That vs Which Difference and Comparison Basic English Grammar

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you

ask me questions and i answer them maybe

first question this week comes from

manuel carlos hi manuel manuel says hi

there

when it comes to inversions in formal

english to give emphasis i have two

questions

first i talked to an american english

native speaker about it and was told

these structures are no longer

used they were used back in the 1920s

what do you think

second in one of my books it says that

we can also use

once in a while and very often at the

beginning of the sentences for emphasis

the point is that these two expressions

are not listed in other books or video

classes

what are your thoughts some examples

very often

does she come here very often do they

arrive late

once in a while does he wash his car

once in a while do i drink alcohol

thank you very much interesting question

inversion is still used today though as

you’ve said

it’s used more in like formal situations

or it’s used in like poetic kinds of

writing

so situations where having control

over the rhythm and the feel of a

sentence is really strongly desired

so inversion it is still used today

um but a key point and this is in regard

to the second

part of your question a key point though

is to note that when we

when we make sentences that use this

inversion pattern

we’re using negative adverbs and

negative adverbial phrases

at the beginning so perhaps this is what

you’ve seen in other textbooks and in

other videos

and this is what makes me think that

your examples or the sentences that you

provided are not

so natural this is because very often

and once in a while

are not negative adverbial expressions

so to make them negative you could say

not very often like not very often does

she

wash her car or whatever so but that’s

not really something that i feel is so

natural we wouldn’t really say that the

other example that you provided once in

a while

we could make that one negative by

adding only

like only once in a while do i drink

alcohol

so that’s something that i feel might

actually be said

only once in a while do i that sounds

like a more natural pattern

i wouldn’t i don’t really feel that the

not very often pattern

would so often be used as like in in

kind of like these

inversion type sentences so to answer

your question

uh yes they are still used in some in

certain situations yes

perhaps not so much in everyday

conversation at least not in american

english you

maybe could hear it a little bit more in

british english i suppose

um and also the focus generally is on

using

negative adverbs and negative adverbial

phrases at the beginning of those

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for this interesting question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from nuria garayeva hello nuria

nuria says hello alicia can you explain

the difference

between which and that sure

i have talked about this topic many

times but not very recently

so let’s refresh ourselves the

short answer is that the difference

between that and

which is that that is used for

restrictive clauses and which is used

for

non-restrictive clauses so what’s a

restrictive clause what’s a

non-restrictive clause

a restrictive clause is a clause in a

sentence

that gives us essential information

about a noun we

need that information about the noun in

order to understand the noun completely

a non-restrictive clause is a clause in

a sentence that gives us extra or like

bonus information about the noun

if we don’t have that clause we can

still understand the noun

so there may be different words that are

used for restrictive or non-restrictive

like descriptive or non-descriptive

clauses

but they’re talking about the same

things so let’s take a look at an

example of a restrictive clause and a

non-restrictive clause

the phone that i bought at the apple

store works perfectly

this phone which i bought at the apple

store works perfectly

okay so these two sentences they have

essentially the same information so

why am i saying one is a restrictive

clause and why is one a non-restrictive

clause

so in this case we understand easily i’m

talking about this phone

yes like we know in both cases it’s this

phone

but where restrictive clauses become

important

is in cases where for example we have

many phones let’s imagine the speaker

has

three phones and the speaker needs to

differentiate the speaker needs to

communicate

which phone he or she is talking about

in the conversation

we can use restrictive clauses to do

that so for example

the phone that i got at the apple store

works perfectly

the phone that i bought from a

second-hand shop is really slow

the phone that i received from my

company is a little old

so in those sentences we’re using that

because we’re giving some specific

identifying

information about each phone so in a

case like that

where we’re talking about three

different objects and we need to make

the differences very clear

we would use a restrictive clause in

cases where it’s not so important like

when we clearly know i mean this phone

right here

we can use which and a non-restrictive

clause to talk about the phone

so this is the basic difference between

that

and which of course native speakers

don’t always get this correct

unfortunately so you may see people

using the two

interchangeably but that’s actually one

very common way of differentiating the

two so if you want to know more about

this topic i made a video about this

please check out the relative clauses

which or

that video on the english class 101

youtube channel for some more examples

and for some more explanation i hope

that that helps you thanks for the

question

okay let’s go to your next question next

question comes from

nicole hi nicole nicole says let me know

whether you can use

if i were you i will sure

you cannot use this pattern if you want

to begin

your if conditional statement with if i

were you

you need to use something in your main

clause that reflects an

unreal or an untrue situation this is

because

if i were you is unreal it’s not true i

am not you

that’s not real so our main clause needs

to match our

if clause our main clause needs to

include would

or wouldn’t to match the were in

the if clause so if i were you i would

or if i were you

i wouldn’t for example if i were you i

would take a vacation

or if i were you i wouldn’t quit my job

so you cannot use

will in place of will please use would

or

wouldn’t i hope that that helps you

thanks for the question okay

let’s go to your next question next

question comes

from pandy hi pandy pandy says

authorization authentication what is the

difference

okay sure both are nouns uh

authorization

is the act of allowing someone to

do something authentication

is the process of proving that something

or someone is

true or real some examples

i need management authorization to enter

the secret room in the building

we finally got authorization to move

forward with a new product

the thief’s paperwork didn’t pass

authentication

unknown login detected user

authentication required

so the last example sentence there about

user authentication

is one that you might see online like if

someone tries to access your account or

maybe if you try to access your email

your social media account

from like a different place or something

strange happens with your account

you might be requested to do user

authentication which means proving that

you

are you which we usually do through like

checking an email address or phone

number or something similar

so authentication refers to checking to

see if something is true

authorization refers to the act or the

process of allowing someone to do

something

so i hope that that helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay on to our next question next

question comes

from silas fast hi silas

silas says hi alicia how’s it going good

uh my question

is about the structure 2b 2

in the following sentences the queen is

to visit canada

you are to wear formal clothing to the

white house dinner

you are not to leave the room could you

explain how it works

yeah nice question we use this to be

plus the infinitive form of a verb when

we’re talking about like official

rules or we’re talking about like an

official schedule

so this is not something that we use so

much in everyday conversation in

american english

it’s usually in a formal situation like

when we’re taking a test

or we’re talking about an official

schedule or we’re talking about official

rules like

in an examination situation or maybe a

like a

big organization when we want to make a

negative rule

too we place not before the verb

so some more examples of this students

are not to exit the room until the exam

has finished

guests are to leave their shoes at the

door

employees are to check in when they

begin work

so i hope that this helps you this

structure is for formal or official

rules and schedules

thanks very much for the question okay

that is everything that i have for this

week

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