Tense Changes with Reported Speech in English

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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them maybe let’s

get to your first question this week

first question this week comes from

april hi april april says hi alicia

where can i use literally and basically

i think native english speakers use

these a lot thank you great question

yeah literally and basically let’s start

with literally so the actual meaning of

literally means as written or exactly as

described

a lot of american english speakers tend

to use literally too much and actually

they use it in the incorrect way for

example you might hear it in a sentence

like i’m so hungry i’m literally dying

in text this expression means the person

is physically dying they are passing

away because they are so hungry now

that’s not true that’s not literally

true but the person uses literally as an

emphasis word to try to express the

extreme feeling they’re experiencing so

you might hear it used in some ways like

this

people tend to use it in this way as an

emphasis word but that doesn’t mean that

this use of literally is correct it’s

not actually correct a correct use of

literally might be something like i’m so

sorry i missed your call i literally

just walked in the door and i put my

phone down i’m so sorry about that so

you’re expressing something that

actually really and truly just happened

so this is the correct use of literally

so even though we all know that this is

the correct use of literally please be

on the lookout please be aware lots of

native speakers use it just as an

emphasis word without thinking about it

okay now let’s talk about basically

basically basically means in essence so

it refers to the most basic of something

so when we want to speak kind of

generally or we want to talk about like

the core idea of something we’ll use

basically for example in an office

meeting where you’re explaining

something that you want someone else to

do you might say basically we just need

your help doing data entry for this

project so that gives the other person a

kind of general idea again you might

hear native speakers using this in a

kind of flexible way when they sort of

mean generally but they’re using

basically instead so we use it in most

cases to refer to the core idea of

something one use that might be a little

bit confusing is when you hear this used

as a one word response to something so

someone might use this in response to a

question like so you were out all

weekend partying and the other person

might say basically which means yes

essentially or in other words that’s the

core of what i was doing for the week so

this is another use of basically that

also has that feel of kind of general

knowledge or general information so i

hope that this helps you thanks very

much for an interesting question all

right let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from vishal

desul hi vishal vishal says what is the

difference between reason and cause and

where do i use it nice question so let’s

start with reason the reason for

something you can think of as the why

for something it answers the question

why what is the reason could be

understood as why so instead of saying

what’s the reason for this mess in my

house you could say why is there a mess

in this house think about reason the

reason for something as answering the

question why

cause on the other hand refers to

something that brought about another

situation so there are some cases yes

where reason and cause could be used

maybe in the same way but cause refers

to something that made another action

happen or another condition happen so

for example the cause of the accident

was a technical error this could i

suppose be written as the reason for the

accident was a technical error while

that’s correct and we can generally

understand it using the word cause shows

that it brought about some other

condition or some kind of effect yeah so

if you say the cause of the accident was

a technical error it shows a better

connection between some effect and in

the future or some effect in the present

reason doesn’t have this so you can kind

of try to separate those two a little

bit with thinking of reason as the

answer to the question why and a cause

as having some connection to another

effect or another condition so i hope

that this helps you thanks very much for

the question okay let’s go to your next

question next question comes from joanna

hi joanna joanna says when do we use the

words cash and money

great question yeah cash can be used in

a couple of different ways we tend to

use cash when we want to talk about

physical money in general everyday

conversation like if you need to get

some money from an atm you might say let

me get some cash from an atm we tend to

use cash to talk about coins and bills

the physical money you might also hear

people use cash to talk more casually

about money like oh no i’m out of cash

this month i need to work really hard

for next month or something like that

cash tends to be used as kind of a

rougher more casual cool way of saying

money money tends to sound a little bit

more polite or more formal we typically

don’t use cash in business situations

for example unless maybe you know the

other person very well or maybe there’s

some kind of special arrangement where

you speak very casually so money refers

to the same thing as cash yes but we

tend to not use it as much in everyday

conversation you might hear it in like

contracts discussions of contracts

discussions of agreements more polite or

official kinds of things

so you might say for example please

transfer the money by tomorrow if you

say please transfer the cash by tomorrow

it sounds a little bit rougher like

you’re doing something that might be

kind of suspicious perhaps so it depends

a little bit on the person it depends a

little bit on the situation they refer

to the same thing but a general guide a

general rule is that money is used as

for slightly more official or polite

situations and cash is used for more

unofficial or everyday or rough

conversation so thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from rachel hi

rachel rachel says hi alicia i

frequently hear the phrase let alone but

i don’t exactly understand when i can

use it for example i wouldn’t speak to

him let alone trust him

nice question yeah i wouldn’t speak to

him let alone trust him let alone shows

that there’s this other level of thing

that you would not do

so for example in this situation if we

think of it as two levels i wouldn’t

speak to him so that’s one thing the

speaker is saying i will not do this

like in a future situation if i had the

opportunity i would not do this i

wouldn’t speak to him and then they

introduce this other level of something

in this case trust so trust is another

like higher level of something and

they’re saying this is also impossible

so it’s like saying this thing at this

lower level is something i will not do

or in this case i wouldn’t do

and so therefore this other thing is

also completely impossible we use let

alone to talk about that for example in

another situation you could say he

doesn’t exercise at all let alone eat

healthy so that’s saying again two

levels of things there’s one thing this

person doesn’t do and therefore this

other thing is also completely

impossible or completely out of the

question let alone expresses that so

keep this in mind when you find let

alone in your reading the speaker or the

writer is expressing that one thing is

not possible or maybe not good or not

favorable and therefore this other thing

is also even more impossible or even