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hi everybody welcome back to ask Alisha

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and I answer them

maybe maybe I don’t know maybe first

question this week comes from City High

City City says hi Alicia what is the

difference between figure out and find

out in terms of meaning and when to use

etc okay nice question so first let’s

look at figure out to figure out means

to solve we use figure out when we have

a challenging problem or we have like a

complex puzzle something that we need to

do research on or we need to investigate

into a little bit in order to find a

solution so to figure out means to solve

for example I can’t figure out what’s

wrong with my computer I figured out why

the house smelled so bad someone forgot

to take out the garbage we need to

figure out why the software isn’t

working so let’s compare this to find

out to find out means to discover

especially when we’re talking about a

secret or a surprise or something else

that we need to hide for some reason you

may also hear it used as a neutral way

to say discover but you can kind of tell

depending on the context so to find out

means to discover especially when you’re

talking about a secret for example my

parents found out I left the house late

last night my boss found out one of our

employees has been stealing hey I found

out about a great new restaurant in the

neighborhood want to go so we don’t use

these words interchangeably in some to

figure something out means to solve

something like a puzzle or you’re

finding the solution to a challenge to

find out means to discover and it often

has a negative meaning as when someone

finds information that they were not

meant to find so I hope that this helps

you understand the difference thanks for

the question ok let’s move on to your

next question next question comes from

Jerry song hi Jerry Jerry says I

usually watch TV shows to practice

listening but sometimes I can’t clearly

hear what the characters say even though

I know the words when I see them in the

subtitles so how do I improve this and

it’s a good question

keep in mind that there are a few

reasons why it might be difficult to

understand a character especially in

unscripted TV like reality TV where

people aren’t always speaking clearly

the words that people choose and the way

that they make sentences may not be

perfect so please keep that in mind

people and unscripted TV shows often are

not speaking clearly or maybe they have

a specific accent or a special way that

they speak they may also just be

stopping and starting in the middle of

sentences and that can create some weird

sounds too so try to keep in mind that

unscripted TV in particular might not

sound as clear as scripted TV it might

not sound as clear as like this YouTube

channel either so those are a couple of

things to keep in mind other things that

you can consider though are reductions

in speech and just speed of speech so on

this channel we speak at a slower rate

than native pace and we also make an

effort to speak very clearly to help

people as they learn English but native

speakers don’t do this usually something

in general to consider like even though

characters may have accents that are

difficult to understand even for native

speakers something that you can consider

for your English learning is to consider

reductions in speech so by that I mean

the connections that we make between

words and the ways that we make words

shorter for example I’m going to go to

the store to pick up something for

dinner that sentence said by a native

speaker at native speed would probably

sound something like I’m gonna go to the

store to pick up something for dinner so

we’ve reduced a lot of those sounds

together these words like I’m going to

go that are very commonly used together

are often reduced to I’m gonna go or I’m

gonna go to that so think about these

common reductions that you hear on TV

and in movies and so on and try to

practice those in addition to

considering how it looks on the page so

yes it’s I am going to in the subtitle

or I’m going to but at native speed it

doesn’t sound like that in many cases

I’m gonna go to the is how I’m gonna go

to the or I’m going to go to the sounds

in native speech so another point about

reductions in speech is prepositional

phrases so those words like to and at

and by and even conjunctions like and

and but and so on those words tend to

get very very short when we’re speaking

quickly because they’re kind of giving

us the structure of the sentence so you

can think of these sort of structure

words as being sort of the background of

the sentence and the content words like

the nouns and the verbs are kind of

taking the focus those are sort of the

highlights so these are some other

things that you can think of as you’re

practicing your listening and you’re

speaking with reductions so please keep

these things in mind and also keep in

mind as I said people speak with

different accents to people from

different areas of the u.s. speak

differently people from different areas

of the world speak different kinds of

English too so please keep in mind that

in some cases it’s actually difficult

for native speakers as well but another

thing that maybe you can work on to kind

of advance your listening and even your

speaking is to consider reductions so

listening for those reductions and then

considering how you can use those

reductions in your speech as well to

sound more natural so that would be my

suggestion for improving your listening

and improving your speaking as you

practice with these reductions in your

own speech too so I hope that that helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from juni IED Raza

Junaid Raza hello Junaid Junaid says

hello Alicia most people are confused

about the difference between motivation

and inspiration I know there are

definitions available in dictionaries

but can you differentiate these two

words in detail okay sure so inspiration

is something that gives us an idea so we

use inspiration to create some

new inspiration is something that comes

naturally it comes from within us so we

have an experience we see something or

touch something we hear something we

smell something taste something whatever

we have some kind of experience and it

gives us an idea so it comes from like

inside us this idea comes from inside us

based on this experience that we had so

for example my mother’s stories were my

inspiration for this book or my

childhood by the seashore was my

inspiration for this dish so these are

the things that gave the speaker an idea

to create something else in the first

example they’re the speakers stories

were the inspiration for this book so

that means the speaker’s mother’s

stories were the thing that gave the

speaker the idea in the second example

sentence we can imagine it’s about a

chef so the chef’s inspiration was a

childhood by the seaside so that gave

the chef the inspiration to create that

dish so it’s something that happens and

there’s a natural response in a person

that makes them think I’m gonna create

something in contrast then motivation is

something that comes from outside us

that gives us a push or that helps us to

continue doing something and motivation

is usually for something that we maybe

don’t really want to do so like on this

channel we talk a lot about finding

motivation to study so maybe studying is

not something that many people want to

do but we can recognize the benefits of

that so we need to find different

motivations for our studies so some

examples

my mother’s encouragement provided the

motivation I needed to finish writing my

book my motivation to create this dish

was to share my childhood with the

people who eat at my restaurant so in

these sentences that are kind of

slightly changed from the first pair of

sentences I introduced we’re talking

about like the outside reason to do

something so inspiration refers to

something that kind of

comes naturally from within you

motivation is more external it’s

something that’s pushing you or causing

you to move forward or to start

something to continue something and it’s

often for something we might not

otherwise have done if this outside

force had not been there I would also

say that personally I think I probably

use the verb forms more than the noun

forms here so that means I would use

something like this music really

inspired me and I hope to create my own

music one day or my promotion really

motivated me to work harder so

personally I think I tend to use these

as verbs a little more often than as

nouns but this is the difference in

terms of meaning between the two so I

hope that this helps you thanks for the

question okay let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from Tom hi

Tom Tom says is it correct to say my

favorite song of all times or do you

have to use the form all time yeah a

nice point we always say all time we do

not use all times let’s look at a few

more examples the greatest of all time

my all-time favorite food the most

popular songs of all time

so you’ll notice in these examples there

are actually two patterns that we can

use the something of all-time pattern

and the all - time + adjective pattern

both are correct you can use both in

whatever situation you choose they have

the same meaning and the same feel just

note that these positions and patterns

are slightly different also note that we

always use the singular time there we’re

not using times so please make sure it’s

always all the time greatest of all time

and so on so I hope that this helps you

thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from miffed ahoy mr.

with the says hi Alicia I’ve heard the

idiom play Russian roulette how do we

use it

thanks okay nice one this is a very dark

idiom that refers to a very very

dangerous game so the origin of this

is a game an actual game called Russian

roulette so in the game of Russian

roulette one type of gun

that’s called a revolver is removed of

all of the bullets except for one so one

bullet remains in the revolvers chamber

so this is the part of the gun where the

bullets are kept the bullets are held so

one bullet is inserted into the chamber

of a revolver and then the player spins

the chamber and closes the chamber and

we don’t know where the bullet is

then the player points the gun at their

own head or at someone else’s head and

pulls the trigger

so this is a very dangerous and very

risky game so this is of course not a

game I recommend in any way but this is

the origin of this idiom today this

idiom means to do something very

dangerous or to do something very risky

so it has a very dark origin so we tend

to use it to mean something very dark

for example he’s playing Russian

roulette with his career by skipping

work all the time so in this example

sentence the item that is kind of in

danger is his career so playing Russian

roulette with his career so his career

is the thing that is in danger we know

that because it’s connected to Russian

roulette so to play Russian roulette

with this thing in danger and the action

the risky behavior is skipping work all

the time so he’s playing Russian

roulette with his career by skipping

work all the time that would mean in a

non idiomatic expression he’s in danger

of losing his job at any moment because

he skips work all the time one more

example there playing Russian roulette

with their savings by making this awful

investment so again here after Russian

roulette we see with their savings so

here savings refers to like a savings

account or money in someone’s savings so

that’s thing in danger that is the item

of danger here and then the risky

behavior is by making an awful

investment or by making this awful

investment

so the they in this situation is making

this terrible investment this risky

investment and putting their savings at

risk so to play Russian roulette

means to do something very risky and

very dangerous and has a very dark and

negative feel about it so I hope that

this helps you understand this idiom

thanks for the question ok that is

everything that I have for this week

thank you as always for sending your

questions remember you can send them to

me in English class 101.com / ask -

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for some other things that can help you

with your English Studies thanks very

much for watching this week’s episode of

ask Alisha and I will see you again next

week bye bye

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