Hi. I'm Gill at www.engvid.com, and todaywe have a lesson on a little word “back”. And this is in response to a request from Najma,who posted a comment on the www.engvid.com website. So, thank you, Najma, I hope you're watching.This is for you. Okay. So, the use of the word “back”. It's a very common word;it's used all the time. And it's also used in different ways as different parts of speech.So it can be used as a noun, as an adjective, as an adverb, as a verb, and it can be usedas part of a phrasal verb. So I'll be showing you examples of all of these. Okay? So, let's start with “back” used as a noun. Okay?So, for example, if you're talking about a friend of yours who, when they get on thebus, they always go to the back, they like .

To sit at the back. So: “He always sits atthe back of the bus.” You can tell it's a noun because it has “the” in front of it.”The back”, okay? Right, so: “He always sits at the back of the bus.” Second one, the back can be in a location,but you can also talk about my back, that's this, part of your body is your back at the back.So: “My back is itching!” Oo, ah, oo. I have to scratch. It's itching. Ah. Okay? “Myback is itching.” Okay? Useful word: “itching”. It's probably not polite, though, to sortof scratch in public. So you have to be a bit careful about that. It's probably safe toscratch your back and to scratch your head up to a certain extent, but other parts ofthe body, maybe not a good idea in public. .

So, okay, better move on. Right, you're arranging to meet somebody anddepending on whether you're in America or in another part of the world whereEnglish is spoken, you can either say: “I'll meet you in back of the building.”That's the American way of using “back” or in the U.K., for example, we would say: “I will meet you behind thebuilding.” That means at the back, behind. It's a similar idea. So “in back of” is American.In the U.K., we say “behind”. All right. So that's “back” as a noun. Moving on to “back” used as an adjective todescribe something, a back something. Question: .

“Did you close the back door?” Okay? In yourhouse, you might have a back door and a front door. This is the back door, the door at theback of the house, the back door. Okay? And also: “He's in the back room.” So differentrooms in the house, a room at the back is called “a back room” as an adjective.Okay. All right. Then moving on, using “back” as an adverbwhere it's sort of modifies a verb: “I'm going back home now.” Youcan say: “I'm going home now.” But going back home is like the idea of returning home. “I'm goingback home now.” To go back. Right? And, finally, in this section: .

“Our neighbours are back from holiday.” So, that again is an adverb:”they are back from holiday”. Okay, so we'll move on now tolook at “back” used as a verb. Okay, so now let's have a look at “back”used as a verb. Right? So, for example: “The car was backing into the street.”So the car was going backwards into the street, it was backing. So “to back” is what a car can do. Okay? Anotherway of backing somebody or something, if you say: “Don't worry – if you want to raise thisissue with the boss I will back you.” Meaning: I will support you. If there's a problem inthe office, and your friend is a little bit .

Unsure about whether to talk to the boss aboutit, they need a bit of support, you say: “I will back you.” Meaning: “I will agree with you and say the samething to the boss that you are saying.” Okay? “I will back you”, support you.And a similar idea of supporting: “The company will back the project.” Thatusually means money, putting money into a project to make something happen, so “toback something” can be financial. Okay. And then if we move on to look at some phrasalverbs where “back” is used with another verb, there are different uses of that. So, forexample, maybe somebody is saying something that you don't agree with, and rather thansometimes you might keep quiet and say: .

“Well, I'm not going to say anything.It could cause trouble”, but sometimes you just have to say: “Well,actually, I don't think that's true.” You're challenging the person. Disagreeing with them. So: “When I challenged her shebacked down.” It means she didn't keep saying: “Oh no, well, that is true.” She didn't. Shedid the opposite. She sort of… It's like taking a step back and saying: “Oh, okay then,maybe I'm wrong. You may be right.” So if you challenge somebody, they are either goingto argue back or they're going to say: “Oh, okay then, whatever you say. I'm not goingto argue.” That's backing down, if you're sort of standing back from it. Okay? .

In computing, sometimes… SomethingI hardly ever do, very bad, but: “We need to back up these files.” Meaning to make a copy of some filesin case you lose the original copy on your computer, you have a backup copy. Toback up some files on the computer is to make an extra copy, and maybe keep it somewhere else;on a disc, or a memory stick, or something for security. Okay? So “to back up”. Now,if you have made an agreement with someone, but then they change their mind, they think:”Oh, no, I don't want to do that after all”: “He wants to back out of the agreement.” Meaningit's a bit like the car, backing out. He doesn't want to do this anymore; he wants to backout of the agreement. He doesn't want to do .

It. So going back away from it. And then, finally, just a simple one,I have lent my book to somebody: “She has forgotten togive me back my book.” So “to give back” is a phrasal verb.This time, it's sort of split with “me” in the middle. That happens sometimes.You can't say: “She has forgotten to give back me my book.” It's: “to give meback my book”, so that is a little tricky, but that's how you say it. Okay, so I hope that's been a helpful overviewof how the word “back” is used as different parts of speech. And if you'd like to do aquiz to test yourself on this, please go to .

The website at www.engvid.com and do the quiz.And if you'd like to subscribe to my channel on YouTube, that would be great. And hopeto see you again soon. Okay. Bye for now. Oops, sorry. I forgot. Talking about forgetting,I missed one of my examples, so let's go back and have a look at it. Okay, this one. Iftwo people are maybe arguing and you think: “Oh, they're going to be fighting in a minute.They'll be doing this”, punching and fighting, you might say to one of them or both of them:”I think you should back off.” “Back off” meaning both of you step back, away from eachother, otherwise it could be [punches], like that, and not a good idea. So, I think youshould back off, calm down, we don't want to fight. Let's make friends again once you calm down.So “back off”, step back. Okay? .

That's it.
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You probably know the word ‘back’. But did you know that it can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and a phrasal verb? In this lesson, you’ll learn to use this very common word in each of these ways. The English language has many words that can have different meanings. I’ll explain how this simple word can take on many different meanings, and I’ll give you examples to help you understand each of them. You’ll also learn expressions with the word ‘back’. So don’t hold back, and don’t back out. Check out this video! Go back to Engvid to take the quiz: http://www.engvid.com/english-vocabulary-back/ TRANSCRIPT Hi. I’m Gill at www.engvid.com, and today we have a lesson on a little word “back”. And this is in response to a request from Najma, who posted a comment on the www.engvid.com website. So, thank you, Najma,
I hope you’re watching. This is for you. Okay. So, the use of the word “back”. It’s a very common word; it’s used all the time. And it’s also used in different ways as different parts of speech. So it can be used as a noun, as an adjective, as an adverb, as a verb, and it can be used as part of a phrasal verb. So I’ll be showing you examples of all of these. Okay? So, let’s start with “back” used as a noun. Okay? So, for example, if you’re talking about a friend of yours who, when they get on the bus, they always go to the back, they like to sit at the back. So: “He always sits at the back of the bus.” You can tell it’s a noun because it has “the” in front of it. “The back”, okay? Right, so: “He always sits at the back of the bus.” Second one, the back can be in a location, but you can also talk about my back, that’s this, part of your body is your back at the back. So: “My back is itching!” Oo, ah, oo. I have to scratch. It’s itching. Ah. Okay? “My back is itching.” Okay? Useful word: “itching”. It’s probably not polite, though, to sort of scratch in public. So you have to be a bit careful about that. It’s probably safe to scratch your back and to scratch your head up to a certain extent, but other parts of the body, maybe not a good idea in public. So, okay, better move on. Right, you’re arranging to meet somebody and depending on whether you’re in America or in another part of the world where English is spoken, you can either say: “I’ll meet you in back of the building.” That’s the American way of using “back” or in the U.K., for example, we would say: “I will meet you behind the building.” That means at the back, behind. It’s a similar idea. So “in back of” is American. In the U.K., we say “behind”. All right. So that’s “back” as a noun. Moving on to “back” used as an adjective to describe something, a back something. Question: “Did you close the back door?” Okay? In your house, you might have a back door and a front door. This is the back door, the door at the back of the house, the back door. Okay? And also: “He’s in the back room.” So different rooms in the house, a room at the back is called “a back room” as an adjective. Okay. All right. Then moving on, using “back” as an adverb where it’s sort of modifies a verb: “I’m going back home now.” You can say: “I’m going home now.” But going back home is like the idea of returning home. “I’m going back home now.” To go back. Right? And, finally, in this section: “Our neighbours are back from holiday.” So, that again is an adverb: “they are back from holiday”. Okay, so we’ll move on now to look at “back” used as a verb. Okay, so now let’s have a look at “back” used as a verb. Right? So, for example: “The car was backing into the street.” So the car was going backwards into the street, it was backing. So “to back” is what a car can do. Okay? Another way of backing somebody or something, if you say: “Don’t worry – if you want to raise this issue with the boss I will back you.” Meaning: I will support you. If there’s a problem in the office, and your friend is a little bit unsure about whether to talk to the boss about it, they need a bit of support, you say: “I will back you.” Meaning: “I will agree with you and say the same thing to the boss that you are saying.” Okay? “I will back you”, support you. And a similar idea of supporting: “The company will back the project.” That usually means money, putting money into a project to make something happen, so “to back something” can be financial. Okay.