How to Explain a Problem in English Basic English Phrases

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problem we are back so today kind of a I

guess summary of today’s lesson I’m

going to talk about vocabulary words you

can use to express mistakes I’m also

going to talk about a useful sentence

pattern that you can describe our use

when you don’t know something and

finally I’m going to talk about some

grammar points that I think are useful

for this topic so if you have not

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delay let’s begin over here with

vocabulary words all right so these are

vocabulary words we use for mistakes for

mistakes and for problems usually when

we use these we’re using these in the

past tense so let’s take a look these

first two are to make a mistake and to

make an error so they both use the verb

make to make a mistake to make an error

what is the difference between a mistake

and an error we use mistake most

commonly in everyday speech so something

a person did so like earlier maybe like

I’m I wrote the wrong letter or I did

something small like an everyday like

life small thing I would say I made a

mistake so we use past tense here I made

a mistake when you use the word error

it’s often for like machines so you

could say like my printer had an error

or like this other person in my

organization made an error so we use

this for like machines and for like

business situations maybe for contracts

as well to make an error to make an

error okay the next one I want to

introduce this one I’ve had a couple

questions about this word the word is

oops oops the pronunciation oops is used

for small mistakes so like if I drop my

pen or if I maybe accident like I drew

on my skirt earlier on accident you can

say oops for a small mistake something

that’s a really small thing you didn’t

on like accident

so by accident means you did not plan to

do that so you can say

oops for those very small mistakes oops

I have here as well I’m not going to

talk about all of these words but this

is a category I have here curse curse

words or swear words curse words or

swear words so these are words I can’t

say on this channel but they’re the rude

words that you hear on TV and movies

that you maybe hear in everyday life so

we use those words when we make mistakes

so they sound much stronger than so oops

is very mild it’s very mild like little

kids use oops adults use oops as well

but when you want to express something

in a stronger way you can use a curse

word or a swear word if you like not

everybody chooses to use these and they

tend to sound quite rough if you do use

them they sound quite strong and maybe a

bit aggressive so I will leave it to you

to Google some curse words or swear

words just be careful in how you use

them we do not use curse words or swear

words in business or polite situations

definitely not we use them only in like

rough or very casual situations with

close friends so please be careful in

choosing your use of swear words even if

you use it positively like even if you

mean something positively you want to

communicate a positive meaning with a

swear word it still sounds extremely

rough like quite rude so please be

careful with those okay

yes I am back indeed we had a technical

problem at the beginning of the lesson

it is fixed okay let’s go on to these

next three here the next three are very

common ways casual ways to express a

mistake so the first one is to screw up

to screw up to screw up this has nothing

to do with like the emotion of like

screwing something into like

piece of wood so to screw up means to

make a mistake it’s a casual expression

we use it in the past tense

this screw takes an IDI ending screwed

up I screwed up he screwed up we screwed

up it sounds like you made a mistake but

this is much more casual than to make a

mistake I screwed up I screwed up

that’s creative primer my report or I

screwed up making that presentation

another very common one is the

expression to blow it to blow it where

it is the situation in past tense blow

becomes blue so she blew it he blew it

we used this for a huge mistake

so something like for example a really

big opportunity like maybe a job

interview if someone really makes a huge

mistake in a job interview they could

say I blew it

or she blew it or to be specific like

she blew the job interview he blew the

presentation

so using this verb or this phrasal verb

really communicates a huge huge mistake

all right final one here is to mess up

to mess up so to mess up it sounds a

little less severe than to blow it so

this verb takes a regular IDI ending I

messed up he messed up this usually

means like a small mistake like you

wrote the wrong word on a report or

maybe you sent the wrong file to someone

you can say oh I messed up sorry about

that

it sounds quite casual so you can kind

of choose this one to blow it is for

really big mistakes to screw up is kind

of medium level mistakes and to mess up

is lower level mistakes here okay junior

hey junior junior says Alicia is blunder

kind of like a mistake yeah blunder is

like a mistake but it’s like a mistake

you make because you don’t know

something like because you

ignorant of something you make this

mistake so it you you look a little like

maybe not smart so it’s kind of an

embarrassing mistake is a blunder

that’s a blunder so like maybe I don’t

know if I fell down on this live stream

or something like that I don’t know

that’s not really a blunder that’s just

weird I don’t know that’s not a mistake

that would just be embarrassing I think

so a mistake is kind of like related to

your activities you know something that

you are in control of okay let’s go on

to this last group here of vocabulary

words it’s very small can we zoom in I’m

very sorry I ran out of space that looks

nice so here I want to talk about these

expressions so these are all you’ll see

these are all for making mistakes these

are all mistake related expressions

mistake related oh sorry these however

are for when you don’t know something

and you need to explain that so that’s

that’s a kind of problem yeah when you

don’t know something I’m gonna talk

about this later

so we can use this pattern I have no

idea I have no idea or I have no clue so

we can use both clue and idea here so

here you’ll notice idea and clue these

are used in the singular form here I

have no idea means I totally don’t know

I don’t know at all I have no idea so we

use this in the singular form please

note that not ideas not clues I have no

idea this means I don’t know 100% I

don’t know this is a very casual phrase

the second one here is I’m stumped I’m

stumped I looked up the history of this

word it has a long history that’s kind

of uncertain but stumped for those of

you who know the stuff here in the root

at root that’s funny

the stump is like the base of a tree so

when people would cut down in the US

when people cut down trees to make roads

or like for fields or pastures the stump

the base of the tree would remain so if

you can’t imagine I am NOT an artist I

mean if you can’t imagine like a stump

is this part of a tree that’s this stump

the bottom part of a tree so when people

were making roads are like fields or

things the base part of the tree the

stump was left and that created problems

for people like they couldn’t like

finish making the road because the

stumps were there it was like being

blocked so today we use this expression

I’m stumped to mean I’m blocked like I

can’t think of anything like I’m

mentally blocked so this expression

means like I’m confused or I don’t know

how to go on or I don’t know how to

solve this problem I’m stumped you’ll

hear this a lot okay final one here is

he’s or she’s clueless he’s or she’s

clueless let’s break this down so clue

this clue this is the same clue we saw

in this expression and I have no clue

yeah

clue lists so here less you can think of

less as acting like a suffix here so

this means having no clue so she has no

clue he has no clue but we say clue less

so not having a clue

so less means not having this thing okay

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good so I’m gonna take one more quick

break and then I want to go on to this

middle part in today’s lesson this kind

of key pattern for explaining things you

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to the part that I think is the most

interesting part of today’s lesson this

part okay we’re going to talk about some

grammar exciting okay so this I’ve

labeled when you don’t know something so

I want to help you explain specifically

what you don’t know so this part I don’t

know

this one is easy to say yeah like I

don’t know I don’t know the answer maybe

or just I don’t know what you want me to

do

maybe we know a few basic patterns here

I want to talk about how to explain

specifically what you don’t know so that

someone can help you fix this problem so

first I’ve included here at the end of

this I don’t know expression the basic

WH questions I don’t know who I don’t

know what where when why how so I want

to take a look first at these three at

the top here so these three

sentences follow a really special

pattern let’s read them first the first

one is I don’t know who has the office

key this is just an example I don’t know

what the password is I don’t know where

my bag is so sorry

I’m is labeled this it’s this one in

this one sorry and let’s look at this

one too I don’t know when she’s gonna

get here

so sorry I want to look at these three

here first so these three sentences they

all explain a problem something we don’t

know and we’re using different WH

questions to explain that then you’ll

notice this part of the sentence you can

kind of see like the key words to make a

question what the password is or where

my bag is or when she’s gonna get here

but maybe you can see the word order in

these types of like parts of sentences

is swapped yeah so when we make a direct

question like for example what the

password is that sounds really weird I

know

usually you would say what is the

password right or here like where is my

bag not where my bag is that sounds

weird I know but when you’re using the

be verb like right here here we have is

in this case is is she is when you’re

using the be verb in these kinds of

patterns like inside another sentence or

inside another question you need to

change the order of your be verb so the

be verb is coming after your noun so we

would say what is the password here

though my be verb comes after my noun so

this is kind of a special grammar and

word order point that we use sorry we

use only in patterns like these so oh no

I’ve just erased it so I don’t know what

the password is it comes at the end of

the sentence I don’t know where my bag

is this is correct here so think about

this when you’re making these types of

questions in sentences that do not use B

verbs though we don’t have to worry

about this rule so this first sentence

is a great example I don’t know who has

the office key I don’t know who has the

office key does not use a beaver so this

part of the sentence

who has the office key this is a regular

direct question so no change is

necessary so if there’s no beaver in

your question don’t worry about it so

that’s a part 1 of this part here too I

will try to check your questions as well

nice one I’m not on Facebook says I

don’t know who has the answer nice one

good okay um let’s move on then to a

couple other points yeah a nice one alka

said I don’t know who is there good good

good ok um so that actually yeah that

one works I don’t know who’s there ok

let’s move on then to these next to

these next to here because these are

also special these are I don’t know why

and I don’t know how so first I don’t

know why I have to fill out this form

three times I don’t know why I have to

fill out this form three times and I

don’t know how to use this software I

don’t know how to use this software so

these two relate to this point right

here so I’ve written a couple notes at

the bottom here the first one is about

using B where we swap the word order to

swap means you reverse the word order

here though we do not use do so in these

like yes/no questions do you have do you

need we do not use do or did does or

didn’t in these in these types of

statements so in a question or in a

statement like this I don’t know why I

have to fill out this form three times

if we look

at this part again from after my

question word so if I wanted to make a

direct question I would say why do I

have to fill out this form three times

that’s my direct question why do I have

to fill out this form but we do not use

do so remove do why I have to fill out

this form three times this is correct

inside this larger sentence so we’ve

removed do here okay then this last one

shows us actually there are a couple

different ways we could say this

sentence so we could say for example

looking again here how do I use this

software how do I use this software we

could make this sentence I don’t know

how I use this software we could say

that or we can replace it as I did here

with two with two so there are two

different ways we could express this

here so just do not use do in these

sentence patterns do or any variation

and swap be here all right final point

about this when you use these kinds of

patterns and you see like it is at the

end of the sentence we can’t use a

contraction at the end of a sentence so

I don’t know where my bags we can’t say

that we cannot say a contraction at the

end of this sentence please use is for

sure here so this is actually kind of a

really interesting point I think so if

you want to know more about this kind of

grammar please check out where can you

see this if you want to know more about

this you can search for what are called

embedded questions embedded questions so

this will tell you some more about this

grammar point and the rules with this

grammar point and a lot more examples

today I’m focusing on a problem I don’t

know statements

this is super interesting I think all

right um

Wow we only have two minutes left do I

get to go a little longer because we had

technical problems no I know I know I

know

given your hard time sorry okay let’s uh

let’s go on to the last part I will

let’s see you guys had some nice example

sentences like I don’t know how to use

that machine okay or I don’t know where

my mobile is nice he didn’t know how to

ask her out nice other example I don’t

know why English is so difficult but

Alisha makes it easier yay thanks links

on Facebook cool um nice nice thanks for

your examples okay I’m gonna continue to

the last point of today’s lesson then

which is just some useful patterns that

I wanted to review so the first one is

using the word enough especially in

negative sentences so we can use it

before an adjective the first sentence

here is I don’t have enough time or I’m

sorry to support now I don’t have enough

time so this expresses I need more time

I need more time

we can also use it after an adjective

this bag isn’t big enough

so please note the positioning of enough

changes depending on the grammar of your

sentence so when you’re using this noun

I don’t have enough time or I don’t have

enough food for example you can use it

up before the noun with an adjective

follow the adjective with enough okay

second using too much or too many this

point I’ve noticed a few people in the

comment section of videos they’ll use

too but they mean so so too has a

negative feel to means like excess of

something more than we need so for

example we bought a 2

many drinks more drinks than we need

you’ll also hear this word right here is

way W a why this is an emphasis for it a

casual emphasis word we bought way too

many drinks so too many sounds negative

it’s like more than necessary okay

second example here I ate too much

cheese so what’s the rule for using too

many and too much too many is used when

we’re talking about a countable noun too

many drinks too much is used for an

uncountable noun in this case cheese I

ate too much cheese is that a problem I

feel like for some people it could be

maybe for lactose intelligible very

specific okay so that’s too much and too

many a quick review of that grammar

point last point for today and then

we’ll wrap up is this this is a good one

to use at work for situations where your

expectations have not been met so you

thought there was a plan the plan did

not happen or the plan has not happened

yet so for example my package hasn’t

arrived yet it hasn’t arrived yet so

here we’re using the perfect tense yeah

or our clients haven’t called our

clients haven’t called so here you’ll

notice I’m using haven’t or hasn’t

depending on my subject and I’m

finishing my sentence maybe with yet so

yet shows we have an expectation for

that action I used it here my package

hasn’t arrived yet but I expect it’s

going to come in this sentence our

clients haven’t called the expectation

is much lower like oh maybe there’s a

chance the clients aren’t going to call

so we can use this to talk about a

problem something hasn’t arrived or we

haven’t received in

Meishan yet okay so a couple of quick

and useful patterns for explaining

problems here all right but I have to

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last week I talked about sequence words

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can do to kind of make your writing a

little bit better

and some things to look out for so

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