Name: Basic English: OF & OFF
Uploaded: 2021-10-30T17:41:45.000Z
Duration: 22 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

"One of these days" — one of these, one off these days, one of these day. Yeah,

Past simple

that is kind of tricky, isn't it? Hi, James from engVid. Got a problem. I've

had students asking about the pronunciation difference between "of"

and "off". And what the words actually means; it's not as simple. It's a

homophone, kinda; homonym, definitely. We're going to go to the board and

figure out the differences. Why? Well, pronunciation isn't just it sounds

different; they actually have different meanings, and will affect the sentence,

or what you're trying to convey or tell someone else. So, why is it important?

For clarity when we're speaking or when we're reading, and it will help you, you

know, without expanding your vocabulary, make you... Well, it's like having a

pocket knife; it will make you much more functional. And that's a good thing,

right? Okay, so how I'm going to do this for you is we'll go through

pronunciation of just a quick one, then I'll talk about the reduction — we call

it reduction of "of", the preposition "of" — and I'll talk about how one...

Well, let's go to the board and do it, shall we? We'll go through it.

So, I'm going to start off by saying: "of" or "off". Let's start with the

beginning "of" — it has, like, a "v" sound. So, there is a different... a

definitive difference in the sound. This is a "v" sound; it sounds like that:

"vvv". The bottom lip goes to the teeth: "vvv", because it vibrates. You hear

that? Vibrate. "Vvv". Okay? And with "off", I like to say this: "Off" has one

extra "f" to remind you to say: "fff" — the "f" sound. So, instead of: "vvv",

the same position and vibrating — that extra "f" reminds me it's an "f", so I

have to go: "fff", as in: "free" or "Frank". Cool? Well, this one doesn't

have that extra "f", so I know it's a: "vvv" sound, like: "vibrate" or "visit".

That'll make it a bit easy. And then at the end, I'm going to go over what we

call the reduction of "of", which gives you a little bit more to play with to

get much more like a native speaker. All right? But let's go through this.

They're both prepositions, to start off with. So, that is one thing they have in

common, and that's what leads to some confusion because if you do not

pronounce... pronounce it properly, you probably aren't aware when you're

writing it down, because they're both prepositions, that you're using them

incorrectly. Now, with "of", it's strict-... it's strictly a preposition

all the way down. "Off" is a preposition — we use it in phrasal verbs — but it

also has adverbial and an adjective meaning, and we'll go over all of those

together. But let's start over here. Now that we've got it down that what they

sound like; the difference, and we're saying they're both prepositions, let's

go through... see how this is further a preposition, and the differences we'll

So, "of" is a preposition expressing a relationship or a connection between

things; so, they go together. And you can use it like this, an example would

be a bottle on a cap — there's a connection. This is very different from

this, but one twist of the lid, and I can carry my drink because of the

connection that they make. And that's what "of" does — it shows us connections

between things. Now, in this case, it expresses relationship. So, we can say:

"the husband of my friend". Right? I know many people, but this is the

husband of my friend. That's the connection — friendship, and they're

married. Next: "It's on the top of the page." Well, when you have a book or a

magazine, if it's on the top of the page, it's connected. Right? The words

are on the page; the top of the page. So, we've demonstrated relationship

We can indicate material. What does that mean? Well, things are not just things;

they're made of things. For instance, when I showed you the water, the water

is made... this water bottle is "made of plastic". The material is plastic. "It's

made of plastic." I can also say, because I think I've had that one there:

"It's made of glass." I can also say something, a small piece could be: "a

piece of glass". Because there is a lot of glass in the universe, this is one

piece. I usually like to say when we talk about relationship, and this goes

something of material, that when you say: "of", it's one piece of a larger

thing. In this case, in the relationship, there's two people, so

it's a larger thing and they're connected; relationship. In this... in

this case, glass — "made of glass" — there's glass in the universe, and this

thing is made of some of that glass; one piece or some of that. Okay?

We can also use "of" to express direction. This is a strange one because

a lot of students aren't aware of it, but if I go: "It's north of the city",

or east... In this case, I say: "north of the highway". So, if the highway's

here, keep going this way — that's where I live; "north of the highway". And if I

say: "east of something", I might go: "Oh, go east of..." So, "east of th

city" — you find the location, city, g  east of that direction, so go aroun

that corner. So, we use it t  indicate... express direction, we us

"of" to indicate what type of materia  something is — "made of cotton". Okay

As I showed: "made of plastic". W  expressed relationships: "my... a frien

of my brother's" — right? — or we ca  show a connection: "on the top of th

page". And that's when we use "of". An  remember, because it only has one "f"

we use the "v" sound for "vibrate"   it's in the same position as the "f'

but we vibrate it instead of: "fff", le  the air flow. Cool? All right

"Off", "off", "soft". A soft "f" sound; not like the bad "f" word. I knew you

were going there. It's a preposition. So, how does it work as a preposition?

When we use it as a preposition, it expresses: "away from" or "down". So,

I'm here — it'd be away from or down. Okay? So: "It rolled off the table."

Okay? So, when something rolls off the table, it's going away from the table.

In this case, it's not only just going away from the table, it's going down.

So, I've connected the two of them. I wish I could turn off that extra sound

We also can use it as an adverb. And an adverb, as you know, is how something is

done. So: "he took off his coat", we actually mean: "he removed it". So, he

moved it; removed it from himself. "He took off his coat" and that's the

adverbial or an example of an adverb that you'll use. What about an

adjective? And this is interesting, because people who are native speakers,

you know, in Australia, or Canada, and whatnot, they know this, but it would...

I understand it sounds strange to somebody who English isn't their first

language. Because: "a bit off", what does that mean? Well, this is describing

something. And it means it's not... When we talk about: "food is a bit off", it

means the food isn't at its perfect state; maybe it's a little bit bad. So,

the milk: "Oo, it's a bit off." It's not any good.

Now, a person can be "a bit off". It's like: "I'm feeling a bit off today",

meaning: "I don't feel very good. I'm not feeling my normal self." Now, if

that extends to: I'm not doing, you know, my usual self with a job I'm doing

— when my whole day is like that, I can say: "I'm having an off day." So, if

you've got a... Michael Jordan, I can at least say that because he was the

greatest — probably is — basketball player. If he's having an "off day", he

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Basic English: OF & OFF

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