100 Answers to Common English Questions

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question okay next one isn’t really

a question but something i have noticed

that many of you do

you like to put the article uh or an

before your adjective before an

adjective

but you forget to use a noun do you know

how like mario introduces himself and he

says it’s a me

when you forget to use some kind of

noun after after your adjective or

whatever but you sound a bit like

mario’s it’s a nice

it’s a nice it’s a nice what it’s funny

to me like it’s an eye so

it’s a me you need to include the noun

that you’re referring to

it’s a nice video or it’s a nice

explanation

it’s nice or it’s bad or it’s good or

this

was a nice explanation but don’t forget

to use your

noun after you use the adjective it’s a

nice

something it’s a good something it’s a

bad something so please

uh no article without a noun make sure

to use

your noun and it should be in the

singular form if you’re using

a or an you need to use the singular

form of the noun don’t sound like mario

first question for today do you have an

american accent or a british accent a

lot of you have asked this over the

course of the years i have an american

accent to be very specific i suppose i

speak

with a west coast american accent not

british english if you want to know what

british english sounds like there are

some videos on the youtube channel with

gina one of our other hosts she speaks

with a british accent so you can listen

to her to

kind of pick up some of the differences

between my accent

and her accent british english and

american english so thanks for that

question but yes i speak

american english next question what does

it mean

they can’t take that away from me who

are they

and what does takeaway mean we use the

word they

to mean generally just other people

outside of us

this is used a lot to talk about like

news or to talk about

general opinions they say that this

pizza

is the best pizza in the city right now

they say that your

english will only improve if you study

every day

they say that the most difficult thing

you can do in your life

is move to another country they is just

anyone second point what does take away

mean

take away means to some object that

belongs

in one location is removed from that

location like take away

food in american english we use take out

actually

but take away food is a similar idea

especially like in british english

takeaway

so you take away your food from the

restaurant so you’re taking

something else you’re removing your food

from the restaurant so

in the expression they can’t take that

away from me

they meaning other people outside you

can’t take something away from you

next question how do we use the word

cheers

when do we use it is it formal or

informal please help

in american english we use cheers when

we’re drinking when we want to

start off a drink with somebody else

we’ll often clink

glasses so like touch glasses together

and say

cheers we use cheers in this way in

american english in other

types of english like british english or

australian english for example

people might use the word cheers as a

way to say

thank you or as a way to say thank you

in advance for something

if my friend asks me for a favor and i

agree to do that favor

my friend can say cheers to me meaning

thank you

in advance so cheers it tends to be more

on the informal side it’s not a super

formal expression if you want to use it

in a formal situation when you’re

drinking with someone you can use

cheers but in most situations we use it

informally informally next one what does

the phrase

don’t be a creep don’t be a creep me i

think michael talked about this on an

old english topics video so i talked in

a live stream about the word creepy

adjective creepy so something that

causes like nervous

suspense is something that’s creepy the

word creep

is used as a noun don’t be a creep a

person

who is creepy a guy can be a creep a

girl

can be a creep so a creep is someone who

causes creepy feelings like uh something

bad might happen i feel nervous like

that person’s a little strange a little

weird that person is

a creep he’s a creep she’s a creep so

don’t be

a creep means you should not behave

like a creep don’t create nervous

feelings in the other person don’t be a

creepy person don’t be a creep

everybody that’s good advice don’t be a

creep don’t be a greek try to be a nice

and understanding um and respectful

person next question

hey alicia how do i make this sentence

negative let’s

go to the park if you want to make a

let’s blah blah sentence negative just

put

not before the verb let’s not go to the

part let’s

not plus some verb or some verb phrase

let’s

not go hiking this weekend let’s not

watch that movie tonight i’m tired

let’s not blah blah blah to make a let’s

sentence

negative thanks for the question first

question first question this week comes

from

iman i’m on hi i’m on what’s the

difference between

is that how it is is that how it works

that’s not what it says

that’s not how it works let’s start with

the first expression which is is that

how it is

this is a very casual expression that

you can use to express like

a confirmation confirmation about

a situation or confirmation about a

status

but it’s often uh used with kind of a

negative nuance

so for example if your friend makes a

plan that you disagree with

but your friend refuses to change the

plan you can say

is that how it is it’s kind of negative

and it’s kind of not so

nice to use so is that how it is that’s

the first one the second one

is that how it works this is an

expression that we use to confirm

uh how to use something maybe it’s my

first time using an iphone for example

when i get something right when i learn

how to use something correctly

i can say usually with an upward

intonation oh

is that how it works meaning oh is that

the correct way to use it

so we use is that how it works to

confirm

the correct way to use something so you

can use this with a computer with like a

car

anything that you are learning how to

use is that how it works

so you can use um this expression as

confirmation before you do something to

the next expression you asked about is

that’s not what it says that’s not what

it says is used to express

disagreement about written information

let’s say you’re making instant soup or

like instant ramen or something

and you decide to pour cold water over

your noodles

to make the soup but your friend says no

no look at the package

that’s not what it says so it here

means the package and says refers to the

written directions on the package so

that’s not what it says

means there’s some mistake here or

you’ve made a mistake

so the written directions don’t match

your behavior that’s not what it says

you can use this to express disagreement

about written

information that’s not what it says the

last expression was that’s not how it

works that’s not how it works

this is something that we use to express

disagreement about how to use something

you use

something incorrectly that’s not correct

that’s not how it works

so i hope that that’s helpful for you

next question next question

what does play down mean this is a

phrasal verb

to play down something or to play

something down

means to decrease the significance of

something

i don’t want to play down how delicious

my mom’s thanksgiving dinner was or i

don’t want to play down my friend’s

success

he’s doing an amazing job if something

is

really great or really interesting or it

could be negative too

to play something down means to make

this thing seem less than what it

actually is if there’s a scandal for

example the president

is trying to play down the seriousness

of this situation it means that it’s a

very serious situation

but the president is trying to make it

seem

less serious than it is so to play down

means to make something seem less than

it

actually is good question though thanks

next question comes from

kevin wang hi kevin kevin says uh

sometimes i see sentences like

your dad must have had it for at least

two years

why do they use have had and what are

the rules for this

so actually don’t think of it as have

and had being attached there

instead what you should focus on in this

sentence is the

must have here so must have had

when we want to talk about a high level

of possibility

in the past we use must have and then

the past

participle form of the verb so in this

case

the speaker is making a guess about

something the listener’s father

owned in the past for at least two years

so

your dad must have had it for at least

two years

so it’s a past tense situation the

speaker is making a guess

about the past but the speaker is making

a guess

with a high level of confidence so they

use must

have must have shows a high level of

possibility she’s not here

she must have gone to work the kids are

in the car they must have finished

swimming

he’s smiling at the office he must have

had a good meeting so all of these are

guesses but these guesses show a high

level of confidence there’s a high

chance

that the speaker’s guess is correct so

the speaker uses must have

plus the past participle form of the

verb hope that’s helpful for you

next question the next question is about

if conditionals there’s no problem when

you say the main clause first

and you say the if clause after is that

correct yes that’s fine

in the live stream i introduced the

pattern if clause first

main clause second but i also mentioned

that we can use main clause first and

then if clause second if i finish

editing this video today i can go

running

i can reverse that sentence i can go

running if i finish editing this video

today

both sentences are totally correct it’s

up to you to choose which order

you like thanks for the question now

good one next question

from mifta mifta hi mifta what is the

difference between

astronomy and astrology right

okay so astronomy refers to the

scientific study of space so that’s like

stars and planets

everything outside earth that’s the

scientific study of it

astrology refers to the idea that

we can make predictions uh make guesses

about human behavior um and those

predictions

are based on the positions of like stars

and planets and things

and those positions can influence uh

human behavior can

can influence our lives hope that’s

helpful next

question the next question is about the

present

perfect progressive tense i said i have

been wanting to blah blah blah why did i

use the verb

want in the continuous tense as wanting

i use the progressive form

wanting because from a point in the past

until

now there’s something i have desired

i have wanted to do continuously though

to give a strong nuance of the

continuous

nature of that i use the the progressive

or the continuous form

wanting i’ve been wanting to see that

movie i’ve been wanting to get a coffee

with my friend i’ve been

wanting to get more sleep i’ve been

wanting to go jogging something you

started to want in the past and

continued

to want until this point in time you can

say i have been wanting

we can apply other verbs to this pattern

too like i’ve been thinking about you

all week i’ve been worrying about you

all day

so these continuous past emotions too

we can use the progressive tense to talk

about those

next question is from a fee payoff how

do

i study english speaking or how do i

improve my english speaking skills at

home alone yeah thanks for the question

check out this video i talked about it

in this video right here i think the

answer is at the 12 minute

and 40 second mark so there are several

tips there

for how to study english alone at home

hope that helps

next question next question comes from

ricardo

villarreal i’m very sorry what does

one mean as a subject one means any

person

it sounds rather formal in more casual

speech we say

you like if you went to the movie

theater where would you buy popcorn to

make it sound more

formal we could say where would one buy

popcorn instead of using

you we say one so you might see this

more in writing or perhaps

in situations where you is not

appropriate or it’s too casual so

one means any person it doesn’t mean the

number it doesn’t refer to

another noun necessarily a lot of if

sentences like if one were a doctor how

much

money would one make one just means a

person any person thanks ricardo

next question next question is from

asgar hi oscar

uh oscar says what’s the difference

between it’s up to you and

you’re up to oh okay uh first

it’s up to you means you can decide so

for example

where do you want to go for dinner

tonight it’s up to you what movie do you

want to see tonight

it’s up to you where do you want to go

for this weekend it’s up to you

you can decide you’re up to refers to

things that the other person has been

doing

so we use it in expressions like you’ve

been up to a lot of interesting things

lately

or a useful question is uh what are you

up to

meaning what are you doing as in what

are you up to this weekend or what are

you up to tonight

to check what someone else is doing you

can also use this for the past

what have you been up to lately these

are very nice questions to ask

instead of how are you or what are you

doing up to you

means you decide what are you up to

means what are you doing

next question from nita aprioni i hope i

said your name right i’m very sorry can

i say the ketchup

on that crispy chicken was savory the

flavor was barbecued teriyaki or black

pepper it wasn’t

spicy ah yes you can say a sauce is

savory that’s very very common so

something savory as we talked about

quickly in the

food live stream flavors that are not so

sweet but that are still very very

flavorful

something that’s usually a little bit

more salty we don’t really use

savory to explain sweet things it’s more

for

kind of salty things or things that have

like a really deep flavor about them

so yes you can describe your sauce or

your barbecue sauce or your chicken

whatever you put on your chicken as

savory that’s a great word to describe

thanks for that question next question

is from kiara hi kiara again so what

does sunglasses mean and what do

sunglasses mean

sunglasses is a plural noun should we

use do instead of does

ah this is interesting okay here your

example sentence is a little bit tricky

so when you’re asking about the meaning

of a word

even if you know that it’s a plural noun

don’t worry about that in this example

sentence

what does blah blah blah mean you can

use

anything in this pattern this is because

you’re not

actually asking about the object you’re

not

actually asking about that thing you’re

asking about the

word only the word itself so

just use does what does sunglasses mean

is fine because you’re looking for the

actual meaning of the word

you’re not asking about that actual

object you’re not asking something about

sunglasses so in this specific example

sentence you can always use what does

blah blah blah mean

so native speakers do that too what does

something something something

mean if we don’t know an expression or

if we don’t know a phrase we can use

anything in that pattern however if you

want to use

a plural noun like sunglasses or any

other plural noun

in a sentence similar to this you do

need to change

what do sunglasses do or why do pants

have pockets

or who do penguins see most frequently

please use do

as you would for other plural nouns then

too

but great question nice point to

consider thank you i almost forgot

there’s one more thing i want to talk to

you about you guys did not ask this

question but i

noticed it during the food livestream

that we did recently

the difference between dessert and

desert

is one s in spelling however these two

words are different

let’s start with the word dessert the

sweet food that comes at the end of a

meal dessert is spelled with two

s’s we use d-e-s-s-e-r-t to spell

dessert however the word desert which is

spelled d-e-s-e-r-t

refers to like a dry landscape not many

plants

not many animals live there that’s a

desert if you misspell the word

dessert and you forget that s it becomes

desert also very interestingly there’s

another way to pronounce the word that’s

spelled d-e-s-e-r-t

this is a verb to desert so to desert

means to leave something without

planning to come back like to desert a

town or to desert your family

to abandon something also it can mean

like leaving a military position like so

to desert

the army please note dessert as the end

of a meal

and to dessert meaning to leave or to

abandon something

have the same pronunciation but

different grammatical functions

so please be careful of this point how

can we put them all together i’m going

to desert

my station so that i can enjoy dessert

in the desert next question

next question comes from kim in thai hi

kim intai okay

what does a spirit animal mean as in

what’s your spirit animal

i don’t think we have that kind of

question in my country also what are

some possible answers

okay a spirit animal can mean different

things depending on the person that

you’re talking to

generally though on especially on the

internet we use

spirit animal to refer to an animal that

we think matches our

personality or matches our behavior so

for example

if i’m a slow lazy person and i

don’t like to do a lot of activities i

could say a sloth is my spirit animal

um or if i’m like an aggressive person

and i’m alone a lot and i’m like maybe

see myself as like a fighter or hunter

i don’t know maybe i could say a tiger

is my spirit animal for example

it’s an animal that we feel closely

matches us somehow and it can change

like maybe

on this day i feel a connection with

this specific animal so we can say that

just do be careful there are some people

who have maybe a religious or a

spiritual belief

that strongly connects them to a spirit

animal or you might also hear the word

i think spirit animal guide perhaps but

just

pay attention to the situation and i

think you can quickly understand

how the person is using spirit animal my

spirit animal i usually think like

depending on the day my spirit animal is

either a flying squirrel or a platypus

because both of these animals are kind

of like in between animals they have a

little bit of a couple different animals

in them

but like a flying squirrel is kind of

like flexible and adaptive and has lots

of energy and goes really really quickly

but then the platypus is just like this

silly looking creature that swims around

looking for food all day and then sleeps

forever so

like depending on the day i feel like

i’m sometimes a flying squirrel

sometimes a platypus out of them first

question first question this week comes

from iman hi again i’m

on i’m on says what is the use of

definite article

the we use the with a singular noun to

refer to a

specific instance of that noun so when

you’re telling a story

we’ll often introduce the first instance

of a noun with

a and then after that we’ll use the

to refer to the specific instance of

that thing so for example a simple story

i was walking down the street and i saw

a dog

the dog was really cute i pet

the dog so in that situation when i

introduce

a dog in the story the first time i talk

about the dog

in the story i use uh to introduce it

then after that i use the to refer to

that specific dog that i introduced

earlier in the story

every other time that i want to talk

about that same dog

i use the before it so use the word

the when you need to refer to a specific

noun or when you have to refer to a

specific

group so for example the teachers in the

school district went on strike

so specifically we’re talking about

teachers in a specific

school district the teachers went on

strike the mothers at the pta meeting

organized a bake sale

it’s a specific group that is defined by

something else so in this case

the mothers at the pta meeting only the

mothers that were at that meeting

not the mothers from a different group

for example

so we use the to uh to talk about a

specific

instance of something first question

this week

comes from dave hi dave some people use

l-o-l

on the internet what does it mean yeah

l-o-l can mean

laugh out loud or lots of laughs i’ve

heard both

but either way we use this expression to

quickly

explain we thought something was funny

lol

next question next question comes from

johnny hi johnny you wrote a very long

message thank you very much for watching

there’s a slang expression that i’ve

heard several times

and don’t understand well i know right

using i know right is like an invitation

then

for the other person to agree again

really

i know right so think of i know

right as like an even stronger like even

more emphasis on the agreement and an

invitation for the other person to agree

again i know right it’s like yes

and you agree too don’t you next

question

comes from pavel hi pavel pavel says hey

alicia please tell us about the

difference between

to not and not to as in i want

to not and i want not to for example ah

yeah

so with these there’s not really a

difference between these like i want not

to

and i want to not do something both of

these are casual ways of explaining

a negative in speech the correct

sentence would be i don’t want to do

something something

but like native speakers sometimes like

to kind of play with grammar a little

bit

that’s one reason they might use this

pattern either of these patterns really

also sometimes we start a sentence and

we make it positive like i want to

and then we realize part of the way into

the sentence oh wait i want to express

something negative

so we change it to to not or not to

so i want not to blah blah blah or i

want to not

blah blah blah both are okay but just

keep in mind that we use that i want

not to or i want to not blah blah in

casual situations we don’t generally use

these in formal situations

instead we use i don’t want to blah blah

blah

i want to not get in trouble i want

not to get in trouble the correct

sentence here would be i don’t want to

get in trouble

but you’ll hear native speakers do this

for a number of reasons so there’s not

really a difference between these two

but you will hear both of those used by

native speakers i hope that helps thanks

for the question

next quest john comes from zafar ahmad

zafar ahmad hi

zafar asks about two sentences okay

one have you ever cried in a film two

have you ever cried at a film my

question is about the preposition

in or at which sentence is correct and

explain the reason of course i’ll

explain the reason

let’s take a look at the first one have

you ever cried in a film

um this is actually a point where the

differences between british english and

american english

might come into play a little bit have

you ever cried

in a film could have a few different

meanings depending on the situation

if for example you are speaking to an

actor and you say have you ever cried in

a film

meaning when you were in a film when you

were

acting in a film did you cry

at any point in time so have you ever

cried in a film

it could also mean have you gone to

watch a movie in a movie theater

and cried at the movie theater or in the

movie theater

your second sentence have you ever cried

at a film

so using at shows like the direction

of an emotion like we use it with uh

other emotions as well like my mom is

mad at me

or my dad is angry at me so it’s showing

the direction of emotion

so in this case have you ever cried at

a film meaning did a film cause you to

cry

have you ever cried because of a film

uh in my case though if i wanted to ask

my friend

if a movie had ever caused them to cry

i would say have you ever cried at a

movie

next question comes from sagri

karakilar i am so sorry hi alicia can i

use

though instead of nevertheless it looks

as if their meanings are the same thank

you this is a great question

uh though and nevertheless yes while

they do

have similar meanings sometimes they

have different grammatical functions

so nevertheless means in spite of

the thing that was said before or

despite

the prior thing nevertheless is used

only

as an adverb though however can be used

as an adverb yes

but it can also be used as a conjunction

though can also mean nevertheless or in

spite of

however it also sometimes just has the

meaning of

but though i almost ran out of time

i finished the test with a perfect score

he told me he would call at eight

though it’s 8 15 and i haven’t heard

from him i almost ran out of time

nevertheless i finished the test with a

perfect score her proposal was rejected

nevertheless she continued with her

research hope that that helps answer

your question though

next question okay next question comes

from igor hi igor

why are verbs like berry hurry study

tidy and try

uh in the irregular verbs list their

past simple and past participle forms

have ed

endings like other regular verbs and the

course books used

have listed these verbs in the irregular

verb list all right

tough question because i did not create

the textbooks and

i don’t know the logic that was used for

the textbooks

but if i had to guess why those verbs

are included as

irregular verbs i would imagine it’s

because these verbs all end in

y and yes although the verbs do end in

ed there is an irregular change that

happens with verbs that end

in y so that’s to drop the y and add

i e d instead of just an e d

so we maintain that e sound like tie d

barry however the spelling of the word

changes

next question comes from marcos korea

hi marcos marcos says alicia help in all

caps

we should help the words weather and

weather have the same pronunciation

and does weather have the same sense of

if could you use it in some examples

please reply yes

yes you’re correct thanks marcos weather

as in like

clouds sunlight rain snow wind weather

and

weather w-h-e-t-h-e-r they have the same

pronunciation yes

and the wh form does contain the meaning

of if

as in whether or not something so native

speakers will often say

whether or not but we can reduce this to

if

some examples he hasn’t decided whether

or not he’s coming to dinner

i don’t know whether or not i’m going to

travel this summer do you know whether

or not your parents are at home

in each of these sentences we could

change whether or not

to if i hope that that answers your

question marcos thanks

next question is from poria

poria asks what’s the difference between

these words

interior and internal exterior and

external all right well there are

grammatical differences

interior and exterior are nouns

uh internal and external are adjectives

we use interior and exterior to talk

about the

inside and the outside of something but

internal

and external are used those are

adjectives we use them to talk about

the qualities of something next question

comes from

cassava casaba hi again kesava says uh

what’s the difference between

bored with and bored bye great question

there is no difference actually

bored with and bored by also we use

board of board of so these are all used

in the same way

to explain something that causes us to

feel

bored i’m so bored by this lesson i’m so

bored with this textbook i’m so bored of

you

so we can use all of these in the same

way you might find that some people have

personal preferences for which one they

choose to use

but we use them all in the same way next

question

from stanislav hi stanislav stanislav

asks how do you politely address

unfamiliar women and men lady miss mrs

mister and sir ah nice question all

right if you’re in a formal situation

it’s better to use

mister with men sir tends to be used

more

in like a service relationship so uh the

same thing with mam for women

mrs is used for married women if i don’t

know if someone is married or not a

woman is married or not

i’ll use miss nice question though next

question

comes from paul hi paul let me ask a

question or

let me ask a question uh which is the

correct sentence

both of these are actually correct lemmy

is the reduced form of

let me so we use this in more casual

situations

let me ask a question it’s fine too it

just sounds more formal

and when we reduce the sounds actually

it sounds a little more natural so let

me ask you a question

let me ask you a question that’s fine to

use in

speech in writing however l-e-m-m-e

looks very casual so we typically

don’t use that informal writing but both

of them are actually correct

next question next question is from leon

hi leon

what are the differences between test

exam

quiz and questionnaire and when should i

use each of them

nice question all right let’s start with

test and exam

we use these two words quite similarly

when we’re talking about

um tests of knowledge or like

examinations at school we can use either

of those like i have a test this week or

i have an exam this week

i think in american english test is

probably used more commonly than

exam or the long form examination

however when we want to check the status

of our bodies we’ll often use the word

exam so for example a physical exam

that’s an expression we use to mean like

a full check

of the body which is commonly done maybe

once a year

or so so an exam um like a dental exam

or an eye exam

is a check of the condition of your body

as well a quiz is

essentially a mini test a questionnaire

however

is quite different from the three that

we’ve talked about thus far

a questionnaire is something that’s

given usually to customers

that is for feedback we use

questionnaires for feedback

first question this week comes from

danielle hi danielle

danielle says hi alicia is it really a

mistake to refer to animals with

she or he instead of it in cases where

the animal is considered part of the

family like

cats or dogs ah okay no it’s not a

mistake at all

if the pet is like a member of the

family like you’ve described

it’s very common to use he or she

to talk about the animal cats dogs we

can use this for birds hamsters

hedgehogs whatever the pet

is very common also when it’s your first

time

meeting someone else’s animal it’s quite

common to ask

is it a boy or a girl and then after

that you can use

he or she to talk about the animal we

tend to use

it when talking about animals we are not

familiar with

like a stray cat for example or maybe

like an animal we see at the

zoo we would use it in those cases when

we’re talking about

animals that are parts of our family we

tend to use he

or she to talk about that thanks for the

question first question this week comes

from

silas hi silas silas says hi alicia

how’s it going

i’d like to know the meaning of the

expression weird flex

but okay and how do i use it in a

sentence

okay this is a bit of recent slang

weird flex but okay focuses in on the

meaning of the word

flex so if you are interested in like

health

or like muscle training or anything like

that you might know the verb

to flex so to flex is what we do when we

want to show off

a muscle we have been training so when

we

flex a muscle we put energy

into the muscle to make the muscle like

stand out

we want it to look bigger like we want

to show off

that muscle so when we flex a muscle

we’re trying to show it off we’re like

excited about that thing or we’re proud

about it or something like that

so flex here in this expression

weird flex does not refer to muscle it

doesn’t refer to the body

but actually something else that

the speaker or the writer is trying to

show off

so it’s something that seems strange

so in the example of muscles and muscle

training

like the person who wants to show off

wants to show their muscles

but when we use the expression weird

flex

someone is trying to show off something

that seems

strange and then we add but okay

at the end to mean i don’t really

understand

but all right so to give an example of

this

if i on twitter write like i spent three

thousand dollars on socks this month

and i talk about how excited i am i’m

like showing off that i spent three

thousand dollars on socks

someone might respond to me weird flex

but okay

so that means like it’s strange that you

want to show

off that you spent three thousand

dollars on socks like that’s a really

strange thing to be excited about

but okay so to give another example

your friend might tell you something

like i have the biggest collection

of rocks in my whole neighborhood and

you might say

weird flex but okay so again it’s like

that’s a strange

thing that you want to show off but okay

whatever it is like it’s not hurting

anybody it’s just a little bit

weird that you want to show that off or

you want to brag or boast about that

thing

so that’s what weird flex but okay means

you see this one a lot online i hope

that that helps you thanks very much for

this interesting question

next question next question comes from

dewey hi dewey

could you tell me when to use any more

and

no longer sure okay um so

both of these are used to refer to

an action something we did or something

someone did

in the past but from this point in the

present

uh that action is not going to continue

we use anymore when we use a negative

in the sentence some examples i’m not

going to go to that restaurant anymore

he doesn’t help me anymore they don’t

drink with us anymore

we use no longer in positive statements

and it tends to sound

more formal you’ll also see that no

longer can be put at the beginning of

the sentence to

increase the level of formality so you

might hear this in

speeches for example using no longer at

the beginning of the sentence

really emphasizes that the action is not

going to continue

and that it sounds quite formal so it no

longer might have

a couple different places in the

sentence let’s look at some examples

no longer will we tolerate these

problems she no longer has to come to

work early

we will no longer be a part of the group

so i hope that helps you understand some

of the key differences between these two

expressions thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from rigwins riggins hi riggins

reagan says hi alicia i’m riggins from

haiti

i’m good at english but due to a lack of

practice i’ve kind of lost my touch

because i’m sick and tired of the

learning process

so i’d like to know how to keep my

english up please

okay first i’m sure that you’re not the

only person like i lose motivation

all the time i would say that if you are

having

trouble keeping your motivation up you

should try

looking for a different way to practice

or a different way to use

english so for example if there’s a

hobby that you have

in your native language you could try

doing that

in english or maybe there’s a book or a

movie that you are really

interested in or that seems cool and you

want to understand that

in english i would suggest trying to

find something that’s not like a

traditional textbook or it’s not a

traditional way of learning like going

to a class and doing worksheets and that

kind of thing

i would suggest actually trying to use

english in your everyday life

to like do your work or to study

something or to accomplish a hobby

maybe you make a new friend who can

speak only english

so i would suggest finding something

outside of a traditional

learning setting to do i think that that

might help you a little bit with your

motivation that has helped me a lot in

the past actually

making friends with people who cannot

speak my language has been

hugely motivating for me and i try to

study the vocabulary words that they

often talk about and i try to learn from

their speech patterns

too so i would suggest trying to find

something to do with other people as

much as possible

that uses english so i hope that this

helps you and helps other people

with their motivation issues it happens

to all of us at some point in time but i

hope that these tips can help

thanks very much for this question next

question next question

comes from aravind hi aravind aravind

says what is the difference between took

and taken and have you ever been to

india

uh okay took and taken took is the past

tense of the verb

take i took a break he took my drink

they took our passports

taken is the past participle form of

take have you ever taken a trip to

france she’s taken the test three times

we’ve taken long vacations every summer

for 10 years

so i hope that helps it’s a difference

in grammar and no i have not been to

india

thanks for the question okay let’s move

on to your next question

next question comes from ahmet

farooq hello amit ahmed says what is the

difference

between may and can

okay historically may is used to ask for

permission

can is used to express ability to do

something or

lack of ability to do something so

that’s the historical use of

may and can in today’s english however

lots of people use

can to ask for permission to do

something we do not however

use may to talk about ability so let’s

take a look at some examples

can i go to the restroom may i go to the

restroom

can i leave early today may i leave

early today

so in today’s english these all refer to

the same thing they’re all requests to

use the restroom or to leave early

in today’s american english i would say

that using

may tends to sound a little bit more

formal than using

can if you ever want to be sure to sound

polite

and to make sure you’re communicating

clearly you can use

may but in most day-to-day conversations

we use

can so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

let’s go to the next question next

question comes from

pierre hi pierre pierre says hi could

you please explain the difference

between

belly tummy and stomach thanks sure

okay let’s start with stomach uh stomach

is the

most neutral word you can use to talk

about this

area of your body if you need to talk

about this area

in your life somewhere in a polite

situation stomach is probably the best

word to use

examples my stomach hurts he got hit

in the stomach they’ve been doing

stomach exercises every other day

so now let’s talk about tummy tummy is a

word that children use

adults use tummy when they’re talking to

children

it sounds very young it sounds very

childish

adults typically don’t use this word

when talking to other adults

unless they’re trying to be funny or

unless they really want to sound

childish for some reason so tummy is

really a children’s word

examples do you have a tummy ache i want

to put food

in my tummy now belly is a casual word

that adults do

use it sounds kind of rough it’s not a

dirty word

at all but it tends to be used more by

men than by women i think

it’s a very casual expression to refer

to

your stomach but we usually use it to

talk about

eating and food some examples my belly

is so

full i need to put some food in my belly

all right so i hope that helps you in

most situations if you’re not sure what

to use

use stomach you can’t go wrong with

stomach hope that helps

next question comes from giovanni hi

ovani

yovani says hi alicia my name is jovani

i’m from venezuela

i’ve always wanted to know the meaning

of this sentence

don’t get twisted even though it’s not

used very often thanks

yeah you’re right this isn’t such a

common expression i found only a few

references to this expression and they

were typically from

music actually so this expression

could mean like don’t get angry or don’t

get upset

or don’t get nervous so it refers to

being in like a negative

condition so twisted if you imagine like

a

towel do we have oh we do yeah for this

explanation let’s imagine like a towel

so a regular just plain towel when we

hold the towel looks like this

but if we twist the towel like this it’s

under tension like it’s under pressure

so if we imagine ourselves as like the

towel

like we’re under pressure we’re really

tight we’re really tense we could be

angry we could be nervous

we could be upset about something so if

someone says to you

don’t get twisted it’s like chill out

like don’t be upset don’t be angry relax

in other words so i would guess that

this is what this word means or what

this

expression means rather but as you said

this

is not such a common expression we don’t

say

don’t get twisted really in american

english

you might hear people say something like

just chill out

as i’ve said or maybe like don’t worry

or there are a couple of other slightly

more rude expressions that we use too

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

all right let’s go on to the next

question next question comes from satish

hi satish

satish says what’s the difference

between i shall

and i will similarly between shall i

and will i ah okay first any use

of shall is going to sound more formal

than will the difference between i shall

and shall i is that i shall

begins a statement shall i

begins an offer i shall call the police

this sounds very formal shall i call the

police

that’s an offer it sounds very formal

will however

is quite different i will begins a

statement

yes but will i does not begin an

offer will i is used to

think out loud so when we are imagining

our future schedule

and we’re thinking about something in

the future

uh we’re alone we’re talking to

ourselves and thinking about our future

schedule

we might use will i so examples i will

call the police

that’s natural we would probably use the

contracted form i’ll call the police

hmm will i have time to go to the bank

today will i be able to get a coffee

this morning

so this is not used so much in

conversation we use this

will i sort of pattern when we’re

thinking about things we might be able

to do in the future

and we’re thinking to ourselves about it

so

i hope that helps that’s kind of a quick

introduction to the differences between

these two

thanks for the question next question

comes from

uh malek hi malek malik says

is this sentence correct the color of

shirts

of players could you explain more about

two possessive nouns in a row thanks in

advance

yeah great question this is kind of

tricky so

in this situation we would say the color

of the player’s

shirts so a key here is that we’re using

players and we’re using an apostrophe

after the

s in players that apostrophe is acting

as a

possessive apostrophe so we have two

ways of creating the possessive in

english

we can use of as in the color of the

player’s shirts

and we can use the apostrophe s form so

for example

alicia’s would be alicia apostrophe s

the apostrophe s shows something is

belonging to

me that’s my thing alicia’s phone so in

this situation

we have players players here we’re

talking about

shirts that belong to players so it’s

not just

one person when a noun ends with an

s we make the plural possessive form

by adding an apostrophe to the end of

the word

and we do not add another s so in the

singular form when i said

alicia’s phone for example alicia is one

person

so i write alicia apostrophe s in this

example however because we’re talking

about a group

of people players we don’t use an

apostrophe

s because the word already ends in s and

it sounds kind of strange

to try to say like players is or

something like that

so to avoid this we simply write players

with s and add an apostrophe at the end

so this shows the plural form

that means plural possessive apostrophe

there

it’s very natural to use that apostrophe

form

of the possessive when we’re talking

about something that belongs to

a person so again in my example when i

said alicia’s

phone it sounds quite natural to use

that apostrophe s

to show possession as a person in the

plural form too

players shirts it’s a shirt or shirts

that belong to

a player so when we’re not using a

person when we’re using like an object

it might be a little bit

more common to see an of pattern used

there

in this case it’s color of the shirts

so color is like a characteristic that

belongs to

the shirt or in this case shirts so here

it sounds natural to use the

of pattern because there’s not a person

here we’re talking about the

characteristics of an

object color of the shirts so

of can be used to talk about like

characteristics of things

and the apostrophe s form can be used to

talk about like things that belong to

people let’s look at one more example

though that uses no people

so for example the color of the seats

in the cars or the color of the car’s

seats so we could use either of these

patterns

i personally would probably use the

color of the seats in the cars because

we can clearly see like the levels of

belonging first we have color

and the color belongs to the seats and

the seats are in the cars

so i think that sounds much nicer you

might see

that color of the cars seats sentence

though as we talked about it’s a little

bit less natural maybe to use the

possessive apostrophe there

with car because it’s not actually a

person i think you might use that though

i don’t think it’s incorrect

to use that but i personally would

prefer to use something that kind of

clearly shows

the hierarchy the level of belonging or

the levels of belonging

as in the first example the color of the

seats in the car

i hope that this helps you thank you

very much for this interesting question

okay let’s go to the next question next

question comes from

marcelo olivier hi marcelo marcello says

hi alicia are you okay

thanks for your awesome videos my

question is what’s the meaning of gung

ho i heard this in an interview with

taylor swift thanks a lot

okay um so gung-ho let’s start with an

example

i’m gung-ho about my new project gung-ho

means you are full of energy and you are

excited about something

it means that you’re enthusiastic you’re

going to put all your effort

into that thing so when i say i’m

gung-ho about my new project it means

i’m really excited i’m really

enthusiastic i’m going to do everything

i can

to make that a success gung-ho so i hope

that answers your question about

gung-ho first question from harley pasos

harley paso paso i’m very sorry harley

asks what is the use

of get plus adverb or preposition

for example i get down this is a

question about

phrasal verbs with get we can use a lot

of different things

after the word get in your example to

get down

we use it when dancing for example like

i want to get down this weekend it’s

sort of an

old-fashioned expression though to get

down we can use a lot of different

uh words after the verb get though for

example get into to get into something

means to become interested in something

you might hear to get at

like get at me or get at your professor

to get at means to reach out to or to

communicate with

but it’s a very casual expression you

can say get after like i need to get

after my homework for example it means

to like chase after or try to do

something also to get in like to get

into a club to get into a restaurant to

get into a party

the nuance is that something is

challenging but you can gain

access to that thing like i got into the

party last night but i wasn’t on the

list there are a lot of different uses

of the word

get i can’t talk about all of them in

this video because there are so many

so if you’re curious about the various

phrasal verbs that we can use with the

word get check out a dictionary that’s a

really good place to start

next question next question comes from

long and

longan asks what is the difference

between simple

past tense and past continuous tense or

past progressive tense

simple past tense we use for actions

that started

and ended in the past so the beginning

of the action

and the end of the action happened in

the past so for example the sentence i

ate breakfast is a simple past tense

statement i

ate breakfast eight is the simple past

tense the past continuous tense however

or the past progressive tense

is something we use to talk about an

action that was continuing

at a specific point in time in the past

if i want to use the past progressive

tense i can say

i was eating breakfast using that

continuous

tense using that progressive tense

implies i want to explain

something else that happened at that

time or maybe i want to add some more

information

so for example i was eating breakfast at

eight o’clock this morning or i was

eating breakfast when the phone rang

or i was eating breakfast and watching

tv at the same time

i was eating breakfast while studying

today by using the past progressive

i’m explaining that an action was

continuing at a specific point in time

as in the example i was eating breakfast

at eight o’clock

or i can use past progressive to show

one action was happening at the same

time as another action

in the past if i use just the simple

past tense i’m just saying

a simple fact in other words this action

happened i

ate breakfast at eight o’clock um if i

want to emphasize the

continuous nature of the action for some

reason like i was eating breakfast at

eight o’clock

i can use the past progressive tense in

that case

it might be in response to a question

like what were you doing at eight

o’clock this morning so if someone wants

to ask

maybe uh what you were doing at a

specific point in time like someone is

suspicious of you like what were you

doing last night

you can say like oh i was having dinner

with my friends last night

but past ten simple past tense is

something we use for actions which start

uh and finish uh in the past but

progressive the progressive tense and

past

can be used to emphasize the continuing

nature of that situation or that action

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i

answer them maybe first question this

week first question this week comes from

patrick hi patrick

patrick says i know the basic english

words and i understand if someone speaks

in english

for example i understand your videos

perfectly but i have problems building

correct english sentences like when i

speak with another person

do you have any tips for how to build

correct sentences

um i think that this just comes with

practice honestly it’s difficult to do

but i know that there’s not always a

person that you can ask for help

i will tell you a secret when i don’t

have confidence with something but i

don’t know how to answer something

this is what i do i

google it seriously just google it i put

quotation marks around like the phrase

that i’m trying to make

and then i search google for it and if

it’s there great then that means i can

use it maybe like thousands of people

have used that phrase i know it’s

probably a common phrase if there are no

results then that probably means i’ve

made a mistake somehow

so that’s maybe one good way to help you

as you try to build phrases

by yourself so try that out next

question

next question comes from yasun yasi

yasin i’m very sorry what’s the

difference between on time

and in time is it you arrived just on

time

or you arrived just in time we use on

time

to refer to doing something at the

correct

time doing something at a scheduled time

so for example i need to get to work on

time

meaning at the correct time or did you

make it to your appointment

on time in time however is used when we

want to

kind of give a nuance of rushing or

hurrying for something

i need to leave my house now to get to

the airport in time

for my flight i need to study for my

test now if i want to be in time for the

party later

you should probably leave now if you

want to be in time for the movie

in time for something else so i want to

do

action a to make my schedule meet

this other condition this other thing i

would like to do or this other thing i

need to do

in time for has the nuance of a deadline

we can use this expression in like a

panic like oh my gosh i’m not going to

make it

in time like to submit a paper i’m not

going to make it in time in time means

like before the deadline whereas

on time has the meaning of completing an

action or completing something

at a scheduled time next question

next question comes from huang se na

huang se na hai

i love your name alicia is alisha a

common name in the u.s

i happen to have a friend named alyssa

also what’s your personal favorite name

um a common name in the u.s alicia i

don’t i don’t think

alicia is so common in the us and when i

was growing up

i didn’t have any other friends named

alicia

also the spelling of my name is a little

strange usually it’s spelled a-l-i-c-i-a

maybe you know the artist alicia keys

that’s how she spells her name so my

name was commonly confused as alicia

a lot so i’ve heard like alison and

alyssa and ally and so on

those are fairly common i think but

alicia especially my spelling is not so

common actually so

uh what’s my favorite name uh my

favorite name is

obi-wan kenobi next question

next question comes from garrison silva

hi what is the difference between

shade and shadow oh great this is a

great question

both of these words can be used to refer

to a place

that is darker than its surroundings

because

there’s an object that is blocking the

light we can say

there’s shade over there or there’s a

shadow over there

in that sentence they are used the same

however

shadow refers to the dark shape only so

a person

can cast a shadow we use cast the verb

cast with a shadow

i cast a shadow when i stand in the sun

for example

shade however as a noun refers to or has

the nuance of a kind of

shelter so shelter provided by some

other object

shelter from the light shelter from the

sun so we would say

stand in the shade because shade has the

nuance of

shelter we would not say stand in the

shadow

shadow does not carry the nuance of

shelter in the way that shade does

interestingly enough though shade and

shadow are both used as

verbs as well to shadow something means

to follow something closely to shadow

someone at work means to follow someone

at work and and try to understand their

job

for example shade is used as a verb to

mean to create

shelter from light for example the

canopy shaded us

from the sun shade also has some

interesting uses you might hear the

slang phrase to throw shade throwing

shade is a really

interesting slang expression that we use

which means to

communicate disrespect or to to

communicate like contempt

uh bad feelings for something when

you’re speaking generally in most cases

when you want to talk about a dark cool

area we should say

shade stand in the shade when you want

to talk only about the dark

area that dark object use shadow next

question uh next question comes from

long is the h

sound not always pronounced when

followed by another consonant for

example wall hanger or

come back home yes the h sound is often

pronounced

very uh softly it’s quite difficult to

pronounce all of these syllables clearly

like in the example come

back home it’s quite difficult to say

the h sound clearly

so in those cases it’s quite common to

make the h

sound quite soft like come back home

danny’s second

question can you talk about ride and its

uses

like take someone for a ride can i take

a ride ryan is another verb

that has a lot of different uses you use

the example to take someone for a ride

means to drive together with someone to

go

for a ride has the nuance of doing

something just for fun

it’s just for fun i want to take a ride

to a location i want to take a ride to

the mountains this weekend or take a

ride to the beach but to take someone

for a ride means to invite someone to

drive

somewhere with you in a car that’s one

way to use rye you can also

say give me a ride can you give me a

ride so

this is a request expression i don’t

have a car my friend has a car

i want my friend to take me in their car

to a location

i can say can you give me a ride to the

movie theater can you give me a ride

to the lake give me a ride is a request

so give me a ride in your car

so there are a lot of uses of ride if

you want to see all of them or if you

want to see more of them i recommend

checking a dictionary there are quite a

few

and i can’t talk about them all in this

video so please check a dictionary

question comes from

winston hi winston winston says i don’t

understand

english i want to learn but i don’t know

how to start

i’m a newbie right lots of questions

like this

um so really there are a lot of

different ways that you can start

studying a language

of course we have lots of videos on our

youtube channel

and we have a whole website uh to try to

help people

who are studying english you can check

us out at englishclass101.com

you can find like apps you can find

worksheets

podcasts to listen to so that can be a

nice way to start we have some videos

for beginners

also so if you’re just starting you can

check some of the beginner level videos

we have on the channel for example

english

in three minutes that’s a good set of

videos you can watch

to learn some basic phrases i think

so that might be a nice place for you to

start

but let’s look at some other ideas

for beginners specifically one

join an english class in your city two

get an english textbook and study at

home

three make a language exchange with an

english speaker four study vocabulary

with apps try out those those are a few

ideas

of course you can always use our videos

on the channel

as well so i hope that helps a little

bit

i’m sorry where do we use wanna and

gonna

and how ah this question is about the

casual contracted forms of

want to and going to so want to becomes

wanna going to becomes gonna in casual

speech

we use them in exactly the same way we

would use i want to

i’m going to he wants to she wants to

he’s going to she’s going to

we use them in exactly the same way

which means

we use them in casual situations like i

wanna take a day off or

i’m gonna go to the beach this weekend

or do you wanna

see a movie tonight we use them in

exactly the same way

we use want to and going to

but we use them in speech typically we

don’t write these unless we’re writing

very casual messages like text messages

to our friends or something

next one i got the next question uh a

couple times like maybe three or four

times okay the question was about the

adjective comparison video that we did a

while ago so

i introduced the word fun uh as an

irregular adjective

in terms of the comparative form so fun

is a word an adjective we use for an

activity or something that’s

enjoyable something we like to do fun is

different

from the adjective funny fun is an

adjective

and a noun actually funny is just an

adjective

fun refers to an enjoyable activity

funny

however refers to something that causes

us to laugh

it makes us laugh because something is

humorous something is humorous so for

example

we can say uh going to an amusement park

is fun it’s not funny it’s not humorous

but it’s fun let’s kind of break this

down a little bit let’s think about it

like fun

uh in the adjective form here fun is an

enjoyable

activity something we enjoy doing um

funny however causes laughter

because of humor something funny

uh is humorous it is like witty

or there’s interesting word play or

whatever so

fun is kind of think of fun as like

doing an activity going to the movie

theater is fun going to an amusement

park is fun

watching these videos maybe is fun i

don’t know making these videos

is fun but funny we use funny

for for example a person or a movie or

um something that causes us to laugh

because of humor so things that are fun

fun fun fun fun not

fun funny funny not funny

not funny funny not funny fun

so going to watch a funny movie is fun

think about that because these two words

are different

fun is an adjective funny is an

adjective fun

uh the comparative form is more fun or

less fun the comparative form of funny

is funnier or not as funny so that’s why

i used two different uh examples in that

video thanks for that question though

next question next question comes from

carmel

carmel says do you have any ideas

on how to improve speaking skills in

english yeah well to improve your

speaking

you have to practice speaking here are a

couple of

ideas that you can use to maybe help you

improve your speaking these are ideas

for just

ways to practice so chances to practice

number one

get a partner you can practice speaking

english with

this can be in your city or in your

community so find a partner

to practice speaking english with this

can be a language exchange partner for

example

do if you can’t find anyone in your town

or in your city to practice speaking

english with

you can try to find a partner online

three try

recording yourself speaking you can use

your phone to do this if you like just

record your voice

saying something and then listen to it

again

you might not realize it but it’s

actually really helpful

to hear your own voice like outside of

your body

actually we have something on the

website uh you can check

at englishclass101.com there’s a voice

recorder function

so you can record your voice and then

compare your voice

to the sound of a native speaker’s voice

and

try to practice until your voice matches

the sound of their voice

so that could be another idea number

four try repeating the things the

characters in

english tv and english movies say

so if you’re watching tv if you’re

watching a video online

if you’re listening to music something

in english

try to repeat the thing you hear so

not only listening listening listening

but try to practice

saying the things the characters or the

artists are saying too

number five kind of a strange suggestion

maybe but try

talking to yourself in english actually

i do this a lot

i’m studying japanese and i talk to

myself

in japanese from time to time so that

helps me a little bit but

helps me get comfortable just saying

words saying phrases

too so maybe that’s helpful for you

those are five ideas

for what you can do to improve your

speaking next

question next question comes from huang

se na huang

huang sena wang sana i’m very sorry i’m

very sorry i’ve never been to japan

i’ve never been to japan before i’ve

never eaten horse

i’ve never eaten horse before my

question is if you put

before at the end of those sentences

does it mean you are in japan

right now or you are eating horse right

now no

not necessarily think of before at the

end of the sentence as

before now i’ve never eaten horse

before now in other words you could use

this

beef just before you eat horse or just

before you go to japan if you like as an

emphasis phrase

but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you

are in japan

now or that you’re eating horse now you

could use it in that way

sure but it doesn’t necessarily mean it

if you’d like to emphasize it like if

you’re about to eat horse for example

and you said i’ve never eaten horse

before

you could show your interest or perhaps

to show maybe some

anxiety or nervous feelings about uh

what you’re about

to do um but no it does not necessarily

mean

you are in that place like for example

you could just be having a conversation

have you eaten horse before no i’ve

never eaten a horse before it could just

be a conversation

about it but really before just means

before

now next question next question comes

from luann garcia hi luann one asks i

would like to know how to use

down up off in on and out

after a verb and why it’s necessary oh

dear won this is a very big question

your question is about phrasal verbs

these are all called phrasal verbs verb

plus adverb or preposition there are an

enormous

amount of phrasal verbs i cannot

possibly talk about all of them in one

video

phrasal verbs are necessary because they

are part of speech

they are simply a type of verb they are

a type of expression

so you need to know them because they

will help you to communicate effectively

um so if you want to know more about

specific phrasal verbs i would suggest

checking a dictionary

next question next question comes from

huang jang ik

i’m very sorry which one is correct i

work out for one to two

hours a day i work out for one or two

hours a day

i drink coffee two to three times a day

i drink coffee two or three times a day

ah both of these are correct actually

in this case there are very very small

differences between these

one two two hours a day means between

one and two hours uh if you say

i work out for one or two hours a day it

means it’s determined like

uh one hour only for a workout or two

hours only for a workout

so the difference here is are you

determining are you deciding

one hour or two cups of coffee or three

cups of coffee

or is it between those two amounts

so using one two two or two two three

means between those two amounts using or

shows it’s either a or b but not

between those two this is the difference

between two and or

next question next question comes from

bowie dente

bowie bowie dente vale dante asks

when can i use ever in a present perfect

sentence

like i have ever ever means at any time

or

at all times you can use ever when

you’re asking a question like have you

ever blah blah blah have you ever been

to france have you ever eaten ramen have

you ever taken

a trip to the mountains for example we

can use ever when making

questions that’s one but because ever

means at all time or at any time

um we may not use it to answer a

question like that have you ever blah

blah blah

we usually say yes or no in that in

response to that we can

say i have never ever taken a trip to

france or i have never

ever forgotten my keys for example i

have never ever blah blah blah

but in that case it still means never an

expression like

never ever just emphasizes the word

never

so to use ever we need to pair ever with

a verb in a sentence so

we can’t say i have ever just i

have plus a verb we cannot say i have

ever

that’s incorrect i have at some at any

time or at all times

it’s it’s redundant it’s it’s not

necessary

we can however use ever in a negative

expression like i haven’t

ever been to france or she hasn’t

ever eaten cheese for example so

we have to pair ever with a negative

to make a response we use ever for

present perfect tense questions

and paired with a negative have or has

to make a response to make a negative

response so please keep those two in

mind next question

next question comes from rashke rush

rashke rashkesh i’m sorry where do we

use

wanna and gonna and how ah this question

is about the casual contracted forms of

want to and going to so want to

becomes wanna going to becomes gonna in

casual speech

we use them in exactly the same way we

would use i want to

i’m going to he wants to she wants to

he’s going to

she’s going to we use them in exactly

the same way

which means we use them in casual

situations like

i wanna take a day off or i’m gonna go

to the beach this weekend or

do you wanna see a movie tonight we use

them in exactly the same way

we use want to and going to

but we use them in speech typically we

don’t write these unless we’re writing

very casual messages like text messages

to our friends or something first

question a lot of you have asked about

what to do to get

a voice that sounds like mine when i’m

making these videos i’m specifically

trying to speak clearly so i’m clearly

separating my words

the way that i talk with my friends and

the way that i talk uh regularly

is a bit different in the way that i

talk on this channel but if you want to

try to get this kind of pronunciation

the best advice i

have is just to repeat this kind of

pronunciation it depends on your goal

if you want to learn to speak like me or

to speak like somebody else that you

really admire

you should try to mimic them that’s what

i do and that’s

actually a strategy that i use when i

study other languages

as well so if i hear something

interesting that a

a vocabulary word that a friend has used

like in japanese for example

or they have a really good intonation or

just the way they deliver the way they

say something

is really uh interesting to me or i want

to i want to be able to use that too

i put that in my head i think about that

and then i try to replicate that i try

to copy that essentially

to make this explanation shorter mimic

if you want to learn to speak like me

mimic me

if you want to learn to speak like

somebody else try to mimic someone else

but

just keep in mind that the way that i

talk in these videos is different

from the way that i talk in real life

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question next question is from suha

how do we write a good

paragraph number one you need to think

about the position of your paragraph in

your overall document

let’s think about writing a document in

terms of three parts an introduction a

body and a conclusion

in the introduction section you need to

introduce

the key information your reader needs to

know

what they’re going to read about later

in your document so

if your paragraph is in the introduction

you need to think about how to introduce

your information there

second the body section of your document

should be where you include your

evidence your supporting materials your

opinions

any references that you have so if your

paragraph falls in the body of the

document you should have these themes in

mind

if your paragraph is in the conclusion

of your document at the end

you should be concluding or finishing

your ideas

it’s typically a good idea to summarize

the ideas you presented in the body

and the introduction of your document in

the concluding section

two use transitions when you’re writing

it’s good to transition from

one sentence to another and to use good

transitions between

paragraphs themselves so some example

transitions could be

first second third or next

then finally after that moreover

additionally

furthermore so transitions help the

reader

connect the ideas that you’re presenting

in your writing three

avoid trying to include too much

information in one sentence

remember you need to try to present your

ideas as

clearly and accurately as possible so if

you find you’re just writing and writing

and writing and the sentence is becoming

extremely

long take a moment and look at the goal

of this sentence what are you actually

trying to communicate

if you need to break it into smaller

sentences

and connect them with transitions next

question

next question comes from garrison silva

hey again garrison when can i use the

expression

take for granted take for granted this

is an expression

which we typically use in the negative

like don’t take

something something for granted don’t

take blah blah blah for granted

it means um don’t forget to

appreciate this thing or this person so

for example

don’t take your parents for granted or

don’t take this opportunity for granted

these expressions mean don’t forget to

appreciate these things or

um don’t just disregard your parents or

don’t

disregard this opportunity you recognize

the importance of something

so if you are given a good opportunity

for example or someone gives you good

advice or

a very nice gift perhaps we would

typically use this

um with the negative don’t take

something something for

granted meaning don’t forget to show

your appreciation

for that thing or for that person

question comes from carla hi carla carla

asks how do native speakers use

to have i have seen i’ve i have got

formal and informal sure we use the verb

to have for a lot of different meaning

there’s a grammatical function for the

verb

have when we pair it with the past

participle form of a verb like i

have plus past participle to make the

present perfect tense or

i had plus past participle to make the

past

perfect tense so there’s that kind of

grammatical function

of the verb have however if you just

want to use the verb

have in everyday situations like i have

a phone or i have a camera or

i don’t have any money for example then

to have in that case

just means to own something or to hold

something to be keeping something

so please consider the sentence that

you’re looking at with the verb

have in it if it comes before a verb in

the past participle

it’s probably a past perfect or a

present perfect expression

if you’re seeing something after the

verb have

like an object in my examples like a

phone or a camera or money

then it’s probably referring to owning

something or

keeping something so those are probably

two of the most

common ways that you’ll see the verb

have and its variations in

at least american english speech next

question

next question next question comes from

daniel silvero hi daniel

daniel asks what is the difference

between wish

and desire greetings from paraguay hey

uh what is the difference between

wish and desire wish is used to express

a a wants when you want something that

is different

from the present situation so we often

use it with i wish i were or i wish i

could

something we uh we want or an ability

we want but that we do not have now

something um for the future so i wish i

could speak

seven languages or i wish i had a

million dollars or

i wish i were taking more time off every

week for example

something that is different from the

present condition the present situation

we use

wish or i wish you would call me for

example i wish you would or i wish you

could

to express something that is not

happening now

desire on the other hand desire tends to

be used more formally

and it also can carry more romantic

nuances

it’s not used as much conversationally

as the word

wishes wish is used to express wants

things that we want that are not true

now desire is used more um

in romantic situations um like to desire

another person

or um he desired more of her time for

example

but it sounds unnecessarily formal i

feel

you might use it in a in a more formal

like a business context like our client

desires more information about the

situation

um that could be a different use of the

word desire but in general

it sounds a bit more formal and a bit

more romantically charged at times

depending on the situation when it’s

used

if you’re talking about a person as well

like if you say for example i desire you

it sounds actually quite odd at least in

american english

if you want to use the word desire i

think in romantic situations

it might be applied in a phrase like he

was filled with desire or she was filled

with desire

used more as a noun than as a verb

so i would recommend not using desire so

much to talk about your wants

uh as it can sound a little bit too

formal or can give perhaps the wrong

nuance to the situation

but wish is used to express a a hope for

something or wanting something that is

different from the present situation so

i hope that helps

first question comes from ferris ghazali

faris gazali how do i stop

translating the meaning of english words

in my head

i can tell you about the things that

have helped me and maybe they’ll help

you

i put myself in situations where i could

not escape

into my native language in my case i

could not escape into english

i would go out like for food and drinks

with friends who

could not speak english i had no choice

but to use a different language with

them

two something that i’ve noticed some of

my students do that actually kind of

bothers me

they bring a dictionary to their lesson

and they’ll stop

conversations in lessons to check

words in their dictionary and say a

single word at a time

instead of just trying to find a

different way to explain that

one it totally stops the flow of

conversation two

you don’t have really the option to do

that in a conversation most of the time

you’re not going to be carrying around

your dictionary with you i hope unless

it’s in your phone i suppose

third i think that this is a chance to

develop a better skill instead of trying

to translate into english or to

translate into a different language

you should think about finding a

different way to explain the word you

want to use

let’s say for example that you want to

use the word beautiful but you can’t

remember the word

how would you explain that so think

about other ways to communicate

an idea even if you don’t have the

vocabulary word so going to your

dictionary

shouldn’t necessarily be the first

course of action it shouldn’t

necessarily be your first step

think about a different way to

communicate the idea you’re trying to

communicate

think of examples to explain the word

you’re looking for and then the other

person can teach you like if

you’re working with somebody or you’re

talking with somebody

who understands you’re not a native

speaker chances are if you can explain

the word you’re looking for

they will tell you they will be your

teacher i just explain like with body

language sometimes too if i don’t know a

word

so another thing that really helped me

was not just studying vocabulary words

but actually approaching things as

phrases

so not saying okay this word equals this

word in my language but rather here’s a

phrase that communicates a meaning

that is interesting to me or that i hear

my friends use a lot

i’m going to use that phrase so don’t

just input input input

start outputting too so i hope that’s

helpful for you next

question next question from han yan hee

han

han yon hee nah yo hey alicia what’s the

difference between

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

great question

maybe probably perhaps possibly

okay maybe probably perhaps and possibly

these are

all adverbs they have the same

grammatical function

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

maybe and perhaps

are very closely related maybe and

perhaps

are they have the same meaning but just

different levels of formality

maybe is like the lower level the more

casual version of the word

perhaps so maybe i’ll go to the beach

this weekend and

perhaps i’ll go to the beach this

weekend they have really the same

meaning but perhaps

sounds more formal probably however is

different

probably expresses a higher level of

possibility than the other words on this

list i’ll probably go to the beach this

weekend

is like a 75 to 80 percent chance the

speaker

is going to go to the beach this weekend

possibly however

possibly has more of a nuance of just

that something

can be done it is possible to do

something we use possibly more in

requests like could you possibly blah

blah blah

for me could you possibly send me this

file

possibly sounds a little too formal for

casual conversations and invitations

but if you’re using it at work for

example could you possibly meet me later

this week

instead of could you maybe meet me so

the difference between maybe and

possibly and perhaps they’re

possible has that root yeah possible

able to so maybe and perhaps don’t have

that nuance

possibly sounds like is it possible is

it

are you able to do this thing maybe and

perhaps

don’t contain that nuance so uh to recap

maybe and perhaps are used to express

the same thing a chance of something

happening

perhaps is more formal possibly is used

in a similar way however it refers more

to simple possibility

than is it is are you able to do that

thing

probably expresses a high chance of

something next question

next question is from wong jiang ik hi

hwangjang says i’m curious what do you

do when your days off

you want to know how to do my days off

my days i’m pretty normal

my days off i cook i go jogging

i sleep i i go listen to my favorite djs

i see my friends i eat and drink

and watch tv that’s about it i’m a

pretty normal person

first question this comes from shunichi

saito hi

shinichi uh shinichi says i want to know

what does though mean for example it’s

very expensive though

i see the word though at the end of a

sentence very often

yeah a lot of you have sent this

question in recently

so i talked in a previous episode of ask

alicia about using the word

though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a

sentence

it means but at the end of a sentence

and we use it kind of casually so

when you see the word though t-h-o

it’s like an even more casual version of

though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a

sentence

so you’ll see this a lot on like social

media

you’ll see this when you’re on like

facebook or twitter or instagram

text messages maybe though just means

but

but at the end of a sentence so in your

example sentence which was

it’s really expensive though it means

it’s really expensive

but however it’s like just putting that

little

but that little disagreement kind of

feeling

at the end of the sentence so it’s sort

of like a soft

you know disagreement or a soft sort of

difference of opinion

though means though t-h-o means

though t-h-o-u-g-h but it’s just

extremely extremely casual so for a

little bit more detail

you can check this video where i talked

a little bit more about

uh t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a sentence

with some other examples

so i hope that that helps you i know

many of you have asked that question

lately

next question the next person asked two

questions so the next two questions are

from

essa warsiadi where where’s sayadee i’m

very sorry

question one from isa can you explain

through

thorough though and thought they sound

similar

yes indeed they do sound similar and

they even look similar

in writing for sure however these words

have different meanings and different

functions in speech

and in writing let’s look at through to

begin with though

through means to pass into

something and to come out the other side

of something

so for example to go through a tunnel or

if you’re looking at a document for

example to go through

a document means to read through read

all of the content of the document from

beginning to end

so through something is to to begin at

something

and pass through all of the content to

pass through everything

and come up come out the other side or

to complete something so we also use the

word

through to mean finished in american

english like are you through with dinner

or i’m through with my homework so

through those are a couple of different

ways we use the word

through the second word thorough

thorough so different from through

thorough means um comprehensive thorough

means completely

thorough means well done it has

typically a positive meaning

so for example she was very thorough in

her explanation of the word through or

she was very thorough in her explanation

of the word

thorough sorry she was very thorough in

her presentation meaning she gave a lot

of

information in her presentation thorough

means

well done containing a lot of knowledge

a lot of information

in something thorough so please be

thorough in completing your homework or

he wasn’t very thorough in cleaning his

room so

thorough means well done completely done

finished so considering

everything considering all points of

something even the small details is

considered

thorough so we can use thorough for

presentations for activities that

require small details a thorough safety

check for example

so these are actions that are done

completely fully to the small details so

that’s

thorough next word here is though though

though you can think of though

in the same way you think of the word

but so it’s used to contrast

information it’s used to express a

difference in something so you could

follow someone’s opinion with an

expression like though so for example

i think summer is the best season though

winter is pretty fun too

so you can think of though in the same

way as you think of but

a though b so you’re presenting a

and then a contrasting opinion b and

you’re connecting those two ideas with

though in the same way you would but so

though though although is similar we use

although and though

and but in similar ways what’s the

difference

but is much more casual and but is used

much more in casual conversation in

everyday conversation

if you’re writing a document a formal

document or if you’re making a formal

statement

you could use though in place of but so

though

shows contrasting information the last

one on this list is

thought thought thought is the past

tense of

think when used as a verb so i thought

you were coming today or

i thought it was going to rain later or

i thought this was such a great

afternoon

thought is used as the past tense of

think we can also use

thought to refer to an idea as a noun so

i had a thought for example or

do you have any thoughts about this

project so we can use thought as

a verb past tense of think or as a noun

to refer to an

idea so again that’s through thorough

though and thought some of you might be

wondering how do i

remember which is which when i’m reading

or when i’m listening

you have to pay attention to the grammar

of the sentence they all have different

grammatical functions

so you need to think about the grammar

surrounding the word

next question next question from han yan

hee han han yon hee nah

ni very sorry hey alicia what’s the

difference between maybe

probably perhaps and possibly great

question

maybe probably perhaps possibly okay

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

these are all adverbs they have the same

grammatical function

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

maybe and perhaps

are very closely related maybe and

perhaps

are they have the same meaning but just

different levels of formality

maybe it’s like the lower level the more

casual version of the word

perhaps so maybe i’ll go to the beach

this weekend and

perhaps i’ll go to the beach this

weekend they have really the same

meaning but perhaps

sounds more formal probably however

is different probably expresses a higher

level

of possibility than the other words on

this list i’ll probably go to the beach

this weekend

it’s like a 75 to 80 chance the speaker

is going to go to the beach this weekend

possibly however

possibly has more of a nuance of just

that something

can be done it is possible to do

something

we use possibly more in requests like

could you possibly blah blah blah

for me could you possibly send me this

file um

possibly sounds a little too formal for

casual conversations and invitations

but if you’re using it at work for

example could you possibly meet me later

this week

instead of could you maybe meet me so

the difference between maybe and

possibly and perhaps there

um possible has that root yeah possible

able to so maybe and perhaps don’t have

that nuance

possibly sounds like is it possible is

it

are you able to do this thing maybe and

perhaps

don’t contain that nuance so uh to recap

maybe and perhaps are used to express

the same thing

a chance of something happening perhaps

is more formal

possibly is used in a similar way

however it refers

more to simple possibility than is it is

are you able to

do that thing probably expresses a high

chance of something

want to speak real english from your

first lesson sign up for your free

lifetime account at englishclass101.com

next question next question is from

muhammad sohail what is the difference

between

famous and popular great question famous

is something that is well known many

people know about that thing or that

person

beyonce is famous the statue of liberty

is famous the eiffel tower is

famous popular however means many people

know about it and it is liked

it has a positive image so like beyonce

is

popular or like a famous candy is

popular like chocolate cake is popular

it’s a famous food and many people like

it

so popular is famous plus

like a positive image sometimes we can

use those two words for the same thing

so beyonce is famous

beyonce is popular but famous doesn’t

always mean they are popular so someone

can be famous for a bad thing

in that case though it’s typically

better to use the word infamous

infamous infamous means famous for a bad

reason so famous for something negative

on to question

two from issa what does love to hate

mean and when can i use it love to hate

means it’s something that you really

really dislike

but it’s sort of enjoyable to dislike so

for example this is an expression we can

apply

to reality tv so many people think

reality tv

is not very good entertainment or it’s

not very high quality entertainment

however it’s really really fun to watch

so maybe for example you just hate a

character

on a reality tv show but somehow you

enjoy

watching that tv show too so something

that you feel

very strong dislike for and yet you

really enjoy it at the same time that’s

something you can love to

hate you love to hate that thing next

question next question comes from oh

you wrote the pronunciation of your name

very nice

itan iton i think okay hey alicia i hope

you’re well uh my level is intermediate

they feel that they’re stuck

at the intermediate level and want to

reach the advanced level

they’re watching lots of videos on

youtube reading academic articles on the

web but still feel that progress has

somehow

stopped could you give me some advice

okay you say in your message that you

feel your progress somehow has

stopped i have been here too the

intermediate plateau like you begin

learning a language and it’s like yeah

i’m learning all these things and then

you kind of like plateau you get to a

level where things don’t continue and

you feel like progress goes much more

slowly

i would say in this case first identify

how you feel your progress has stopped

by that i mean like

do you feel like uh your vocabulary is

lacking or

do you find that it’s hard to listen to

people and to understand what they’re

saying

do you find it’s hard to write um is it

hard to to like to read things so

first identify what is that thing that

you feel like you’re not good at and

then

start to approach your further studies

with that as the focus

i think that if you can think about your

different skill sets your different

levels

in reading writing speaking and

listening you can identify which of

those

four things is weakest for you and start

there so when you feel your progress has

stopped think like okay what am i not

good at doing and then focus your time

there so

maybe that’s a helpful first step for

you hope that helped this week’s first

question is a question from bahar

bahar behar i’m very sorry hi alicia i’d

like to learn about as

and like what’s the difference between

them to begin with

like is a preposition remember

prepositions are words we use

to show relationships to other words or

to position

the elements in a sentence so for

example at and by and on are also

prepositions

the word like is a preposition however

the word as

is a conjunction a conjunction is a word

that connects

elements in a sentence so for example

and but

or for so these words are conjunctions

that’s point one

we use like and as to make comparisons

the general agreement on how to use like

and as

at this point in time is that if you are

following the word

like with a simple statement like a noun

phrase

you should use the word like if however

the part that comes

after the word like or as has a verb

in the clause there’s a verb in that

part of this sentence you should use

as to do that because as functions as a

conjunction remember it’s connecting the

elements in a sentence

so we should use like if there’s just a

simple phrase or a

like a simple noun phrase something like

that after

like or as so to give some examples my

co-worker eats like a pig in that case

i’ve used the word like because after

like comes a pig it’s just a simple noun

phrase

if however i said my co-worker eats as

if he were a pig

i’m using a verb i’m using the verb were

as if

he were so we can use as in cases where

we follow the statement with a verb we

can use

like in cases where we follow that

statement with a simple noun phrase

generally we use them both to make

comparisons i’ll say though that native

speakers

often make mistakes with this generally

speaking though especially in spoken

conversation

and casual spoken conversation at least

american english speakers

tend to use like more often than as

in everyday conversation i tend to use

like i rely on like

heavily for my comparisons in everyday

situations

it’s like you were it’s like he was it’s

like blah blah blah

as i feel is more common at least among

american english speakers

in writing so you might see as if and as

though

both of those we can use to make

comparisons like

comes before a simple noun phrase as is

used before something containing

a verb yeah thanks for that question

bahar next question

next question comes from kiara chiara

kiara kiara dr asks

uh i’ll help you studying and i’ll help

you

to study what is the correct one thanks

i’ll help you

something i’ll help you do this so just

the regular plain form of the verb i

would

suggest is probably the most natural

choice thanks for the question though

next question next question comes from

sheriff

sheriff ahmed sheriff ahmed okay should

i use the singular or

plural verb after colloquial names for

example

my team have won the match or has won

the match ah okay in this case

uh my team has won the match my team has

won the match so use the singular form

of the verb like

same as like he has or she has my team

has is the correct answer here next

question

the next question is from taylor taylor

asks which one sounds better

i read a newspaper every morning or i

read

the newspaper every morning nice

question this is a question

about articles this is just about being

specific if for example

there’s a specific newspaper that you

want to read like i read the

abc newspaper every morning you should

use the

if it’s not important to you to be

specific about

a newspaper and if you want to imply

that you just read

any newspaper every morning you can use

a newspaper i read

a newspaper every morning using the

instead though

shows that there’s maybe a specific

newspaper

using the before uh newspaper in this

case though sounds like there’s a

specific newspaper you read every

morning

if you say i read up newspaper every

morning it sounds like you just

choose any newspaper that’s available to

you on that day

and you read that newspaper so using

the shows that there’s a specific or it

implies that there’s a specific

newspaper you read every day you don’t

have to be specific

about which one you can like i read the

new york times every day or i read the

guardian every day for example but if

you say i read a newspaper every day it

sounds like you don’t choose the same

newspaper

each day that’s the difference between

these two phrases most people however

do choose the same newspaper every day

and so they use i read

the newspaper every day you can say i

read the news every day as well but

using that set phrase the news it’s like

the news

for the day i read that day’s news every

day where i read the previous day’s news

every day so usually we say the news we

don’t use

a news it sounds a little strange to use

on news so the same sort of thing

applies to a newspaper

most people choose the same newspaper

every day so we say

the newspaper instead of a newspaper but

thanks for that question taylor nice

next question next question comes from

jeffrey hi jeffrey

jeffrey asks sometimes i watch movies

and some characters

say you wish with a very angry attitude

or

i wish in other situations what

do these two sentences mean and how do i

use it

aha interesting question okay when

someone responds with

you wish to a negative suggestion

it’s like they’re mutually together

they’re

recognizing that they don’t like each

other so usually the first character

will say

something like make a negative

suggestion like you should

uh you should leave town and get a

different job like leave us alone

something like that

and then the other character will say

yeah you wish like

yes this this character recognizes you

want me to do that yes but i’m not going

to do that

in other words so it’s sort of like a

challenge so this person says like this

negative suggestion

the other person recognizes this

suggestion says no

i’m not going to do that but i know you

want me to do that

so you wish in this way means it’s like

a negative challenge

they’re kind of fighting recognizing

they dislike each other so that’s one

the other one what was the other one so

i wish we talked about i wish in the

previous the previous episode of ask

alicia so please check that out but

essentially

i wish refers to something that we

cannot do now or something that is

different from the present situation but

we want uh we want to happen or we want

to be able to do so please check the

last

episode of ask alicia for more about i

wish like the positive

next question next question comes from

brain bryan ryan i’m

very sorry hey alicia what’s your height

i am 1000 centimeters tall

or maybe i’m six centimeters tall and

this whole thing has just been

scanned the entire time next question

next question comes from bowie dente

bowie bowie dende

when can i use ever in a present perfect

sentence

like i have ever ever means at any time

or

at all times you can use ever when

you’re asking a question like have you

ever blah blah blah have you ever been

to france

have you ever eaten ramen have you ever

taken a

trip to the mountains for example we can

use ever

when making questions that’s one but

because ever means at all time or at any

time

we may not use it to answer a question

like that have you ever blah blah blah

we usually say yes or no in that in

response to that

we can say i have never ever taken a

trip to france or i have never

ever forgotten my keys for example i

have never ever blah blah blah

but in that case it still means never an

expression like

never ever just emphasizes the word

never

so to use ever we need to pair ever with

a verb in a sentence so we can’t say

i have ever just i have

plus a verb we cannot say i have ever

that’s incorrect

i have at some at any time or at all

times

it’s it’s redundant it’s it’s not

necessary

we can however use ever in a negative

expression like i haven’t

ever been to france or she hasn’t

ever eaten cheese for example so

we have to pair ever with a negative uh

to make a response we use

ever for present perfect tense questions

and paired with a negative

have or has to make a response to make a

negative response so please keep those

two in mind first

question from harley pasos harley paso

paso

passport i’m very sorry harley asks what

is the use

of get plus adverb or preposition

for example i get down this is a

question about phrasal verbs with

get we can use a lot of different things

after the word

get in your example to get down we use

it when dancing for example like i want

to

get down this weekend it’s sort of an

old-fashioned expression though to get

down we can use

a lot of different uh words after the

verb

get though for example get into to get

into something

means to become interested in something

you might hear to get at

like get at me or get at your professor

to get at means to reach

out to or to communicate with but it’s a

very casual expression you can say get

after like i need to get after my

homework for example it means to like

chase after or try to do

something also to get in like to get

into a club

to get into a restaurant to get into a

party the nuance is that something is

challenging

but you can gain access to that thing

like i got into the party last night but

i wasn’t on the list there are a lot of

different uses of the word

get i can’t talk about all of them in

this video because there are so many

so if you’re curious about the various

phrasal verbs that we can use with the

word get check out a dictionary that’s a

really good place to start

next question comes from uh alexander hi

alexander alexander

says hi alicia what’s the difference

between the words

intelligent smart and clever intelligent

and smart have the same meaning they

mean someone who has a lot of knowledge

and the image is that they got it from

like books from studying from classrooms

from lectures

intelligent and smart they have that

same feeling about them

but intelligence sounds more formal

smart is used a lot among young people

who have good academic abilities for

example

clever also means that someone has a lot

of knowledge but the idea with

clever maybe they have knowledge from

books and classes yes

but their knowledge is from world

experience

so they’re really good with like people

in situations and they can think

quickly maybe and they have good ideas

that’s someone who is

clever sometimes clever has the image of

being a little bit like sneaky

too wanna speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question next question comes from

long

and long anne asks what is the

difference between simple

past tense and past continuous tense or

past progressive tense

simple past tense we use for actions

that started

and ended in the past so the beginning

of the action and the end of the action

happened in the past so for example the

sentence i ate

breakfast is a simple past tense

statement i

ate breakfast eight is the simple past

tense the past continuous tense however

or the past progressive tense

is something we use to talk about an

action that was continuing

at a specific point in time in the past

if i want to use the past progressive

tense i can say i was eating breakfast

using that continuous tense using that

progressive tense implies i want to

explain

something else that happened at that

time or maybe i want to

add some more information so for example

i was eating breakfast

at eight o’clock this morning or i was

eating breakfast when the phone rang or

i was eating breakfast and watching tv

at the same time

i was eating breakfast while studying

today by using the past progressive i’m

explaining that an action was continuing

at a specific point in time as in the

example i was eating

breakfast at eight o’clock or i can use

past progressive to show one action was

happening at the same time as another

action

in the past if i use just the simple

past tense i’m just saying

a simple fact in other words this action

happened i

ate breakfast at eight o’clock if i want

to emphasize

the continuous nature of the action for

some reason like i was eating breakfast

at eight o’clock

i can use the past progressive tense in

that case it might be in response to a

question like

what were you doing at eight o’clock

this morning so if someone wants to ask

maybe uh what you were doing at a

specific point in time like someone is

suspicious of you like

what were you doing last night you can

say like oh i was having dinner with my

friends last night but past ten simple

past tense is something we use for

actions which start

uh and finish uh in the past but

progressive the progressive tense and

past

can be used to emphasize the continuing

nature of that situation or that action

first question this week comes from

eduardo hi eduardo could you explain

please how to use the expressions one at

all

two kind of three actually

for a big picture sure number one at

all we use at all as an emphasis phrase

after negative statements i don’t want

to study at all today he doesn’t like me

at all we can also use this expression

in question

question two about kind of it depends on

which expression you mean there’s kind

of which can mean

a little bit or somewhat i kind of want

to eat vietnamese food for dinner you’ll

also notice that the pronunciation there

changes to kinda kinda

not kind of but kinda kinda depending on

the way the sentence is made

though kind of can also refer to types

of something

what kind of ice cream do you like they

don’t know what kind of house they want

here kind of means type so they don’t

know what kind of house they want they

don’t know what kind of food they want

to eat for dinner for example so

check to see which way kind of is being

used if it’s coming before a verb

like i kind of want to eat or i kind of

want to go then it probably means

a little bit but if it’s coming before a

noun

then it probably means type of noun so

hope that helps third question

about the word actually actually right

we use the word

actually when we want to explain the

real

situation as we understand it so

people like to use actually actually to

introduce their opinion

as though it’s fact sometimes so some

examples of this

actually i don’t live in the united

states i don’t think he actually likes

chocolate

so in these ways we’re introducing a

real situation

as we understand it we use actually to

do that

your fourth question is about uh big

picture

big picture is used to talk about a

broad

idea of something so going away from a

small detail

and talking about like the entire

situation

at one time i know you think studying

vocabulary is boring but look at the big

picture

it’s important to know small details

he’s losing sight of the big picture

he’s wasting time and money so the big

picture is kind of like

maybe the the bigger situation hope that

helps next

question next question comes from yasin

ya yasi yasin i’m very sorry what’s the

difference between

on time and in time is it you arrived

just on time

or you arrived just in time we use on

time

to refer to doing something at the

correct

time doing something at a scheduled time

so for example i need to get to work on

time

meaning at the correct time or did you

make it to your appointment

on time in time however is used when we

want to kind of give a nuance of

rushing or hurrying for something i need

to leave my house now

to get to the airport in time for my

flight i need to study for my test

now if i want to be in time for the

party later

you should probably leave now if you

want to be in time for the movie

in time for something else so

i want to do action a to make my

schedule

meet this other condition this other

thing i would like to do or this other

thing i need to do in

time for has the nuance of a deadline we

can use this expression in like a panic

like oh my gosh i’m not going to make it

in time like to submit a paper i’m not

going to make it in time

in time means like before the deadline

whereas on time has the meaning of

completing an

action or completing something at a

scheduled time

next question next question is from wan

fang chen hi wong fun hey alicia what

does you just

made my day mean i heard this phrase but

i don’t fully understand it yeah

so you made my day is a really positive

phrase you can imagine this as you just

made my day

much better but we don’t say much better

so we use this when someone gives us

good news we can say you

just made my day or you made my day just

sounds like something happened very

recently you just made my day a raise

you just made my day we get to take the

afternoon off

you just made my day those are

situations where someone is really happy

and wants to express

that the other person improved their day

in that moment

nice expression next question the next

question comes from gerson silva

hi what is the difference between shade

and

shadow oh great this is a great question

both of these words can be used to refer

to

a place that is darker than its

surroundings

because there’s an object that is

blocking the light

we can say there’s shade over there or

there’s a shadow over there

in that sentence they are used the same

however

shadow refers to the dark shape only so

a person

can cast a shadow we use cast the verb

cast with a shadow i cast a shadow when

i stand

in the sun for example shade however as

a noun

refers to or has the nuance of a kind of

shelter

so shelter provided by some other object

shelter from the light shelter from the

sun so we would say

stand in the shade because shade has the

nuance of

shelter we would not say stand in the

shadow shadow does not carry the nuance

of shelter in the way that shade does

interestingly enough though shade and

shadow are both used as

verbs as well to shadow something means

to follow something closely

to shadow someone at work means to

follow someone at work and and try to

understand their job

for example shade is used as a verb to

mean to create

shelter from light for example the

canopy shaded

us from the sun shade also has some

interesting uses you might hear the

slang phrase to throw

shade throwing shade is a really

interesting slang expression that we use

which means

to communicate disrespect or to to

communicate like contempt

uh bad feelings for something when

you’re speaking generally in most cases

when you want to talk about a dark cool

area we should say

shade stand in the shade when you want

to talk only about the dark

area that dark object use shadow next

question

comes from kelso moreno you wrote your

name in all caps back to back

what does it mean sometimes i hear it in

baseball games

do you know yes i do know the expression

back to back means

one thing after another so we have two

things

sometimes more back to back to back you

can put that in a line

it means in baseball for example like

one home run

after another we could say two home runs

back to back two or more things

happening quickly in succession it’s

used a lot in sports

next question actually two questions

from danny hi danny danny’s first

question

is you talked about lit as slang yes i

talked about lit

in episode 2 episode 1 episode 2 of ask

alicia can you please talk about the

verb

light and using it in active and passive

sure

light means to start a fire so to light

a fire to light a candle

some examples of active and passive

voice with this verb then why don’t we

light some candles for dinner tonight

all the candles in the restaurant were

lit on our camping trip

my neighbors lit a fire and we brought

uh hamburgers to me a fire was lit in

the campsite while we were gone

i was going to light a fire but i fell

asleep so to light means to start a fire

he lit the house on fire we can say to

light blah blah blah

on fire so there are a few different

examples of using the verb

light in active and in passive past

tense future tense as well so i hope

that that’s helpful danny’s

second question can you talk about ride

and its uses

like take someone for a ride can i take

a ride riot is another verb that has a

lot of different uses you use the

example

to take someone for a ride means to

drive together with someone

to go for a ride has the nuance of doing

something just for

fun it’s just for fun i want to take a

ride to

a location i want to take a ride to the

mountains this weekend or take a ride to

the beach but to take

someone for a ride means to invite

someone to drive

somewhere with you in a car that’s one

way to use ride you can also say

give me a ride can you give me a ride so

this is a request

expression i don’t have a car my friend

has a car i want my friend to take me

in their car to a location i can say can

you give me a ride

to the movie theater can you give me a

ride to the lake

give me a ride is a request so give me a

ride in your car

so there are a lot of uses of ride if

you want to see

all of them or if you want to see more

of them i recommend checking a

dictionary there are quite a few

and i can’t talk about them all in this

video so please check a dictionary next

question is from anderson sousa anderson

salsa hi anderson anderson asks hi

alicia how are you doing i’m reading

harry potter and i just saw the sentence

goodnight harry how do you pronounce

goodnight yeah

good night we sometimes say goodnight

goodnight so that in good is dropped we

remove that ud

sound and we say good night good night

so good night

that’s how you say it hope that helps

next question okay next question is from

femme femme what does you’re too good to

be true mean

is it good or not maybe you’ve heard

this in a famous song you’re too good to

be true can’t take my eyes off of you

in that case it’s a good meaning a

different way to say this expression is

you are so good you are so amazing that

i can’t believe you’re real

so in other words something must be

wrong there must be some problem with

you

it’s not possible for you to be real

because you are

so good you are so great so you’re too

good to be true it’s like

wow i’m amazed by you so it’s a good

expression if

however uh maybe in a more uncommon

situation

someone said like ah this guy’s too good

to be true like

maybe reviewing a job application for

example uh this girl

she’s too good to be true like if it’s

said in that way maybe there’s something

suspicious

about that person this doesn’t seem

right there’s just too much good

information here there must be some

problem with this person depending on

the intonation it can portray

either a very positive meaning or a very

suspicious meaning

in most cases however it’s a positive

meaning so if you heard this in a song

for example

it’s probably a very positive kind of

romantically nuanced phrase

thanks very much for that question pham

nice one next

question is from oz rocha jr sorry i

hope i said that right uh alicia how do

we separate words in a text when we get

to the end of the line

your text formatting software should do

that for you do you use word

word should do that for you if you use

just

text or notepads there should be a word

wrap function i don’t know google it

google it if that doesn’t help you

your second question though what is the

difference in pronunciation

between life and life or live

for example my life is good and two

i live in a big city right

so life and the word that’s spelled

l-i-v-e

as in your example i live in a big city

have different pronunciations

the vowel pronunciation of the i sound

is different

in life it’s a very open sound lie

like life life in the second word

uh liv the i sound is kind of tall

it’s very like kind of in your nose liv

that’s the first sound that’s a bit

different so

li li li le that’s the that’s the i

sound that’s different

but then the consonant sound is also

different the f

in life so there’s there’s just

air coming out of my mouth i’m not

making any sound

with my vocal cords there just life life

with the word

live however i’m making a v sound so

that’s the difference so i have to i

have to use my vocal chord

to make the sound so life

no vocal chords live vocal chords used

however do be careful live l-i-v-e can

also be pronounced

live so that v sound i talked about

where you use your vocal chords

plus that open i sound live so

like a live performance for example so

you need to pay attention to the grammar

of the sentence

to understand if it’s live or live

as well so life and live have very

different pronunciations

good one nice catch i hope you can

practice those wanna speak real english

from your first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question rabia our shot rate rabia

arshad rabia i’m very sorry

what’s the difference between can and

may

i saw this on the dining like a champ

cheat sheet

and noticed these words were used for

requests

what’s the difference can and may for

requests

in modern english in modern american

english are used

the same if i use them in a statement

can refers to ability

may refers to permission please just be

careful can and may are only used in the

same way

to make requests in modern american

english next

question is from harley hi harley hello

again

what is the correct use it’s i have

breakfast i have lunch i have dinner or

i breakfast i lunch i dinner i dine ah

nice question harley i use the i have

lunch i have dinner i have breakfast

version

if you drop have you sound very posh

posh means like

uh fashionable sophisticated a bit rich

as well

so i’m not any of those things but

saying

i breakfast i lunch i dinner it sounds

like you have a very high opinion

of that activity in most cases at least

in my life i don’t have a reason

to speak like that so i always say i

have breakfast or i have lunch or i have

dinner

it’s not incorrect to say i breakfast i

lunch

i dine but it sounds a bit unnatural in

most

everyday life situations you don’t

really need to talk with that level of

formality i don’t think next

question next question is from ferris

forests gazali ferris gasoline i’m very

sorry

ferris asks hey alicia can we use hasn’t

in an essay hasn’t the contracted form

of has

not you can it’s physically possible for

you to use

hasn’t in an essay sure but if you use

contractions in your writing it makes

you in my opinion it makes you sound a

bit

less formal if you use the expanded form

the un the non-contracted version

you’re going to sound a bit more formal

a bit more polished i feel this does not

only apply to the word has not

and hasn’t therefore this applies to all

contractions really

the answer is yes you can but i don’t

necessarily recommend it if you want to

sound

uh formal and polished thanks for that

question now ferris next question

what does the word lit mean what does

the word lit mean

lit is actually a slang word it’s common

slang among young people especially in

the us

right now maybe many of you know that

the verb to

light has the past tense uh lit lit is

used to talk about for example a party

or some kind of social gathering usually

that’s really exciting or that’s really

really fun or that’s

kind of crazy so lit using the past

tense there

you can kind of imagine that like a fire

when you light a fire

it maybe it gets bigger and it gets kind

of wild a little bit crazy like there’s

a spark and then it starts so if you see

the word lit like this party was lit

it means it was really crazy it was

really good it was really fun

you can use it if you want but just keep

in mind that really young people use

that word i don’t use that word for

reference but again i’m not cool

first question first question this week

comes from iman again hi i’m on you send

lots of questions thanks which one

is correct i want rest or i want to take

rest uh well you can say i want rest

to mean in general just you would like

to

do nothing to relax um grammatically

though i want to take

a rest is correct or i want to

rest both of those are correct however

in american english we don’t usually say

i want to take a rest

it’s more common to say i want to take a

break i want to take a break or let’s

take a break or can we take a break

something like that is more common you

can say i want to take a rest

but again in american english rest is

less

common next question what is correct i

thought you were gone or i thought

you are gone i thought you are gone we

need to use

i thought you were gone here i thought

you were gone so

i thought past tense and you were is

also

past tense it’s a past tense thought

past tense situation

um so please use passions next question

from gabriella hi gabriella uh hi alicia

what is the difference between

used to and used to in fast speech

the difference in pronunciation yeah um

basically

when we’re speaking quickly or i suppose

even not

quickly we tend to pronounce used to

as used to the grammar doesn’t change

it’s just the pronunciation changes

because

it’s difficult to say used to very

quickly i used to i used to it’s very

difficult to say

so we just say used to instead i used to

use a smartphone

he used to play soccer we used to cook

every day in each of these sentences

i contracted used to to used to i think

actually in most cases we probably do

say used to

instead of used to because it’s quite

difficult to say

again this shouldn’t really cause any

communication problems used to

and used to have the same meaning just

different pronunciation

ah next question also maybe about were

and was

why do we use if i were and not if i

was uh this is a great question and

actually a lot of native speakers make

mistakes with this

it’s a small point to be fair but if you

want to be correct

you should always use if i were this is

a grammar point

it refers to the subjunctive mood the

subjunctive mood

an explanation of subjunctive is a bit

beyond the scope

it’s a bit much for this video but we

will always use

if i were when the subject there is i

in the conditional if i were we always

use work

you will hear native speakers say if i

was if i was

if you want to be extremely strict and

extremely nitpicky

um were is actually the correct one but

if you use was if you make a mistake and

you use was you will still be

understood so um but yes this is related

to the subjunctive mood in english

next question from suinte

i hope i said that right suente says hi

alicia which word do you prefer

using as an american america the united

states the united

states of america the us the usa or the

states i

only started using america to refer to

my country when i moved

to japan because the people around me

used the word

america to refer to the country but i

think before that

i said uh the u.s i used the u.s people

would say where are you from

the u.s why did i use the u.s because

it’s short and easy to say the u.s i

don’t want to say the united states of

america it sounds long

to me thanks for the question 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