How to Talk About a Very Recent Action in English
wanna speak real English from your first
lesson sign up for your free lifetime
account at English class 101.com
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
course if you liked the video please
don’t forget to give it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you haven’t
already and check us out at English
class 101.com
for some other things that 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 speed up your
language learning take your very first
lesson with us you’ll start speaking in
minutes and master real conversations
sign up for your free lifetime account
just click the link in the description