| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some expressions you can use to talk about your hometown, or your home city or maybe your home country. Let's get started. |
| Okay. The first sentence or the first expression that I want to talk about is just a basic introduction, "I'm from." "I'm from," your city or "I'm from," your country. Please be careful. I've noticed in the comments section of the videos that we make, for example, many of you introduce yourself, but you forget this, "I'm from." I often see the mistake, "I from," which is incorrect. That's not correct. We should use "I'm from." Remember, "I'm" is the contracted, the reduced form of "I am." "I am from," city. "I am from," country. Please don't forget this, "I am." "I am from a city." When we make a sentence with this, we could say, "I'm from Vietnam," for a country. "I'm from Vietnam." Or, from a city, "I'm from Bangkok." You can choose either one, your city or your country. Both are fine to use. |
| So, if you want to choose something different or if you want to explain in a little more detail, specifically, you can use an expression like this, "I was born in," a city or in a specific country. "I was born in." Another mistake I see with students is they forget this "was." I often see comments that say, "I born in," which is incorrect. "I was born in," city or country. "I was born in Brazil," in the case of a country. "I was born in Cambodia." So, you can use your country name here. |
| Of course, if you want to use a city, for example, "I was born in Bangkok," and you want to give more information, maybe for some reason, the person you're talking to doesn't know that city or maybe it's a really small city, you can say, "It's in," country. So, for example, "I was born in Bangkok. It's in Thailand." You can explain the country as a follow-up with this expression. "It's in," where "it" is your city. "It is in Thailand," in this case. "It's in," country. |
| Then if you want to share some information about your hometown, these are some expressions you can use to do that. These are very open, so I hope that you can find something that helps you. The first one is, "It has a lot of," noun phrase. Here, "it" means your city or your country. It's probably best to talk about your city here, though if you live in a really small city, maybe you can share about your country. Maybe your country is small, too, so it's good to share about something that's maybe easy to understand if you're introducing your city or your country. |
| So, you could say, "It has a lot of," something. Some examples would be, "It has a lot of traffic. " Like if your city has a lot of traffic, you can mention that. "It has a lot of good food," or, "It has a lot of nature." So, there's some kind of simple noun phrase here that you can use to describe something in your city. Please note, we use "has," "it has," "the city has," not "is." We use "is" for adjectives. We're using "has" here because these are noun phrases. You could say, "It is a busy city," or, "It is a windy city," for example. But, when you're using a noun phrase, you need to change your verb here. "It has a lot of traffic." "It has a lot of nature." Please be careful about this point. |
| Let's go to the next point. "It's famous for." So, in some cultures, each city or each country maybe has some specific thing that that city is really well-known for. You can use this expression to describe that thing. "It's famous for." Again, "it" is your city or maybe your country. "It's famous for," something. So, again, there's some noun phrase, some maybe activity, some famous item. For example, "It's famous for spicy food," like, "My country is famous for spicy food," for example, or, "It's famous for entertainment or nightlife," maybe. So, think of something that your city is well-known for. Like for example, Las Vegas maybe. "It's famous for entertainment." So, that's something we could say about Las Vegas in the USA. |
| Okay. Another expression you can use, it's very similar to "it has a lot of" is this one here. I've made two sentences or two expressions you can use. "There is" or "there are a lot of," something. So, "there is," or reduced, "there's," or, "There are a lot of," something. So, this is kind of a different way to say this. Very similar. Let's look at some examples. Here, this is a negative point, but, "There's a lot of crime." Maybe your hometown is rather dangerous and you want to talk about that. You can say, "There is a lot of crime." Crime is like activities or actions that are against the law. They're illegal. So, to describe that, you can say, "There's a lot of crime in my hometown," or, "There are a lot of animals." Maybe in your city, it's really closely connected to nature and you can say, "There are a lot of animals." |
| So, just be cautious. Here, "There is a lot of crime." Crime is a mass noun, or a plural noun rather, so we can use this "is" form. But here, when we have "there are," we need to use this "s" at the end of the word. "There are a lot of animals," the plural form. "There are a lot of animals." So, just pay attention. If you're using a singular noun or you're using this like plural or mass noun that has no "s" at the end, you can use this "is" form. If you're using a plural noun, "there are" is fine. "There are a lot of animals." |
| Okay. Let's go on to the next one. "Lots of people like to," do something. "Lots of people like to." And here, we'll have like an activity, some kind of verb phrase, probably. "Lots of people like to go out at night." So, for Las Vegas, for example, "Lots of people like to go out at night," or, "Lots of people like to do outdoor sports." So, you'll notice, I've got a verb here. "Lots of people like to," verb, and then some other information to tell us about that. "Lots of people like to swim in the river," something that is like an activity that's unique or that's particularly interesting for your city. |
| Okay. Finally, the population. This is another one people like to talk about. If you want to be specific, you can say of course, "My hometown is very small," or, "My home city is really big." You can talk about it like that, yes. If you want to give the specific number, how many people, you can use this expression. Population means the number of people in your city or the number of people in your country. So, "The population is," and follow it with the number. "The population is about 20,000 people," or "about 150,000 people." I have "people" in parentheses here because we don't really need to use it but you might hear people say "people" at the end of this expression. We don't need to include "people" here because we have population. We know population means the number of people, though sometimes we include this. You don't need to really. "The population is about 20,000" is perfect. |
| Okay. Let's go on then to the last couple points. The last points I marked here, these are about the weather. A really common topic when you're talking about your hometown is the weather. These are a few expressions you can use to talk about what the weather is like in your hometown. For example, "It rains a lot." Or you could say, "It's very rainy." "It's dry." You might say, for example, "In the summer, it's dry," or, "In winter, it's dry." So, "it" here refers to weather, like weather patterns. "It rains a lot." "It's dry." |
| Another one, "The weather is sunny year-round." So, this is a word or a hyphenated word, "year-round," which means all throughout the year, so non-stop. "The weather is sunny year-round." Another good word to know is "humid," "It's humid." A good example might be like a tropical situation, a tropical city or a tropical country. Maybe the temperature, it's not so hot, maybe sometimes, but the water content, the moisture content in the air is very high. So, we call that "humid." "It's humid. It's very humid." You might also hear the word "muggy." Muggy is a little bit less formal than humid. It sounds a little more negative, too. "It's humid. It's so humid." |
| These are a few weather-related words, the climate-related words. Here, you can replace this word, "rains" with something else, like, "It snows a lot," for example. "It rains a lot, it snows a lot, maybe it hails where you're from." Hail is like a ball of ice. So, when you want to talk about precipitation, like things coming from clouds, you could use this pattern. |
| Alright, this is just a quick introduction to a few things that I hope can help you as you try to explain your hometown or your home country to other people. If there's something else that you would like to know how to say, or if you have any questions or comments, or if you want to practice making an introduction to your home city, please feel free in the comments section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye! |
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