want to speak real english from your
first lesson
sign up for your free lifetime account
at englishclass101.com
next question okay next one isn't really
a question but something i have noticed
that many of you do
you like to put the article uh or an
before your adjective before an
adjective
but you forget to use a noun do you know
how like mario introduces himself and he
says it's a me
when you forget to use some kind of
noun after after your adjective or
whatever but you sound a bit like
mario's it's a nice
it's a nice it's a nice what it's funny
to me like it's an eye so
it's a me you need to include the noun
that you're referring to
it's a nice video or it's a nice
explanation
it's nice or it's bad or it's good or
this
was a nice explanation but don't forget
to use your
noun after you use the adjective it's a
nice
something it's a good something it's a
bad something so please
uh no article without a noun make sure
to use
your noun and it should be in the
singular form if you're using
a or an you need to use the singular
form of the noun don't sound like mario
first question for today do you have an
american accent or a british accent a
lot of you have asked this over the
course of the years i have an american
accent to be very specific i suppose i
speak
with a west coast american accent not
british english if you want to know what
british english sounds like there are
some videos on the youtube channel with
gina one of our other hosts she speaks
with a british accent so you can listen
to her to
kind of pick up some of the differences
between my accent
and her accent british english and
american english so thanks for that
question but yes i speak
american english next question what does
it mean
they can't take that away from me who
are they
and what does takeaway mean we use the
word they
to mean generally just other people
outside of us
this is used a lot to talk about like
news or to talk about
general opinions they say that this
pizza
is the best pizza in the city right now
they say that your
english will only improve if you study
every day
they say that the most difficult thing
you can do in your life
is move to another country they is just
anyone second point what does take away
mean
take away means to some object that
belongs
in one location is removed from that
location like take away
food in american english we use take out
actually
but take away food is a similar idea
especially like in british english
takeaway
so you take away your food from the
restaurant so you're taking
something else you're removing your food
from the restaurant so
in the expression they can't take that
away from me
they meaning other people outside you
can't take something away from you
next question how do we use the word
cheers
when do we use it is it formal or
informal please help
in american english we use cheers when
we're drinking when we want to
start off a drink with somebody else
we'll often clink
glasses so like touch glasses together
and say
cheers we use cheers in this way in
american english in other
types of english like british english or
australian english for example
people might use the word cheers as a
way to say
thank you or as a way to say thank you
in advance for something
if my friend asks me for a favor and i
agree to do that favor
my friend can say cheers to me meaning
thank you
in advance so cheers it tends to be more
on the informal side it's not a super
formal expression if you want to use it
in a formal situation when you're
drinking with someone you can use
cheers but in most situations we use it
informally informally next one what does
the phrase
don't be a creep don't be a creep me i
think michael talked about this on an
old english topics video so i talked in
a live stream about the word creepy
adjective creepy so something that
causes like nervous
suspense is something that's creepy the
word creep
is used as a noun don't be a creep a
person
who is creepy a guy can be a creep a
girl
can be a creep so a creep is someone who
causes creepy feelings like uh something
bad might happen i feel nervous like
that person's a little strange a little
weird that person is
a creep he's a creep she's a creep so
don't be
a creep means you should not behave
like a creep don't create nervous
feelings in the other person don't be a
creepy person don't be a creep
everybody that's good advice don't be a
creep don't be a greek try to be a nice
and understanding um and respectful
person next question
hey alicia how do i make this sentence
negative let's
go to the park if you want to make a
let's blah blah sentence negative just
put
not before the verb let's not go to the
part let's
not plus some verb or some verb phrase
let's
not go hiking this weekend let's not
watch that movie tonight i'm tired
let's not blah blah blah to make a let's
sentence
negative thanks for the question first
question first question this week comes
from
iman i'm on hi i'm on what's the
difference between
is that how it is is that how it works
that's not what it says
that's not how it works let's start with
the first expression which is is that
how it is
this is a very casual expression that
you can use to express like
a confirmation confirmation about
a situation or confirmation about a
status
but it's often uh used with kind of a
negative nuance
so for example if your friend makes a
plan that you disagree with
but your friend refuses to change the
plan you can say
is that how it is it's kind of negative
and it's kind of not so
nice to use so is that how it is that's
the first one the second one
is that how it works this is an
expression that we use to confirm
uh how to use something maybe it's my
first time using an iphone for example
when i get something right when i learn
how to use something correctly
i can say usually with an upward
intonation oh
is that how it works meaning oh is that
the correct way to use it
so we use is that how it works to
confirm
the correct way to use something so you
can use this with a computer with like a
car
anything that you are learning how to
use is that how it works
so you can use um this expression as
confirmation before you do something to
the next expression you asked about is
that's not what it says that's not what
it says is used to express
disagreement about written information
let's say you're making instant soup or
like instant ramen or something
and you decide to pour cold water over
your noodles
to make the soup but your friend says no
no look at the package
that's not what it says so it here
means the package and says refers to the
written directions on the package so
that's not what it says
means there's some mistake here or
you've made a mistake
so the written directions don't match
your behavior that's not what it says
you can use this to express disagreement
about written
information that's not what it says the
last expression was that's not how it
works that's not how it works
this is something that we use to express
disagreement about how to use something
you use
something incorrectly that's not correct
that's not how it works
so i hope that that's helpful for you
next question next question
what does play down mean this is a
phrasal verb
to play down something or to play
something down
means to decrease the significance of
something
i don't want to play down how delicious
my mom's thanksgiving dinner was or i
don't want to play down my friend's
success
he's doing an amazing job if something
is
really great or really interesting or it
could be negative too
to play something down means to make
this thing seem less than what it
actually is if there's a scandal for
example the president
is trying to play down the seriousness
of this situation it means that it's a
very serious situation
but the president is trying to make it
seem
less serious than it is so to play down
means to make something seem less than
it
actually is good question though thanks
next question comes from
kevin wang hi kevin kevin says uh
sometimes i see sentences like
your dad must have had it for at least
two years
why do they use have had and what are
the rules for this
so actually don't think of it as have
and had being attached there
instead what you should focus on in this
sentence is the
must have here so must have had
when we want to talk about a high level
of possibility
in the past we use must have and then
the past
participle form of the verb so in this
case
the speaker is making a guess about
something the listener's father
owned in the past for at least two years
so
your dad must have had it for at least
two years
so it's a past tense situation the
speaker is making a guess
about the past but the speaker is making
a guess
with a high level of confidence so they
use must
have must have shows a high level of
possibility she's not here
she must have gone to work the kids are
in the car they must have finished
swimming
he's smiling at the office he must have
had a good meeting so all of these are
guesses but these guesses show a high
level of confidence there's a high
chance
that the speaker's guess is correct so
the speaker uses must have
plus the past participle form of the
verb hope that's helpful for you
next question the next question is about
if conditionals there's no problem when
you say the main clause first
and you say the if clause after is that
correct yes that's fine
in the live stream i introduced the
pattern if clause first
main clause second but i also mentioned
that we can use main clause first and
then if clause second if i finish
editing this video today i can go
running
i can reverse that sentence i can go
running if i finish editing this video
today
both sentences are totally correct it's
up to you to choose which order
you like thanks for the question now
good one next question
from mifta mifta hi mifta what is the
difference between
astronomy and astrology right
okay so astronomy refers to the
scientific study of space so that's like
stars and planets
everything outside earth that's the
scientific study of it
astrology refers to the idea that
we can make predictions uh make guesses
about human behavior um and those
predictions
are based on the positions of like stars
and planets and things
and those positions can influence uh
human behavior can
can influence our lives hope that's
helpful next
question the next question is about the
present
perfect progressive tense i said i have
been wanting to blah blah blah why did i
use the verb
want in the continuous tense as wanting
i use the progressive form
wanting because from a point in the past
until
now there's something i have desired
i have wanted to do continuously though
to give a strong nuance of the
continuous
nature of that i use the the progressive
or the continuous form
wanting i've been wanting to see that
movie i've been wanting to get a coffee
with my friend i've been
wanting to get more sleep i've been
wanting to go jogging something you
started to want in the past and
continued
to want until this point in time you can
say i have been wanting
we can apply other verbs to this pattern
too like i've been thinking about you
all week i've been worrying about you
all day
so these continuous past emotions too
we can use the progressive tense to talk
about those
next question is from a fee payoff how
do
i study english speaking or how do i
improve my english speaking skills at
home alone yeah thanks for the question
check out this video i talked about it
in this video right here i think the
answer is at the 12 minute
and 40 second mark so there are several
tips there
for how to study english alone at home
hope that helps
next question next question comes from
ricardo
villarreal i'm very sorry what does
one mean as a subject one means any
person
it sounds rather formal in more casual
speech we say
you like if you went to the movie
theater where would you buy popcorn to
make it sound more
formal we could say where would one buy
popcorn instead of using
you we say one so you might see this
more in writing or perhaps
in situations where you is not
appropriate or it's too casual so
one means any person it doesn't mean the
number it doesn't refer to
another noun necessarily a lot of if
sentences like if one were a doctor how
much
money would one make one just means a
person any person thanks ricardo
next question next question is from
asgar hi oscar
uh oscar says what's the difference
between it's up to you and
you're up to oh okay uh first
it's up to you means you can decide so
for example
where do you want to go for dinner
tonight it's up to you what movie do you
want to see tonight
it's up to you where do you want to go
for this weekend it's up to you
you can decide you're up to refers to
things that the other person has been
doing
so we use it in expressions like you've
been up to a lot of interesting things
lately
or a useful question is uh what are you
up to
meaning what are you doing as in what
are you up to this weekend or what are
you up to tonight
to check what someone else is doing you
can also use this for the past
what have you been up to lately these
are very nice questions to ask
instead of how are you or what are you
doing up to you
means you decide what are you up to
means what are you doing
next question from nita aprioni i hope i
said your name right i'm very sorry can
i say the ketchup
on that crispy chicken was savory the
flavor was barbecued teriyaki or black
pepper it wasn't
spicy ah yes you can say a sauce is
savory that's very very common so
something savory as we talked about
quickly in the
food live stream flavors that are not so
sweet but that are still very very
flavorful
something that's usually a little bit
more salty we don't really use
savory to explain sweet things it's more
for
kind of salty things or things that have
like a really deep flavor about them
so yes you can describe your sauce or
your barbecue sauce or your chicken
whatever you put on your chicken as
savory that's a great word to describe
thanks for that question next question
is from kiara hi kiara again so what
does sunglasses mean and what do
sunglasses mean
sunglasses is a plural noun should we
use do instead of does
ah this is interesting okay here your
example sentence is a little bit tricky
so when you're asking about the meaning
of a word
even if you know that it's a plural noun
don't worry about that in this example
sentence
what does blah blah blah mean you can
use
anything in this pattern this is because
you're not
actually asking about the object you're
not
actually asking about that thing you're
asking about the
word only the word itself so
just use does what does sunglasses mean
is fine because you're looking for the
actual meaning of the word
you're not asking about that actual
object you're not asking something about
sunglasses so in this specific example
sentence you can always use what does
blah blah blah mean
so native speakers do that too what does
something something something
mean if we don't know an expression or
if we don't know a phrase we can use
anything in that pattern however if you
want to use
a plural noun like sunglasses or any
other plural noun
in a sentence similar to this you do
need to change
what do sunglasses do or why do pants
have pockets
or who do penguins see most frequently
please use do
as you would for other plural nouns then
too
but great question nice point to
consider thank you i almost forgot
there's one more thing i want to talk to
you about you guys did not ask this
question but i
noticed it during the food livestream
that we did recently
the difference between dessert and
desert
is one s in spelling however these two
words are different
let's start with the word dessert the
sweet food that comes at the end of a
meal dessert is spelled with two
s's we use d-e-s-s-e-r-t to spell
dessert however the word desert which is
spelled d-e-s-e-r-t
refers to like a dry landscape not many
plants
not many animals live there that's a
desert if you misspell the word
dessert and you forget that s it becomes
desert also very interestingly there's
another way to pronounce the word that's
spelled d-e-s-e-r-t
this is a verb to desert so to desert
means to leave something without
planning to come back like to desert a
town or to desert your family
to abandon something also it can mean
like leaving a military position like so
to desert
the army please note dessert as the end
of a meal
and to dessert meaning to leave or to
abandon something
have the same pronunciation but
different grammatical functions
so please be careful of this point how
can we put them all together i'm going
to desert
my station so that i can enjoy dessert
in the desert next question
next question comes from kim in thai hi
kim intai okay
what does a spirit animal mean as in
what's your spirit animal
i don't think we have that kind of
question in my country also what are
some possible answers
okay a spirit animal can mean different
things depending on the person that
you're talking to
generally though on especially on the
internet we use
spirit animal to refer to an animal that
we think matches our
personality or matches our behavior so
for example
if i'm a slow lazy person and i
don't like to do a lot of activities i
could say a sloth is my spirit animal
um or if i'm like an aggressive person
and i'm alone a lot and i'm like maybe
see myself as like a fighter or hunter
i don't know maybe i could say a tiger
is my spirit animal for example
it's an animal that we feel closely
matches us somehow and it can change
like maybe
on this day i feel a connection with
this specific animal so we can say that
just do be careful there are some people
who have maybe a religious or a
spiritual belief
that strongly connects them to a spirit
animal or you might also hear the word
i think spirit animal guide perhaps but
just
pay attention to the situation and i
think you can quickly understand
how the person is using spirit animal my
spirit animal i usually think like
depending on the day my spirit animal is
either a flying squirrel or a platypus
because both of these animals are kind
of like in between animals they have a
little bit of a couple different animals
in them
but like a flying squirrel is kind of
like flexible and adaptive and has lots
of energy and goes really really quickly
but then the platypus is just like this
silly looking creature that swims around
looking for food all day and then sleeps
forever so
like depending on the day i feel like
i'm sometimes a flying squirrel
sometimes a platypus out of them first
question first question this week comes
from iman hi again i'm
on i'm on says what is the use of
definite article
the we use the with a singular noun to
refer to a
specific instance of that noun so when
you're telling a story
we'll often introduce the first instance
of a noun with
a and then after that we'll use the
to refer to the specific instance of
that thing so for example a simple story
i was walking down the street and i saw
a dog
the dog was really cute i pet
the dog so in that situation when i
introduce
a dog in the story the first time i talk
about the dog
in the story i use uh to introduce it
then after that i use the to refer to
that specific dog that i introduced
earlier in the story
every other time that i want to talk
about that same dog
i use the before it so use the word
the when you need to refer to a specific
noun or when you have to refer to a
specific
group so for example the teachers in the
school district went on strike
so specifically we're talking about
teachers in a specific
school district the teachers went on
strike the mothers at the pta meeting
organized a bake sale
it's a specific group that is defined by
something else so in this case
the mothers at the pta meeting only the
mothers that were at that meeting
not the mothers from a different group
for example
so we use the to uh to talk about a
specific
instance of something first question
this week
comes from dave hi dave some people use
l-o-l
on the internet what does it mean yeah
l-o-l can mean
laugh out loud or lots of laughs i've
heard both
but either way we use this expression to
quickly
explain we thought something was funny
lol
next question next question comes from
johnny hi johnny you wrote a very long
message thank you very much for watching
there's a slang expression that i've
heard several times
and don't understand well i know right
using i know right is like an invitation
then
for the other person to agree again
really
i know right so think of i know
right as like an even stronger like even
more emphasis on the agreement and an
invitation for the other person to agree
again i know right it's like yes
and you agree too don't you next
question
comes from pavel hi pavel pavel says hey
alicia please tell us about the
difference between
to not and not to as in i want
to not and i want not to for example ah
yeah
so with these there's not really a
difference between these like i want not
to
and i want to not do something both of
these are casual ways of explaining
a negative in speech the correct
sentence would be i don't want to do
something something
but like native speakers sometimes like
to kind of play with grammar a little
bit
that's one reason they might use this
pattern either of these patterns really
also sometimes we start a sentence and
we make it positive like i want to
and then we realize part of the way into
the sentence oh wait i want to express
something negative
so we change it to to not or not to
so i want not to blah blah blah or i
want to not
blah blah blah both are okay but just
keep in mind that we use that i want
not to or i want to not blah blah in
casual situations we don't generally use
these in formal situations
instead we use i don't want to blah blah
blah
i want to not get in trouble i want
not to get in trouble the correct
sentence here would be i don't want to
get in trouble
but you'll hear native speakers do this
for a number of reasons so there's not
really a difference between these two
but you will hear both of those used by
native speakers i hope that helps thanks
for the question
next quest john comes from zafar ahmad
zafar ahmad hi
zafar asks about two sentences okay
one have you ever cried in a film two
have you ever cried at a film my
question is about the preposition
in or at which sentence is correct and
explain the reason of course i'll
explain the reason
let's take a look at the first one have
you ever cried in a film
um this is actually a point where the
differences between british english and
american english
might come into play a little bit have
you ever cried
in a film could have a few different
meanings depending on the situation
if for example you are speaking to an
actor and you say have you ever cried in
a film
meaning when you were in a film when you
were
acting in a film did you cry
at any point in time so have you ever
cried in a film
it could also mean have you gone to
watch a movie in a movie theater
and cried at the movie theater or in the
movie theater
your second sentence have you ever cried
at a film
so using at shows like the direction
of an emotion like we use it with uh
other emotions as well like my mom is
mad at me
or my dad is angry at me so it's showing
the direction of emotion
so in this case have you ever cried at
a film meaning did a film cause you to
cry
have you ever cried because of a film
uh in my case though if i wanted to ask
my friend
if a movie had ever caused them to cry
i would say have you ever cried at a
movie
next question comes from sagri
karakilar i am so sorry hi alicia can i
use
though instead of nevertheless it looks
as if their meanings are the same thank
you this is a great question
uh though and nevertheless yes while
they do
have similar meanings sometimes they
have different grammatical functions
so nevertheless means in spite of
the thing that was said before or
despite
the prior thing nevertheless is used
only
as an adverb though however can be used
as an adverb yes
but it can also be used as a conjunction
though can also mean nevertheless or in
spite of
however it also sometimes just has the
meaning of
but though i almost ran out of time
i finished the test with a perfect score
he told me he would call at eight
though it's 8 15 and i haven't heard
from him i almost ran out of time
nevertheless i finished the test with a
perfect score her proposal was rejected
nevertheless she continued with her
research hope that that helps answer
your question though
next question okay next question comes
from igor hi igor
why are verbs like berry hurry study
tidy and try
uh in the irregular verbs list their
past simple and past participle forms
have ed
endings like other regular verbs and the
course books used
have listed these verbs in the irregular
verb list all right
tough question because i did not create
the textbooks and
i don't know the logic that was used for
the textbooks
but if i had to guess why those verbs
are included as
irregular verbs i would imagine it's
because these verbs all end in
y and yes although the verbs do end in
ed there is an irregular change that
happens with verbs that end
in y so that's to drop the y and add
i e d instead of just an e d
so we maintain that e sound like tie d
barry however the spelling of the word
changes
next question comes from marcos korea
hi marcos marcos says alicia help in all
caps
we should help the words weather and
weather have the same pronunciation
and does weather have the same sense of
if could you use it in some examples
please reply yes
yes you're correct thanks marcos weather
as in like
clouds sunlight rain snow wind weather
and
weather w-h-e-t-h-e-r they have the same
pronunciation yes
and the wh form does contain the meaning
of if
as in whether or not something so native
speakers will often say
whether or not but we can reduce this to
if
some examples he hasn't decided whether
or not he's coming to dinner
i don't know whether or not i'm going to
travel this summer do you know whether
or not your parents are at home
in each of these sentences we could
change whether or not
to if i hope that that answers your
question marcos thanks
next question is from poria
poria asks what's the difference between
these words
interior and internal exterior and
external all right well there are
grammatical differences
interior and exterior are nouns
uh internal and external are adjectives
we use interior and exterior to talk
about the
inside and the outside of something but
internal
and external are used those are
adjectives we use them to talk about
the qualities of something next question
comes from
cassava casaba hi again kesava says uh
what's the difference between
bored with and bored bye great question
there is no difference actually
bored with and bored by also we use
board of board of so these are all used
in the same way
to explain something that causes us to
feel
bored i'm so bored by this lesson i'm so
bored with this textbook i'm so bored of
you
so we can use all of these in the same
way you might find that some people have
personal preferences for which one they
choose to use
but we use them all in the same way next
question
from stanislav hi stanislav stanislav
asks how do you politely address
unfamiliar women and men lady miss mrs
mister and sir ah nice question all
right if you're in a formal situation
it's better to use
mister with men sir tends to be used
more
in like a service relationship so uh the
same thing with mam for women
mrs is used for married women if i don't
know if someone is married or not a
woman is married or not
i'll use miss nice question though next
question
comes from paul hi paul let me ask a
question or
let me ask a question uh which is the
correct sentence
both of these are actually correct lemmy
is the reduced form of
let me so we use this in more casual
situations
let me ask a question it's fine too it
just sounds more formal
and when we reduce the sounds actually
it sounds a little more natural so let
me ask you a question
let me ask you a question that's fine to
use in
speech in writing however l-e-m-m-e
looks very casual so we typically
don't use that informal writing but both
of them are actually correct
next question next question is from leon
hi leon
what are the differences between test
exam
quiz and questionnaire and when should i
use each of them
nice question all right let's start with
test and exam
we use these two words quite similarly
when we're talking about
um tests of knowledge or like
examinations at school we can use either
of those like i have a test this week or
i have an exam this week
i think in american english test is
probably used more commonly than
exam or the long form examination
however when we want to check the status
of our bodies we'll often use the word
exam so for example a physical exam
that's an expression we use to mean like
a full check
of the body which is commonly done maybe
once a year
or so so an exam um like a dental exam
or an eye exam
is a check of the condition of your body
as well a quiz is
essentially a mini test a questionnaire
however
is quite different from the three that
we've talked about thus far
a questionnaire is something that's
given usually to customers
that is for feedback we use
questionnaires for feedback
first question this week comes from
danielle hi danielle
danielle says hi alicia is it really a
mistake to refer to animals with
she or he instead of it in cases where
the animal is considered part of the
family like
cats or dogs ah okay no it's not a
mistake at all
if the pet is like a member of the
family like you've described
it's very common to use he or she
to talk about the animal cats dogs we
can use this for birds hamsters
hedgehogs whatever the pet
is very common also when it's your first
time
meeting someone else's animal it's quite
common to ask
is it a boy or a girl and then after
that you can use
he or she to talk about the animal we
tend to use
it when talking about animals we are not
familiar with
like a stray cat for example or maybe
like an animal we see at the
zoo we would use it in those cases when
we're talking about
animals that are parts of our family we
tend to use he
or she to talk about that thanks for the
question first question this week comes
from
silas hi silas silas says hi alicia
how's it going
i'd like to know the meaning of the
expression weird flex
but okay and how do i use it in a
sentence
okay this is a bit of recent slang
weird flex but okay focuses in on the
meaning of the word
flex so if you are interested in like
health
or like muscle training or anything like
that you might know the verb
to flex so to flex is what we do when we
want to show off
a muscle we have been training so when
we
flex a muscle we put energy
into the muscle to make the muscle like
stand out
we want it to look bigger like we want
to show off
that muscle so when we flex a muscle
we're trying to show it off we're like
excited about that thing or we're proud
about it or something like that
so flex here in this expression
weird flex does not refer to muscle it
doesn't refer to the body
but actually something else that
the speaker or the writer is trying to
show off
so it's something that seems strange
so in the example of muscles and muscle
training
like the person who wants to show off
wants to show their muscles
but when we use the expression weird
flex
someone is trying to show off something
that seems
strange and then we add but okay
at the end to mean i don't really
understand
but all right so to give an example of
this
if i on twitter write like i spent three
thousand dollars on socks this month
and i talk about how excited i am i'm
like showing off that i spent three
thousand dollars on socks
someone might respond to me weird flex
but okay
so that means like it's strange that you
want to show
off that you spent three thousand
dollars on socks like that's a really
strange thing to be excited about
but okay so to give another example
your friend might tell you something
like i have the biggest collection
of rocks in my whole neighborhood and
you might say
weird flex but okay so again it's like
that's a strange
thing that you want to show off but okay
whatever it is like it's not hurting
anybody it's just a little bit
weird that you want to show that off or
you want to brag or boast about that
thing
so that's what weird flex but okay means
you see this one a lot online i hope
that that helps you thanks very much for
this interesting question
next question next question comes from
dewey hi dewey
could you tell me when to use any more
and
no longer sure okay um so
both of these are used to refer to
an action something we did or something
someone did
in the past but from this point in the
present
uh that action is not going to continue
we use anymore when we use a negative
in the sentence some examples i'm not
going to go to that restaurant anymore
he doesn't help me anymore they don't
drink with us anymore
we use no longer in positive statements
and it tends to sound
more formal you'll also see that no
longer can be put at the beginning of
the sentence to
increase the level of formality so you
might hear this in
speeches for example using no longer at
the beginning of the sentence
really emphasizes that the action is not
going to continue
and that it sounds quite formal so it no
longer might have
a couple different places in the
sentence let's look at some examples
no longer will we tolerate these
problems she no longer has to come to
work early
we will no longer be a part of the group
so i hope that helps you understand some
of the key differences between these two
expressions thanks for the question
okay let's move on to your next question
next question
comes from rigwins riggins hi riggins
reagan says hi alicia i'm riggins from
haiti
i'm good at english but due to a lack of
practice i've kind of lost my touch
because i'm sick and tired of the
learning process
so i'd like to know how to keep my
english up please
okay first i'm sure that you're not the
only person like i lose motivation
all the time i would say that if you are
having
trouble keeping your motivation up you
should try
looking for a different way to practice
or a different way to use
english so for example if there's a
hobby that you have
in your native language you could try
doing that
in english or maybe there's a book or a
movie that you are really
interested in or that seems cool and you
want to understand that
in english i would suggest trying to
find something that's not like a
traditional textbook or it's not a
traditional way of learning like going
to a class and doing worksheets and that
kind of thing
i would suggest actually trying to use
english in your everyday life
to like do your work or to study
something or to accomplish a hobby
maybe you make a new friend who can
speak only english
so i would suggest finding something
outside of a traditional
learning setting to do i think that that
might help you a little bit with your
motivation that has helped me a lot in
the past actually
making friends with people who cannot
speak my language has been
hugely motivating for me and i try to
study the vocabulary words that they
often talk about and i try to learn from
their speech patterns
too so i would suggest trying to find
something to do with other people as
much as possible
that uses english so i hope that this
helps you and helps other people
with their motivation issues it happens
to all of us at some point in time but i
hope that these tips can help
thanks very much for this question next
question next question
comes from aravind hi aravind aravind
says what is the difference between took
and taken and have you ever been to
india
uh okay took and taken took is the past
tense of the verb
take i took a break he took my drink
they took our passports
taken is the past participle form of
take have you ever taken a trip to
france she's taken the test three times
we've taken long vacations every summer
for 10 years
so i hope that helps it's a difference
in grammar and no i have not been to
india
thanks for the question okay let's move
on to your next question
next question comes from ahmet
farooq hello amit ahmed says what is the
difference
between may and can
okay historically may is used to ask for
permission
can is used to express ability to do
something or
lack of ability to do something so
that's the historical use of
may and can in today's english however
lots of people use
can to ask for permission to do
something we do not however
use may to talk about ability so let's
take a look at some examples
can i go to the restroom may i go to the
restroom
can i leave early today may i leave
early today
so in today's english these all refer to
the same thing they're all requests to
use the restroom or to leave early
in today's american english i would say
that using
may tends to sound a little bit more
formal than using
can if you ever want to be sure to sound
polite
and to make sure you're communicating
clearly you can use
may but in most day-to-day conversations
we use
can so i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for the question
let's go to the next question next
question comes from
pierre hi pierre pierre says hi could
you please explain the difference
between
belly tummy and stomach thanks sure
okay let's start with stomach uh stomach
is the
most neutral word you can use to talk
about this
area of your body if you need to talk
about this area
in your life somewhere in a polite
situation stomach is probably the best
word to use
examples my stomach hurts he got hit
in the stomach they've been doing
stomach exercises every other day
so now let's talk about tummy tummy is a
word that children use
adults use tummy when they're talking to
children
it sounds very young it sounds very
childish
adults typically don't use this word
when talking to other adults
unless they're trying to be funny or
unless they really want to sound
childish for some reason so tummy is
really a children's word
examples do you have a tummy ache i want
to put food
in my tummy now belly is a casual word
that adults do
use it sounds kind of rough it's not a
dirty word
at all but it tends to be used more by
men than by women i think
it's a very casual expression to refer
to
your stomach but we usually use it to
talk about
eating and food some examples my belly
is so
full i need to put some food in my belly
all right so i hope that helps you in
most situations if you're not sure what
to use
use stomach you can't go wrong with
stomach hope that helps
next question comes from giovanni hi
ovani
yovani says hi alicia my name is jovani
i'm from venezuela
i've always wanted to know the meaning
of this sentence
don't get twisted even though it's not
used very often thanks
yeah you're right this isn't such a
common expression i found only a few
references to this expression and they
were typically from
music actually so this expression
could mean like don't get angry or don't
get upset
or don't get nervous so it refers to
being in like a negative
condition so twisted if you imagine like
a
towel do we have oh we do yeah for this
explanation let's imagine like a towel
so a regular just plain towel when we
hold the towel looks like this
but if we twist the towel like this it's
under tension like it's under pressure
so if we imagine ourselves as like the
towel
like we're under pressure we're really
tight we're really tense we could be
angry we could be nervous
we could be upset about something so if
someone says to you
don't get twisted it's like chill out
like don't be upset don't be angry relax
in other words so i would guess that
this is what this word means or what
this
expression means rather but as you said
this
is not such a common expression we don't
say
don't get twisted really in american
english
you might hear people say something like
just chill out
as i've said or maybe like don't worry
or there are a couple of other slightly
more rude expressions that we use too
so i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for the question
okay let's move on to your next question
all right let's go on to the next
question next question comes from satish
hi satish
satish says what's the difference
between i shall
and i will similarly between shall i
and will i ah okay first any use
of shall is going to sound more formal
than will the difference between i shall
and shall i is that i shall
begins a statement shall i
begins an offer i shall call the police
this sounds very formal shall i call the
police
that's an offer it sounds very formal
will however
is quite different i will begins a
statement
yes but will i does not begin an
offer will i is used to
think out loud so when we are imagining
our future schedule
and we're thinking about something in
the future
uh we're alone we're talking to
ourselves and thinking about our future
schedule
we might use will i so examples i will
call the police
that's natural we would probably use the
contracted form i'll call the police
hmm will i have time to go to the bank
today will i be able to get a coffee
this morning
so this is not used so much in
conversation we use this
will i sort of pattern when we're
thinking about things we might be able
to do in the future
and we're thinking to ourselves about it
so
i hope that helps that's kind of a quick
introduction to the differences between
these two
thanks for the question next question
comes from
uh malek hi malek malik says
is this sentence correct the color of
shirts
of players could you explain more about
two possessive nouns in a row thanks in
advance
yeah great question this is kind of
tricky so
in this situation we would say the color
of the player's
shirts so a key here is that we're using
players and we're using an apostrophe
after the
s in players that apostrophe is acting
as a
possessive apostrophe so we have two
ways of creating the possessive in
english
we can use of as in the color of the
player's shirts
and we can use the apostrophe s form so
for example
alicia's would be alicia apostrophe s
the apostrophe s shows something is
belonging to
me that's my thing alicia's phone so in
this situation
we have players players here we're
talking about
shirts that belong to players so it's
not just
one person when a noun ends with an
s we make the plural possessive form
by adding an apostrophe to the end of
the word
and we do not add another s so in the
singular form when i said
alicia's phone for example alicia is one
person
so i write alicia apostrophe s in this
example however because we're talking
about a group
of people players we don't use an
apostrophe
s because the word already ends in s and
it sounds kind of strange
to try to say like players is or
something like that
so to avoid this we simply write players
with s and add an apostrophe at the end
so this shows the plural form
that means plural possessive apostrophe
there
it's very natural to use that apostrophe
form
of the possessive when we're talking
about something that belongs to
a person so again in my example when i
said alicia's
phone it sounds quite natural to use
that apostrophe s
to show possession as a person in the
plural form too
players shirts it's a shirt or shirts
that belong to
a player so when we're not using a
person when we're using like an object
it might be a little bit
more common to see an of pattern used
there
in this case it's color of the shirts
so color is like a characteristic that
belongs to
the shirt or in this case shirts so here
it sounds natural to use the
of pattern because there's not a person
here we're talking about the
characteristics of an
object color of the shirts so
of can be used to talk about like
characteristics of things
and the apostrophe s form can be used to
talk about like things that belong to
people let's look at one more example
though that uses no people
so for example the color of the seats
in the cars or the color of the car's
seats so we could use either of these
patterns
i personally would probably use the
color of the seats in the cars because
we can clearly see like the levels of
belonging first we have color
and the color belongs to the seats and
the seats are in the cars
so i think that sounds much nicer you
might see
that color of the cars seats sentence
though as we talked about it's a little
bit less natural maybe to use the
possessive apostrophe there
with car because it's not actually a
person i think you might use that though
i don't think it's incorrect
to use that but i personally would
prefer to use something that kind of
clearly shows
the hierarchy the level of belonging or
the levels of belonging
as in the first example the color of the
seats in the car
i hope that this helps you thank you
very much for this interesting question
okay let's go to the next question next
question comes from
marcelo olivier hi marcelo marcello says
hi alicia are you okay
thanks for your awesome videos my
question is what's the meaning of gung
ho i heard this in an interview with
taylor swift thanks a lot
okay um so gung-ho let's start with an
example
i'm gung-ho about my new project gung-ho
means you are full of energy and you are
excited about something
it means that you're enthusiastic you're
going to put all your effort
into that thing so when i say i'm
gung-ho about my new project it means
i'm really excited i'm really
enthusiastic i'm going to do everything
i can
to make that a success gung-ho so i hope
that answers your question about
gung-ho first question from harley pasos
harley paso paso i'm very sorry harley
asks what is the use
of get plus adverb or preposition
for example i get down this is a
question about
phrasal verbs with get we can use a lot
of different things
after the word get in your example to
get down
we use it when dancing for example like
i want to get down this weekend it's
sort of an
old-fashioned expression though to get
down we can use a lot of different
uh words after the verb get though for
example get into to get into something
means to become interested in something
you might hear to get at
like get at me or get at your professor
to get at means to reach out to or to
communicate with
but it's a very casual expression you
can say get after like i need to get
after my homework for example it means
to like chase after or try to do
something also to get in like to get
into a club to get into a restaurant to
get into a party
the nuance is that something is
challenging but you can gain
access to that thing like i got into the
party last night but i wasn't on the
list there are a lot of different uses
of the word
get i can't talk about all of them in
this video because there are so many
so if you're curious about the various
phrasal verbs that we can use with the
word get check out a dictionary that's a
really good place to start
next question next question comes from
long and
longan asks what is the difference
between simple
past tense and past continuous tense or
past progressive tense
simple past tense we use for actions
that started
and ended in the past so the beginning
of the action
and the end of the action happened in
the past so for example the sentence i
ate breakfast is a simple past tense
statement i
ate breakfast eight is the simple past
tense the past continuous tense however
or the past progressive tense
is something we use to talk about an
action that was continuing
at a specific point in time in the past
if i want to use the past progressive
tense i can say
i was eating breakfast using that
continuous
tense using that progressive tense
implies i want to explain
something else that happened at that
time or maybe i want to add some more
information
so for example i was eating breakfast at
eight o'clock this morning or i was
eating breakfast when the phone rang
or i was eating breakfast and watching
tv at the same time
i was eating breakfast while studying
today by using the past progressive
i'm explaining that an action was
continuing at a specific point in time
as in the example i was eating breakfast
at eight o'clock
or i can use past progressive to show
one action was happening at the same
time as another action
in the past if i use just the simple
past tense i'm just saying
a simple fact in other words this action
happened i
ate breakfast at eight o'clock um if i
want to emphasize the
continuous nature of the action for some
reason like i was eating breakfast at
eight o'clock
i can use the past progressive tense in
that case
it might be in response to a question
like what were you doing at eight
o'clock this morning so if someone wants
to ask
maybe uh what you were doing at a
specific point in time like someone is
suspicious of you like what were you
doing last night
you can say like oh i was having dinner
with my friends last night
but past ten simple past tense is
something we use for actions which start
uh and finish uh in the past but
progressive the progressive tense and
past
can be used to emphasize the continuing
nature of that situation or that action
hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and i
answer them maybe first question this
week first question this week comes from
patrick hi patrick
patrick says i know the basic english
words and i understand if someone speaks
in english
for example i understand your videos
perfectly but i have problems building
correct english sentences like when i
speak with another person
do you have any tips for how to build
correct sentences
um i think that this just comes with
practice honestly it's difficult to do
but i know that there's not always a
person that you can ask for help
i will tell you a secret when i don't
have confidence with something but i
don't know how to answer something
this is what i do i
google it seriously just google it i put
quotation marks around like the phrase
that i'm trying to make
and then i search google for it and if
it's there great then that means i can
use it maybe like thousands of people
have used that phrase i know it's
probably a common phrase if there are no
results then that probably means i've
made a mistake somehow
so that's maybe one good way to help you
as you try to build phrases
by yourself so try that out next
question
next question comes from yasun yasi
yasin i'm very sorry what's the
difference between on time
and in time is it you arrived just on
time
or you arrived just in time we use on
time
to refer to doing something at the
correct
time doing something at a scheduled time
so for example i need to get to work on
time
meaning at the correct time or did you
make it to your appointment
on time in time however is used when we
want to
kind of give a nuance of rushing or
hurrying for something
i need to leave my house now to get to
the airport in time
for my flight i need to study for my
test now if i want to be in time for the
party later
you should probably leave now if you
want to be in time for the movie
in time for something else so i want to
do
action a to make my schedule meet
this other condition this other thing i
would like to do or this other thing i
need to do
in time for has the nuance of a deadline
we can use this expression in like a
panic like oh my gosh i'm not going to
make it
in time like to submit a paper i'm not
going to make it in time in time means
like before the deadline whereas
on time has the meaning of completing an
action or completing something
at a scheduled time next question
next question comes from huang se na
huang se na hai
i love your name alicia is alisha a
common name in the u.s
i happen to have a friend named alyssa
also what's your personal favorite name
um a common name in the u.s alicia i
don't i don't think
alicia is so common in the us and when i
was growing up
i didn't have any other friends named
alicia
also the spelling of my name is a little
strange usually it's spelled a-l-i-c-i-a
maybe you know the artist alicia keys
that's how she spells her name so my
name was commonly confused as alicia
a lot so i've heard like alison and
alyssa and ally and so on
those are fairly common i think but
alicia especially my spelling is not so
common actually so
uh what's my favorite name uh my
favorite name is
obi-wan kenobi next question
next question comes from garrison silva
hi what is the difference between
shade and shadow oh great this is a
great question
both of these words can be used to refer
to a place
that is darker than its surroundings
because
there's an object that is blocking the
light we can say
there's shade over there or there's a
shadow over there
in that sentence they are used the same
however
shadow refers to the dark shape only so
a person
can cast a shadow we use cast the verb
cast with a shadow
i cast a shadow when i stand in the sun
for example
shade however as a noun refers to or has
the nuance of a kind of
shelter so shelter provided by some
other object
shelter from the light shelter from the
sun so we would say
stand in the shade because shade has the
nuance of
shelter we would not say stand in the
shadow
shadow does not carry the nuance of
shelter in the way that shade does
interestingly enough though shade and
shadow are both used as
verbs as well to shadow something means
to follow something closely to shadow
someone at work means to follow someone
at work and and try to understand their
job
for example shade is used as a verb to
mean to create
shelter from light for example the
canopy shaded us
from the sun shade also has some
interesting uses you might hear the
slang phrase to throw shade throwing
shade is a really
interesting slang expression that we use
which means to
communicate disrespect or to to
communicate like contempt
uh bad feelings for something when
you're speaking generally in most cases
when you want to talk about a dark cool
area we should say
shade stand in the shade when you want
to talk only about the dark
area that dark object use shadow next
question uh next question comes from
long is the h
sound not always pronounced when
followed by another consonant for
example wall hanger or
come back home yes the h sound is often
pronounced
very uh softly it's quite difficult to
pronounce all of these syllables clearly
like in the example come
back home it's quite difficult to say
the h sound clearly
so in those cases it's quite common to
make the h
sound quite soft like come back home
danny's second
question can you talk about ride and its
uses
like take someone for a ride can i take
a ride ryan is another verb
that has a lot of different uses you use
the example to take someone for a ride
means to drive together with someone to
go
for a ride has the nuance of doing
something just for fun
it's just for fun i want to take a ride
to a location i want to take a ride to
the mountains this weekend or take a
ride to the beach but to take someone
for a ride means to invite someone to
drive
somewhere with you in a car that's one
way to use rye you can also
say give me a ride can you give me a
ride so
this is a request expression i don't
have a car my friend has a car
i want my friend to take me in their car
to a location
i can say can you give me a ride to the
movie theater can you give me a ride
to the lake give me a ride is a request
so give me a ride in your car
so there are a lot of uses of ride if
you want to see all of them or if you
want to see more of them i recommend
checking a dictionary there are quite a
few
and i can't talk about them all in this
video so please check a dictionary
question comes from
winston hi winston winston says i don't
understand
english i want to learn but i don't know
how to start
i'm a newbie right lots of questions
like this
um so really there are a lot of
different ways that you can start
studying a language
of course we have lots of videos on our
youtube channel
and we have a whole website uh to try to
help people
who are studying english you can check
us out at englishclass101.com
you can find like apps you can find
worksheets
podcasts to listen to so that can be a
nice way to start we have some videos
for beginners
also so if you're just starting you can
check some of the beginner level videos
we have on the channel for example
english
in three minutes that's a good set of
videos you can watch
to learn some basic phrases i think
so that might be a nice place for you to
start
but let's look at some other ideas
for beginners specifically one
join an english class in your city two
get an english textbook and study at
home
three make a language exchange with an
english speaker four study vocabulary
with apps try out those those are a few
ideas
of course you can always use our videos
on the channel
as well so i hope that helps a little
bit
i'm sorry where do we use wanna and
gonna
and how ah this question is about the
casual contracted forms of
want to and going to so want to becomes
wanna going to becomes gonna in casual
speech
we use them in exactly the same way we
would use i want to
i'm going to he wants to she wants to
he's going to she's going to
we use them in exactly the same way
which means
we use them in casual situations like i
wanna take a day off or
i'm gonna go to the beach this weekend
or do you wanna
see a movie tonight we use them in
exactly the same way
we use want to and going to
but we use them in speech typically we
don't write these unless we're writing
very casual messages like text messages
to our friends or something
next one i got the next question uh a
couple times like maybe three or four
times okay the question was about the
adjective comparison video that we did a
while ago so
i introduced the word fun uh as an
irregular adjective
in terms of the comparative form so fun
is a word an adjective we use for an
activity or something that's
enjoyable something we like to do fun is
different
from the adjective funny fun is an
adjective
and a noun actually funny is just an
adjective
fun refers to an enjoyable activity
funny
however refers to something that causes
us to laugh
it makes us laugh because something is
humorous something is humorous so for
example
we can say uh going to an amusement park
is fun it's not funny it's not humorous
but it's fun let's kind of break this
down a little bit let's think about it
like fun
uh in the adjective form here fun is an
enjoyable
activity something we enjoy doing um
funny however causes laughter
because of humor something funny
uh is humorous it is like witty
or there's interesting word play or
whatever so
fun is kind of think of fun as like
doing an activity going to the movie
theater is fun going to an amusement
park is fun
watching these videos maybe is fun i
don't know making these videos
is fun but funny we use funny
for for example a person or a movie or
um something that causes us to laugh
because of humor so things that are fun
fun fun fun fun not
fun funny funny not funny
not funny funny not funny fun
so going to watch a funny movie is fun
think about that because these two words
are different
fun is an adjective funny is an
adjective fun
uh the comparative form is more fun or
less fun the comparative form of funny
is funnier or not as funny so that's why
i used two different uh examples in that
video thanks for that question though
next question next question comes from
carmel
carmel says do you have any ideas
on how to improve speaking skills in
english yeah well to improve your
speaking
you have to practice speaking here are a
couple of
ideas that you can use to maybe help you
improve your speaking these are ideas
for just
ways to practice so chances to practice
number one
get a partner you can practice speaking
english with
this can be in your city or in your
community so find a partner
to practice speaking english with this
can be a language exchange partner for
example
do if you can't find anyone in your town
or in your city to practice speaking
english with
you can try to find a partner online
three try
recording yourself speaking you can use
your phone to do this if you like just
record your voice
saying something and then listen to it
again
you might not realize it but it's
actually really helpful
to hear your own voice like outside of
your body
actually we have something on the
website uh you can check
at englishclass101.com there's a voice
recorder function
so you can record your voice and then
compare your voice
to the sound of a native speaker's voice
and
try to practice until your voice matches
the sound of their voice
so that could be another idea number
four try repeating the things the
characters in
english tv and english movies say
so if you're watching tv if you're
watching a video online
if you're listening to music something
in english
try to repeat the thing you hear so
not only listening listening listening
but try to practice
saying the things the characters or the
artists are saying too
number five kind of a strange suggestion
maybe but try
talking to yourself in english actually
i do this a lot
i'm studying japanese and i talk to
myself
in japanese from time to time so that
helps me a little bit but
helps me get comfortable just saying
words saying phrases
too so maybe that's helpful for you
those are five ideas
for what you can do to improve your
speaking next
question next question comes from huang
se na huang
huang sena wang sana i'm very sorry i'm
very sorry i've never been to japan
i've never been to japan before i've
never eaten horse
i've never eaten horse before my
question is if you put
before at the end of those sentences
does it mean you are in japan
right now or you are eating horse right
now no
not necessarily think of before at the
end of the sentence as
before now i've never eaten horse
before now in other words you could use
this
beef just before you eat horse or just
before you go to japan if you like as an
emphasis phrase
but it doesn't necessarily mean that you
are in japan
now or that you're eating horse now you
could use it in that way
sure but it doesn't necessarily mean it
if you'd like to emphasize it like if
you're about to eat horse for example
and you said i've never eaten horse
before
you could show your interest or perhaps
to show maybe some
anxiety or nervous feelings about uh
what you're about
to do um but no it does not necessarily
mean
you are in that place like for example
you could just be having a conversation
have you eaten horse before no i've
never eaten a horse before it could just
be a conversation
about it but really before just means
before
now next question next question comes
from luann garcia hi luann one asks i
would like to know how to use
down up off in on and out
after a verb and why it's necessary oh
dear won this is a very big question
your question is about phrasal verbs
these are all called phrasal verbs verb
plus adverb or preposition there are an
enormous
amount of phrasal verbs i cannot
possibly talk about all of them in one
video
phrasal verbs are necessary because they
are part of speech
they are simply a type of verb they are
a type of expression
so you need to know them because they
will help you to communicate effectively
um so if you want to know more about
specific phrasal verbs i would suggest
checking a dictionary
next question next question comes from
huang jang ik
i'm very sorry which one is correct i
work out for one to two
hours a day i work out for one or two
hours a day
i drink coffee two to three times a day
i drink coffee two or three times a day
ah both of these are correct actually
in this case there are very very small
differences between these
one two two hours a day means between
one and two hours uh if you say
i work out for one or two hours a day it
means it's determined like
uh one hour only for a workout or two
hours only for a workout
so the difference here is are you
determining are you deciding
one hour or two cups of coffee or three
cups of coffee
or is it between those two amounts
so using one two two or two two three
means between those two amounts using or
shows it's either a or b but not
between those two this is the difference
between two and or
next question next question comes from
bowie dente
bowie bowie dente vale dante asks
when can i use ever in a present perfect
sentence
like i have ever ever means at any time
or
at all times you can use ever when
you're asking a question like have you
ever blah blah blah have you ever been
to france have you ever eaten ramen have
you ever taken
a trip to the mountains for example we
can use ever when making
questions that's one but because ever
means at all time or at any time
um we may not use it to answer a
question like that have you ever blah
blah blah
we usually say yes or no in that in
response to that we can
say i have never ever taken a trip to
france or i have never
ever forgotten my keys for example i
have never ever blah blah blah
but in that case it still means never an
expression like
never ever just emphasizes the word
never
so to use ever we need to pair ever with
a verb in a sentence so
we can't say i have ever just i
have plus a verb we cannot say i have
ever
that's incorrect i have at some at any
time or at all times
it's it's redundant it's it's not
necessary
we can however use ever in a negative
expression like i haven't
ever been to france or she hasn't
ever eaten cheese for example so
we have to pair ever with a negative
to make a response we use ever for
present perfect tense questions
and paired with a negative have or has
to make a response to make a negative
response so please keep those two in
mind next question
next question comes from rashke rush
rashke rashkesh i'm sorry where do we
use
wanna and gonna and how ah this question
is about the casual contracted forms of
want to and going to so want to
becomes wanna going to becomes gonna in
casual speech
we use them in exactly the same way we
would use i want to
i'm going to he wants to she wants to
he's going to
she's going to we use them in exactly
the same way
which means we use them in casual
situations like
i wanna take a day off or i'm gonna go
to the beach this weekend or
do you wanna see a movie tonight we use
them in exactly the same way
we use want to and going to
but we use them in speech typically we
don't write these unless we're writing
very casual messages like text messages
to our friends or something first
question a lot of you have asked about
what to do to get
a voice that sounds like mine when i'm
making these videos i'm specifically
trying to speak clearly so i'm clearly
separating my words
the way that i talk with my friends and
the way that i talk uh regularly
is a bit different in the way that i
talk on this channel but if you want to
try to get this kind of pronunciation
the best advice i
have is just to repeat this kind of
pronunciation it depends on your goal
if you want to learn to speak like me or
to speak like somebody else that you
really admire
you should try to mimic them that's what
i do and that's
actually a strategy that i use when i
study other languages
as well so if i hear something
interesting that a
a vocabulary word that a friend has used
like in japanese for example
or they have a really good intonation or
just the way they deliver the way they
say something
is really uh interesting to me or i want
to i want to be able to use that too
i put that in my head i think about that
and then i try to replicate that i try
to copy that essentially
to make this explanation shorter mimic
if you want to learn to speak like me
mimic me
if you want to learn to speak like
somebody else try to mimic someone else
but
just keep in mind that the way that i
talk in these videos is different
from the way that i talk in real life
want to speak real english from your
first lesson
sign up for your free lifetime account
at englishclass101.com
next question next question is from suha
how do we write a good
paragraph number one you need to think
about the position of your paragraph in
your overall document
let's think about writing a document in
terms of three parts an introduction a
body and a conclusion
in the introduction section you need to
introduce
the key information your reader needs to
know
what they're going to read about later
in your document so
if your paragraph is in the introduction
you need to think about how to introduce
your information there
second the body section of your document
should be where you include your
evidence your supporting materials your
opinions
any references that you have so if your
paragraph falls in the body of the
document you should have these themes in
mind
if your paragraph is in the conclusion
of your document at the end
you should be concluding or finishing
your ideas
it's typically a good idea to summarize
the ideas you presented in the body
and the introduction of your document in
the concluding section
two use transitions when you're writing
it's good to transition from
one sentence to another and to use good
transitions between
paragraphs themselves so some example
transitions could be
first second third or next
then finally after that moreover
additionally
furthermore so transitions help the
reader
connect the ideas that you're presenting
in your writing three
avoid trying to include too much
information in one sentence
remember you need to try to present your
ideas as
clearly and accurately as possible so if
you find you're just writing and writing
and writing and the sentence is becoming
extremely
long take a moment and look at the goal
of this sentence what are you actually
trying to communicate
if you need to break it into smaller
sentences
and connect them with transitions next
question
next question comes from garrison silva
hey again garrison when can i use the
expression
take for granted take for granted this
is an expression
which we typically use in the negative
like don't take
something something for granted don't
take blah blah blah for granted
it means um don't forget to
appreciate this thing or this person so
for example
don't take your parents for granted or
don't take this opportunity for granted
these expressions mean don't forget to
appreciate these things or
um don't just disregard your parents or
don't
disregard this opportunity you recognize
the importance of something
so if you are given a good opportunity
for example or someone gives you good
advice or
a very nice gift perhaps we would
typically use this
um with the negative don't take
something something for
granted meaning don't forget to show
your appreciation
for that thing or for that person
question comes from carla hi carla carla
asks how do native speakers use
to have i have seen i've i have got
formal and informal sure we use the verb
to have for a lot of different meaning
there's a grammatical function for the
verb
have when we pair it with the past
participle form of a verb like i
have plus past participle to make the
present perfect tense or
i had plus past participle to make the
past
perfect tense so there's that kind of
grammatical function
of the verb have however if you just
want to use the verb
have in everyday situations like i have
a phone or i have a camera or
i don't have any money for example then
to have in that case
just means to own something or to hold
something to be keeping something
so please consider the sentence that
you're looking at with the verb
have in it if it comes before a verb in
the past participle
it's probably a past perfect or a
present perfect expression
if you're seeing something after the
verb have
like an object in my examples like a
phone or a camera or money
then it's probably referring to owning
something or
keeping something so those are probably
two of the most
common ways that you'll see the verb
have and its variations in
at least american english speech next
question
next question next question comes from
daniel silvero hi daniel
daniel asks what is the difference
between wish
and desire greetings from paraguay hey
uh what is the difference between
wish and desire wish is used to express
a a wants when you want something that
is different
from the present situation so we often
use it with i wish i were or i wish i
could
something we uh we want or an ability
we want but that we do not have now
something um for the future so i wish i
could speak
seven languages or i wish i had a
million dollars or
i wish i were taking more time off every
week for example
something that is different from the
present condition the present situation
we use
wish or i wish you would call me for
example i wish you would or i wish you
could
to express something that is not
happening now
desire on the other hand desire tends to
be used more formally
and it also can carry more romantic
nuances
it's not used as much conversationally
as the word
wishes wish is used to express wants
things that we want that are not true
now desire is used more um
in romantic situations um like to desire
another person
or um he desired more of her time for
example
but it sounds unnecessarily formal i
feel
you might use it in a in a more formal
like a business context like our client
desires more information about the
situation
um that could be a different use of the
word desire but in general
it sounds a bit more formal and a bit
more romantically charged at times
depending on the situation when it's
used
if you're talking about a person as well
like if you say for example i desire you
it sounds actually quite odd at least in
american english
if you want to use the word desire i
think in romantic situations
it might be applied in a phrase like he
was filled with desire or she was filled
with desire
used more as a noun than as a verb
so i would recommend not using desire so
much to talk about your wants
uh as it can sound a little bit too
formal or can give perhaps the wrong
nuance to the situation
but wish is used to express a a hope for
something or wanting something that is
different from the present situation so
i hope that helps
first question comes from ferris ghazali
faris gazali how do i stop
translating the meaning of english words
in my head
i can tell you about the things that
have helped me and maybe they'll help
you
i put myself in situations where i could
not escape
into my native language in my case i
could not escape into english
i would go out like for food and drinks
with friends who
could not speak english i had no choice
but to use a different language with
them
two something that i've noticed some of
my students do that actually kind of
bothers me
they bring a dictionary to their lesson
and they'll stop
conversations in lessons to check
words in their dictionary and say a
single word at a time
instead of just trying to find a
different way to explain that
one it totally stops the flow of
conversation two
you don't have really the option to do
that in a conversation most of the time
you're not going to be carrying around
your dictionary with you i hope unless
it's in your phone i suppose
third i think that this is a chance to
develop a better skill instead of trying
to translate into english or to
translate into a different language
you should think about finding a
different way to explain the word you
want to use
let's say for example that you want to
use the word beautiful but you can't
remember the word
how would you explain that so think
about other ways to communicate
an idea even if you don't have the
vocabulary word so going to your
dictionary
shouldn't necessarily be the first
course of action it shouldn't
necessarily be your first step
think about a different way to
communicate the idea you're trying to
communicate
think of examples to explain the word
you're looking for and then the other
person can teach you like if
you're working with somebody or you're
talking with somebody
who understands you're not a native
speaker chances are if you can explain
the word you're looking for
they will tell you they will be your
teacher i just explain like with body
language sometimes too if i don't know a
word
so another thing that really helped me
was not just studying vocabulary words
but actually approaching things as
phrases
so not saying okay this word equals this
word in my language but rather here's a
phrase that communicates a meaning
that is interesting to me or that i hear
my friends use a lot
i'm going to use that phrase so don't
just input input input
start outputting too so i hope that's
helpful for you next
question next question from han yan hee
han
han yon hee nah yo hey alicia what's the
difference between
maybe probably perhaps and possibly
great question
maybe probably perhaps possibly
okay maybe probably perhaps and possibly
these are
all adverbs they have the same
grammatical function
maybe probably perhaps and possibly
maybe and perhaps
are very closely related maybe and
perhaps
are they have the same meaning but just
different levels of formality
maybe is like the lower level the more
casual version of the word
perhaps so maybe i'll go to the beach
this weekend and
perhaps i'll go to the beach this
weekend they have really the same
meaning but perhaps
sounds more formal probably however is
different
probably expresses a higher level of
possibility than the other words on this
list i'll probably go to the beach this
weekend
is like a 75 to 80 percent chance the
speaker
is going to go to the beach this weekend
possibly however
possibly has more of a nuance of just
that something
can be done it is possible to do
something we use possibly more in
requests like could you possibly blah
blah blah
for me could you possibly send me this
file
possibly sounds a little too formal for
casual conversations and invitations
but if you're using it at work for
example could you possibly meet me later
this week
instead of could you maybe meet me so
the difference between maybe and
possibly and perhaps they're
possible has that root yeah possible
able to so maybe and perhaps don't have
that nuance
possibly sounds like is it possible is
it
are you able to do this thing maybe and
perhaps
don't contain that nuance so uh to recap
maybe and perhaps are used to express
the same thing a chance of something
happening
perhaps is more formal possibly is used
in a similar way however it refers more
to simple possibility
than is it is are you able to do that
thing
probably expresses a high chance of
something next question
next question is from wong jiang ik hi
hwangjang says i'm curious what do you
do when your days off
you want to know how to do my days off
my days i'm pretty normal
my days off i cook i go jogging
i sleep i i go listen to my favorite djs
i see my friends i eat and drink
and watch tv that's about it i'm a
pretty normal person
first question this comes from shunichi
saito hi
shinichi uh shinichi says i want to know
what does though mean for example it's
very expensive though
i see the word though at the end of a
sentence very often
yeah a lot of you have sent this
question in recently
so i talked in a previous episode of ask
alicia about using the word
though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a
sentence
it means but at the end of a sentence
and we use it kind of casually so
when you see the word though t-h-o
it's like an even more casual version of
though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a
sentence
so you'll see this a lot on like social
media
you'll see this when you're on like
facebook or twitter or instagram
text messages maybe though just means
but
but at the end of a sentence so in your
example sentence which was
it's really expensive though it means
it's really expensive
but however it's like just putting that
little
but that little disagreement kind of
feeling
at the end of the sentence so it's sort
of like a soft
you know disagreement or a soft sort of
difference of opinion
though means though t-h-o means
though t-h-o-u-g-h but it's just
extremely extremely casual so for a
little bit more detail
you can check this video where i talked
a little bit more about
uh t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a sentence
with some other examples
so i hope that that helps you i know
many of you have asked that question
lately
next question the next person asked two
questions so the next two questions are
from
essa warsiadi where where's sayadee i'm
very sorry
question one from isa can you explain
through
thorough though and thought they sound
similar
yes indeed they do sound similar and
they even look similar
in writing for sure however these words
have different meanings and different
functions in speech
and in writing let's look at through to
begin with though
through means to pass into
something and to come out the other side
of something
so for example to go through a tunnel or
if you're looking at a document for
example to go through
a document means to read through read
all of the content of the document from
beginning to end
so through something is to to begin at
something
and pass through all of the content to
pass through everything
and come up come out the other side or
to complete something so we also use the
word
through to mean finished in american
english like are you through with dinner
or i'm through with my homework so
through those are a couple of different
ways we use the word
through the second word thorough
thorough so different from through
thorough means um comprehensive thorough
means completely
thorough means well done it has
typically a positive meaning
so for example she was very thorough in
her explanation of the word through or
she was very thorough in her explanation
of the word
thorough sorry she was very thorough in
her presentation meaning she gave a lot
of
information in her presentation thorough
means
well done containing a lot of knowledge
a lot of information
in something thorough so please be
thorough in completing your homework or
he wasn't very thorough in cleaning his
room so
thorough means well done completely done
finished so considering
everything considering all points of
something even the small details is
considered
thorough so we can use thorough for
presentations for activities that
require small details a thorough safety
check for example
so these are actions that are done
completely fully to the small details so
that's
thorough next word here is though though
though you can think of though
in the same way you think of the word
but so it's used to contrast
information it's used to express a
difference in something so you could
follow someone's opinion with an
expression like though so for example
i think summer is the best season though
winter is pretty fun too
so you can think of though in the same
way as you think of but
a though b so you're presenting a
and then a contrasting opinion b and
you're connecting those two ideas with
though in the same way you would but so
though though although is similar we use
although and though
and but in similar ways what's the
difference
but is much more casual and but is used
much more in casual conversation in
everyday conversation
if you're writing a document a formal
document or if you're making a formal
statement
you could use though in place of but so
though
shows contrasting information the last
one on this list is
thought thought thought is the past
tense of
think when used as a verb so i thought
you were coming today or
i thought it was going to rain later or
i thought this was such a great
afternoon
thought is used as the past tense of
think we can also use
thought to refer to an idea as a noun so
i had a thought for example or
do you have any thoughts about this
project so we can use thought as
a verb past tense of think or as a noun
to refer to an
idea so again that's through thorough
though and thought some of you might be
wondering how do i
remember which is which when i'm reading
or when i'm listening
you have to pay attention to the grammar
of the sentence they all have different
grammatical functions
so you need to think about the grammar
surrounding the word
next question next question from han yan
hee han han yon hee nah
ni very sorry hey alicia what's the
difference between maybe
probably perhaps and possibly great
question
maybe probably perhaps possibly okay
maybe probably perhaps and possibly
these are all adverbs they have the same
grammatical function
maybe probably perhaps and possibly
maybe and perhaps
are very closely related maybe and
perhaps
are they have the same meaning but just
different levels of formality
maybe it's like the lower level the more
casual version of the word
perhaps so maybe i'll go to the beach
this weekend and
perhaps i'll go to the beach this
weekend they have really the same
meaning but perhaps
sounds more formal probably however
is different probably expresses a higher
level
of possibility than the other words on
this list i'll probably go to the beach
this weekend
it's like a 75 to 80 chance the speaker
is going to go to the beach this weekend
possibly however
possibly has more of a nuance of just
that something
can be done it is possible to do
something
we use possibly more in requests like
could you possibly blah blah blah
for me could you possibly send me this
file um
possibly sounds a little too formal for
casual conversations and invitations
but if you're using it at work for
example could you possibly meet me later
this week
instead of could you maybe meet me so
the difference between maybe and
possibly and perhaps there
um possible has that root yeah possible
able to so maybe and perhaps don't have
that nuance
possibly sounds like is it possible is
it
are you able to do this thing maybe and
perhaps
don't contain that nuance so uh to recap
maybe and perhaps are used to express
the same thing
a chance of something happening perhaps
is more formal
possibly is used in a similar way
however it refers
more to simple possibility than is it is
are you able to
do that thing probably expresses a high
chance of something
want to speak real english from your
first lesson sign up for your free
lifetime account at englishclass101.com
next question next question is from
muhammad sohail what is the difference
between
famous and popular great question famous
is something that is well known many
people know about that thing or that
person
beyonce is famous the statue of liberty
is famous the eiffel tower is
famous popular however means many people
know about it and it is liked
it has a positive image so like beyonce
is
popular or like a famous candy is
popular like chocolate cake is popular
it's a famous food and many people like
it
so popular is famous plus
like a positive image sometimes we can
use those two words for the same thing
so beyonce is famous
beyonce is popular but famous doesn't
always mean they are popular so someone
can be famous for a bad thing
in that case though it's typically
better to use the word infamous
infamous infamous means famous for a bad
reason so famous for something negative
on to question
two from issa what does love to hate
mean and when can i use it love to hate
means it's something that you really
really dislike
but it's sort of enjoyable to dislike so
for example this is an expression we can
apply
to reality tv so many people think
reality tv
is not very good entertainment or it's
not very high quality entertainment
however it's really really fun to watch
so maybe for example you just hate a
character
on a reality tv show but somehow you
enjoy
watching that tv show too so something
that you feel
very strong dislike for and yet you
really enjoy it at the same time that's
something you can love to
hate you love to hate that thing next
question next question comes from oh
you wrote the pronunciation of your name
very nice
itan iton i think okay hey alicia i hope
you're well uh my level is intermediate
they feel that they're stuck
at the intermediate level and want to
reach the advanced level
they're watching lots of videos on
youtube reading academic articles on the
web but still feel that progress has
somehow
stopped could you give me some advice
okay you say in your message that you
feel your progress somehow has
stopped i have been here too the
intermediate plateau like you begin
learning a language and it's like yeah
i'm learning all these things and then
you kind of like plateau you get to a
level where things don't continue and
you feel like progress goes much more
slowly
i would say in this case first identify
how you feel your progress has stopped
by that i mean like
do you feel like uh your vocabulary is
lacking or
do you find that it's hard to listen to
people and to understand what they're
saying
do you find it's hard to write um is it
hard to to like to read things so
first identify what is that thing that
you feel like you're not good at and
then
start to approach your further studies
with that as the focus
i think that if you can think about your
different skill sets your different
levels
in reading writing speaking and
listening you can identify which of
those
four things is weakest for you and start
there so when you feel your progress has
stopped think like okay what am i not
good at doing and then focus your time
there so
maybe that's a helpful first step for
you hope that helped this week's first
question is a question from bahar
bahar behar i'm very sorry hi alicia i'd
like to learn about as
and like what's the difference between
them to begin with
like is a preposition remember
prepositions are words we use
to show relationships to other words or
to position
the elements in a sentence so for
example at and by and on are also
prepositions
the word like is a preposition however
the word as
is a conjunction a conjunction is a word
that connects
elements in a sentence so for example
and but
or for so these words are conjunctions
that's point one
we use like and as to make comparisons
the general agreement on how to use like
and as
at this point in time is that if you are
following the word
like with a simple statement like a noun
phrase
you should use the word like if however
the part that comes
after the word like or as has a verb
in the clause there's a verb in that
part of this sentence you should use
as to do that because as functions as a
conjunction remember it's connecting the
elements in a sentence
so we should use like if there's just a
simple phrase or a
like a simple noun phrase something like
that after
like or as so to give some examples my
co-worker eats like a pig in that case
i've used the word like because after
like comes a pig it's just a simple noun
phrase
if however i said my co-worker eats as
if he were a pig
i'm using a verb i'm using the verb were
as if
he were so we can use as in cases where
we follow the statement with a verb we
can use
like in cases where we follow that
statement with a simple noun phrase
generally we use them both to make
comparisons i'll say though that native
speakers
often make mistakes with this generally
speaking though especially in spoken
conversation
and casual spoken conversation at least
american english speakers
tend to use like more often than as
in everyday conversation i tend to use
like i rely on like
heavily for my comparisons in everyday
situations
it's like you were it's like he was it's
like blah blah blah
as i feel is more common at least among
american english speakers
in writing so you might see as if and as
though
both of those we can use to make
comparisons like
comes before a simple noun phrase as is
used before something containing
a verb yeah thanks for that question
bahar next question
next question comes from kiara chiara
kiara kiara dr asks
uh i'll help you studying and i'll help
you
to study what is the correct one thanks
i'll help you
something i'll help you do this so just
the regular plain form of the verb i
would
suggest is probably the most natural
choice thanks for the question though
next question next question comes from
sheriff
sheriff ahmed sheriff ahmed okay should
i use the singular or
plural verb after colloquial names for
example
my team have won the match or has won
the match ah okay in this case
uh my team has won the match my team has
won the match so use the singular form
of the verb like
same as like he has or she has my team
has is the correct answer here next
question
the next question is from taylor taylor
asks which one sounds better
i read a newspaper every morning or i
read
the newspaper every morning nice
question this is a question
about articles this is just about being
specific if for example
there's a specific newspaper that you
want to read like i read the
abc newspaper every morning you should
use the
if it's not important to you to be
specific about
a newspaper and if you want to imply
that you just read
any newspaper every morning you can use
a newspaper i read
a newspaper every morning using the
instead though
shows that there's maybe a specific
newspaper
using the before uh newspaper in this
case though sounds like there's a
specific newspaper you read every
morning
if you say i read up newspaper every
morning it sounds like you just
choose any newspaper that's available to
you on that day
and you read that newspaper so using
the shows that there's a specific or it
implies that there's a specific
newspaper you read every day you don't
have to be specific
about which one you can like i read the
new york times every day or i read the
guardian every day for example but if
you say i read a newspaper every day it
sounds like you don't choose the same
newspaper
each day that's the difference between
these two phrases most people however
do choose the same newspaper every day
and so they use i read
the newspaper every day you can say i
read the news every day as well but
using that set phrase the news it's like
the news
for the day i read that day's news every
day where i read the previous day's news
every day so usually we say the news we
don't use
a news it sounds a little strange to use
on news so the same sort of thing
applies to a newspaper
most people choose the same newspaper
every day so we say
the newspaper instead of a newspaper but
thanks for that question taylor nice
next question next question comes from
jeffrey hi jeffrey
jeffrey asks sometimes i watch movies
and some characters
say you wish with a very angry attitude
or
i wish in other situations what
do these two sentences mean and how do i
use it
aha interesting question okay when
someone responds with
you wish to a negative suggestion
it's like they're mutually together
they're
recognizing that they don't like each
other so usually the first character
will say
something like make a negative
suggestion like you should
uh you should leave town and get a
different job like leave us alone
something like that
and then the other character will say
yeah you wish like
yes this this character recognizes you
want me to do that yes but i'm not going
to do that
in other words so it's sort of like a
challenge so this person says like this
negative suggestion
the other person recognizes this
suggestion says no
i'm not going to do that but i know you
want me to do that
so you wish in this way means it's like
a negative challenge
they're kind of fighting recognizing
they dislike each other so that's one
the other one what was the other one so
i wish we talked about i wish in the
previous the previous episode of ask
alicia so please check that out but
essentially
i wish refers to something that we
cannot do now or something that is
different from the present situation but
we want uh we want to happen or we want
to be able to do so please check the
last
episode of ask alicia for more about i
wish like the positive
next question next question comes from
brain bryan ryan i'm
very sorry hey alicia what's your height
i am 1000 centimeters tall
or maybe i'm six centimeters tall and
this whole thing has just been
scanned the entire time next question
next question comes from bowie dente
bowie bowie dende
when can i use ever in a present perfect
sentence
like i have ever ever means at any time
or
at all times you can use ever when
you're asking a question like have you
ever blah blah blah have you ever been
to france
have you ever eaten ramen have you ever
taken a
trip to the mountains for example we can
use ever
when making questions that's one but
because ever means at all time or at any
time
we may not use it to answer a question
like that have you ever blah blah blah
we usually say yes or no in that in
response to that
we can say i have never ever taken a
trip to france or i have never
ever forgotten my keys for example i
have never ever blah blah blah
but in that case it still means never an
expression like
never ever just emphasizes the word
never
so to use ever we need to pair ever with
a verb in a sentence so we can't say
i have ever just i have
plus a verb we cannot say i have ever
that's incorrect
i have at some at any time or at all
times
it's it's redundant it's it's not
necessary
we can however use ever in a negative
expression like i haven't
ever been to france or she hasn't
ever eaten cheese for example so
we have to pair ever with a negative uh
to make a response we use
ever for present perfect tense questions
and paired with a negative
have or has to make a response to make a
negative response so please keep those
two in mind first
question from harley pasos harley paso
paso
passport i'm very sorry harley asks what
is the use
of get plus adverb or preposition
for example i get down this is a
question about phrasal verbs with
get we can use a lot of different things
after the word
get in your example to get down we use
it when dancing for example like i want
to
get down this weekend it's sort of an
old-fashioned expression though to get
down we can use
a lot of different uh words after the
verb
get though for example get into to get
into something
means to become interested in something
you might hear to get at
like get at me or get at your professor
to get at means to reach
out to or to communicate with but it's a
very casual expression you can say get
after like i need to get after my
homework for example it means to like
chase after or try to do
something also to get in like to get
into a club
to get into a restaurant to get into a
party the nuance is that something is
challenging
but you can gain access to that thing
like i got into the party last night but
i wasn't on the list there are a lot of
different uses of the word
get i can't talk about all of them in
this video because there are so many
so if you're curious about the various
phrasal verbs that we can use with the
word get check out a dictionary that's a
really good place to start
next question comes from uh alexander hi
alexander alexander
says hi alicia what's the difference
between the words
intelligent smart and clever intelligent
and smart have the same meaning they
mean someone who has a lot of knowledge
and the image is that they got it from
like books from studying from classrooms
from lectures
intelligent and smart they have that
same feeling about them
but intelligence sounds more formal
smart is used a lot among young people
who have good academic abilities for
example
clever also means that someone has a lot
of knowledge but the idea with
clever maybe they have knowledge from
books and classes yes
but their knowledge is from world
experience
so they're really good with like people
in situations and they can think
quickly maybe and they have good ideas
that's someone who is
clever sometimes clever has the image of
being a little bit like sneaky
too wanna speak real english from your
first lesson
sign up for your free lifetime account
at englishclass101.com
next question next question comes from
long
and long anne asks what is the
difference between simple
past tense and past continuous tense or
past progressive tense
simple past tense we use for actions
that started
and ended in the past so the beginning
of the action and the end of the action
happened in the past so for example the
sentence i ate
breakfast is a simple past tense
statement i
ate breakfast eight is the simple past
tense the past continuous tense however
or the past progressive tense
is something we use to talk about an
action that was continuing
at a specific point in time in the past
if i want to use the past progressive
tense i can say i was eating breakfast
using that continuous tense using that
progressive tense implies i want to
explain
something else that happened at that
time or maybe i want to
add some more information so for example
i was eating breakfast
at eight o'clock this morning or i was
eating breakfast when the phone rang or
i was eating breakfast and watching tv
at the same time
i was eating breakfast while studying
today by using the past progressive i'm
explaining that an action was continuing
at a specific point in time as in the
example i was eating
breakfast at eight o'clock or i can use
past progressive to show one action was
happening at the same time as another
action
in the past if i use just the simple
past tense i'm just saying
a simple fact in other words this action
happened i
ate breakfast at eight o'clock if i want
to emphasize
the continuous nature of the action for
some reason like i was eating breakfast
at eight o'clock
i can use the past progressive tense in
that case it might be in response to a
question like
what were you doing at eight o'clock
this morning so if someone wants to ask
maybe uh what you were doing at a
specific point in time like someone is
suspicious of you like
what were you doing last night you can
say like oh i was having dinner with my
friends last night but past ten simple
past tense is something we use for
actions which start
uh and finish uh in the past but
progressive the progressive tense and
past
can be used to emphasize the continuing
nature of that situation or that action
first question this week comes from
eduardo hi eduardo could you explain
please how to use the expressions one at
all
two kind of three actually
for a big picture sure number one at
all we use at all as an emphasis phrase
after negative statements i don't want
to study at all today he doesn't like me
at all we can also use this expression
in question
question two about kind of it depends on
which expression you mean there's kind
of which can mean
a little bit or somewhat i kind of want
to eat vietnamese food for dinner you'll
also notice that the pronunciation there
changes to kinda kinda
not kind of but kinda kinda depending on
the way the sentence is made
though kind of can also refer to types
of something
what kind of ice cream do you like they
don't know what kind of house they want
here kind of means type so they don't
know what kind of house they want they
don't know what kind of food they want
to eat for dinner for example so
check to see which way kind of is being
used if it's coming before a verb
like i kind of want to eat or i kind of
want to go then it probably means
a little bit but if it's coming before a
noun
then it probably means type of noun so
hope that helps third question
about the word actually actually right
we use the word
actually when we want to explain the
real
situation as we understand it so
people like to use actually actually to
introduce their opinion
as though it's fact sometimes so some
examples of this
actually i don't live in the united
states i don't think he actually likes
chocolate
so in these ways we're introducing a
real situation
as we understand it we use actually to
do that
your fourth question is about uh big
picture
big picture is used to talk about a
broad
idea of something so going away from a
small detail
and talking about like the entire
situation
at one time i know you think studying
vocabulary is boring but look at the big
picture
it's important to know small details
he's losing sight of the big picture
he's wasting time and money so the big
picture is kind of like
maybe the the bigger situation hope that
helps next
question next question comes from yasin
ya yasi yasin i'm very sorry what's the
difference between
on time and in time is it you arrived
just on time
or you arrived just in time we use on
time
to refer to doing something at the
correct
time doing something at a scheduled time
so for example i need to get to work on
time
meaning at the correct time or did you
make it to your appointment
on time in time however is used when we
want to kind of give a nuance of
rushing or hurrying for something i need
to leave my house now
to get to the airport in time for my
flight i need to study for my test
now if i want to be in time for the
party later
you should probably leave now if you
want to be in time for the movie
in time for something else so
i want to do action a to make my
schedule
meet this other condition this other
thing i would like to do or this other
thing i need to do in
time for has the nuance of a deadline we
can use this expression in like a panic
like oh my gosh i'm not going to make it
in time like to submit a paper i'm not
going to make it in time
in time means like before the deadline
whereas on time has the meaning of
completing an
action or completing something at a
scheduled time
next question next question is from wan
fang chen hi wong fun hey alicia what
does you just
made my day mean i heard this phrase but
i don't fully understand it yeah
so you made my day is a really positive
phrase you can imagine this as you just
made my day
much better but we don't say much better
so we use this when someone gives us
good news we can say you
just made my day or you made my day just
sounds like something happened very
recently you just made my day a raise
you just made my day we get to take the
afternoon off
you just made my day those are
situations where someone is really happy
and wants to express
that the other person improved their day
in that moment
nice expression next question the next
question comes from gerson silva
hi what is the difference between shade
and
shadow oh great this is a great question
both of these words can be used to refer
to
a place that is darker than its
surroundings
because there's an object that is
blocking the light
we can say there's shade over there or
there's a shadow over there
in that sentence they are used the same
however
shadow refers to the dark shape only so
a person
can cast a shadow we use cast the verb
cast with a shadow i cast a shadow when
i stand
in the sun for example shade however as
a noun
refers to or has the nuance of a kind of
shelter
so shelter provided by some other object
shelter from the light shelter from the
sun so we would say
stand in the shade because shade has the
nuance of
shelter we would not say stand in the
shadow shadow does not carry the nuance
of shelter in the way that shade does
interestingly enough though shade and
shadow are both used as
verbs as well to shadow something means
to follow something closely
to shadow someone at work means to
follow someone at work and and try to
understand their job
for example shade is used as a verb to
mean to create
shelter from light for example the
canopy shaded
us from the sun shade also has some
interesting uses you might hear the
slang phrase to throw
shade throwing shade is a really
interesting slang expression that we use
which means
to communicate disrespect or to to
communicate like contempt
uh bad feelings for something when
you're speaking generally in most cases
when you want to talk about a dark cool
area we should say
shade stand in the shade when you want
to talk only about the dark
area that dark object use shadow next
question
comes from kelso moreno you wrote your
name in all caps back to back
what does it mean sometimes i hear it in
baseball games
do you know yes i do know the expression
back to back means
one thing after another so we have two
things
sometimes more back to back to back you
can put that in a line
it means in baseball for example like
one home run
after another we could say two home runs
back to back two or more things
happening quickly in succession it's
used a lot in sports
next question actually two questions
from danny hi danny danny's first
question
is you talked about lit as slang yes i
talked about lit
in episode 2 episode 1 episode 2 of ask
alicia can you please talk about the
verb
light and using it in active and passive
sure
light means to start a fire so to light
a fire to light a candle
some examples of active and passive
voice with this verb then why don't we
light some candles for dinner tonight
all the candles in the restaurant were
lit on our camping trip
my neighbors lit a fire and we brought
uh hamburgers to me a fire was lit in
the campsite while we were gone
i was going to light a fire but i fell
asleep so to light means to start a fire
he lit the house on fire we can say to
light blah blah blah
on fire so there are a few different
examples of using the verb
light in active and in passive past
tense future tense as well so i hope
that that's helpful danny's
second question can you talk about ride
and its uses
like take someone for a ride can i take
a ride riot is another verb that has a
lot of different uses you use the
example
to take someone for a ride means to
drive together with someone
to go for a ride has the nuance of doing
something just for
fun it's just for fun i want to take a
ride to
a location i want to take a ride to the
mountains this weekend or take a ride to
the beach but to take
someone for a ride means to invite
someone to drive
somewhere with you in a car that's one
way to use ride you can also say
give me a ride can you give me a ride so
this is a request
expression i don't have a car my friend
has a car i want my friend to take me
in their car to a location i can say can
you give me a ride
to the movie theater can you give me a
ride to the lake
give me a ride is a request so give me a
ride in your car
so there are a lot of uses of ride if
you want to see
all of them or if you want to see more
of them i recommend checking a
dictionary there are quite a few
and i can't talk about them all in this
video so please check a dictionary next
question is from anderson sousa anderson
salsa hi anderson anderson asks hi
alicia how are you doing i'm reading
harry potter and i just saw the sentence
goodnight harry how do you pronounce
goodnight yeah
good night we sometimes say goodnight
goodnight so that in good is dropped we
remove that ud
sound and we say good night good night
so good night
that's how you say it hope that helps
next question okay next question is from
femme femme what does you're too good to
be true mean
is it good or not maybe you've heard
this in a famous song you're too good to
be true can't take my eyes off of you
in that case it's a good meaning a
different way to say this expression is
you are so good you are so amazing that
i can't believe you're real
so in other words something must be
wrong there must be some problem with
you
it's not possible for you to be real
because you are
so good you are so great so you're too
good to be true it's like
wow i'm amazed by you so it's a good
expression if
however uh maybe in a more uncommon
situation
someone said like ah this guy's too good
to be true like
maybe reviewing a job application for
example uh this girl
she's too good to be true like if it's
said in that way maybe there's something
suspicious
about that person this doesn't seem
right there's just too much good
information here there must be some
problem with this person depending on
the intonation it can portray
either a very positive meaning or a very
suspicious meaning
in most cases however it's a positive
meaning so if you heard this in a song
for example
it's probably a very positive kind of
romantically nuanced phrase
thanks very much for that question pham
nice one next
question is from oz rocha jr sorry i
hope i said that right uh alicia how do
we separate words in a text when we get
to the end of the line
your text formatting software should do
that for you do you use word
word should do that for you if you use
just
text or notepads there should be a word
wrap function i don't know google it
google it if that doesn't help you
your second question though what is the
difference in pronunciation
between life and life or live
for example my life is good and two
i live in a big city right
so life and the word that's spelled
l-i-v-e
as in your example i live in a big city
have different pronunciations
the vowel pronunciation of the i sound
is different
in life it's a very open sound lie
like life life in the second word
uh liv the i sound is kind of tall
it's very like kind of in your nose liv
that's the first sound that's a bit
different so
li li li le that's the that's the i
sound that's different
but then the consonant sound is also
different the f
in life so there's there's just
air coming out of my mouth i'm not
making any sound
with my vocal cords there just life life
with the word
live however i'm making a v sound so
that's the difference so i have to i
have to use my vocal chord
to make the sound so life
no vocal chords live vocal chords used
however do be careful live l-i-v-e can
also be pronounced
live so that v sound i talked about
where you use your vocal chords
plus that open i sound live so
like a live performance for example so
you need to pay attention to the grammar
of the sentence
to understand if it's live or live
as well so life and live have very
different pronunciations
good one nice catch i hope you can
practice those wanna speak real english
from your first lesson
sign up for your free lifetime account
at englishclass101.com
next question rabia our shot rate rabia
arshad rabia i'm very sorry
what's the difference between can and
may
i saw this on the dining like a champ
cheat sheet
and noticed these words were used for
requests
what's the difference can and may for
requests
in modern english in modern american
english are used
the same if i use them in a statement
can refers to ability
may refers to permission please just be
careful can and may are only used in the
same way
to make requests in modern american
english next
question is from harley hi harley hello
again
what is the correct use it's i have
breakfast i have lunch i have dinner or
i breakfast i lunch i dinner i dine ah
nice question harley i use the i have
lunch i have dinner i have breakfast
version
if you drop have you sound very posh
posh means like
uh fashionable sophisticated a bit rich
as well
so i'm not any of those things but
saying
i breakfast i lunch i dinner it sounds
like you have a very high opinion
of that activity in most cases at least
in my life i don't have a reason
to speak like that so i always say i
have breakfast or i have lunch or i have
dinner
it's not incorrect to say i breakfast i
lunch
i dine but it sounds a bit unnatural in
most
everyday life situations you don't
really need to talk with that level of
formality i don't think next
question next question is from ferris
forests gazali ferris gasoline i'm very
sorry
ferris asks hey alicia can we use hasn't
in an essay hasn't the contracted form
of has
not you can it's physically possible for
you to use
hasn't in an essay sure but if you use
contractions in your writing it makes
you in my opinion it makes you sound a
bit
less formal if you use the expanded form
the un the non-contracted version
you're going to sound a bit more formal
a bit more polished i feel this does not
only apply to the word has not
and hasn't therefore this applies to all
contractions really
the answer is yes you can but i don't
necessarily recommend it if you want to
sound
uh formal and polished thanks for that
question now ferris next question
what does the word lit mean what does
the word lit mean
lit is actually a slang word it's common
slang among young people especially in
the us
right now maybe many of you know that
the verb to
light has the past tense uh lit lit is
used to talk about for example a party
or some kind of social gathering usually
that's really exciting or that's really
really fun or that's
kind of crazy so lit using the past
tense there
you can kind of imagine that like a fire
when you light a fire
it maybe it gets bigger and it gets kind
of wild a little bit crazy like there's
a spark and then it starts so if you see
the word lit like this party was lit
it means it was really crazy it was
really good it was really fun
you can use it if you want but just keep
in mind that really young people use
that word i don't use that word for
reference but again i'm not cool
first question first question this week
comes from iman again hi i'm on you send
lots of questions thanks which one
is correct i want rest or i want to take
rest uh well you can say i want rest
to mean in general just you would like
to
do nothing to relax um grammatically
though i want to take
a rest is correct or i want to
rest both of those are correct however
in american english we don't usually say
i want to take a rest
it's more common to say i want to take a
break i want to take a break or let's
take a break or can we take a break
something like that is more common you
can say i want to take a rest
but again in american english rest is
less
common next question what is correct i
thought you were gone or i thought
you are gone i thought you are gone we
need to use
i thought you were gone here i thought
you were gone so
i thought past tense and you were is
also
past tense it's a past tense thought
past tense situation
um so please use passions next question
from gabriella hi gabriella uh hi alicia
what is the difference between
used to and used to in fast speech
the difference in pronunciation yeah um
basically
when we're speaking quickly or i suppose
even not
quickly we tend to pronounce used to
as used to the grammar doesn't change
it's just the pronunciation changes
because
it's difficult to say used to very
quickly i used to i used to it's very
difficult to say
so we just say used to instead i used to
use a smartphone
he used to play soccer we used to cook
every day in each of these sentences
i contracted used to to used to i think
actually in most cases we probably do
say used to
instead of used to because it's quite
difficult to say
again this shouldn't really cause any
communication problems used to
and used to have the same meaning just
different pronunciation
ah next question also maybe about were
and was
why do we use if i were and not if i
was uh this is a great question and
actually a lot of native speakers make
mistakes with this
it's a small point to be fair but if you
want to be correct
you should always use if i were this is
a grammar point
it refers to the subjunctive mood the
subjunctive mood
an explanation of subjunctive is a bit
beyond the scope
it's a bit much for this video but we
will always use
if i were when the subject there is i
in the conditional if i were we always
use work
you will hear native speakers say if i
was if i was
if you want to be extremely strict and
extremely nitpicky
um were is actually the correct one but
if you use was if you make a mistake and
you use was you will still be
understood so um but yes this is related
to the subjunctive mood in english
next question from suinte
i hope i said that right suente says hi
alicia which word do you prefer
using as an american america the united
states the united
states of america the us the usa or the
states i
only started using america to refer to
my country when i moved
to japan because the people around me
used the word
america to refer to the country but i
think before that
i said uh the u.s i used the u.s people
would say where are you from
the u.s why did i use the u.s because
it's short and easy to say the u.s i
don't want to say the united states of
america it sounds long
to me thanks for the question want to
speed up your language learning
take your very first lesson with us
you'll start speaking in minutes
and master real conversations sign up
for your free lifetime account
just click the link in the description