Basic English: Learn the difference between BECAUSE and SO

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• published: 05 Feb 2015
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http://www.engvid.com/ Do you know what the difference is between "so" and "because"? In this lesson, you will learn what they mean and how to use them perfectly. The words "so" and "because" can be hard to learn, but after this class you won't be confused anymore. Watch the video, and do the quiz BECAUSE it will make learning English SO much easier for you! http://www.engvid.com/english-basics-because-so/ Базовый английский Разница между BECAUSE и SO TRANSCRIPT Man, that car goes so fast. I'd like one, but, you know, because I don't have the money right now, I -- hi. James, from EngVid. I'm looking at some serious automobiles. They are so cool, and they go so fast it's incredible, you know? $50,000 -- I thought so. It's more money than that. Anyway. Today, we're going to do a lesson on "because" and "so". The reason why is because a lot of students get confused with -- and I love the word "confused", so let's change that to a lot of students don't understand the difference between when to use "so" or "because", so they generally -- I'm using "so" again -- use "because". It's easier. But today, we're going to learn the difference so you can start using it in your language like a native speaker, okay? Let's go to the board. "He said I'm fat, so I hit him. Blam!" "I hit him because he said I was fat. Blam!" What's the difference? "Mr. E punched me twice." Right? It hurt. It's still hurting. All right? Do you know the difference between "so" and "because"? I can speak English. Because you're reading the sentence, it seems to be the same thing. I said "fat"; I got hit. Right? Right. But how do we know the difference, and what is the difference? Let's go to the board and look at the grammar to start with. And then afterwards, we'll show examples of how it's different. All right? So you can start using it right away. First of all, I'm going to start with "because". It's easy. You'll notice a little here -- well, a little here and a lot there. "Because." It's a reason. It's why. So when you use "because", somebody usually says to you why. And then, you say "because". "I am late." "Why?" "Because the train was late." "I am happy." "Why?" "Because I won a million dollars. I am happy --" you got it. Right? It's a conjunction. So what it does is it takes two statements and puts them together. "I did it because it was the right thing." It brings two statements together. Conjunction. "Con" means "with" and "junction", like joint, joined with each other. Right? So it's a basic conjunction. Now, what we want to look at is "so". Here's where the difficulty comes in because "so" is a conjunction as well. You'll notice Mr. E is holding an arrow -- I'm sorry, a box. And it's saying -- look. They're both the same. They're both conjunctions. They both join statements together. "It was hot, so I bought an ice cream." Right? So you go, "What? You bought an ice cream?" "Yeah. I bought an ice cream. It was hot, so I bought an ice cream." Cool? So when you're doing that, you're joining it together just like the conjunction for "because". Cool? And that's what caused the problem: They're both conjunctions. But "so" answers a different question. When you say the reason or you answer "why" for "because" -- "I am fat because I eat too much food." -- this is the reason. "So" is more of a result. What happened? Okay. "It was raining very, very, very, very hard, so I got wet." "What happened?" "Well, it was raining really hard." "What happened?" "I got wet." "Oh." You could say this is the reason, and that's why they're conjunctions. But then, "so" goes on to telling you what happened, the next thing that happened, the next step. It doesn't always give you the reason for it. Right? "He ate dinner at seven o'clock, so I had dinner at 7:30 because I was hungry, too." Notice I said "because". That was the reason. But I said this happened, this happened, and the reason was because I was hungry, too. I've taken them and joined them together to show you a little bit of a difference. This is like action to action. And this is why the action happened. All right? There's another difference with "so" that I like. That should help you with them. "So" is also an adverb. We use it to show the extent or the range -- how far it is. I'll give you an example. You know me. "James talks very fast." You can also say, "James talks so fast, half the time, I can't understand him." And you'll go, "Why?" "Yeah. He talks so fast." And that tells me the range. What we have here is verb plus "so". And that's how we show the adverb, how it works together. Okay? Right. Or, "She looks so good tonight." "She looks so good" is a big range. She looks really good. Smashing. Right?