A while for a while in a while What is the difference 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

let’s get to your first question this

week

first question this week comes from

zakaria flifla hi zacharia

zakaria says hi alicia could you please

tell me why we sometimes use the verb

do before another verb thank you yeah

sure

i’ve talked about this before in the

series but we use

do before another verb when we want to

emphasize the opposite of something so

let’s take a look at a few

pairs of sentences to see how this works

sorry i don’t have time to help you

right now but you do

have time you’re just looking at

facebook and

i don’t know anything about today’s

meeting just that they’re making a big

announcement

aha so you do know something okay

so in both of these example sentences we

have a person a

and a person b person a says something

to the effective i don’t know something

or i can’t do something

or i don’t have time to help you as with

person a

in both of these examples and then

person b notices something about person

a

or about the things that person a said

and they

emphasize no that’s not true and they do

this

by including do before the verb

so in the first example situation the

person

person a in this situation said i don’t

have time to help you right now but

person b

said you do have time so you’ll often

hear

do emphasized before the verb that

follows to show

that’s not true so that emphasis in the

speaker’s voice means

that’s not true or the opposite of that

is true and the reason

is that person b presumably or we think

sees person a looking at facebook the

same thing happens in the second

situation

person a says i don’t know anything

about the meeting

just that there’s going to be a big

announcement and so person b

understands wait so you do know

something about the meeting

again do proceeds or comes before

the verb know there so speaker b is

emphasizing

that the speaker that speaker a rather

actually does know

something so we’re using do before the

verb

as emphasis in this way so i hope that

this helps you thanks very much for an

interesting question

all right let’s move on to our next

question next question comes from

emma hi emma emma says hi alicia i would

like to know if there are differences

between

a while for a while and in a while

if there is can you explain thanks so

much sure

a while means a period of time so we use

for a while and in a while quite

differently

for a while is used when we’re talking

about a duration of time

we’re using it to talk about the length

of time that something happens so

duration

is really the key here let’s take a look

at a few example sentences

i stayed in the restaurant for a while

after i finished eating

i’m going to take a walk around the

neighborhood for a while

i traveled around europe for a while

when i was in my twenties

okay so let’s compare this then to in a

while

when we use in a while we’re talking

about an upcoming activity so this is

not something that’s going to happen now

but it’s going to happen

soon so if it’s helpful you can think

about replacing

soon for in a while in the sentence it

has the same

meaning let’s look at some examples of

this i’m going to leave the office in a

while

we’re gonna go to the coffee shop in a

while you want anything

so a question that maybe some of you

have is what’s the difference between

these two sentences sentences like these

like

i’m gonna walk around the neighborhood

for a while and i’m going to walk around

the neighborhood

in a while so they seem very similar but

the

for a while sentence would be said by

somebody who is probably leaving

now like they are leaving their house

now and they just want to report to

someone

their upcoming activity they’re going

out of the house to walk around the

neighborhood

for a period of time that’s the duration

of the activity

on the other hand the in a while

sentence is like they’re sharing their

upcoming plan with someone

possibly to invite them like i’m going

to walk around the neighborhood in a

while do you want to come

so these are the small differences that

our preposition choices can make

especially

with an expression like a while so i

hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question

okay let’s move on to our next question

next

question is from sung wan hi sunguan

seongwan says hi alisha what does

literally mean

do people use it the wrong way yeah okay

literally means the ordinary or the

simple meaning of a word

it can also mean like truly exactly and

so on

so it is used for emphasis yes but

it’s also used incorrectly a lot first

let’s take a look at the correct way to

use literally

for example we raised literally hundreds

of dollars at the fundraiser

he got his hands dirty literally helping

out at the farm for a tv show

okay so these two example sentences show

correct usage of the word literally in

the first example

it’s literally hundreds so the speaker

wants to emphasize that exactly really

truly hundreds of dollars were raised in

a fundraiser

the reason that we use literally here is

because we want to express that this is

not an exaggeration so an exaggeration

means something that sounds like it’s

better or bigger than it actually is

so the speaker wants to communicate it

was truly hundreds of dollars they used

literally to do that

in the second example sentence about

someone getting his hands dirty

the speaker wants to communicate that

actually the tv host in this case

truly did physically literally get his

hands dirty in the process of making a

tv show

so there are two reasons that we use

literally in this way

the first as in with the first example

sentence is to show that something is

not being exaggerated like the number or

the amount

that’s described in the sentence is

truly the number

so we’re not just doing it for effect

literally

some amount you may see this used the

second use though

as we see in the second example sentence

is with these expressions that have kind

of double meanings

so get one’s hands dirty or to get your

hands dirty has two meanings

yes there’s the literal meaning which is

as it’s written on the page

for your hands to physically become

dirty but there’s also another meaning

to this phrase which is to do the work

yourself to actually

do work so to get your hands dirty can

have two meanings

the speaker using literally in the

second example sentence

means they want to emphasize that

real true meaning of getting your hands

dirty like physically having dirt on

your hands

so these are the two reasons that we use

literally

for emphasis to make sure that we’re not

accidentally

exaggerating and to to make it clear

that we mean the actual

simple meaning of an expression so again

to return to your second question

literally is misused all the time

native speakers want to use it for

emphasis but they use it incorrectly

so let’s take a look at two examples

that are great examples

of misuse of the word literally ugh

i’m literally starving can we go to

lunch

and there were literally millions of

people at my house last night

okay so in both of these example

sentences literally is used

incorrectly literally starving in the

first sentence so the problem here

is that the speaker is probably not

actually

starving starving means they are so

hungry that they are actually

dying so literally starving is untrue

the speaker is probably

not actually starving they just want to

express that they are very hungry

the correct way to express that would

just be to say ugh i’m starving that’s

fine

you don’t need to use literally in this

sentence but this is something native

speakers probably say all the time

the second example sentence uses

literally with a number as in there were

literally

millions of people in my house last

night so it’s not possible for millions

of people to be in someone’s house

the speaker just wants to emphasize how

many people

were at his or her home the previous

night so using

literally is unnecessary here you could

just say there were so many people in my

house last night or there were millions

of people at my house last night

if you just drop literally from the

sentence we understand that you’re

exaggerating

so yes literally is used incorrectly

all the time and it’s usually for these

emphasis reasons

so i hope that this answer helped you

it’s a very interesting question

thanks very much for sending it along

okay let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from andrew

hi andrew

andrew says what’s the meaning of ball

game as in

youtube comments are a whole other ball

game is this a question about something

i

tweeted that’s funny a ball game here

means

situation situation so when we say a

whole other ball game this is actually a

set phrase

a whole other ball game means or is used

rather in situations where we’re talking

about one topic

and then a second topic is introduced

and the two are very

different so something something is a

whole other ballgame

means that second thing has like

different rules and different standards

from the first thing

so in the tweet that you took this

expression from i was talking about the

differences between instagram direct

messages like random messages on

instagram

and then another person commented like

joined my conversation on twitter

and said something about youtube

comments and i responded yeah

youtube comments are a whole other ball

game so that means

instagram direct messages random

messages on instagram

are completely different than youtube

comments so a whole other ball game

means it’s a whole other situation

i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question okay let’s move on to our

next

question next question comes from

claudia hi claudia

claudia says what is the difference

between outcome

and results nice question while in many

cases they can be

used in similar ways and to refer to

very similar things

the difference here is in like the

process

so we use results when we’ve done like

work or research or we’re actually like

actively trying to

do something we’re actually trying to

achieve

something or to accomplish something so

we use this like

when we’re doing mathematical equations

or as i said like when we’re doing

research maybe

or we’re working together with teammates

to achieve some kind of goal that’s when

we use

results outcome on the other hand is

kind of like

just the way things ended up so it’s

like maybe there wasn’t

so much work to achieve a specific goal

but

at the end of a situation this was like

the thing that we

ended up with so let’s take a look at a

few examples

my research results showed that the new

medication was effective

the test results were positive everyone

expected negative outcomes after the

government’s policy change

it wasn’t possible to predict these

outcomes

so the feeling here is that result is

something that someone or some group of

people

worked to achieve worked to get outcome

is kind of like this is just the way

that things are

so yes in some situations you may be

able to use

both like for example research results

or maybe research outcomes

but again when you use outcomes it

sounds like this is just the way it is

whereas results sounds a little bit more

like we tried

so this is kind of the difference in

feeling between these words

i hope that it helps you thanks for the

question okay that is

everything that i have for this week

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