English Beginner? Watch Peppa Pig. Here Are 7 Reasons Why.

0:00 This is one of the best English teachers you can have.

0:04 This is Peppa Pig, and if you don't know

0:08 her, you need to start spending some time with her.

0:12 Many English students ask me, "Alex,

0:15 what shows should I watch to improve my English?"

0:19 Many of these learners are beginners and intermediate students.

0:25 The answer that I have for you today is Peppa Pig.

0:30 It's Peppa Pig.

0:32 I have been using Peppa Pig to help me improve my French,

0:37 and I have found that my vocabulary,

0:40 my speaking, and especially my listening skills have improved.

0:46 So if you are a beginner or an intermediate learner in English,

0:51 I think Peppa is going to do wonders for your English learning.

0:57 She is available on YouTube for free.

1:00 So why is Peppa Pig a great show for English learners?

1:05 First of all, Peppa Pig has short episodes.

1:10 Each episode is only four to eight minutes long.

1:15 Four to eight minutes.

1:17 This means you have less stress on your brain.

1:22 You don't have to focus for a long time like when you watch a movie.

1:28 This also makes the show very easy to re-watch.

1:32 You can go back again and again and again.

1:37 So, short episodes, less stress on your brain.

1:40 This is a good thing.

1:42 Second of all, Peppa has short, clear sentences.

1:47 The characters speak slowly.

1:50 They use clear pronunciation.

1:53 And there are natural pauses so your brain

1:57 has time to process the language it has heard.

2:02 When you are learning a new language,

2:05 if you want to improve your listening skills,

2:08 if you want to improve your vocabulary,

2:11 your brain needs language it can understand.

2:16 If you are a beginner student or a low intermediate student,

2:21 the level of English that is used in Peppa Pig is much better

2:27 for you than the level of English in a standard English movie, for example.

2:33 Third of all, Peppa has useful everyday English.

2:37 This means it uses lots of past and present tense.

2:42 It has a narrator who uses the present continuous a lot to explain a situation,

2:50 often at the beginning of an episode.

2:54 So you might hear, "Mommy Pig is working on her computer."

2:59 "Daddy Pig is cooking in the kitchen." So you hear common,

3:05 useful, everyday English that you can actually use in your life.

3:10 There are also common question structures.

3:13 This goes with lots of past, lots of present tenses.

3:19 "What does the blue button do?" "What do we do now?" for example.

3:25 And finally, you also learn how

3:27 to make polite requests and to give instructions.

3:32 So there are imperatives.

3:34 "Come in," for example.

3:36 There are also polite requests, like, "Peppa,

3:40 could you bring me some flowers from the garden?"

3:44 So a lot of useful, everyday English.

3:47 Peppa also has common situations.

3:50 So characters talk about the weather.

3:54 They look outside, and they say,

3:56 "It's raining," or, "It's snowing." They talk about work.

4:01 They talk about school.

4:03 They visit their family, their grandparents.

4:06 They travel, and they talk about health.

4:09 In one episode, Peppa Pig gets sick.

4:13 That's how she coughs in the show.

4:16 And they have to call the doctor.

4:19 So what's wrong, Peppa?

4:21 Right?

4:21 So you get very common situations,

4:25 a variety of scenarios that people experience in real life.

4:30 It's not just a show that happens in one

4:35 location with the same scenarios again and again.

4:38 And each episode is only four minutes or eight minutes,

4:42 so you get a four-minute episode about the snow,

4:47 a seven-minute episode about visiting your grandparents.

4:51 It's great because you have exposure to a variety of real-life situations.

4:57 You also get a lot of repeated vocabulary in Peppa Pig.

5:02 The best way to learn vocabulary is to hear

5:06 it repeated again and again over a period of time.

5:11 If you watch many episodes of Peppa Pig, you will have this experience.

5:17 You will hear the same family words- brother, cousin, mom, dad, animals.

5:25 Every character has a name plus the animal.

5:29 There is Peppa Pig, Rebecca Rabbit, Susie Sheep, Danny Dog.

5:35 So you have English names and you have the animals that go with them.

5:42 Important for beginners.

5:43 You have home and school words, a lot of common objects- umbrellas, hats,

5:49 coats- everything that you can think of in the home and at school.

5:55 And you also have short,

5:58 common sentences that you will hear in many movies and many

6:03 shows after you finish watching all the seasons of Peppa Pig,

6:09 like "Let's go!" and "Are you ready?"

6:12 The show also has calm, positive scenarios.

6:16 So these are low-stress scenarios.

6:19 It's a feel-good show.

6:22 It is pleasant and easy to re-watch, as I mentioned before.

6:28 Basically, we learn better when we feel comfortable and when we feel safe,

6:34 not when we feel attacked by the language

6:37 and by a horrible situation that we are viewing.

6:41 So it's pleasant.

6:43 It's easy to re-watch.

6:45 It's better for your brain.

6:47 Yeah, it's good.

6:48 Finally, Peppa has strong visual support.

6:52 This means that the actions match the words.

6:56 So what you see matches what the characters say.

7:00 If Peppa says, "I want to play in the garden,"

7:04 you will see Peppa go and play in the garden.

7:08 So the scenarios are clear.

7:11 The facial expressions of characters are clear.

7:15 You can tell when someone is happy, sad, or angry.

7:20 And this, all of this, can also help you guess the meanings of words.

7:26 Because if you see Peppa putting on her boots, you know, "Ah, boots, boots.

7:33 Those are boots," for example.

7:35 If you want to jump in muddy puddles, you must wear your boots.

7:40 Right, Peppa?

7:41 That's right, Alex.

7:43 I knew it.

7:44 And that's why you should learn English with Peppa Pig,

7:48 especially if you are a beginner or an intermediate English learner.

7:53 And if you like this video, hi,

7:56 my name is Alex, and you are learning English with www.EngVid.com.

8:01 You can go there to learn a lot more.

8:05 So until next time, what do I say, Peppa?

8:09 Keep learning and keep practicing.