path is overgrown. This bush is overgrown, so now it’s blocking the path. We have to go around. This path, I don’t think it’s used very much — maybe just by the monkeys. It looks like some people put sticks there. It doesn’t look like that’s naturally there. Why do you think that? Maybe to defend themselves from the monkeys. Maybe.
Now on this side, I don’t even see the paved path anymore. I just see a dirt trail now. The initial stretch was nice and paved, but then it went overgrown, and now it looks like the sand from the top of this small hill has come down and completely covered the paved trail. So we’re kind of like Bear Grylls out here in the wild.
This looks a little wet. When it rains — and it just rained yesterday — it brings the sand all down and covers it.
Monsoon Talk
Is it normal for it to be raining this much this time of the year in KL? The past week or two, it’s been raining every day at night usually. Is that normal? Well, from what I understand, monsoon season is right around the corner — I think it starts in March. So this is the beginning of the monsoon season, and when it’s monsoon season it’s going to rain every day. From what I’ve heard from people, they said it is very unusual for it to be raining this time of the year. This time of the year is supposed to be dry and hot.
When does the rainy season start in Kuala Lumpur? The wettest months are October, November, and April. We’re currently, according to this, in monsoon season — November to March. I thought it was dry season. I might be tripping.
Birds Chirping
Let’s keep going and walking down this big, heavy, overgrown path.
I’m not sure if you guys can hear that. If not, insert some bird audio. But the birds are chirping. Or you could say the birds are singing. Either way, it’s very beautiful.
If You Want to Go Further
If you guys liked this slow English podcast and you want to see more videos like these, let me know in the comments. Also, let me know how long you want these type of vlogs to be — around 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or 20 minutes plus?
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