Just vs Only Learn English Vocabulary

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first lesson

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about some

differences

between the words just and only

i’m going to look at these words in two

ways that they are used

i’m going to focus on their adverb use

in this lesson let’s get started i want

to begin

by talking about the word just just

so i have two meanings here for just

the first meaning for just is one that

shares a meaning with only so we’re

going to see this is the same

kind of sentence pattern the same usage

so just or only in this way

it emphasizes a small degree

or a small amount of something so when

we want to make something seem

smaller or perhaps less important

we can use the word just or we can use

only to do this

some examples i ate just

one cookie here so point that i want to

make

smaller i want to emphasize this

one cookie i use just to show

so not two not three one i want to

emphasize the small

number there second we had

just three days for our vacation so

here i want to emphasize three days was

a small

amount of time so just three days

shows that the speaker feels it was not

a large degree

like it was not a large amount of time

for vacation

so we use this for emphasis if we remove

just from the sentence it remains

grammatically correct i ate one cookie

is okay we had three days for our

vacation

is okay but using just emphasizes

a small degree or a small amount of

something

so we’ll see this with only as well

okay let’s take a look at the second use

just for this lesson we can use just

for very recently completed actions

or for actions happening in the very

near future when we use just to talk

about

near future actions we use it with

about two about two also

you may hear some speakers use just with

the ing form of a verb so

that means something is happening like

now it’s beginning right now

so it’s extremely near future you might

hear that

so with about two that means it has not

started yet but it’s going to be very

soon

so let’s look at some examples first

i just finished my homework i just

finished my homework

so finished is past tense here this

refers to a very recently completed

action

did you just call me this is a question

so here

call is in present tense yes but we have

did

past tense here did you call me did you

just call me means in the very recent

past

did you call so using just shows that

then these are near future situations

i was just about to go to lunch

i was just about to go to lunch so here

you can use was you may hear some

speakers using i am

i’m just about to go to lunch do you

want to come we often use this past

tense pattern when something

changed our plans like i was just about

to go to lunch

but this urgent task came up so

sometimes we do that

you can hear both it kind of depends on

the speaker’s feeling

a little bit okay this one

uh we’re just about to leave so

this uses that present tense i was

talking about we are

we’re just about to leave so that shows

that it’s an upcoming plan

for the very near future again just

appears

before the verb here in the past tense

examples

so keep this in mind because for this

lesson for this content in general

the word order is very important here

so when you’re using just with this

meaning with meaning one

to emphasize a small degree we need to

use

just before the word it modifies

so here the emphasis the word i want to

emphasize

is one one or three

so just comes before that word

a mistake that many people make and even

native speakers make

is using just before the verb here i

just ate one cookie

or we just had three days for our

vacation

so they want to emphasize this but they

position

just before the verb and this is

incorrect because we use

just in this position for this kind of

pattern

for a recently finished action i just

ate one cookie

sounds like i very recently ate one

cookie which is correct that could be a

grammatically correct sentence yes

but if you want to emphasize a small

amount of something you need to put it

before that word that you want to modify

we’ll see the same thing with only

actually

so when we’re using only again it shares

this meaning with

just for the first the first meaning

here so

we’re emphasizing that small degree of

something and the same

word order rule applies we have to use

only before the word it modifies

so we can use the same example sentences

ate only one cookie or we had

only three days for our vacation so

again we can remove

only from the sentence and the sentence

remains grammatically correct

we’re just emphasizing one or

three in this case and using only shows

the speaker feels it was a small amount

or a small

degree if we position only somewhere

else in the sentence like

i only ate one cookie or we only have

three days for our vacation

then it modifies the verb and it changes

the sentence for example if i said

i only ate one cookie it means i did not

anything else to that one cookie so i

only

ate one cookie i did not look at the

i did not smell the cookie i did not

bake the cookie

i only ate one cookie so we’re modifying

the verb there

here it comes before one so i ate only

one cookie so

not two not three not four i ate only

one so keep this in mind this is a key

point that many native speakers have

trouble with too

okay let’s take a look then at the

second use

for this lesson i want to talk about one

more common use

of the word only and that is when it’s

used in

conditionals we use this in conditionals

sentences in if questions to place our

restriction

on some action so this is when we want

to say that

one thing is not possible

without another thing so maybe some of

you have studied

like if only if as long as

and unless and so on so this is like the

kind of situations that we use

these for example we can take a long

vacation this summer

only if we start saving now

so using only if

shows that this situation

taking a long vacation this summer is

possible yes but there’s a condition

there’s a restriction

so only if we start

saving now means if we do not start

saving

now we cannot go on vacation

so we could say yes if we start saving

now sure

that would be okay but this is

emphasizing their restriction

this is possible only if we start saving

now we must start saving now

if we do not start saving now it is not

going to be possible

let’s look at one more example for

example in this case i was thinking like

a mother

or a father speaking to their child so

yes you can go to your friend’s party

but only if you finish your homework

so again we see a condition

like some situation that we’re

interested in desiring

going to the friend’s party and then we

see the restriction

only if you finish your homework

only if you finish your homework can you

go to the party

so that means homework must be completed

the child

must complete his or her homework if

that is done

the child can go to the party so this

only

shows that restriction more clearly than

just

if so you need to use only to emphasize

that restriction

so we can do this you might hear some

native speakers

split the only and the if into like

so they have a lot of distance in the

sentence sometimes i hear

for example we can only take a long

vacation this summer

if we start saving now so in most cases

that doesn’t cause a communication

problem but for the sake of clarity i

would recommend you try to keep your

only and if together so that you can

clearly see

the conditions and the restrictions so

again

word order does matter here put this

before the condition

this is the thing that must happen it

must be completed it must be fulfilled

in order for this other thing to happen

so your word order does matter here

so from this lesson a big point meaning

one

for only and just they are the same you

can use them in the same

way so don’t worry about choosing

between these two

the thing to worry about is the position

of the word in the sentence make sure to

put it before the word you’re modifying

if you would like some more information

about these points specifically the word

only there is a lesson about positioning

of the word only in sentences so please

check the youtube channel

for that video of course if you have