Transcript
Hi, I’m Jay from Simple English Videos and I have a question for you. What do these animals have in common?
Yes, they’re both mammals, but they are very different. One lives in the ocean and one on land. What else do they have in common besides being mammals?
Here’s a hint. It’s in the name of each animal.
The ones on the left are dolphins. And the ones on the right, of course, are elephants. So what’s the similarity?
It’s the letters PH making the same sound as the letter F, and that’s the subject of today’s lesson.
Now, before we get into the lesson, let me ask you to subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already, and click that notification bell so you’ll know when we publish new lessons.
Joining me today are two of my favorite letters in the English alphabet. My old friend Mrs. H. Hi Mrs. H, how are you?
Hello, Jay. Very well indeed. Thank you for asking. And you?
The same, Mrs. H. Let’s say hello to our friend, Mr. P. Mr. P, it’s a pleasure to see you today.
The pleasure is all mine. Jay.
I’m going to remind our viewers that in our last video, and there’s a link to it in the description for this video, we talked about the letters G and H coming together and sometimes making the F sound. But Mrs. H, you wanted me to talk about your work with the letter P?
I do, because it is a very important aspect of spelling in the English language.
Oh, I think we can all agree with that, Mrs.. H. Now, Mr. P, why don’t you give us some examples of words where you and Mrs. H make the F sound.
Of course Jay. Let’s start with these.
Alphabet. Dolphin. Elephant. Epiphany. Graph. Microphone. Morph. Orphan. Phantom. Phone. Photographer. Philosophy. Phrase. Physical. Symphony.
I’m sure there are many more, but let’s take time to review these not only from a spelling point of view, but as basic English vocabulary. We’ll start with number one.
Mr. P and I are a part of the alphabet. That’s our home.
Actually, Mrs. H, my home is in the city of Caerphilly in the UK. That’s spelled with a p-h as well. So now we’ve already talked about dolphins and elephants. So let’s move on to epiphany.
That’s a really important word. What’s an epiphany?
The origin of the word is religious. It is in the book of Matthew in the New Testament. But from that we have derived the meaning we use today.
It is an almost explosive moment when an idea is revealed to you, and you have achieved a whole new level of understanding about something.
That’s a pretty powerful word for us to remember. Now let’s move on. Graph. What’s a graph, Mr. P?
That’s a chart that provides information to us visually, helping us to understand data.
And microphone? I use those all the time. A microphone takes sound like my voice, and turns it into an electrical signal that we can record and broadcast. Now, what about morph, Mrs. H?
That’s a fairly new term in the English language. It refers to changing an image with computer animation. For example, I’m going to morph into a fire hydrant right now.
That’s amazing, Mrs. H, but would you please change back to yourself? That’s better. Mr. P, the next word on our list is orphan. What’s an orphan?
Oh, that’s a sad word in the English language. It describes a child with no mother and no father. And sometimes orphans live in an orphanage.
So next on our list is Phantom. What’s a phantom, Mrs. H?
That’s another word for ghost, the spirit of a person who has died, and also something mysterious or hidden from sight.
That brings us to phone. I think we all know that phone is a shortened version of the word telephone. I remember when telephones looked like this. And now our phones are much more than telephones. They are tools to reach out to the whole world and all the information in it. Photographer is next.
That’s a person who is skilled with a camera. We think of photographers as taking still pictures. Notice the word has a P-H combination in it twice. Photographer.
Not to be confused with cinematographer – the skilled person who operates a motion picture camera or videographer – the talented operator of a video camera. Mrs. H, would you tell us about philosophy?
Ah now, that’s difficult. How many hours do we have? There are really two meanings. In universities, they teach philosophy as the fundamental nature of knowledge, of reality and of existence itself, according to Oxford University.
But the less academic meaning of philosophy is that we may act and behave in our lives in certain ways when we are guided by a particular philosophy, such as a religion and philosophy is another one of those words where P-H occurs twice.
A phrase is a group of words that describe a concept. So ”have a great day!” is an example of a phrase. So is something like “Time is of the essence.”
And speaking of time, we’re running out of it. We’re running out of time. That’s another phrase. So we’ll move quickly through our last two definitions.
Physical is both a noun and an adjective. I went for my annual physical last week. That is a medical exam and it is a noun.
My friend was a physical wreck after running a marathon. There, physical is an adjective. Basically, physical refers to the body, not the mind.
And finally, symphony. As a noun it is a major musical composition, often performed by an orchestra, and that orchestra can be called a symphony orchestra, where symphony is an adjective.
Oh, look, I have morphed into the letter J. Well, that’s appropriate since I’m Jay. Hey, this lesson’s over, but don’t go away. At the end of this video, there’s a link to a video on how to pronounce words with a t-h combination. And there’s a link to a great discount for Simple English Videos subscribers and viewers to a fantastic vacation at Casa Vicki in Almeria, Spain.
Take care everyone. Bye now.