TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO: 'English Grammar Lesson: Good and Well - How To Correctly Use & Understand Essential English Grammar'

Hi everyone, its Nicole here, and I’d just like to answer a question which has been asked recently, and I think that this will actually help all of you.

It sounds easy, but it's actually quite complicated. We're talking about the words good and well, and how to use them.

They're very very different in their usage - good is an adjective, and it's always used to describe nouns, so, ‘I had a good day’ or ‘that was a good meal’, for example, so you always have good in front of the noun or by itself. ‘I am good’, ‘She is good’ - whatever - so adjective good, with or without noun.

Then we've got the word well, and this is where the difficulties lie because well can be used as both an adjective and as an adverb.

So, what do I mean by that? Okay, well. As an adjective, okay, if I want to use well as an adjective, it has the meaning of healthy. Okay. So, if I say ‘I am well thanks’ we’re meaning there that I am healthy. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling well. That's the meaning if you use well as an adjective, clear.

However, well is also used as an adverb, ok, and an adverb basically gives more information about a verb. It answers the question of how something is done. So, for example, you might say ‘she sang really well last night.’ So, you there are talking about how she sang, you're giving more information about the way that she sang. You might say something like ‘he did really well in his exam.’ What does that mean? It means that you're giving more information about the way he did, the way he performed, you're talking about how he performed, or how he did, so well is used as an adverb there.

But, this is the tricky part, and this is the part that most people get confused. Well can also be used to describe an adjective, for example, well-organised, you're giving more detail about that adjective. You're making that adjective stronger, more meaningful. You can also use it with a past tense verb to give more detail. For example, ‘she is well paid.’ Paid there is the past tense of pay. You're putting well in front of it to make it stronger. ‘she's well-liked’ - same situation. You're putting well in front of the -ed verb to make it stronger.

Yes. This well plus the -ed verb can also be considered as an adjective, and this is where the problem is - people get stressed and confused because wait a minute, well is an adjective, but good is also an adjective, but well is also an adverb, but well is also an adjective meaning healthy. Yeah, welcome to the English language! Everything gets repeated and used in different situations with different meanings.

The most important thing I want you to remember is well as an adjective means healthy, well used with an -ed verb, which yes can be an adjective, but we don't need to call it that, well with an -ed verb gives more detailed information and makes that verb stronger more meaningful. Well can also be used with an adjective again to make it stronger or more meaningful, and well used in combination with a verb gives more information about that verb and tells us how something happened or happens.

I hope that's nice and clear, I’m more than happy to do a longer video about this with example sentences, and it all written down for you to see on the screen, but I just wanted to answer that question quite quickly to make it as clear as possible. I hope that helped, if you've got any questions, just ask them down here in the comments.

Thanks so much, and have a lovely day. Bye!