How to Talk About a Very Recent Action in English

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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 Xavier

Lopez hi Xavier Xavier says what is the

difference between able and capable can

you provide examples okay it depends on

the sentence in most cases though they

mean the same thing so the key

difference when you’re using these words

to mean ability to do something is that

we use able and capable in slightly

different sentence patterns when we use

able we tend to use able before a verb

in the infinitive form so that means

able +2 verb so some examples we weren’t

able to finish the race he was able to

attend the meeting so in contrast when

we use capable we use capable before a

noun phrase and we connect it to the

noun phrase with the preposition of so

the final pattern would be capable of

noun phrase some examples she’s capable

of dangerous things they’re capable of

surprising us at any moment I hope that

this helps you thanks very much for the

question ok let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from Sadat

hi Sadat o Sadat says our win gain and

earn the same no they are not the same

we use win for prizes we often use this

verb in contests or in competitions

something that involves like a challenge

of some kind some examples I don’t think

I’m gonna win first prize she won first

place we use gain when we’re talking

about adding to something that we

already have or developing something

naturally some examples of this he

gained weight

our team gained new skills at the

conference we use earn when we work to

receive something she earned a lot of

money less

dear you’ve earned my respect okay so I

hope that that helps you understand the

differences between win gain and earn

thanks very much for the question

let’s move on to your next question next

question comes from Rafael hi Rafael

Rafael says hi Alicia what’s the

difference between V and vow and these

words are they still used no first of

all these words are old English we do

not use these words in everyday

conversation if you have come across

these words somewhere in your reading or

like in watching media it’s probably in

something that was very old or like in a

movie that was set hundreds of years ago

to look at this in a historical way

though as a historical study of English

thou was used to mean you when you is

like the subject of the sentence so if

you can imagine thou is kind of like

subject you thee on the other hand is

like saying you when you is the object

of a sentence so you object form so thou

is the subject V is the object form this

appears in like Shakespeare William

Shakespeare’s works it also appears in

stuff like the Bible which has this very

old-fashioned way of kind of speaking

and writing so a very well-known

expression from Shakespeare is the line

shall I compare thee to a summers day so

V is being used in the object position

there shall I compare thee thou on the

other hand is famously used in the Ten

Commandments

so the Ten Commandments in the Bible are

a list of rules and the rules begin with

thou shalt not or thou shalt something

so that means you should or you should

not do something so those are examples

of uses of thee and thou but they are

not used today in English we only use

them in these kind of archaic old

settings like I mentioned kind of

religious or in like literary senses so

that’s kind of the history of those two

words I would not recommend using them

in everyday conversations if you want to

make a joke or you want

sound kind of old-fashioned really

old-fashioned to be funny go ahead but

in most cases we don’t use them so I

hope that this helps thanks for an

interesting question okay let’s move on

to your next question next question

comes from Roberto Cruz hi Roberto

Roberto says when can I use bad or badly

bad is an adjective and badly is an

adverb so we use bad to describe nouns

some examples that movie was bad he’s a

bad man you’re a bad cook ouch

use badly to describe verbs his essay

was badly written the song was badly

performed your message was badly worded

you can position it before the verb or

after the verb it’s okay I hope that

that helps you understand these

differences thanks very much for the

question let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from alpha

10 hi alpha 10 alpha 10 says how do I

talk about something that just happened

about an hour ago

and how do I ask someone about the

recent past use the same grammar that

you use to write this question use just

so use just before a simple past tense

verb to describe something that happened

in the very recent past some examples I

just talked about the difference between

bad and badly we just ate lunch you just

woke up and then to ask someone about

the very recent past there are a few

ways that you can do it first you can

try including the specific time point

that you want to ask about so some

examples of that might be where were you

an hour ago where was he at 8:00 this

morning

you can also use just to make a question

but there are some cases where this

might sound a little bit aggressive like

what did you just say or where did you

just go so using that tone of voice

might sound a little bit like you’re

accusing the other person it can sound a

little bit aggressive so be kind of

careful with these questions also if you

want some more information and more

details about this topic you can check

out the livestream that we did

about the very recent past so that will

give you some more example sentences and

some patterns to try I hope that that

helps you thanks very much for the

question ok that’s everything that I

have for you for this week thank you as

always for sending your questions

remember you can send them to me at

English class 101.com / ask - alicia of

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much for watching this week’s episode of

ask Alisha and I will see you again next

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