How to Learn English with Movies without Subtitles

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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 on Hill

McNamara or angel McNamara hi hi Alicia

and team I read this sentence having

weighed up the pros and cons he decided

against resigning present participle can

you please explain that to me okay so to

my understanding this question is about

the use of the present participle in

resigning in decided against resigning

so we can use the present participle to

function as a noun so this can take the

position of the subject of a sentence

the object of a sentence indirect object

can have many different functions here

its functioning as the object of the

preposition against so against resigning

it’s the object of this preposition

against so decided against is kind of

it’s an idiomatic phrase so to decide

against something to decide against a

noun phrase means to decide not to do

that thing so here decided against

resigning means he decided not to resign

but we’re just using this idiomatic

expression decided against something but

yes here the present participle is

acting as a noun we can do this we call

this a gerund so here are a couple other

examples of Gerrans in different parts

of speech cleaning bores me I always try

to finish as quickly as possible so here

cleaning is the subject of the verb

bores and the object of the verb is me

so cleaning here is the gerund we’re

seeing it as the present participle form

of the verb clean we love cooking

because we can try lots of different

things at home okay so in this example

sentence cooking is the gerund and in

this case it’s functioning as the object

of the verb love we love cooking so

these are just a couple of examples of

the different positions that

gerunds can take in sentences but yes we

use this present participle as a noun in

different places in sentences so I hope

that this helps answer your question

thanks very much all right let’s move on

to your next question next question

comes from then tied end then says what

is IPA I’m really confused about it okay

so in language learning IPA stands for

international phonetic alphabet so the

international phonetic alphabet is

different from this standard alphabet

like the ABCs that many of us know this

is different from the standard alphabet

because the phonetic alphabet is an

alphabet of sounds it’s an alphabet for

pronunciation so when we learn the ABCs

like many native speakers I think most

native speakers probably know like the

ABC song the ABCD efg song in that song

though we learned the names of the

letters we don’t actually learn how we

pronounce those letters so like a good

example is like the second and third

letters of the alphabet song B and C so

we learned that B is called B but we

don’t actually learn how to pronounce B

with the phonetic alphabet though we

learn that B makes a sound and if we

want to get really specific there are a

couple of marks that show us exactly

what kind of sound a B is supposed to

make with a complex letter like C though

the phonetic alphabet can be super

useful so in the alphabet song we

learned that the letter is C but we

don’t learn all the different

pronunciations that we can make with

this letter so of course there’s the

pronunciation as in like cat or car or

cape but we don’t actually hear that in

the song so this sound is represented

with a K actually in the phonetic

alphabet when we pair C with another

letter like CH to make the sound we see

this sound represented with a different

letter in the phonetic alphabet so it’s

like cheat or chair or chat so the

phonetic alphabet can show us

pronunciations so even if we don’t know

exactly how we should

a word like the first time we see it we

can find the pronunciation in many

dictionaries with the phonetic alphabet

so for example if I look for the word

chair in an online dictionary that uses

the phonetic alphabet

I’ll find a spelling like this so it

uses that symbol which doesn’t look like

a c and then it ends with this air part

so this er refers specifically to the

air sound so if you look at an

international phonetic alphabet chart

you’ll see some symbols that are the

same as the standard alphabet like with

consonants like B or K sounds for

example but when you’re looking at like

vowel sounds and some of these special

sounds like for example you’ll notice

that there are these new symbols so if

you look at these sorts of symbols and

kind of study them as sort of sounds

instead of just names instead of just

like symbols you can use these to help

with your pronunciation of something so

if I’m learning and I don’t know any

rules of pronunciation I might think the

word chair is pronounced like chi or

something if I’m reading each letter

individually with IPA however I can look

at this information and I can understand

the correct pronunciation easily as long

as I’ve studied the sounds so this is a

quick introduction to the IPA and how

you might use it so I hope that this is

helpful for you if you want to know more

about the IPA I would suggest a google

search for an IPA chart you can find a

few of them online Wikipedia has a nice

one and a nice explanation and there are

some that you can find that will play

audio so you can click a button near a

symbol and it will give you the sound

for that so the symbol corresponds to a

sound not just a letter name so I hope

that that helps you as a side note IPA

also has a beer reference IPA also means

Indian Pale Ale or India Pale Ale so

quite different from the alphabet we’re

talking about here but don’t get them

confused there are those two very common

abbreviations IPA or the very common

initialisms rather okay so I hope that

that helps you thanks very much for this

question let’s move on to

next question next question comes from

Alam hi Imam Alam says hi Alicia I want

to learn English by watching movies so

should I watch it with or without

subtitles and should the subtitles be in

English also or in the language that I

understand yeah we get this question a

lot and so what I usually say or what I

try to say what I recommend is that you

plan to watch your movie or your TV show

more than once so the strategy that I

like to use and that I have used in the

past is to watch one time with subtitles

in your native language so in my case I

watched with English subtitles so in

this example I was watching a Japanese

TV show so I watched it one time with

all the subtitles on in English so I

could read everything but I was

listening in Japanese in this case so as

I was doing this I was picking up like

commonly used words in the series I was

picking up grammar points that they used

a lot and I was listening to different

speaking styles that the different

characters used so in this way I had

like this kind of basis for the story

that I could gain and I had kind of this

understanding of like okay this is the

way these different people talk I was

kind of prepared then after a gap I went

back and I watched it again without

subtitles

so this forced me to try to remember the

words that I heard and that I saw on

screen in English the first time around

but it also kind of forced me to make

guesses so of course I couldn’t remember

everything and that meant I had to try

to make an educated guess about the

situation so if the characters used a

word I didn’t know I had to think about

like what did they do when I was

watching this the first time and I had

subtitles on so based on that I could

try to guess what words meant if that

makes sense so I remembered seeing this

episode in the past maybe I can remember

the sorts of things that happened in

this episode and maybe I can make a

guess about what they’re talking about

now so actually when I was first

watching this series I was also studying

Japanese in university so that really

helped me to

prove my vocabulary and grammar and just

kind of be able to enjoy the series and

enjoy watching it a little bit more and

having a little bit of space between my

first viewing and my second viewing also

helped me see just how much I had

improved so I would say maybe if you’re

planning on using a movie or a TV show

like try to space out your viewings a

little bit so don’t watch it like one

time with subtitles one time without

subtitles like in the same day so try to

space out your learning a little bit so

you give your brain a little time to try

to recall the information then maybe you

can try if you want to you can try

watching the movie with English

subtitles after that to review again and

to practice your reading as well so this

is something that I would do I hope that

this is helpful for you this was fun and

helpful for me so maybe it’ll work well

for you so thanks very much for sending

this question along and good luck and

enjoy your movie studies okay let’s move

on to your next question next question

comes from Arjun Singh hi Arjun Arjun

says hi Alicia could you please tell me

the difference between stress and

depression okay so this is kind of a

tough question because for some people

stress and depression are very closely

linked so I’ll speak very generally

about this stress refers to the everyday

feelings that we have that are negative

so this is like your anxiety your

worries maybe from lots of work or lots

of study to do or you feel tired or you

make a mistake you have problems so this

is all of the negative stuff that

happens that we think about that we kind

of carry in our minds we call that

stress so some examples in a sentence

I’m under a lot of stress at work right

now

you need to reduce the stress in your

life depression on the other hand refers

to a medical condition in many cases for

some people there’s something called

seasonal depression which usually

happens in winter and it’s like this

feeling of sadness loneliness this kind

of empty feeling that people experience

for other people depression is

year-round so it’s this really

like unhappy persistent unhappy feeling

that never really goes away so maybe

people with depression can have trouble

with everyday tasks or they might have

trouble getting out of bed or eating so

these very kind of basic things may be

difficult for people with depression so

that’s considered a medical issue and

some people get treatment for depression

so depression is something that’s

constant something that’s like a

constant emotional state or a medical

state that requires treatment stress on

the other hand is temporary or in most

cases it’s temporary it’s something that

kind of comes and goes with life

depression is something that’s much

longer period so some examples of

depression a friend of mine is

struggling with depression do you have a

history of depression so I hope this

helps you understand the differences

remember stress kind of comes and goes

for most people and depression is a

medical condition that sometimes

requires treatment thanks very much for

the question all right let’s move on to

your next question next question comes

from Ahmad Riza hi Ahmad Ahmad says hi

Alicia what’s the difference between

college and university oh yeah in

general conversation we tend to use

these words exactly the same I would say

too in American English we tend to use

college more often than university but

the actual difference is that colleges

offer just undergraduate education so an

undergraduate education in the u.s. is

four years so that’s a bachelor’s degree

you get a bachelor’s degree when you

finish your undergraduate education a

university however offers undergraduate

and graduate education so at a

university students can get a bachelor’s

degree a master’s they can get their PhD

there so a university offers more

courses more opportunities for education

than a college but as I said in

conversation these days most people use

them interchangeably so for example I

might say like I applied to five

universities last year we probably

wouldn’t say I applied to two colleges

in three universities last year because

we consider them pretty

the same so if you want to be super

specific I guess you could but it might

sound a little unnatural to use college

and university in the same sentence like

that

so again generally we use them the same

way but specifically there are those

differences in terms of the courses that

are offered so I hope that this helps

you thanks very much for the question

all right that’s everything that I have

for this week thank you as always for

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