Hacks to Improve Your English Reading Skills

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hi everybody welcome back to ask Alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and I answer them maybe first

question this week comes from my hi my

my says hi Alicia can you explain the

difference between attractive and

attracting for example Denver is a

famous tourist destination and is

renowned for its cuisine and something

scenery yeah okay I would use the word

attractive here attractive in the

adjective form attracting would be the

progressive form of the verb attract so

to attract means like to draw something

or to pull something in like to gain

attention for some reason so attractive

on the other hand means something that

is like appealing something that seems

good or exciting something that people

want that’s something that’s attractive

let’s look at a few examples of how we

would use this Denver’s delicious

cuisine and beautiful scenery are

attracting many tourists our job

advertisement is attracting lots of

great candidates the light bulb in our

living room is attracting moths okay so

now let’s compare this to attractive the

adjective the travel company prepared

some attractive summer vacations for

customers a good sense of humor is very

attractive how do we make our products

more attractive okay so I hope that this

helps you understand the difference

between attractive and attracting thanks

very much for the question all right

let’s move on to your next question next

question this week comes from I’m N hi

I’m n I’m n says hi Alicia I’m from

Algeria my first question is one what is

the difference between years and year

old my second question when can we use I

were instead of I was okay regarding

your first question we use years old to

talk about age we do not use year to

talk about age the only time that we use

year old in the singular is when we’re

talking about a baby

a baby that is one year old in all other

cases we use the

years old so he’s 13 years old she is 47

years old when we’re talking about age

we use gear in the plural form years old

to do that when you’re talking about

just like a length of time you can use

year or years to talk about that so just

remember that years old is for ages okay

regarding your second question then

about I were and I was we use I were

when we’re talking about unreal

situations so this can be something

that’s in the past and it can be

something that’s in the present so some

great examples are like if I were a

doctor or if I were a teacher or if I

were rich so that means you are not that

thing now so it’s not a real situation

it’s not true we use I were to describe

those kinds of situations so a lot of

native speakers actually make a mistake

with this they use I was like if I was a

doctor if I was a teacher if I was rich

it’s actually not correct but so many

people have made this mistake that it’s

quite common now it’s become quite

common actually but the correct way to

express unreal situations is with if I

were if I were so we use was just to

make simple past tense statements about

ourselves so like I was a teacher five

years ago or I was in the car this

morning for example so I work is for

unreal situations I was it’s for simple

past tense statements about yourself I

hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question okay let’s move on

to your next question next question

comes from app graph I hope I said that

right hi a craft a craft says hi Alicia

I’ve been learning English for many

years now in school but I feel that my

English level has stagnated over the

past few years so I’ve started reading

English classic books like Jane Austen

and the Bronte’s books in the beginning

I looked up every word I didn’t

understand but I have to stop about 20

times every page I decided to just read

without looking up the difficult words

do you think this is a good idea ah okay

I think that

strategy sounds good but the book that

you’re using sounds too difficult I

think that using a book to learn like

this is great one of the problems here

though is that classic English

literature is often written in like

old-fashioned English so that means that

the books English and today’s English is

a bit different so if you’re learning

English I probably I would say baby

don’t choose a classic English

literature book as it’s going to be

difficult to read just the way that

things are expressed in those books are

kind of different from the way that we

speak in everyday life so I would

recommend first choose an easier book so

by that I mean choose a book that was

written recently fairly recently and

also I would suggest when you’re making

your book choice try to choose something

that you can understand about 70% of

without a dictionary so it sounds like

right now if you’re stopping 20 times

per page that the book is too difficult

so look for something that you can stop

maybe two three four five maybe tops at

the most per page otherwise I think

you’re gonna kill your motivation and

you’ll feel just discouraged and you

don’t get to enjoy what you’re reading

so I would say yeah choose something

that’s modern and choose something that

you can get about 70% of without using a

dictionary so that’s different for

everybody as far as what kinds of

materials that might be helpful for you

I’ve personally found that reading

biographies so stories of people’s lives

is really great and I also have enjoyed

using lecture books to study so I

recommend these or I’ve found these

useful because with a biography there

are very few characters there’s usually

one main character telling a clear story

there’s not a lot of characters and it’s

usually someone you’re already

interested in so you probably already

have some vocabulary about that story so

that’s good I also like lectures because

if it’s something that you’re interested

in a topic you’re interested in you can

gain more vocabulary about that thing

and again maybe you already have

vocabulary so I hope that this helps you

and good luck as you continue with your

studies thanks very much for the

question okay let’s move along to your

next question next question comes from

Alexander hi Alicia I have a weird

question what’s the difference between

the following words murder homicide

killing murderer killer and assassin

this is indeed a very weird and dark

question let’s begin with the first two

words here which are murder and homicide

okay so actually murder and homicide

refer to the same thing homicide is the

legal word for murder murder means

taking a person’s life so homicide is

just the legal way to describe that the

defendant was found guilty of homicide

there was a triple homicide in the city

last month killing is the progressive

form of the verb kill which we can use

for people we can use for animals and we

can also use this for time actually in

the expression to kill time which just

means to wasted time someone is killing

pets in our neighborhood terrible

sentence a terrible organization killed

a journalist last month so the next word

on your list was murderer okay so a

murderer is a person who kills or has

killed other people someone who has

committed murder murderers are dangerous

people the police are looking for a

murderer

you’re next word is killer so a killer

in this case refers to someone who kills

so again this could be animals this

could be people we can also use the word

killer to talk about someone who ruins

things actually some examples there’s a

killer on the loose that guy is a

conversation killer so the final word

that you have here is assassin so an

assassin is someone who is highly

trained in killing people so that sounds

like a very specific job that they have

is killing people so some examples of

assassin the assassin was on the roof

the government hired an assassin so that

was probably the weirdest and darkest

question I’ve ever received on this

series but I hope that that helps you I

hope that helps answer your questions

thanks very much for this ok let’s move

on to your next question

next question comes from Andy hi Andy

Andy says what is the difference between

these words definition concept theory

notion and conception okay definition

your first word is definition so a

definition is the accepted meaning of a

word or a phrase we find definitions in

dictionaries check the dictionary for

the definition your next word was

concept so a concept is like a way of

thinking about something a concept is a

thought a type of idea this is an

exciting new concept your third word

here was theory so a theory is a new

idea it’s something to test we see

theories used in science a lot like

theory of something so that means it’s

an idea that can be tested we can

experiment to learn more like to try to

prove a theory or disprove a theory we

developed a theory about our customers

your next word was notion a notion so a

notion is an idea or a thought we tend

to use notion in more polite discussion

so maybe like in an academic discussion

for example the notion that we should

wake up early and go to sleep early is

crazy your final word is conception a

conception so conception is the point

where a new idea forms it’s like the

beginning point for some new theory for

example it’s the beginning point maybe

for a new project that start point is

called the conception she’s been a part

of this project since conception so

these are all fairly similar words but

we tend to use like concept and notion

the same way some other words we use

similarly are like idea and thought so

when we’re having these sort of like

philosophical discussions especially

these words get mixed around a lot but I

hope that that helps you understand

again I would recommend checking a

dictionary for other example sentences

and for some other explanations of these

words I hope that that helps you so

that’s everything that I have for this

week thank you as always for sending

your questions remember you can send

them to me at English class 101.com

slash ask

Alicia of course if you liked the video

please don’t forget to give it a thumbs

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not already and check us out at English

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can help you with your English Studies

thanks very much for watching this

week’s episode of ask Alisha and I will

see you again next week bye bye want to

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