Hi. James from engVid.

Excuse me for a second.

Oh, look the star is born.

What do you mean?

Who is responsible for spilling your coffee?

I don't know.

I don't know who to blame; it's not my fault.

You know, in life a lot of times things go wrong, and in English we have three words

that we use a lot to indicate who should fix it, who is responsible for it, and who we

want to point out who's responsible for it; and sometimes they're the same and sometimes

they don't match up at all.

But today I'm going to teach you three words or we'll work on three words to talk about

how to fix up a situation, and who can fix up this situation, and who we might point

the finger towards.

Okay?

So, let's go to the board.

I'm going to give you some formal and some informal, some words on responsibility.

So, my worm is upset because his coffee is on the floor.

He thinks he's a star; he's wearing some glasses.

And let's check the board: Who can help us here?

Okay?

So, three very popular words in English are: "blame", "responsibility", and "fault".

Each of these words are actually tied together, and in some of the definitions, you might

actually see me use some of the words in another... in the definition, you're like: "But you have

'responsibility' and 'blame', and you have 'fault' and...

'Fault', 'blame' and 'fault'."

Yeah, because they're kind of mixed together; they're comingled or, like, they're joined

together because they are attached to each other.

So, what I want to do is start off with the first one, which is funny enough the nicest

one: "responsibility".

It's a noun.

The adjective is "responsible": You are a responsible person, and you have a responsibility.

Now, we look here: What is a "responsibility"?

Well, the first thing we say is: A state or fact of having a duty to deal with a situation

or person.

So, whose responsibility is it?

Who has to deal with somebody or take care of a situation; whose responsibility?

So, at work, you know, whose responsibility is it to fix this?

You know: "Is it the plumber?

Is it the boss?"

Right?

You got to deal with it.

The state of being accountable.

That means you... say, if something goes wrong, I'm the one-count-you can count on to fix

it; I'm the one you can come to.

And a part of a job.

If it's your responsibility as manager to close the door and count the money, those

are part of your jobs.

Right?

The final one is the moral obligation to act properly.

I expect you to not throw food at a teacher in a classroom.

That's your responsibility; it's a moral obligation.

It's not a job that you have to do: Not throw food at somebody, but it's a moral obligation

we call, and we expect people to, you know, act properly, and not have orange hair and

act like babies when they're in political office.

But that's another thing.

So, anyway: "responsibility".

Now, you notice this, and you go: "What is this and what is that?"

I'm going: Well, don't freak out too much.

This is how you would say it because a lot of times people from different language groups

will have problems saying it, because if you speak Spanish, for instance, they will say

"spec-eal" instead of "special", because the "e-s" is the sound you make.

So, I'm going to give you something to help you, so: "r-E-sp-on-sib-il-ey-T".

That's a big T, right?

Responsibility.

Not: "Responsibilite".

Responsibility.

Cool?

All right.

That's how we say that one.

And to make it easy, to make it basic: This is the person who can fix it; they either

have the power to fix it, it's their job to fix it, or it's a moral obligation to fix

it.

Responsibility.

So, we each have the responsibility to take care of ourselves, to pay our bills, to be

on time, and to be good people.

All right?

And you can say it's a duty almost, in some cases.

So, if we're talking about responsibility, when somebody does something bad... okay?

We can't say it's their responsibility to do something bad.

What we do is we blame them.

"Blame" is a verb; when you blame somebody.

And now you look here, I'm going to go from here, and look, it goes: Assign responsibility

for a fault or wrongdoing.

"Assign" means give.

So, we're taking this word "responsibility" as in you take ownership for it and you say:

"Okay, it's mine.

I will take care of it."

When we blame somebody, we go: "Okay, well, it's not mine; I blame you."

So, I'm going to give you the responsibility for the bad action - that's why we say "fault"

or "wrongdoing".

Don't worry, if you don't know what "fault" is, I'm going to get there in a second.

But something's gone wrong and I need to point out who's done it.

Okay?

Next: It's a... sorry.

A responsibility for something bad.

So, there's a wrongdoing but it's a bad situation.

I blame the weather for my plants dying.

Okay?

This is bad.

The weather isn't doing anything wrong; it's something that's bad: My plants are dying

and I need to blame someone.

I need to put the responsibility on something or someone, and I say it's the weather.

Okay, so the third and final one I want to discuss is responsibility for a fault or a

wrong.

Commonly in English, we say: "Take the blame."

Something is wrong; someone must take the blame.

Someone must take something.

In this case, you must take that responsibility for the fault or wrong.

So you'll commonly hear someone say: "You've got to take the blame for what you've done."

Responsibility for a wrong.

Cool?

Now, finally, because you noticed that word "fault" came up, and you're like: "I don't

know what that means and you keep saying it", but before I get there: "bl-A-mm; blame".

Okay?

So, the large A indicates I want you to say the vowel sound a lot: "blame".

Who is to blame?

Okay?

Now, I said that blame directs it, but what is "blame" directing, exactly?

When we talk about a fault - a "fault" is a problem or something we don't like.

First one we talk about: Unattractive or unsatisfactory feature of work or a person's character.

If you have character faults, you are dishonest, you talk behind people's backs - that's something

wrong with you.

Or there's a fault in your work - it means there's a problem or something not good.

Okay?

So, a "character fault" is about a person.

And when we talk about an "unsatisfactory feature", something we don't like about somebody's

work.

Yeah?

Responsibility for an accident or misfortune.

This is where the blame comes from.

You have to be responsible for something that happened; usually it's an accident.

We don't think when it's your fault... by saying it's somebody's fault, we're not saying

they did it on purpose.

We're saying something happened, it was unfortunate or it's not a good thing, or it might have

been an accident, but you end up becoming responsible for that action.

Ultimately, we say you're responsible for the bad thing happening.

But it gets confusing saying you're responsible for the bad thing happening, so we say: "We're

going to blame you.

It's your fault because it's your mistake."

Next, as a verb: To criticize for inadequacy or mistakes.

So, if I say: "I can't find fault in your work", I can't criticize or find weakness

in your work.

Sometimes people say, you know... we can... yeah: "We find no fault in your work.

You did a good job."

We find no problems or we can't criticize you.

So, "fault" can have any of these meanings, okay?

But in this case, it takes on a verb form.

And you notice, here, it's: "f-all-t", as in "all": "fault".

Whose fault is it?

And this is the person who did it.

It's like: "Who done it?"

Sherlock Holmes.

Right?

So, we found out that these big fancy words: "responsibility" is: "Who can fix it?

Who has the power?

Who has the situation to do so?"

Okay?

I can't say orange anymore.

I won't say orange guy anymore.

When we talk about "blame", we're directing it: "Where is this going?

Where are we putting this responsibility for bad things?"

We're pointing; it has to go this way.

Somewhere it has to go.

And, finally: "Who did it?

Whose fault is it?

Who is the actual one who did it?"

So, these are three, big, powerful words.

And if you think about it, you do this all the time anyway, most of the time in a day,

you'll say: "Whose fault is it the door was unlocked?

Who...?

Why do I take the blame?"

Actually, a lot of times we talk about "blame" is like: "Why are you blaming me?"

People don't say it to you; you say: "Why are you blaming me for the open door?" because

you're saying I'm responsible for not doing my job properly.

And somebody might say: "Well, it was your responsibility to do it", and I would say:

"Don't blame me."

Okay?

And I go: "It's not my fault; it's E's fault."

Cool?

And you notice how these three words play into each other in, first of all, the definition

for each one?

The other word seems to come in; you got blame, you got fault, you got responsibility, you've

got fault - they all play together, and they work together like that in the real world

where we talk to each other in this way.

You probably use words similar to this in your own language, and I want to give you

the three words that we use a lot.

Now, once again, using a word and not really understanding it is no good, so we're going

to go into our second part of the lesson where we'll explore it, use it, see if you can use

it, and then I'll give you a bit of a bonus.

Are you ready?

[Snaps]

Okay, we're back.

Now, I know it's my responsibility to teach you how to use these words, or it'll be all

my fault, or actually you'll blame me if you don't, so let's go to the board.

And I've got a little story about Shingo, one of my favourite Japanese students, and

his problem with money.

Let's take a look at the board.

So, Mr. Shingo... let's read it out.

Read it out.

So: "Shingo is bad with his money and he says it's because of his parents, because they

were poor.

Shingo knows he has a duty to educate himself about money but one of the biggest weaknesses

is his inability to save money."

Okay.

"He knows the mistake is his and it's his job to pay his bills, but he prefers to consider

his parents for the problem."

Hmm.

I would say this one should be: "...are the problem", but we'll see why that might change

later on.

Okay?

So, he thinks his parents are the problem.

So, let's look at this.

Shingo isn't good with money; he thinks it's his parents' fault.

He has a weakness.

He considers them the problem.

And I'm going to bet that we can find the new words that we... that we learned will

help us actually make this story sound better, have a greater flow, and be more interesting

to the person who's listening to it.

So, let's try this first: "Shingo is bad with his money and he ______________

his parents."

Actually, let's go back a step.

Let's identify what we have to change before we go there.

Shingo is bad with his money and he says it's because of his parents.

Hmm.

Why don't we...?

If we say this... if we change this part, here, that could be one of the parts we change.