Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha.
In this lesson, I'm going to talk about ways to report the things that you saw and that you heard. I'm going to talk about a basic pattern and then introduce a more advanced pattern. Let's get started.
First, I want to begin this lesson with a verb review. There are four key verbs I'm going to use in this lesson.
The first pair is this one, "to see" and "to watch."
So, what's the difference between "to see" and "to watch"?
Generally, when we use to see, it just means information enters our eyes.
So, for example:
"I see the camera."
Or "I see the marker."
Just, the information goes into my eye.
"Watch," however, has this meaning of focusing our attention on something. So, when we focus our attention on something, it's usually because it's moving. For example, when we watch a movie or maybe, we watch an animal in the forest. We focus our eyes on something.
So, to review, "to see" is just information comes into our eyes. "To watch" is to focus our attention.
So for example:
"You are watching this video right now."
This pair then is very similar, "to hear" and "to listen."
This follows the same pattern. When we "hear" (something), information enters our ears. We just hear it. So maybe "I can hear an air conditioner" or "I can I hear someone outside." To hear is just information entering the ears.
When we "listen," however, or "listen to (something)," we are focusing our attention. We are trying to use our ears to gain information, somehow. So again, we are focusing our attention on something. So "hear" is just information entering the ear. "Listen" is used to talk about focusing and trying to use our ears to gain information. So, please keep this in mind for this lesson.
Let's look now at a basic pattern for reporting something. For this lesson, I'm going to focus on using "I" as the subject. So this is for when you want to share something that you saw or that you heard.
So, the basic pattern here is (I + [the past tense form of the verb] + [a simple noun]).
So, this is our direct object. Remember, the "direct object" is the thing upon which the verb is acting. So this is like receiving the activity happening here. This is receiving the action in this verb.
So, "I saw a [noun]."
"I watched a [noun]."
"I heard a [noun]."
Or "I listened to a [noun]."
Please be careful, don't forget this "to" here.
"I listened to (something)."
And also, "I listened," I listened. Sometimes, people forget to make this past tense, "I listened to (something)."
Let's look at some examples:
First, "I saw my mom."
Or "I saw a cat."
It's a very simple expression, again, just communicating this information entered our eyes.
"I saw my mom."
"I saw a cat."
These sentences use "watch":
"I watched a movie."
"I watched a basketball game."
So these sentences show the speaker was focusing their attention on a movie and a basketball game.
"I watched a movie."
"I watched a basketball game."
Here, I've used "heard." The pronunciation is /hurd/, not /hird/, /hurd/.
"I heard the news."
And "I heard a loud noise."
So, "I heard the news," so from TV or radio, maybe, and "I heard a loud noise, somewhere." I don't know what it was, but "a loud noise," that information, came to my ear. "I heard a loud noise."
Finally, "listened to."
"I listened to a podcast."
And, "I listened to the presentation."
So again, we are focusing our ears on something. So, "I listened to a podcast." I wanted to focus my attention on the podcast. "I listened to the presentation." I focused my attention on the presentation. I focused my ears and probably my eyes too, maybe.
Okay. So, these are basic patterns, basic reporting patterns.
In this lesson, I want to introduce a more advanced pattern.
So, this is an advanced pattern that you can use to describe the specific details of something. So, the verbs will remain the same. We're not going to change the verbs at all. What we are going to change is the part after the verb.
Here, we're going to use something called the "subordinate clause."
So, a "subordinate clause" is a big word. It just means a part of the sentence that cannot be alone. It must have another part of a sentence in order to be a full idea. So, it needs something else. It's like a mini-sentence or a part of a sentence, we need some other information to finish this idea.
So, we're going to use this part of an idea, the "subordinate clause" as our direct object. So again, this direct object is what we talked about up here, the thing that's receiving the action.
So, let's take a look at some examples of what I mean here and the special, special, sorry, the special grammar, grammar rules, special grammar rules that we use in these cases.
Let's begin here:
"I saw a man walk into the office."
So, here, we're seeing this "I saw" is in past tense again, and "a man" so this is just a simple noun, but we see all of this extra information and the key point for this pattern is this right here. This verb remains in the present tense or in the infinitive form. There is no change to this verb. This part is a past action, yes. We're using "saw" here which tells the listener or tells the reader that this action is finished, this is done, but we do not change this verb here.
"I saw a man walk into the office."
So this action is done, but in this report of this, we do not change this verb. "I saw a man [walked]" is not correct. We cannot use that. "I saw a man walk into the office." That is an action that happened, I saw it, I used this expression to report it.
Let's compare this then to the other type of reporting expression we can use.
A new example sentence:
"I saw a woman jogging in my neighborhood."
Again, we use simple past tense here to make the report, this information entered my eyes, "a woman," yes, we have a simple noun here, and this is the information that tells us the specifics, what was the woman doing. Here; however, I've used this continuous or progressive form, "jogging in my neighborhood." "I saw a woman jogging in my neighborhood." So, I've talked about up here, using this form, the infinitive form or present tense form.
If, however, you want to emphasize that an action was continuing at that time, you can use the progressive form here. So, in this sentence, the speaker mentions that at this point in time, maybe this morning, I saw a woman jogging in my neighborhood, at that time, the woman was jogging. It was happening at that moment. So, "I saw a woman jog in my neighborhood" sounds like maybe the action is finished, it's done. But if the speaker wants to emphasize a continuing action, they can with this progressive form, so please keep this in mind. We can use progressive form to emphasize continuous actions, but in other cases, we use just the simple infinitive or present form.
Let's look at another example:
"I watched my cat jump off the roof."
So here, the verb "watched" is showing that the speaker focused his or her attention on the cat as the cat jumped off the roof. So again, you'll notice, "I watched my cat jump." There is no change to this verb, "jump off the roof." This part does not have any changes. There is no conjugation happening there.
"I watched my cat jump off the roof."
Another example:
"I watched a car roll into traffic."
So this means the speaker focused their attention on a car as the car slowly rolled into other cars, traffic. So, "I watched a car roll into traffic." Again, please keep in mind the difference between "saw" and "watched" and how these can make the sentences sound a little different. For example, if you say, "I watched a woman jogging in my neighborhood," it sounds like you focused your attention on the woman jogging, which can sound a little strange sometimes. If you saw a woman jogging in your neighborhood, that sounds quite normal. But in some cases, if you say, "I watched someone doing something," it sounds like you're focused on them which can sound a little scary sometimes. So please be careful when you're using "saw" and "watched" in these cases.
Okay. Let's continue to the next group.
Let's look at "heard" now.
"I heard my friend trying to negotiate a discount."
So, again, "negotiate a discount" means get a lower price, trying to get a lower price. So, "I heard my friend…," here again, the progressive form, "[trying] to negotiate a discount." So maybe you're shopping at a market somewhere, the speaker can hear their friend somewhere else asking for a lower price or trying to negotiate. So, maybe, it's successful, maybe it's not, but at that point in time, a negotiation was happening. So, I heard my friend trying to negotiate a discount.
Another example:
"I heard my dog whining in the living room."
So maybe I'm in my bedroom, but my dog is in other room. I can hear something, it's the sound of my dog whining. So, "to whine" is like crying, but usually used for pets or for little kids or people who are complaining a lot, "to whine." So, "I heard my dog whining." This was happening at that point in time, my dog was whining.
Let's look at the last examples:
"I listened to my teacher talk about grammar."
So, "listened to" is perhaps one that you won't use so much with specific details. Maybe, you'll use "listened to" more with a basic pattern, but these are some examples of cases where you might. So, "I listened to my teacher talk about grammar." So, as I said before, you can use that basic form, this infinitive form or the progressive form like, "I listened to my teacher talking about grammar." That's fine too. So, maybe, after you watched this video, after you have finished watching this video, you could say to your friend, "Oh, today, I listened to my teacher talk about grammar" and that would be natural because it's finished, you finished watching this lesson.
If, however, you want to emphasize, for some reason, that I'm talking and something else is happening, you could use the progressive form, like "I listened to my teacher talking about grammar" and I got bored or I thought it was interesting. So, you could use something like that to show that an action is happening at the same time too.
Okay, finally:
"I listened to a customer complain about a problem."
So here, again, the action is probably finished, "I listened to a customer complain today" so this is something that happened to me.
So please keep this in mind, it's kind of a strange grammar point, but we use these styled verbs when we're talking about the specific details of something we saw or heard in the past. Of course, this is for reporting things. There are other situations where you may want to report other, like information, like maybe something you ate, for example, or a place that you visited. So, please keep this in mind when you're reporting these kinds of things about the past.
Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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