How to Explain and Support Your Opinions in English

my name is alicia and in this week’s

lesson we are going to talk about how to

support your opinions and ideas in last

week’s live lesson i talked about how to

give a basic presentation and in that

live stream i talked about how to

express the details of your presentation

how to give details about your topic

your presentation topic so

in today’s live lesson i want to talk

about that point in more detail how do

you uh support your beliefs how do you

support the things

that you want other people to believe in

so this will be the focus for this

week’s lesson so as you joined please

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today’s lesson okay

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oscar miss appleberry hi marvin mauricio

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doki so this is the end of the

announcements section for today let’s go

to our main topic uh our main topic for

today is how to

support your opinions and ideas so let’s

take a look at today’s lesson boards

so today we’re going to begin by talking

about uh how to express your opinion so

a review

so how to express your opinion

and i also included a tip to make

yourself sound a little more confident

when you do this

then part two and part three will be

about reporting speech sharing data and

explaining sources so these two parts

these two parts part two and part three

these are about

supporting your ideas so three different

ways to support your opinions and

support your ideas so we’re going to

focus a lot on example sentences today

okay

cool so let’s get started with the first

part here okay let’s begin with

expressing your opinion oh also if you

have not please make sure to like and

share this video so others can find it

we would

really appreciate that okay

let’s go

so first part expressing your opinion

this will include

some basic review i think but i want to

talk about a way to kind of increase the

level of confidence you can express here

okay so expressing your opinion we have

very basic ways to do this like i think

or i believe

or i’m pretty sure

and so on right so i think blah blah

blah or i believe blah blah blah

i’m pretty sure blah blah blah so we

begin our opinion and idea related

sentences with expressions like these

right

what’s the difference between i think

and i believe i believe we tend to use

more in uh like formal or professional

situations

and we also use it more when we want to

kind of express a strong idea like we

want to talk about something we feel

like in our heart is super is true it’s

something that’s like at our core so for

more serious topics we might say i

believe okay

this one i’m pretty sure i included this

one uh here of course you can say i’m

sure which means i’m 100

about something i think 100 this is true

you can use i’m pretty sure

i mean i have a high level of confidence

about this thing

so

these are some quick ways to express

your opinion also a basic pattern you

can use is noun phrase is

adjective noun phrase is adjective

that’s an opinion expression right so

let’s look at some examples of this

first one let’s use i think for example

i think this is a good price i think

this is a good price so this expresses

uh your opinion your idea about the

value of something right i think this is

a good price

okay another one you can use

i’m pretty sure

he’s coming to the meeting

i’m pretty sure he’s coming to the

meeting so this one expresses

a fairly high level of certainty we’re

not sure yet but the speaker thinks

there’s a good chance they’re correct

i’m pretty sure

he’s coming to the meeting

okay

here’s one i believe i believe and i

believe sentence i believe this is the

best choice i believe this is the best

choice so you might use this expression

in a meeting i believe this is the best

choice when you’re discussing options

maybe i believe this is the best choice

finally

an example of noun phrase is adjective

it’s very simple we use these all the

time we use these very often the movie

was awesome right the movie was awesome

in this case i used past tense the movie

was awesome so noun phrase is adjective

noun phrase is adjective okay

so

we have these basic sentence starters

right i think i believe i’m pretty sure

here is my tip to make your opinion or

your idea statements sound more

confident

remove

the i think or the i believe from the

beginning of the sentence so what do i

mean

so this sentence i think this is a good

price this is totally correct yeah

but to make it sound more confident

remove i think ah i think so just say

this is a good price

that sounds more confident it’s a lit

it’s more direct right

this is a good price so this sounds more

confident and more sure of yourself yeah

here’s another one so you can remove i’m

pretty sure he’s coming to the meeting

this is one where you might not want to

sound super super confident because the

information is about another person but

if you want to express confidence you

can say he’s coming to the meeting he’s

coming to the meeting it sounds very

confident

okay

another one i believe this is the best

choice you can make this sound more

confident by just saying this is the

best choice this is the best choice so

it sounds very direct right

and finally this one we don’t have to

make a change this one is already very

direct straightforward okay

cool so the movie was awesome

okay so this is part one for today’s

lesson uh if you have any questions i

will check in the chat um

let’s see miguel says i’m pretty sure to

finish i’m pretty sure i’m going to

finish yeah i’m pretty sure i’m going to

finish my homework today

okay

i don’t see other questions all right

let’s go to a quick break and then

sorry i made myself

then we’ll go to part two okay so quick

break quick break i showed you this at

the beginning of today’s lesson but if

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okay

let’s go to part two now also if you

haven’t please please please make sure

to like and share this video yeah helps

other people find the lesson

continue okay let’s continue let’s

continue to part two so part two

and part three of this lesson will be

about supporting those opinions so part

one

was about expressing your opinion

sharing your opinion part two and three

will be about supporting those things

okay so

first the first way to support your

opinion is to report speech report

speech what does that mean

you explain with these kinds of

expressions he said or she said or that

person said so why do i think this is

true because that person said it so

here’s one way to support your opinion

he said or she said or person said for

example alicia said blah blah blah

or he or she told me he or she told me

so one common question is what’s the

difference between said and told here so

say is like a flat just a neutral report

of speech doesn’t sound good doesn’t

sound bad it’s just neutral report

someone used those words someone said

that thing

this one

the verb tell so uh told is the past

tense form of tell yeah so tell sounds

like it’s a one-way conversation so like

my boss

gives me information only my boss is

speaking or mainly my boss is speaking

i’m not saying anything i’m listening

we use tell to talk about those one-way

conversations or maybe one-way important

pieces of information yeah so he or she

told me

okay so

let’s look at some examples of how we

use reported speech together with an

opinion

first one from the beginning of the

lesson i’m pretty sure he’s coming to

the meeting

he said

he’s coming to the meeting

so

just now with my voice i emphasized said

he said he’s coming to the meeting

this emphasis

is showing that this is the report i

received so this is the information i

got

i can communicate that with my voice i

emphasize that with my voice you can

hear that uh in a lot of cases with

native speakers we do that

with uh reporting verbs like these

that’s what he’s going to do

so we have our opinion here i’m pretty

sure he’s coming to the meeting and our

support statement he said he’s coming to

the meeting so this is why i think it’s

true

okay let’s look at another example so

from the beginning again the same

situation i think this is a good price i

think this is a good price

why

the staff told me this product is on

sale

the staff told me

this product is on sale so in this case

we use

tell so past tense told

as our reporting verb

so the staff is giving the customer lots

and lots and lots of information the

customer is listening right

so tell sounds nice you could use say

here say is also correct but in this

case you just have told so the staff

told me this product is on sale

so you can use reported speech to

support your ideas

okay

cool i’m checking your

questions i don’t see others uh nahora

says i’m pretty sure he’s going to buy a

car he said he’s going to buy it soon

okay nice example no hold up okay good

so let’s go to the next part then let’s

take a look now

at the next way to support your ideas

with data with data i love data

right data is great data is great

because we can measure data we can

easily understand sometimes numbers and

statistics so data is a great way to

help the other person understand

something yeah okay so let’s look how do

we share data to support your opinions

okay

so we can use this mark this mark right

here maybe you can see

this is the percent mark yeah the

percent mark so we can use percentages

percentages

to share data we can use numbers of

course how many people or how many times

these sorts of things

also i want to talk about these two

verbs increased past tense and decreased

also in past tense

increased by or increased to

versus decreased by and decreased too so

this preposition is very important this

preposition is very important here we’re

going to practice and uh

learn a little bit about this in this

section so

first let’s look at how to share data

with a percent

mark okay for example

50

of our customers said

they were interested in our product idea

we should develop it

so once more 50 of our customers said

they were interested in our product idea

we should develop it so in this sentence

or in this situation

the speaker shares the support

information first

then

they share their opinion we should

develop it so we should develop the

product so develop means make create so

plan create

uh together develop something yeah so 50

of our customers i’ve used this one said

again so reporting

said they were interested in our product

idea so this helps us understand

how many people very quickly and very

easily yeah so data is good

okay

i don’t see questions so let’s go to the

next one i want to use these two

sentences

to talk about the difference between by

and to

in these kinds of sentences so before i

look at the examples

i want to note that by

is used to express the

amount of change in something

two

is used to express the end point of a

change so what does that mean okay so

let’s look at some examples these two

examples

sales increased by 10

last month sales increased by 10

last month so sales

went up increased means went up past

tense by 10

that means if sales were at 10 so we had

10 sales

uh or rather

we want to express the amount

of change here with this number so

compared to last month

we had 10 percent more

this month so

buy

expresses that buy expresses the level

of change the amount of change okay

let’s compare this to this one

yesterday the high temperature was 30

degrees

today

it decreased to 27.

so again yesterday the high temperature

was 30 degrees

today it decreased to 27 degrees

so in this sentence we see decrease yeah

decrease means went down something went

down so yesterday the high temperature

was 30 degrees here today it decreased

to 27 degrees so

we use two

here two marks the end point of the

change so 27 it decreased to

27 and stopped so that’s the end point

of the change

if we say today it decreased by

27 degrees that means the amount of

change that means the high temperature

was 30 or 3 degrees

so

so we really need to make sure we use

the correct preposition here yeah so

today it went down

to 27 city

okay

so

these are a couple ways that we can

create

uh support for our ideas all right

awesome okay i’m looking for your

questions

rafael says alicia how do i mention a

person i don’t know exactly using they

it or he or she sorry the question went

away say it he or she it’s kind of an

unknown subject oh yeah if you don’t

know so like up here

uh when we don’t know exactly who

someone is like maybe you’re talking to

someone in an email or you get a

notification

in the mail or something we use they for

that we use they so for example like the

staff at a

i don’t know hotel maybe in an email

you want to report something you

received in an email from staff

something like that you can say they

they said this they said that we use

they for that okay

johnathan willian says alicia what’s the

difference between i’m sure and i’m

pretty sure again i’m sure means i’m 100

confident in this i know this it’s a

fact i’m sure he’s coming

i’m pretty sure it’s like i’m like 70

confident so it’s kind of like lower

lower level of confidence okay

all right uh i don’t see

other questions yet so

let’s go to the last part for today’s

lesson the last part will be about

explaining sources yes explaining

sources this is extremely important if

you are a student always cite your

sources students

okay i’m not going to talk about that

today but very important okay let’s go

to sources how do you explain the source

of your information explaining the

source of info info and information

source means where did your information

come from so that’s what we’re doing

here expressing

where we learned some information

all right so

we have four

patterns here of course there are more

according to the

source of your information but let’s

look quickly at the basic ideas here in

practice okay so according to

according to so according to is used

before a source so according to alicia

we should use pretty sure when we are 70

sure

so according to source according to a

person according to a news outlet

according to this book or according to

something whatever your information

sources you can use according to before

the source and then give the information

maurices says can i say according to me

um i guess like grammatically according

to me this is correct but the idea here

like you don’t need to say according to

me because you can just say your opinion

you can just say the information right

like you don’t need to say according to

me we use according to to talk about uh

something that comes from someone else

right so it would sound like that made

me laugh like it would sound funny

if you want to make a joke you could say

that

we use this to give information about

another source

okay

uh all right so let’s go to the next one

in an article i read

in an article

i read

so i have this in in parentheses we have

a couple different patterns we use with

this kind of thing in an article i read

or an article i read

described blah blah blah there are a

couple of different patterns that we use

with this we’ll look at um

some examples in just a second okay

uh and then here’s another one in a book

about this topic or a book about this

topic said blah blah blah all right so

we can use articles books maybe podcasts

youtube videos whatever your sources can

go here

here’s another useful one

i saw in the news today i saw in the

news today

or you could use i read in the news

today so we always use this plural and

the the news the news that means uh the

recent news

like today’s news or uh the week’s news

we always use that

okay

cool

let’s go to some examples now some

examples now so first i want to talk

about using

according to

according to

so how do we use according to

to express our sources it sounds kind of

formal as well so this uh according to

we typically use more in like writing

like professional writing or maybe in

like uh professional situations

according to another person okay

so according to our customer data

a lot of people are interested in our

new product idea we should create it so

according to our customer data so this

shows us the source the source

of my opinion or the source of this

information

is customer data customer data so

according to our customer data

a lot of people are interested in our

new product idea so we should create it

okay cool

good so this is how we can use according

to

then next here’s one about the news how

do we report about the news

i saw

in the news today that a lot of people

are getting sick lately

we should be careful

i saw in the news today that a lot of

people are getting sick lately so let’s

break this down so i saw in the news

today that’s the same as this pattern

yeah i saw in the news today

that so this is our relative pronoun

that introduces this idea this uh topic

yeah

a lot of people are getting sick lately

this is a like just a basic statement

yeah a lot of people are getting sick

lately so we connect these ideas with

that i saw in the news today that a lot

of people

we should be careful so this is the

opinion we should be careful

okay

and finally

some articles okay so i mentioned how to

express

uh articles when we read articles about

topics like this

i read past tense i read some articles

about sleep and rest it’s really

important to give yourself time to

recharge because it makes you mentally

and physically healthier

this was a long one yeah i read some

articles about sleep and rest so here’s

my source right i talked about this

pattern but another way to express this

is with i read an article about this

topic or in this case plural i read some

articles about topic i read some

articles about sleep and rest it’s

really important to give yourself time

to recharge because it makes you

mentally and physically

healthier

okay so these are some ways to express

the source of your information so maybe

according to it’s very easy to use but

it does sound a little bit more formal

so if you want to express speech you can

just use said like we talked about

earlier

that’s very very common

okay

let’s see i don’t see any questions from

you

everybody’s saying hello

some things okay i don’t see any

questions from you i’m a student from

cambodia cool welcome okay uh so raphael

says according to my professor and

grades i wasn’t approved this semester

so maybe according to my professor

my grades weren’t enough so we need to

when you use according to when you use

this pattern here according to

right here

according to person is good like

according to my professor

uh so we we use according to to show we

received some information

from that source so in your example

raphael we cannot like get information

like my grades don’t tell me

like information they cannot speak right

so we need to read or hear information

or process like written information to

use according to

okay

other questions according to alicia you

need to learn english everyday to get

better that would be great that would be

great so i think that’s a very good idea

is to practice every day

all right uh let’s go to the end oh my

gosh that’s the end

so we have to finish there

oh my gosh that’s funny uh so we are

done

uh with today’s lesson so

thanks very much for joining me i will

show you today’s lesson boards one more

time if you want to take a screenshot

there you go so we talked about

expressing your opinion first of all we

talked about reporting speech as well

and we talked about explaining the

source of your information okay so i

hope this was helpful for you i hope it

was helpful for you in terms of uh

presenting your ideas and explaining

where you got your information it’s

really important okay

let’s go

to next week’s information next week’s

lesson information is here next week

i’ll be back of course next week’s

lesson will be august 18th 10 p.m

eastern standard time that is new york

city time if you do not know your local

time please use your google skills and

figure it out or you can set a

notification on youtube or on facebook

uh if you follow me on instagram also i

always post a link and a topic reminder

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instagram to get that update too the

link is in the description next week i’m

going to talk about how to talk

naturally about your schedule how to

talk naturally about your schedule we’re

going to cover simple present tense for

sure in this one we’ll cover some very

basic grammar points so i think this

will be a good lesson for beginners okay

cool so i will say goodbye for today

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was awesome have a good day have