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  • Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam, and today's lesson comes from a

  • very common question I get from students. Students sometimes ask me... Like they ask

  • me a question about grammar or whatever, and sometimes I say: "You know what? I'm not sure.

  • I'll tell you tomorrow or I'll tell you the next day", etcetera. And then they say to

  • me: "But you're the teacher, you should know." And I say to them, you know: "Even teachers

  • sometimes need to learn and to continuously grow and find out new things for their students."

  • And then of course the next question is: "What is 'even'?" And I say: "Okay, well there's

  • your... our next lesson." Right? So today's word: "even". Many students... like they hear

  • it all the time, but they don't really understand how it's being used. So today, I'm going to

  • give you some examples because that's the best way to understand this word.

  • Most of you have seen it as: "even though", "even if", or: "even when". There are other

  • uses which we're going to look at in a minute, but first let's go over these. But first,

  • what does..? What does the word: "even" suggest? Okay? When you use the word: "even", you're

  • talking about something that's very surprising. Okay? It's against expectation. What is "expectation"?

  • When you think something will happen because something else happened. For example: if I

  • win a million dollars, you will... You would expect that I will buy a big house or that

  • I will go on vacation or that I will stop working. Okay? So what we're going to see

  • is that sometimes what you think will happen is exactly the opposite or different from

  • what actually happens, and then that's when you use the word: "even".

  • Let's look at the first example: "Even though I was late, my boss wasn't angry."

  • Now, you would think: "You're late, your boss is angry." But I'm stressing that what should

  • have been the case, he should have been angry or she should have been angry, but wasn't,

  • even though I was late. So it's a very surprising situation. If I used only "though": "Though

  • I was late, my boss wasn't angry." This just shows a regular contrast. Okay? Late should

  • equal angry, it wasn't. This shows surprise because usually my boss gets angry when I'm

  • late, - not that I'm late often -, but when I'm late, my boss gets really angry. But today,

  • no, today my boss was calm, nothing going on. He must have had a good weekend, I don't

  • know. Now: "if":

  • "If I win the lottery, I won't have enough money to buy a house."

  • That doesn't make sense. If you win the lottery, you have a lot of money so that's why I'm

  • using: "if". And when I use: "if", I'm also adding the negative, the opposite of what

  • is expected. "Even if I win the lottery, I won't have enough

  • money to buy a house." Okay? It depends how much the lottery is.

  • I think Lotto 649, that's the lottery in Ontario, I think it's three million right now. In Toronto,

  • that'll buy you a little house, maybe. So: "Even if I win".

  • Now: "even when". "If" is a hypothetical; maybe it will happen, maybe it won't happen,

  • probably not. "When" we use for more realistic ideas, when something happens.

  • "Even when he presented the evidence," - when he showed proof that something happened -, "no

  • one believed him." Now, you think evidence, if somebody sees

  • evidence, they believe what you're saying. But even when he presented the evidence, they

  • didn't believe him. Very strange. I can... I put the word here "after": "Even after he

  • showed the evidence..." If you want to talk about time lapse, this is... "When" shows

  • at that time, "after" means later, but both work the same way in this sentence. Okay?

  • So again: "even" means surprising or against expectations, but we are not limited to these

  • three expressions. Let's look at some more. Okay, now another thing to remember about

  • this word: "even" is that it sometimes gives you extra information. Just by using this

  • word, you should be able to understand something else. Okay? So let's look at these examples.

  • "No one thought Tom's joke was funny, not even Kathy."

  • Now, only from this sentence, what can you understand about Kathy? One: you can understand

  • that she always thinks Tom's jokes are funny, so that's why it's a little surprise that

  • even she didn't think this was funny or you think that Kathy always laughs at every joke.

  • Okay? So something about Kathy you can understand from this sentence even though it's not mentioned;

  • you understand something about her personality or about her relationship with Tom, etcetera.

  • Obviously, we need more information to know exactly what, but you understand that there's

  • something else because of this word. Okay? "Even Superman wouldn't be able to defeat

  • him." "Defeat him" means beat him or win in a fight.

  • So even Superman wouldn't be able to, what does that tell you about him? He's very tough

  • or very difficult to beat. Superman can beat anybody, right? He's Superman. Nope, not this

  • guy. This guy's tougher than Superman, tougher even than Superman. Wow, pretty tough.

  • "I really want to eat a burger." - Like a hamburger because, you know, they're good.

  • - "I could even go right now." I want to eat one so badly that even though

  • I'm sitting in front of the TV, relaxed, not wanting to move, I could even go right now,

  • that's how much I want a hamburger. So this information, this word right here tells you

  • just how strongly I want to eat a hamburger. Must be a pretty good burger.

  • "Sure, the Rockies are huge," - capital "R", Rockies, Western Canada - "But the Himalayas"

  • - North India - "are even bigger." So you think Rockies are huge, nothing's bigger

  • than the Rockies. Well no, the Himalayas are even bigger, believe it or not. So this word:

  • "even" basically means: "believe it or not". I'm telling you something that is surprising;

  • against your expectation. Okay? So very, very commonly used word, has a lot of extra information

  • in the word because it's being used to suggest other information. Okay?

  • If you want to practice this and see some more examples, go to: www.engvid.com. There's

  • a quiz there you can try to strengthen your understanding of the word "even". And, of

  • course, go to YouTube and watch my channel, and subscribe, and it's all good. See you again.

Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam, and today's lesson comes from a

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