Describing people in English: BE or BEING?

Hi there. My name is Emma, and in today's video I am going to teach you the difference between "be" and "being" when we are talking about people. Okay?

So, I'm going to show you some sentences. The first one: "The boy is naughty." So "naughty" is like a bad boy. And the second one: "The boy is being naughty." What is the difference in this...? These two sentences? What is...? Like, just looking at the grammar, what is something that you notice? Well, you probably notice this is the only thing that's different. "The boy is naughty.", "The boy is being naughty." Okay? Now, one of these has to do with behaviour. The other one has to do with personality. Okay? So, if we look at: "The boy is naughty." what we really are saying is the boy is usually bad. It's a part of his personality. It's his feelings. He's... He's a bad boy, it's who he is. He's a naughty boy. That's a little bit different than: "The boy is being naughty." In this case, we're just looking at a behaviour or an action. The boy is usually a good boy, maybe. Maybe he... You know, he usually does what his parents tell him to, he listens to his teachers, he's a good boy, but that one day he is acting a certain way, his actions are naughty, his behaviour is naughty. The boy is being naughty. So, again, the difference is this is more about the boy... It's his personality type, and this is usually a temporary behaviour. Okay? It's not forever; it's just right now he's acting that way, but it's not who he is. So let's look at some other examples.

"You are rude." Okay? Not you personally, but just an example. "You are rude." "Rude", for those of you who don't know, means not polite. So a person who's not polite is a rude person. Okay? If I say: "You are rude." I'm saying it's your personality. You're usually rude. You're a very rude person. It means this is who you are. Now, compare that to: "You are being rude." In this case, you're not usually a rude person; you're quite a polite person, maybe. But in this situation, your behaviour in this moment is rude. Okay? So, again, this is who you are; and this is your behaviour in a specific situation. So I'll give you an example. Okay? You know, I know someone who is always... Well, no, I don't actually know somebody. But imagine if there's somebody who's always picking their nose. We could say: "Ugh, that guy's rude. He's so rude." But if he, I guess does it once... Okay? If it's just a behaviour that happens only one time, you could say: "He's being rude." He's not always rude; it's just this one time.

Here's another example: "He is a smartass." Versus: "He is being a smartass." A smartass is a person who tries to be funny, but they do it in kind of a not nice way. So it's almost like not-nice funny. So if you think about when you were a kid, maybe there were some smartasses in your class, those were the kids who always said things that made the teacher very angry. Okay? So those people are smartassess, they purposely try to make people angry. So if you say: "He is a smartass." it just means that's his character. He's usually this way, this is how he is. If you say: "He is being a smartass." it means maybe just this one time. It's his behaviour in this moment, but it's not usual for him. It's just right now. So let's do some work on this together, let's do some examples together.

Okay, so now let's do some examples together. The first sentence I have: "I was careful when I drove." So when I drive a car, I'm careful. "I was careful when I drove." And again, "was" is the past tense for "be". Okay, so this is something I usually do, I'm a careful person, I drive very carefully. I want you to imagine this: Imagine if I'm not usually careful, but I see a police officer close to me. Okay? Maybe that might change the way I drive. So now I have a behaviour. How can I make this into a behaviour or an action that's not always true? If you said we can add something, you are right. What are we going to add? We're going to add "being", that "I was being careful when I drove."

Let's look at the next one: "Jack is stupid." Jack is a stupid person. I'm sorry if any of you are named Jack, I don't mean you; this is just an example.

[felipeduarte]

I am Brazilian study English at home alone, your videos help me a lot! thank you!

[supriyantiyanti]

her explantion is cleary and easy to understand

[robertduda]

I'm Polish and I also study English at home. Thanks a lot :D

[abombasticpreacher]

You are giving a clear-cut and simple answer to me/us about the difference between 'be ~' and 'be being ~', so I could come to distinguish "Tom is cold to his friends (by nature or usually)" from "Tom is being cold to his friends (just in a moment of anger)". Thanks for your lesson!

[jafarnakhaee]

Emma you are an extraordinary English teacher! I just love the way you teach English! Thank you so much for improving our English.

[sunnyvo]

I have been in trouble with understanding be vs being recently. And I got to know the difference thanks to your video. Thank you so much.

[franciscoespinoza]

I'm from Mexico, and I love your clases. They've been helping a lot in different ways in my life

[atefalhamaideh]

Hallo Emma. I have done English courses in Britain (richmond) long time ago and I 've forgotten alot of English words because there is no practice. So now I feel that my english becomes better with your lessons. So thanks alot

[technologywontsaveus]

Very interesting lesson, I never had thought about that. What comes to mind is one friend of mine who talked about his past and when he was young and he did some silly stuff, his mother used to say: "You are a stupid boy." Or something like that. Saying "you were being stupid" would just talk at his action and not included his entire personality. Interesting difference. That's something we all should learn. To not let a person be defined by one stupid action or bad behaviour/characteristic, but to instead tell the person that it did something wrong or that his behaviour in that situation was not good.

[SajjadAli-pxju]

Came back again after almost a year to learn English, quickly switched to your videos! Thanks Emma.

[valyamini]

Dear Emma,
I am learning a lot from your class. Thanks a lot.

[sarielemoshesh]

I am a matriculated person and a south African who still struggle to speak English .thank u so much I have enjoyed your teaching

[alexharabara]

I'm excited! That feeling when you realized, your best remote teacher continue her great job!

[Ahmed]

Emma, I'm Iraqi and I love your way of teaching tutorials, I was being clanged up to end of the lesson, I have an example" Salim was laid off for he was being violent with co-workers", once a gain keep up the great work

[aleccaprari]

Congrats, Emma. You're the by far best English teacher on Youtube . I can understand everything you say, so I can easily learn. Other teachers talk too fast sometimes

[chubajmr]

Emma is so caring while teaching.
Emma is being so caring while teaching.

[mh]

I am from kurdistan-iraq, Your video help me alot. thanks.

[ellewon]

omg!!!! Finally I realized that exactly meaning
Thank you so much!

[vivienforceone]

I have difficult how to use being and what is that mean.
So, now I understand, being is something who you never do but you did it once (one time).

[andrestobiasmbamichaalene]

Ur english's classes help me so much...u make me believe that it is possible to learn alone, greetings from morocco.