How to Improve Your English Spelling Skills

want to get cheat sheets audiobooks

lessons

apps and much more every month for free

just click the link in the description

to get your free language gifts of the

month

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them

maybe okay let’s get to your first

question this week

first question this week comes from

hamza hi hamza

hamza says hello alicia thank you so

much for your great efforts my question

how do i tell time in informal speech

okay the simplest way is just to say

it’s

number plus number so two numbers

if however you’re at the top of the hour

which means like the minute hand and

the hour hand are at the top of the

clock then you can just say

it’s plus number like it’s 12 or it’s 6

or it’s 7.

so for example you could say it’s 2 45

or it’s 6 15 or it’s 8.

this is the simplest way to describe the

time to share the time in

informal speech it’s not necessarily

more formal to use expressions like

quarter till

or quarter after or half past and so on

it’s not more formal to do that it’s

just a different way of expressing it so

please feel free to use those

expressions like it’s a quarter after

two or it’s a quarter till six those are

fine

you can use those i will say however

that we don’t use

a clock very much we don’t really say

like seven o’clock

that much we tend to just say it’s seven

or it’s eight

again it’s not incorrect to use these by

any means you can

totally use them feel free to use them

but i would say the most direct way

to tell the time is just to say it’s

plus the number so i hope that this

helps you thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from chris hi chris chris says hi

alicia

i would like to know what that’s that

sorted means

this may be more common in british

english i try to google it but i can’t

find its meaning can you please explain

thanks sure we can talk about it so

first let’s take a look at the word

sorted so sorted comes from originally

the expression

sorted out so as you mentioned this is

more commonly used in british english

so sorted out or to sort something out

means to take

care of something usually like to solve

a problem

or like to finish a task or like take

care of some kind of

challenging or difficult activity so

sorted comes from

sorted out so even though we’re using

just sorted here it still

keeps that same meaning of to take care

of something

sorted so let’s add one word here so

that’s sorted means that task is sorted

or

that task is taken care of or i took

care of

that task then we add this that’s

to the beginning of this so that’s that

sorted so

that’s refers to a situation

like okay by doing this or through this

situation

that task was taken care of so this may

be easier to understand if we have a

situation

let’s imagine you need to give a report

to your boss

and the report has some negative

information in it so you don’t really

want to do it

but it’s your responsibility so you go

meet with your boss you share the

information

after the meeting you tell your

co-worker well that’s that’s sorted

which means that task has been taken

care of or

with this action that task has been

taken care of

so that’s that sorted is a as you said

kind of british way to express this

feeling so i hope that this helps you

thanks for an interesting question okay

let’s move on to our next question

next question comes from raya akaputra

hi raya

raya says what are the differences among

perhaps

probably and maybe okay let’s talk about

probably

first we use probably to refer to

actions that have a very

high chance of happening like 80 or so

we often use probably with future tense

expressions with like will

or going to like i’ll probably go

jogging tonight

or we’ll probably watch a movie later or

we’re probably going to go to the beach

this weekend so we’re expressing a

high chance of something with probably

perhaps and maybe on the other hand

refer to something that just has a

chance of happening we’re very unsure

about that thing

in terms of meaning these two are the

same they have the same meaning

but perhaps sounds more formal than

maybe we use maybe in everyday speech we

use perhaps

in like writing for example if you want

to write a more formal letter you want

to sound a little bit more polite

you might use perhaps you can also use

perhaps in speech too to sound a little

bit more polite

but again these have the same meaning

they just sound a little bit different

in terms of their formality so some

examples

perhaps we can talk about this next week

maybe we can discuss this after lunch

okay so i hope that this helps you

understand the differences between

probably

maybe and perhaps thanks for the

question okay let’s move on to your next

question

next question comes from so van hi

sylvan

so van says i have a question about

these two sentences

should i say i went to the store this

morning

or i went to the store last morning i’m

wondering if

this can be used with past tense ah yeah

nice question we use this before morning

afternoon and evening with those time of

day expressions like this morning this

afternoon this evening

we can also use it with future tense

expressions like future tense time of

day expressions

we can also use it with a future week or

day or month

expressions too we do not however

use last with time of day expressions we

don’t say

last morning or last afternoon or

last evening instead when we’re talking

about

the day before we just use yesterday

like yesterday morning or yesterday

afternoon or yesterday evening

so when you’re talking about today

something that happened today

and you want to talk about something

from that day’s morning use

this make sure you use this in contrast

then you can use

last when you’re talking about almost

any other time period so you can use

this with a day of the week like last

monday last tuesday

you can use it with a weekend last

weekend you can use it with a month like

last month

like that or you can use it with the

name of a month last april

last september you can use it with years

last year or

decades last decade if you want to for

some reason but we use

this when we’re talking about a time

period

in the day this morning this afternoon

this evening and we also will use this

to talk about future time periods to

know the difference we just depend on

the context we look

at the context clues to understand if

it’s a

sentence or an expression about

something that happened that day

or something in the future so i hope

that this helps you thanks for the

question

okay let’s move on to our next question

next question comes from

samuel hi samuel samuel says how do i

improve

spelling read reading is the most

important thing you can do i think to

improve your spelling

so especially with english english words

are often

not spelled the way that they sound and

so reading words in books

will help you to identify over time the

correct way to spell

a variety of different words and a

variety of different sounds as well

so think of it not just as reading like

one word at a time and memorizing the

way that that one word is spelled which

sometimes is useful as you read you’ll

start to identify or you’ll start to

find

patterns in the ways certain sounds are

spelled so over time you’ll start to

notice some things are spelled similarly

some things are just totally irregular

but one thing that you can do that will

really really help your spelling

is read the other thing you can do is

write so after you read

make sure you spend some time writing

those words

so writing will help things stick a

little bit better in your brain take the

time maybe to write a note

or to write something down write an idea

down that uses that word

so just make sure that you practice

reading and writing this will help you

with your spelling

i hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question okay

that is everything that i have for this

week thank you as always for sending

your questions

remember you can send them to me at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you like

this lesson please don’t forget to give

it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you haven’t

already and check us out at

englishclass101.com for some other

things that can help you with your

english studies

thanks very much for watching this

week’s episode of ask alicia and i will

see you again

next week bye