150 English Questions And Answers Asked Frequently

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next question romeo from vietnam hi

again romeo

romeo says hello alicia do native

speakers say you aren’t gonna blah blah

blah or you’re not gonna blah blah blah

which contracted form is used more i

think they’re used equally like you can

choose which you prefer

me i think i usually say you’re not

gonna i probably use

next question okay next question is from

femme femme

van pam 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 femme nice one

next next question is from

wagner wagner wagner have you written

any operas

why do american people pronounce english

class 101

instead of 101 or 101. oh

this relates to uh like university and

college level courses actually

so um there are four levels to uh

universities or to colleges in the us

first year second year third year and

fourth year so the classes for each of

those

are numbered so first your classes begin

with one second year classes with two

third year classes with three

fourth year classes with four so first

year classes like

it tends to be like the basic classes uh

begin with a one

and like the most basic uh of those

classes is usually 101

so like english class 101 that’s kind of

making like a friendly introduction to

english in other words so we say 101. we

always use that sort of um

pattern when speaking we don’t say 101.

we always use 101 or like 1 2 4 or like

6 7 i don’t know what those classes are

but we always

say each

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 men 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 danny would you tell us

about

here you are here you go there you are

there you go and here there we you

if they go oh gosh okay i’ll talk about

the

the ones that you introduce what do they

mean and how do you use them naturally

so let’s talk first about here you are

and here you go

so we use these when we present someone

with something so you give someone

something here you are

here you go like you are at a restaurant

maybe your order arrives here you are uh

here you go

something like in a service situation

you might hear this kind of from like a

friendly

staffish like staff related person i

suppose here you are

here you go or maybe from a teacher to a

school child maybe here you go

we use it to like present something to

present an

object that maybe they’re expecting to

receive let’s talk then about

there you go and there you are so we use

there you go when someone is

able to do a thing they’ve been

practicing for a while so for example

if a child is learning how to ride a

bicycle and they’ve been struggling with

it for

some time but then gradually they get

better at it and they can do it

a parent might say oh there you go you

got it you got it

it’s like a it’s like a support word an

encouragement word there you go

um the last one on your list though

there you are

in american english we use there you are

in a situation where we’re looking for

someone we’ve been looking for someone

we’re expecting to meet

and it’s been difficult to find that

maybe you visit a few different spots

but then at last you find this person

maybe like in a break room or

some place you might not expect them but

when you do find them and you say oh

there you are we say it with that sort

of intonation oh there you are

it sounds immediately to the listener

like oh

this person has been looking for me next

question is from taylor ah hi again

taylor

are where are you from and where were

you

born the same ah great question where

are you from

where were you born no not necessarily

not necessarily

where were you born is only the place

where you were physically brought into

the world

maybe your hometown the place you

identify as your hometown

is different from the place where you

were born maybe you were born

in spain but you grew up in the usa your

family moved after that

so you could say i was born in spain but

i grew up in new york city if someone

asks you where are you from

it might be a good idea to say i was

born in blah blah but i was raised in

blah blah blah in a different place

if the two places are different next

question next

question is from l.o.j

loj says my question is about phrasal

verbs what is the meaning of

knocked out like here example sentence

one

knocked me out of my possession for two

knocked the wind out of me i had a

problem with the word

possession knocked me out of my

possession i’m not quite sure

this could refer though to in a very

rare situation

um we have this word possession which

refers to like this thing called demonic

possession where there’s this idea that

a bad spirit gets into the body and

controls a person’s behavior we call

that

possession so we could say like a priest

knocked me out of my possession

to go back to your original question

though the word knock

out as a phrasal verb to knock out means

like it means forcefully or forcibly

remove something because of some impact

an object is removed

from its original location so for

example a jogger could be coming at me

and they run into me and they knock my

phone

out of my hands so in that case my phone

is being removed

because of the impact of the jogger so

to knock something out

means like to remove from its original

location

from force and your second example then

uh knocked the wind out of me this is an

expression we use which means like to

lose our breath

because of an impact so um if you

get like punched or kicked maybe in

maybe this area

uh you might feel the air in your lungs

come out of your body

so we call that the wind in this

situation so

um like he knocked the wind out of me it

means he caused me to lose the air in my

lungs the impact was so

strong in my body that the air came out

of my

out of my lungs so i like he knocked

the wind so the wind in this case the

air in my lungs

in its original location was removed

from me

because of this impact you might also

hear this expression in boxing

to knock out or to to ko

someone means to cause them to lose

consciousness in this case so

consciousness is the thing that’s uh

that’s going away in this case

so to knock someone out in like a boxing

match

means they they lose consciousness

the first

next question next question is from

hassan hassan says

how do we use gotta in the negative form

so we did a live stream about have to

and got to and need to on the youtube

channel and on facebook a while ago

gotta is a contraction a very casual

contraction of got

and two it’s not a real word uh gotta

is just the sound that we make when we

say got to

very quickly like i gotta go to school

today or i gotta finish my homework or i

gotta get to sleep i’m so tired in

american english we do not use

gotta in the negative instead we use

have to or

need to i don’t have to go to work

tomorrow i don’t need to go to work

tomorrow i don’t need to go to sleep

right now

but american english does not use gotta

in the negative form

first question is from the wrong

spreadsheet okay first question this

week comes from

danny danny says uh how do we say the th

sound naturally sometimes i can’t stick

my tongue out too much when speaking

or for example when i say something in a

long sentence quickly

a couple things to consider one there

are two th sounds there’s the th

sound like in think and this where as

danny’s talking about your tongue kind

of sticks out between your teeth

but it’s not such a big motion actually

it’s not like you have to be really

dramatic with how much you stick your

tongue out like

it’s a bit too much maybe when you

practice you can do that to kind of get

used to how it feels

but when i say that sound and when

native speakers make that th sound

we’re only sticking our tongue out a

tiny bit a really small bit between our

teeth so

think think it’s like the tip of the

tongue only so with practice that sound

will get easier

the other sound though with th is

something we hear in a word like

the the so the tongue is actually like

just touching the back of my teeth

the the or maybe like the back of my

teeth and the top of my mouth a little

bit the way that the sound is produced

is a little bit different so when i say

think and the they’re a little bit

different sounds

so keep this in mind if you’re trying to

say the don’t use the motion to

pronounce the word

think if i’m saying the the with a

really exaggerated th

sound like in think it’s going to slow

me down so think about that

next question next question comes from

maxime hi maxine

maxime says how do you pronounce i

shouldn’t have done it i couldn’t have

done it and i wouldn’t have done it so

here these are negative

past perfect statements so i’m using

kind of exaggerated pronunciation here i

should not have becomes shouldn’t div

but a native speaker

a native english speaker an american

english speaker will say shouldn’t

shouldn’t have done it couldn’t have

done it and wouldn’t have done it

shouldn’t

wouldn’t have and couldn’t have have

that same sound but

again it makes it hard to say all of

those sounds clearly in speech if we’re

focusing a lot on saying those sounds

clearly in speech our speaking slows

down

so we say shouldn’t wouldn’t

have couldn’t have and wouldn’t have i

guess it’s sort of the in between like

the medium kind of pronunciation there

but when speaking rapidly a very fast

like native level speed we’ll say should

nakana and wouldn’t

so give those a try shouldn’t i couldn’t

would not shouldn’t have couldn’t have

wouldn’t have should not have could not

have would not have

shouldn’t could not wouldn’t hope that

helps next question

next question is from i need to improve

my spoken english and my vocabulary

how do i do that i think there’s a tool

on the website where you can record your

voice

speaking english and compare it to a

native speaker

saying the same thing so i think that’s

a that’s a feature on the website so

check that out

if you haven’t been it’s an english

class 101.com there should be a

recording function there

where you can record your voice and

compare it to a native speaker

and keep practicing that until your

voice and your pronunciation

matches uh the native speaker’s

pronunciation so you’ll see like little

waveforms there

even on the recording page so you can

try to match your voice

to a native speaker so of course

practicing with native speakers where

possible

um repeating so creating your own speech

is important too um practicing with like

recording tools voice recording tools

when you record yourself

you suddenly hear so many problems in

your speech

so recording yourself can be another

good tool but in terms of building your

vocabulary first i need to define a goal

what do i want to talk about if i want

to talk about food i should look for

materials

in my target language talking about food

and i should study those so think about

what

it is that you want to do and try to be

specific try to narrow your goal down

to you know what are the words that i

need to do and try focusing there

and then maybe you can widen the focus

to other interests here and there too

but start maybe with the things that are

going to help you communicate the things

that you really want to say

so always think about your goals what do

i want to learn how to say

next question from ricardo villarreal oh

hey ricardo welcome back

is it correct to learn several languages

at the same time

ooh is it correct i can’t answer that

whether it’s correct or not

so i’ve heard that if you want to try

for whatever your reason is if you want

to try to study more than one language

at the same time

it’s better to try to choose languages

that are quite different so that there’s

less chance of you making mistakes or

getting confused in your studies

the other thing that i think i would say

is if you’re studying more than one

language at the same time your progress

might be a bit slower than if you

studied just one language yeah is it

correct

i don’t know i can’t answer that that’s

up to you to decide okay next

follow-up question now follow-up

question to this

question comes from sunil sunil hi sunil

asks

can we use could for the future so i’m

guessing this is talking about

future plans in which case yes you can

when you’re thinking about something you

want to do

or you’re trying to decide what you

might do you can use

could just to talk about the possibility

of something

so we use could to say something is just

possible for example

i could go to the beach this weekend or

i could sleep in late tomorrow if i want

or i could go and visit my parents next

week so

these are all statements of just simple

possibility

we’re not saying i’m going to do that or

maybe i’ll do that

we’re only saying that it is possible so

that’s what we use

could for we’re talking about future

plans yes we can use could

for simple possibility first question

this week comes

from nura yuidaha i hope i said that

right hi naredoo yaha

says what’s the difference between home

and house

okay a home is a place where you live

a home can be an apartment building it

can be a tent

it can be a boat it can be a trailer it

can be

any place where you live the place where

you maybe

come back to at the end of every day is

the place that you

call your home a house on the other hand

is a type of building a house is not

attached to anything else

a house is standing by itself it’s alone

it’s one unit usually for one family

so a house can be a home but a home

does not necessarily have to be a house

so this for example we cannot call a

house

if we returned here though we could say

this is my home

or this is where i live if you wanted to

tell your friend about your building

but we would not say this is my house so

when we want to talk about the place

where we live we can say this is my home

but we only use house if it’s

specifically

this type of building if it’s

specifically a stand-alone building

there is one other use of the word house

that’s much less common unless you watch

really really big epic stories so for

example game of thrones

has a really good example of this house

stark for example or

house plus last name refers to all the

family members

that have that last name and that means

all the family members

living or dead so that can mean the

ancestors of that family

so in house stark for example that means

all of the family members in the stark

family so

alive dead whatever everybody so

this use of house is quite uncommon as i

said it may be

more commonly used in like fantasy

stories game of thrones is a great

example of this

but we don’t use this in everyday

english today so i hope that this helps

your understanding of the differences

between home and house thanks very much

for the question

next question is another follow-up

question follow-up question two from

bahar hi bahar bahar says my question is

about

can and could when i want to use these

when asking for something

how do i use can and could in the right

situation

when you’re making a request can is

going to sound more casual

could is going to sound a little more

polite if you’re

visiting a friend’s house you can say

can i have something to drink or

could i have something to drink could

sounds more polite in that case

can is probably a little more natural

since they’re your friend

if you are however at like someone’s

office you’re visiting a colleague you

might instead use

could i have something to drink or could

i have a glass of water

that sounds a little more formal if

you’re worried just go with could

it sounds a little more polite it’s

always correct then baja has a second

question are wood

and might similar a little bit and do

both of them consist of possibility yes

and no

would is used to talk about potential

situations so we’ve talked about on this

series before a pattern like if i were

blah blah blah i would like if i were a

teacher

i would teach math or if i were rich

i would buy a house so we use wood to

talk about

unreal situations in terms of like

actual possibility like future plans

we don’t really use wood in that way

might however

yes we do use might to talk about

possibilities so we use may and might

to talk about something that has a

fairly good chance maybe like

a 30 to 50 chance or so of happening

like i

may study later or i might meet up with

my friends for dinner tonight

the difference between may and might in

american english in this usage in terms

of talking about possibility

is that might is more casual might is

more often used in daily conversation

may sounds a bit formal may sounds like

a little bit too polite in most

situations

might is the one we use so might refers

to possibility

i might do something he might do

something i might

not do something as well so in these

situations

might is used for possibility yes so

wood is used more to talk about like

potential

potential in an unreal situation okay

let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from

zaina hi zaina zena says what is the

difference

between to fill in and to fill

out okay if you’re talking about a

form like paperwork an application for

example

then there is no difference between to

fill in

and to fill out for example please fill

in this form

and please fill out this form they mean

exactly the same thing

i would say perhaps in american english

fill in is less common than fill

out i think we use fill out more

commonly in american english

fill in might be a little more commonly

used in british english

if however you are not talking about an

application form

or some other type of form there are

different meanings

for fill in and fill out so

let’s look at fill in first to fill in

for someone means to act as a substitute

for someone so if we can imagine we’re

a rehearsal for a play for example you

might say

i filled in for a dancer who was injured

we need someone to fill in for the lead

role in today’s rehearsal

to fill in for someone means to

act as a substitute for someone to

fill in so this use is quite different

from the meaning of writing something on

a form

now then let’s compare this or let’s

contrast this rather

with fill out to fill out means

to get larger usually as a person

in terms of like your weight gain so to

fill

out means your body or your face becomes

larger so this can be used in positive

and in negative situations for example

he was very sick last year but he’s

recovering now and his face

has filled out nicely or

you’ve filled out a lot since the last

time i saw you

so again this use of fill out is quite

different from the meaning of fill out

that’s relating to

application forms and other types of

writing so i hope that this answer helps

you understand the differences between

fill out and fill in thanks very much

for sending this question

next question next question comes from

ong mai lin hong mai lin i hope i

pronounce right sorry pong my lin says

hi how do you pronounce i’d like and i

like please thank you so much aha this

is a very common question

i’d like versus i like lots of people

ask too how do i listen for the

difference between these two

i’d like and i like i’m trying to

pronounce it very clearly right now

i’d like and i like

of course there’s a d sound but when

native speakers speak quickly

the d sound kind of disappears i’d like

to i’d like to

i like to i like to my tongue touches

the top of my mouth when i make the

sound i’d i’d like i’d like

i think a better key to help you when

you’re listening for this sound

and i think that this is something

native speakers unconsciously do

is we listen for the grammar in the

entire sentence we’re not listening

specifically for the

i like or the i’d like there we’re

listening to the grammar in the sentence

if for example it’s at a restaurant and

you say

i’d like a beer please that sentence

makes sense

meaning i would like a beer please if we

say i like a beer please it’s

grammatically

incorrect i like beer is correct i like

beer or

i’d like a beer i would like a beer

those two sentences are correct but they

communicate different things

so listen for the grammar in the

sentence if you can listen

to the grammar of the sentence overall

it can help you identify

did the speaker say i like or i’d like

this is a key point i think

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from eddie hi eddie

eddie says hey alicia i am french and i

have been learning english for a while

when should i use do not and when should

i use

don’t thanks okay basically do not

sounds more stiff and more formal than

don’t in everyday speech we use don’t

don’t do this don’t do that we use

do not in more formal situations like

when we’re giving

a speech for example or perhaps when

we’re writing an academic paper

when you want to sound more formal more

polite use

do not you’ll also see do not used for

official rules

for example do not throw away trash here

or do not smoke if you use do not in

everyday conversation it might sound

kind of dramatic or maybe even

mysterious so for example saying

do not be afraid sounds kind of

mysterious and dramatic

but if we say don’t be afraid it sounds

a little bit more friendly

so if you want to sound friendly and

normal please use the reduced form

if you want to sound dramatic or if you

need to sound more formal

please use do not in most cases this

means you should choose

don’t so i hope that this answer helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

question comes from aya aya hi aya how

do i pronounce words like

important written and mountain in an

american accent ah

important written and mountain all have

these t

sounds in the middle of the word but

native speakers don’t pronounce the t

sound clearly like i just did instead we

say

important written mountain this has like

an apostrophe sound almost so

important important important

we drop the t sound or it sounds very

soft so this is how these three words

are pronounced you might hear this in

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 uh 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 on brazier 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

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 live stream 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

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 desert 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

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 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 uh

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

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 oh hi 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

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 uh 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 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 uh 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 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

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 tai d

berry however the spelling of the word

changes

next question comes from marcos korea hi

marcos

marcos says alicia help in all caps

alicia 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 h e r w-h-e-t-h-e-r 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

poriya asks what’s the difference

between these words

interior and internal exterior and

external alright 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 cassava hi again kesava says uh

what’s the difference between bored with

and

bored by 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

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 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

uh 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 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 regins 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 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 ahmet 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

mei 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 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

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

alright 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 yovani 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 uh 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 some 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

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 just 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 car’s

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

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

when 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 yasim

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 four 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 sena hi i love your name

alicia is alicia a common name in the us

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 u.s 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

what’s my favorite name my favorite name

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 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

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 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

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

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 want to take a day off or i’m going to

go to the beach this weekend or

do you want to 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 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 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

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

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

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

less fun the comparative form of funny

is funnier or not as funny so that’s why

i used two different 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 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

improve your speaking next question next

question comes from huang se na huang

huang sena wang saina 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

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 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 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 very sorry

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

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 want to take a day off or i’m going to

go to the beach this weekend or

do you want to 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 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 uh 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

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

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 things 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 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

wish is wish is used to express wants

things that we want that are not true

now

desire is used more um in romantic

situations

like to desire another person or

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

um so i would recommend not

using desire so much to talk about your

wants

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 ferrous gazali

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 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 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

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

a 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

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 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 hwang jiang ik hi

hwangjang says i’m curious what do you

do in your days off

you want to know what i do in my days

off my days i’m pretty normal on 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 uh 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

butt 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

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

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

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

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 be 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 have 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 yong 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 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 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

possible has that root yeah possible

able to so maybe and perhaps don’t have

that nuance

possibly sounds like is it possible is

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

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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 isaf 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

iton 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 um 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 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 tiara 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

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 or i read the previous days 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

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 brian 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 dente

vale dante asks when can i use ever in a

present perfect sentence

like i have ever ever means at any time

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

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 passage 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

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

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 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 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 kana 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 yasun

yasim 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

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 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

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

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 um 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

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 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

question is from anderson souza anderson

souza hi anderson anderson asks hi

alicia how are you doing i’m reading

harry potter and i just saw the sentence

good night harry how do you pronounce

good night yeah good

night we sometimes say goodnight

goodnight so that in good is dropped we

remove that good

sound and we say goodnight goodnight so

goodnight

that’s how you say it hope. next

question okay next question is from

femme fem 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 is 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

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 live the eye sound is kind of tall

it’s very like kind of in your nose live

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 um 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 chords 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 chords

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 sketch i hope you can

practice those wanna speak real english

from your first lesson

at english englishclass101.com

next question rabia our shot rate rabia

arshad rabia are

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 men 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

faris gazali 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 gonna

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 um 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

uh 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 i’m

on 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

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 yeah 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

next question also maybe about were and

was why do we use

if i were and not if i was 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 were

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

says hi alicia which word do you prefer

using as an american

america the united states the united

states of america the u.s 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

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

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