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[Music]

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about some

differences between the words just and

only i’m going to look at these words in

two ways that they are used i’m going to

focus on their adverb use in this lesson

let’s get started i want to begin by

talking about the word just just so i

have two meanings here for just the

first meaning for just is one that

shares a meaning with only so we’re

going to see this is the same kind of

sentence pattern the same usage

so just or only in this way it

emphasizes a small degree

or a small amount of something so when

we want to make something seem smaller

or perhaps less important

we can use the word just or we can use

only to do this

some examples

i ate just one cookie here so

point that i want to make smaller i want

to emphasize this one cookie

i use just to show so not two not three

one i want to emphasize the small number

there

second we had just three days for our

vacation so here i want to emphasize

three days was a small amount of time so

just three days shows that the speaker

feels it was not a large degree like it

was not a large amount of time for

vacation so we use this for emphasis

if we remove just from the sentence it

remains grammatically correct i ate one

cookie is okay

we had three days for our vacation is

okay but using just emphasizes

a small degree or a small amount of

something

so we’ll see this with only as well

okay

let’s take a look at the second use of

just for this lesson we can use just for

very recently completed actions or for

actions happening in the very near

future

when we use just to talk about near

future actions we use it with about two

about two

also you may hear some speakers use just

with the ing form of a verb so that

means something is happening like now

it’s beginning right now so it’s

extremely near future you might hear

that so with about two that means it has

not started yet but it’s going to be

very soon

so let’s look at some examples first

i just finished my homework i just

finished my homework

so finished is past tense here this

refers to a very recently completed

action

did you just call me this is a question

so here call

is in present tense yes but we have did

past tense here did you call me did you

just call me means in the very recent

past did you call so using just shows

that

then these are near future situations i

was just about to go to lunch i was just

about to go to lunch so here you can use

was you may hear some speakers using i

am i’m just about to go to lunch do you

want to come

we often use this past tense pattern

when something changed our plans like i

was just about to go to lunch but this

urgent task came up so sometimes we do

that

you can hear both it kind of depends on

the speaker’s feeling a little bit

okay

this one

we’re just about to leave so this uses

that present tense i was talking about

we are we’re just about to leave so that

shows that it’s an upcoming plan

for the very near future again just

appears before the verb here in the past

tense examples so keep this in mind

because for this lesson for this content

in general

the word order is very important here

when you’re using just with this meaning

with meaning one to emphasize a small

degree

we need to use just before the word it

modifies so here the emphasis the word i

want to emphasize is one

one or three so just comes before that

word a mistake that many people make and

even native speakers make is using just

before the verb here i just ate one

cookie or

we just had three days for our vacation

so they want to emphasize this but they

position just before the verb and this

is incorrect because we use just in this

position for this kind of pattern for a

recently finished action i just ate one

cookie sounds like i very recently ate

one cookie which is correct that could

be a grammatically correct sentence yes

but if you want to emphasize a small

amount of something you need to put it

before that word that you want to modify

we’ll see the same thing with only

actually so

when we’re using only again it shares

this meaning with just for the first the

first meaning here so we’re emphasizing

that small degree of something and the

same word order rule applies we have to

use only before the word it modifies so

we can use the same example sentences i

ate only one cookie

or we had only three days for our

vacation

so again we can remove only from the

sentence and the sentence remains

grammatically correct

we’re just emphasizing one or three in

this case and using only shows the

speaker feels it was a small amount or a

small degree

if we position only somewhere else in

the sentence like i only ate one cookie

or we only had three days for our

vacation then it modifies the verb and

it changes the sentence for example if i

said i only ate one cookie it means i

did not do anything else to that one

cookie so i only ate one cookie i did

not look at the cookie i did not smell

the cookie i did not bake the cookie i

only ate one cookie so we’re modifying

the verb there here it comes before one

so i ate only one cookie so not two not

three not four i ate only one so keep

this in mind this is a key point that

many native speakers have trouble with

too

okay let’s take a look then at the

second use for this lesson i want to

talk about one more common use of the

word only and that is when it’s used in

conditionals we use this in conditionals

if sentences in if questions

to place our restriction on some action

so this is when we want to say that one

thing

is not possible without another thing so

maybe some of you have studied like if

only if as long as and unless and so on

so this is like the kind of situations

that we use these for example

we can take a long vacation this summer

only if we start saving now

using only if

shows

that this

situation

taking a long vacation this summer

is possible yes but there’s a condition

there’s a restriction

so only if

we start saving now means if we do not

start saving now we cannot go on

vacation

so we could say yes if we start saving

now sure that would be okay but this is

emphasizing the restriction this is

possible only if we start saving now we

must start saving now if we do not start

saving now it is not going to be

possible let’s look at one more example

for example in this case i was thinking

like a mother or father speaking to

their child

so yes you can go to your friend’s party

but only if

you finish your homework

so again we see a condition

like some situation that we’re

interested in desiring going to the

friend’s party

and then we see the restriction only if

you finish your homework only if you

finish your homework can you go to the

party

so that means homework must be completed

the child must complete his or her

homework

if that is done the child can go to the

party so this only shows that

restriction more clearly than just if so

you need to use only to emphasize that

restriction so we can do this you might

hear some native speakers split the only

and the if into like um so they have a

lot of distance in the sentence

sometimes i hear for example we can only

take a long vacation this summer if we

start saving now

so in most cases that doesn’t cause a

communication problem

but for the sake of clarity i would

recommend you try to keep your only and

if together so that you can clearly see

the conditions and the restrictions

so again word order does matter here put

this before the condition this is the

thing that must happen it must be

completed it must be fulfilled in order

for this other thing to happen so your

word order does matter here so from this

lesson a big point meaning one for only

and just they are the same you can use

them in the same way so don’t worry

about choosing between these two the

thing to worry about is the position of

the word in the sentence make sure to

put it before the word you’re modifying

if you would like some more information

about these points specifically the word

only there is a lesson about positioning

of the word only in sentences so please

check the youtube channel for that video

of course if you have other questions or

other comments please feel free to let

us know in the comment section of this

video or try making some example

sentences of your own with these words

of course if you liked the video please

don’t forget to give it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you have not

already and check us out at

englishclass101.com for some other

things that can help you with your

english studies thanks very much for

watching this lesson and i will see you

again soon bye bye

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about three

ways to use the word of this will not

cover all uses of the word of but we’ll

focus in on three very common and very

useful ways to use this word let’s get

started

okay

the first use of of i want to talk about

use to show connection or relationship

between part or parts

and

whole

so this means when we want to show that

two things two or more things have some

kind of relationship they fit together

or they have some kind of connection

or we want to talk about things within a

larger group so like for example pieces

of things that are inside a whole of

something we use this meaning of of

let’s take a look at some examples

first example i ate a piece of cake

here we’re showing parts inside a hole

in this case we’re looking at one part

here my part is a piece and the whole in

this case is a cake

so when i want to talk about one part in

this case a piece i connect the part to

the hole with the word of i ate a piece

of cake

i could make this a plural word if i

wanted to i ate pieces of cake

so i’m still showing a relationship

between parts and whole with these words

so you’ll see of used in this way very

commonly with these counter words and

uncountable nouns

let’s take a look at the next example

sentence

he broke part of my table

so again we see of is connecting in this

case quite literally a part to

a hole in this case my table my table

represents the hole we’re talking about

here

so he broke part of my table could mean

like for example one leg of the table or

a corner of the table one piece one

portion of the table so he broke part of

my table shows that only one piece was

affected we show part and the

relationship to the whole by connecting

them with of he broke part my table is

not correct part of my table is correct

okay let’s move on to the next sentence

one of the kids cried

here

we have the kids

referring to a specific group of kids

the part here is one this means one

child one kid in the group of kids

cried

so you’ll often see

this kind of pattern used when we’re

talking about people groups of people

like students or workers and so on so

one of the kids cried we could change

this to the plural form as well two of

the kids cried it shows parts or a small

number inside a larger group so in this

example sentence we don’t know the total

number here but because the kids

in the plural form is used we know that

it refers to a specific group of kids

and we want to talk about one of those

kids we show the relationship between

this one kid and the group of kids with

of one of the kids cried

so this is the first way to use of for

this lesson

i want to talk about one more important

and related use of of which is to show a

portion inside something to show a

portion inside something

means to talk about

more than one of something inside a

group for example

so in these cases i focused on just one

part

inside a larger group but if you want to

talk about larger numbers for example

the majority or the minority inside a

group we can use of to show that

relationship let’s look at some examples

first

most of the students

passed the test most of the students

passed the test so here i’m talking

again about people

we see a very similar sentence here

the kids was in my previous example

sentence here

the students so i’m talking about a

specific group of students

i’m showing though

most of the students pass the test so

not just one or two or three students

pass the test but most of the students

passed the test

so i connect this most with the larger

whole so this could be the students in

the class or the students in the school

whatever

i connect this part even though it’s a

majority even though it’s most i connect

this with of most of the students passed

the test

you might also hear the pattern most

students passed the test that is also

okay

if you’re including this the though

you need to include of because this the

students is referring to a specific

group so the

our definite article is showing us that

we’re talking about a specific group of

students so this could be most of the

students in this class or in my class

something specific is happening there so

we use the we connect it with of if you

don’t use a specific definite article

for example most students pass the test

that’s okay but the statement becomes

less specific you’re just talking about

maybe

students across the country for example

we don’t know it’s not so clear there

so if you’re using the definite article

make sure to use of to connect it

okay let’s look at another example

the majority of people at the event

were rich the majority of people at the

event were rich

okay so here

i’m using majority the majority the

majority so majority is another way to

say most the largest number of people in

other words so majority for example

could mean like 80 percent of people

basically more than 50 percent is a

majority so

the majority of people at the event were

rich

so this is an example sentence where i

could choose to use the definite article

or not the majority of the people at the

event were rich that would also be okay

because i’m making it very clear in the

sentence which people i mean so people

at the event the specific group of

people so i could say the majority of

the people at the event were rich that’s

also okay i’ve chosen not to include it

here because this extra information

tells me which people so the majority of

people at the event were rich

here my part

is this percentage of people so 50

or more

of this group people at the event were

rich i show the connection by using of

so this is my part my portion and this

is my total group my hole here

okay one more example of this

none of us had any idea what to do

so here

we’re showing zero

none of us so us

because we’re using us it refers to a

group that means nobody inside our group

no people zero people inside our group

had any idea what to do

so we connect this with none of us so we

wouldn’t really say zero of us it

wouldn’t sound so natural we would say

none of us you could also say nobody had

any idea what to do but we’re using of

here because we’re showing

a portion in this case none

and we’re showing a hole so when you

want to show this relationship between

something inside the hole and the larger

group the larger whole you connect the

two with of

okay

let’s continue on to the second point

for this lesson the second point for

this lesson is using of to talk about

the materials or parts something is made

with

to talk about an object’s

contents so contents means the things

inside something else this is a bit

different from what we’ve talked about

over here

let’s look at a few example sentences

first let’s focus on these two

a cup

made of silver

a cup made of silver

this use of of here

is showing us the materials

that the cup is made of so a cup made of

silver silver is the material

cup is the object you’ll notice too

made is in parentheses sometimes native

speakers will drop this part when we’re

talking about the materials or the parts

something is made with

a cup of silver this can sound a little

bit more formal but sometimes we do

choose to use made of silver i like to

include it for this lesson just to make

it a little bit more clear which kind of

of we’re talking about

so a cup of silver is also okay to use

to me it sounds a little bit more polite

this of is showing us a material

silver

for a cup

let’s go on to the next sentence also a

material sentence

her earrings were made of gold her

earrings were made of gold so again you

see our material

comes after our connecting word of

and the object it’s connecting to is

earrings her earrings

were made of gold

so these two sentences show us how we

use of

to indicate a material or a part that

something can be made with

i want to look at the next two sentences

though these two sentences refer to

using of for objects contents

first example sentence

i’d like a glass of wine please

i’d like a glass of wine please so

you’ll notice as we talked about in this

part

we have a counter word

and an uncountable noun

so wine is an uncountable noun glass is

a way to count portions of wine a way to

count servings of wine

here however

it’s referring to the contents of the

glass

so i’d like a glass of wine please means

one glass full of wine so inside the

glass is just wine a glass of wine we

could say a pint of beer or a cup of

juice for example those are all counter

words plus

uncountable noun connected with of

patterns so here

this part is referring to the counter

word

this is the uncountable noun that’s

completely inside it we connect the two

with of

one more example of this

the box was full

of old

letters

the box was full of old letters

this one does not use an uncountable

noun

here we’re talking about a box in this

case this box the contents of this box

was or were rather the contents were

old

letters

old letters

so we’re using of here because this is a

good hint word full full means like 100

of the inside of the box

was old letters so we’re showing the

contents there

with uh we’re connecting

the item the object to its contents with

the word of we could change this we

could add other things too the box was

full of old letters and pens and pencils

or the box was full of old pictures we

could change that we could add other

things to this sentence if we want but

we’re showing here the contents of the

box full of something

so you may see that empty is used in a

pattern like this like the box was for

example empty of money

empty of money so this may seem a little

bit strange why would you say that but

it means there was no money inside the

box empty means there’s nothing inside

so the box was full of means it’s 100

percent uh things inside something empty

means nothing zero percent so the box

was empty of money is correct we

sometimes use that it sounds a little

bit more formal a little bit more polite

but when you want to talk about the

contents of something in this case a box

or perhaps a bag a purse you can use of

to connect the contents

with the object itself

okay so with this in mind let’s continue

to our last use of of for this lesson

number three we use of to show belonging

you see this a lot in organizations in

government situations companies schools

and so on we use it to show belonging to

be a member of something let’s look at

these examples

here

she’s the head

of the company she’s the head of the

company means she’s the top of the

company

in these patterns the company

is the organization

that’s the group

the head

means the top or her position

the way in which she belongs to the

company

she’s the head of the company

we could change this part right here

to reflect a different position in the

organization

she’s a manager in the company

she’s a worker

in the company but you’ll notice

we change

of to in

in situations like that because it’s

we’re not talking about one specific key

figure we’re talking about one person

that’s kind of like a member of a group

so she’s a manager of the company

might be used in situations where a

person is like a top manager

so this is kind of another key point we

use this of pattern when belonging

to talk about like

key roles in organizations or key roles

for organizations so she’s the head of

the company in contrast we would not say

she’s the head in the company we would

not use a pattern like that she’s the

head of the company let’s look at

another example here

have you ever seen the queen of england

here england it’s a country but we think

of england as our group our organization

queen then

the queen shows this top level position

so the queen of england meaning she is

the queen that belongs to england so

this shows her relationship to this

larger organization in this case a

country

the queen of england

so we would use this again for like

politicians we would use this for public

figures kings queens and so on but again

they’re at this very high level position

in their organization so let’s look at

one uh maybe smaller level organization

for this last example

we’re the leaders

of this group we’re the leaders of this

group so this could be a volunteer group

in your community for example

here

the group is our organization

the leaders the leaders in this case

more than one person

the leaders

are the top people in the organization

we connect

the top people

to the organization to which they belong

with the word of we’re the leaders of

this group so if we wanted to talk about

the members we could say

we’re members of such and such group yes

but you would use that if you’re

introducing yourself to someone outside

the situation and you kind of want to

show perhaps a sense of pride in your

belonging

we tend to use in more when we’re

talking more internally i feel so like

i’m a member of such and such group

would be okay

but we would probably use for like

companies and so on like a manager in

this company so there are a couple

situations where there’s a little bit of

flexibility in terms of the preposition

that’s used but a good rule is that when

you’re talking about the leader of

something the leader of a group or the

leader of an organization you can use of

to show their role so leader queen king

head of company and use of to connect it

to the company name the organization

name the country name and so on if you

want to talk about the members of

something

if you’re talking to someone outside the

group it might be a good idea to use of

i’m a member of such and such group

or i’m a

manager

in this company i would prefer

personally to use in for talking about

company sorts of things i would probably

use of for talking about like group

related things so this is perhaps a

small point that’s a little bit

different for lower level people in

organizations but as i said a good rule

is to show belonging for people at the

tops of organizations with of

so i hope that this lesson gave you some

good ideas and some good chances to

practice these three uses of the word of

as i said there are many other ways to

use this word but i feel that these are

probably some of the most common ways

and perhaps we can talk more about other

uses of of in another video in the

future if you have any questions or

comments or if you want to practice

making a sentence with this word please

feel free to do so in the comments

section of course if you liked this

lesson please don’t forget to give it a

thumbs up subscribe to our channel if

you have not already and check us out at

englishclass101.com

for some other things that can help you

with your english studies thanks very

much for watching this lesson and i will

see you again soon bye-bye

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about when to

use apostrophe s

and when to use of let’s get started

first i want to talk about the

situations when we use apostrophe s

so we commonly refer to this as the

possessive form so we attach apostrophe

s to some noun or a noun phrase

we use apostrophe s

when we’re talking about something that

belongs to another person

so when i say something that belongs to

another person this can mean an object

like a pen or a shirt

or it can mean something about that

person’s physical appearance physical

appearance means the way they look

or it can be about their personality

so what kind of personality does that

person have what are their

characteristics

so we use apostrophe s when we’re

referring to these kinds of things

relating to people

let’s look at some examples of this

first

this group of examples

features apostrophe s

including an object so for example my

brother’s

car

my mom’s favorite album or

my friend’s keys

we use apostrophe s

because this is an object that belongs

to a person

if i used of in these sentences it would

sound very unnatural for example

the car of my brother or the favorite

album of my mom or

the keys of my friend it sounds very

unnatural to use these kinds of patterns

so because we’re talking about objects

that belong to a person use the

possessive form this apostrophe s

let’s look at some more examples

these are things again

objects that belong to another person in

this case not just my my my but another

person outside us for example

your roommate’s computer

his girlfriend’s

water bottle so again we’re talking

about objects that belong to

a person even if that person is outside

us unrelated to us we use apostrophe s

to naturally show possession to

naturally show ownership

finally down here let’s look at some

examples that talk about someone’s

personality or their characteristics

my friend’s personality

his mother’s cleanliness

his father’s beard this is not a

personality point this is a physical

appearance point but you can see how in

all of these example sentences we

continue to use the apostrophe s to show

ownership so this my friend’s

personality means the personality

belonging to my friend

his mother’s cleanliness

this shows the cleanliness belonging to

his mother this beard here belongs to

the speaker’s friends perhaps father

so we’re using this apostrophe s to show

ownership of something

so please make sure to use apostrophe s

in situations such as these

another important point about apostrophe

s use

is that apostrophe s

is commonly used with time periods so

time periods means like days or weeks or

months for example it can also mean

points in time or periods of time in a

day

for example

this morning’s meeting

here

morning is my time period or my point in

time in this case this morning’s meeting

this means the meeting that happened

this morning or the meeting that’s going

to happen this morning so we can think

of this as a meeting

belonging to this morning we use

apostrophe s to show this we do not say

the meeting of this morning it sounds

very unnatural

another example

the year’s best music the year’s best

music so here i have this time period

the year the last year or this year

perhaps apostrophe s best music so this

means the best music belonging to the

year we would not say

the best

music of the year necessarily i suppose

you could but in lots of marketing

materials you see this apostrophe s used

it kind of shows a little bit of

closeness that possessive form

okay the next one

this evening’s menu this evening’s menu

so again the menu which belongs to this

evening this is one that you might also

see used with the of pattern perhaps so

using the of pattern

kind of makes things like this sound a

little bit more formal or a little bit

more polite so for example the menu of

this evening

might not be so natural

or the menu of the evening might be

something you could hear

but the reason that we don’t use of as

often perhaps

in situations such as these is because

it tends to make the situation sound a

little more formal or a little more

polite so when i said in this example

sentence the best music of the year

you might hear that for example at an

award ceremony like the best artist of

the year or artist of the year something

like that has a little bit of importance

to it when we want to give more

importance to something we might use the

of pattern so these are two situations

where you might see that we would not do

it in the situations i’ve talked about

or the situations i spoke about earlier

when talking about things belonging to

people there are some cases

where we might use an of pattern

when talking about time periods so these

are maybe a couple of cases where you

may see of used

okay so we can use this with time

periods as well and it is commonly used

with time periods let’s compare this

then to situations where we use of

of is used when explaining something

that is part of or belongs to

something larger so note yes i’m using

this belongs to here but this is for

like objects so not things that belong

to people

this is for like uh perhaps

organizations

or as i said objects

let’s take a look at some examples of

this

here

the leader of the group

the end of the video

or the top of the mountain

so in each of these situations we’re

expressing like a relationship between a

part and a hole

in the first example sentence the group

the group

is my whole

and the leader is one part so we often

use of when we’re talking about like the

top person in an organization or in a

group so this is why we use like leader

of the group or if you’ve watched the

video about using of on this channel the

queen of england or the head of the

company those are expressions we use to

talk about the top person in a group so

they are part of a group or an

organization

the second example the end of the video

refers to one part of the video so if we

watch the video watch the video watch

the video

this part here is the end part of the

video we use of to show that

relationship

finally

the top of the mountain the top of the

mountain again if we imagine a mountain

and we imagine one part

we can describe that with of connecting

that name top to the name of the whole

mountain the top of the mountain

of course there are some cases where we

choose to phrase things a little bit

differently for example the mountaintop

is a word

um but in these cases it’s more natural

to use of than it is to use apostrophe s

so for example if i said the mountain’s

top it wouldn’t sound as natural as the

top of the mountain if i said the

video’s end it wouldn’t sound as natural

as the end of the video

the group’s leader could be okay

because it’s related to a person

but you might hear this one a little

more often the leader of the group

okay with that in mind let’s look at

another way that we use of

we use of when explaining what something

is made from

so we use this when talking about

material so if i want to talk about the

material my shirt is made from i could

use of to describe that let’s look at

some examples though

a necklace of gold

a sweater made of wool

shoes made of leather so here in these

examples i’m talking about materials

gold wool and leather

you’ll notice that i’ve got made in

parentheses here we can drop that made

because this use of of is showing us

what something is made from so not

everybody chooses to include made but

you can um so a necklace of gold means a

necklace made from gold

a sweater

made of wool means a sweater made from

wool so that’s another way to say it

both are fine you can choose which you

prefer

shoes made of leather so we’re

connecting the material

to the object with of here

so again

this is not a situation where we would

use this possessive form because

actually here

there’s no possession happening

the necklace is not possessing gold or

the sweater is not possessing wool

rather we’re talking about the

components the pieces that work together

to create this other thing so definitely

do not use apostrophe s in situations

such as this

so i hope that this lesson gives you a

good guideline for when to use

apostrophe s and when to use of remember

apostrophe s is great to use and very

natural to use when you’re talking about

people and things that belong to people

remember use of when you’re talking

about something that is part of

something else or when you’re describing

the materials that are used to make

something so if you have any questions

or comments or if you want to practice

making some sentences with this grammar

please feel free to do so in the comment

section of this video of course if you

like this lesson don’t forget to give it

a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if

you have not already and check us out at

englishclass101.com

for some other things that can help you

with your english studies thanks very

much for watching this lesson and i will

see you again soon bye-bye

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about the

differences between have and had i’m

going to look at three very common ways

that we use these words let’s get

started okay the first way that we use

these words is to express ownership so

ownership this means when we

have like an item there’s something that

belongs to us or when we want to talk

about like personalities or personal

characteristics when we want to talk

about owning that or something belonging

to us we use have or past tense had to

do that so

to make a basic ownership expression

with this verb we use have plus our noun

phrase so for example

marker is a noun phrase a marker so i

have a marker it’s a very simple

ownership expression

this is present tense have

when the subject of the sentence is he

she or it

we change the verb have to has

she has a marker he has a marker so keep

in mind the subject of your sentence

will change the way that you have to say

the verb or spell the verb so we follow

it with a noun phrase

when we want to make a past tense

statement we change have to

had this is true if the subject is she

he it anything we use had for past tense

ownership statements so i had a red

marker

now i have a blue marker for example i

had in the past now i have present tense

so we use had and have to express

past and present ownership of things and

characteristics some more examples first

i have a cookie have present tense this

shows us right now the speaker the

speaker has a cookie the speaker has a

cookie i have a cookie

another one past tense here

i had a dog when i was a kid so here i

had a dog

when

when i was a kid this is my point in

time or my period of time this was the

the time in which i had a dog past tense

are some examples where the subject is

he and she

he has

a lot of money

he has a lot of money we use has because

the subject is he he has a lot of money

finally she has

a lot of

responsibilities she has a lot of

responsibilities

again the subject is she so we use has

instead of have this is only for the

present tense she has a lot of

responsibilities so this is the first

use of have and had to express ownership

let’s move on to point number two for

this lesson

point number two

we use have and had to make the perfect

tenses so we use perfect tense we can

use present perfect tense past perfect

tense future perfect tense to talk about

actions that started in the past and

continued until a certain point in time

so when we make present perfect tense

sentences we use have organ has it

follows the same rule as over here if

the subject is she he or it we use has

so we use have or has

but we follow it with the past

participle form of a verb this is a

special form of each verb that we attach

to this verb have or has so this is to

make the present perfect tense

when we make the past perfect tense

however we use had

plus the past participle form of the

verb so again there’s only one word here

there’s no change if the subject changes

so past perfect had

present perfect have or has for more

information on these tenses and what

they mean please check our website

englishclass101.com or please do a quick

search on our youtube channel for

present perfect tense or past perfect

tense videos for more information about

this grammar point

let’s look at some examples though of

how we use these to make our statements

in perfect tenses

first

i have studied english for three years i

have studied english for three years

have is used here

before

studied studied is the past participle

form of the verb study

i have studied english in this case for

three years the speaker includes a

length of time

i have studied english for three years

let’s change the subject of the sentence

she

has been

waiting for an hour she has been waiting

for an hour so here we’re focusing on a

continuing action

but we change have to has because the

subject is she we use bin because bin

is the past participle form of the verb

be so not she has be

she has been

waiting she has been waiting

so this is again a present perfect tense

expression here we’re using it with the

continuous form or the progressive form

now let’s take a look at some past

perfect examples

i had just arrived home

when the phone rang

i had just arrived home when the phone

rang

here you’ll notice i included just so i

want to show something happened very

quickly

after this thing

or rather i want to show that something

happened very quickly like back to back

so one thing happened and then another

thing happened i had just arrived home

when the phone rang

had is used here

because this is a past situation

i just arrived home i had just arrived

home when the phone rang so

in the moment after that very quickly

so i use just before

the past participle verb

arrived arrived so arrived is the past

participle form of the verb arrive i can

use just to modify that

so another example we had been working

all night

when we got the news

that the project was cancelled we had

been working all night when we got the

news that the project was cancelled

again had comes before my past

participle verb be

becomes bin

and i’m using another progressive

example an ing example you’ll also

notice that with past perfect we tend to

use this when we’re telling stories in a

sequence so past perfect thing the thing

that happened far far far in the past we

use past perfect tense and then we use

simple past tense we see this in these

two examples this happened first had

just arrived home far in the past

when the phone rang so this is my simple

past tense statement just arrived home

phone rang so we understand the sequence

of events there by using past perfect

simple past same thing here we had been

working all night continuing to work

we’ve been working all night when

we got the news we got simple past tense

we got the news that the project was

cancelled so we use this these two past

forms together to tell stories in

sequence okay so again if you want more

information about these grammar points

please do a search of the youtube

channel or the website okay so let’s

move on to our third use of these words

for this lesson we use have and had to

talk about responsibilities this is a

very common use of these words when we

talk about present tense

responsibilities we use have

or has again for he she and its subjects

plus

plus a present tense verb

of course we can change this with use of

don’t we can make it a negative don’t

have to doesn’t have to and so on

but making a positive sentence

for the purposes of this lesson is done

in this way same thing with had when

we’re making a past tense responsibility

expression we use had plus to plus the

present tense verb so this had is the

only change

changes from half in present tense so

let’s look at some examples

first

i have to go to the bank i have to go to

the bank

half

plus

present tense verb go is my present

tense verb i have to go to the bank

responsibility statement

if my subject is he she or it i need to

change my verb to has

she has to

leave the office leave is my simple

present tense verb i’ve connected it

with two she has to leave the office

past tense examples we had to buy new

shoes we had to buy new shoes so we as

the subject had shows it’s a past tense

expression

to connects to

by my present tense verb we had to buy

new shoes

finally

he had to find a new job so again my

subject is he but there’s no change to

the verb in past tense he had to find a

new job so had to present tense verb is

fine he had to find a new job so we can

use have and had and has to talk about

explaining our responsibilities so these

are three ways that you can use have and

had and has as well so i hope that they

help you in understanding how these

words are used again if you want some

more information about these grammar

points please make sure to search our

youtube channel or check out our website

englishclass101.com

of course if you liked this lesson

please don’t forget to give it a thumbs

up and subscribe to our channel if you

have not already also if you have any

questions or comments or if you want to

practice making an example sentence

please feel free to do so in the comment

section of this video thank you very

much for watching this lesson and i will

see you again soon bye-bye

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them maybe okay

let’s get to your first question this

week first question this week comes from

andrea oliviera hello andrea andrea says

hi alicia could you help me with the

differences between before and until in

these phrases first

don’t say you hate it until or before

you try a bite of it

you’re not going anywhere until or

before you put your things away

enjoy your meal until or before it gets

cold thank you very much okay nice

question yeah mostly the differences

between until and before in these

example sentences are about nuance you

could use either in these sentences i

want to talk about the first two example

phrases or the first two example

sentences first i want to talk about

these two together because they have a

negative at the beginning of the

sentence in the first example sentence

we had don’t say you hate it until or

before you try a bite of it so until is

used to mark like a key moment or kind

of a deadline or a point at which

something changes before it doesn’t

really have this feeling so don’t say

you hate it until you try a bite of it

sounds more natural in this case because

it’s like saying taking a bite of this

thing this food probably is kind of the

key point or the moment for change the

moment in which the person makes a

decision so until sounds more natural

here than before

the same is true for the second example

sentence you’re not going anywhere until

or before you put your things away again

this sounds more natural with until

because we have kind of a key moment for

change yeah so the person needs to put

their things away that’s why until

sounds a little bit more natural than

before here

this is not the case however with the

final example that you included which

was enjoy your meal until or before it

gets cold

the reason that until sounds unnatural

in this example is because we don’t

really have a specific point like a key

moment or a kind of deadline or a time

at which something’s going to change we

have this cold like the meal is going to

get cold situation we know is going to

happen but there’s not a key point

also if you use until in this sentence

it sounds like enjoy your meal and

continue enjoying your meal but at the

point your meal becomes cold stop

enjoying your meal this is really

strange right so enjoy your meal before

it gets cold sounds a lot more natural

here because it’s kind of like you’re

encouraging the other person to eat

while the meal is warm and therefore

it’s most delicious so that’s the

difference between until and before in

these example sentences and you can kind

of carry that you can kind of remember

that when you need to choose in the

future so until we tend to use more with

that kind of deadline or key change

point so you can kind of remember this

when you need to make a decision between

these two in the future we tend to use

until a lot when we have some kind of

change point coming in the future we can

refer to it’s easy to spot or it’s easy

to understand that change point and we

don’t really always do that with before

so i hope that this helps you thanks for

an interesting question okay let’s get

to your next question next question

comes from andre hello andre andre says

ciao alicia what’s up hey

uh my question which is correct he don’t

or he doesn’t i’ve noticed a lot of

usage of the form he don’t in american

movies yeah nice question so depending

on the style of english used in the

movie you’re watching you might see a

grammar pattern like this so you might

see this in a few different styles of

speaking the speaker might use this kind

of speaking to sound rough or to sound

cool you might also hear it used in

certain communities or in certain

regions of the usa there are many

different reasons a speaker might use he

don’t instead of he doesn’t so it

depends a lot on the style of the movie

on the people that are in the movie or

the characters that are portrayed the

people that are actually in the movie

so there are a lot of different factors

to consider

yes we learn he doesn’t in typical

textbook english but depending on the

community or the region or the

background of the speaker it might be

common to use he don’t and other similar

grammar patterns so this is the reason

you might see he don’t in certain

american movies or in certain tv shows

even sometimes it’s because the

character wants to sound rougher or

cooler or something other times it’s

because that’s how the character

naturally speaks that’s the type of

english or the style of english they

grew up using so

over time as you watch media you’ll kind

of get to understand a little bit better

which is which so i hope that this helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to our next question

next question comes from

jane

advincula hi jane i hope i said your

name right jane says hi alicia i’d like

to ask about how and when to use later

and earlier for example in phrases like

one year later and earlier in 1992. okay

yeah nice question so of course we can

use earlier and later to talk about

different times of the day like let’s do

that later so meaning not now but later

but these words are also very very

useful when we’re telling stories

especially about the past when we want

to talk about a point in time in the

past and we want to talk about something

that happened before that or something

that happened after that we can use

earlier and later to do that let’s look

at earlier first so for example he

finished school in 2000 we want to talk

about the year 2000 in this case a past

tense point we could say something like

one year earlier he had started looking

for a job so that means one year before

this key point in time we already

introduced so earlier kind of refers

back to the previously introduced point

in time this sounds quite natural on the

other hand if we want to talk about

something that happened after that key

point in time we would use later to do

that so for example he finished school

in 2000 one year later he got a job so

we use the same point in time 2000 but

we use later so one year later so we can

use earlier and later to refer to a

previously introduced time period this

can help us to tell stories very

naturally yes we can also say like the

year before that or the year after that

these are just different ways to express

the same idea of course you can also use

earlier and later to talk about smaller

time periods and bigger time periods

earlier i said let’s do it later for

example so you can use earlier and later

to refer to a few minutes time as i just

did in this video you can use it to talk

about a day to talk about a week a month

a year whatever when you want to talk

about something that happened before a

point in time use earlier and when you

want to talk about something that

happened after you can use later so i

hope that this helps you thanks for the

question okay let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from kuong

hi kwang

says if my mobile phone has a low

battery what should i say which

sentences are correct

my mobile phone’s battery is low

my mobile phone is running out of power

are there any ways that native speakers

say this that sound natural does this

sentence sound natural my mobile phone’s

battery is out of power

my mobile phone’s battery power is five

percent what should i ask to find out

the power percentage can i say this what

is the percentage of your phone’s

battery’s power volume capacity and so

on great questions so first your first

example sentence is perfect so my mobile

phone’s battery is low or my mobile

phone is running out of power both of

these are great the only thing is we

tend to make this expression very short

because this is a very common situation

for example mobile phone is long we

usually say in american english my phone

so here are some really natural

expressions you can use to describe your

phone’s battery situation you can say

my phone is almost dead or my phone is

about to die to express the precise

percentage of power on your phone you

can say my phone is at five percent or

you might even hear some people say i’m

at five percent or i’m about to die

sometimes people say i’m when they mean

their phone as well if you want to ask

for a charger you can say do you have a

charger or can i borrow your charger

or in a group situation does anyone have

a charger so just keep in mind make this

expression short my phone’s about to die

is very very common that’s probably the

one that i use most what do you say when

your phone’s gonna die i’m running out

of batteries i’m running out of battery

yeah i’m running out of battery or i’m

running out of power there are many

different ways to express this

running out of shoes

oh juice

running out of juice yeah juice also

means power so it depends a little bit

on the personality of the person you’re

talking to but a very straightforward

one is my phone’s about to die or my

battery is running low so there’s a big

list of expressions that you can use

thanks for a good question i hope that

that helps you okay let’s move on to our

next question next question comes from

tawfiq saeed hi talfiq i hope i said

your name right talfiq says

his sports car flew past us on the

highway what is the meaning of past in

this example please explain with some

examples thank you okay sure this past

is a preposition so past has a few

different uses in this sentence we’re

seeing it as a preposition as a

preposition here it means beyond or to

come close to something and then move

beyond that so some other examples of

this use of past are for example i

walked past your house yesterday or my

dog ran past me into the street so in

all of these situations it’s like

something moves close

to something else and then continues

beyond that thing so in your example the

car flew past us means the car was on a

course

came very close to us and then continued

on the course beyond us the same thing

with my first example i walked past your

house yesterday that means i walked like

on a course

near your house and then i continued

beyond it and in the final example with

the dog it sounds like the dog ran very

close to me and then continued beyond me

so when we use past as a preposition

like this this is what it means i hope

that this helps you thanks for the

question all right that is everything

that i have for this week thanks very

much for your awesome questions if you

have questions for me remember you can

send them to me at englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia you’ll also find a

link for this in the description so

check it out of course if you want to

practice your english with us a little

bit more check us out at

englishclass101.com for some other

resources to help you with your english

studies and don’t forget to like this

video and subscribe to this channel if

you haven’t already for more videos like

this thanks very much for watching this

episode of ask alicia and i will see you

again next time bye

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them maybe

okay let’s get to your first question

this week first question this week comes

from eugene hi eugene eugene says hey

alicia is there a difference between

turn off the music and turn the music

off i always run into this problem when

i use phrasal verbs thanks yeah thanks

for this question no there is no

difference between turn off the music

and turn the music off they mean the

same thing turn off is one of those

phrasal verbs that can be split so when

i say split i mean that when you use

this phrasal verb you can put the object

of the phrasal verb at the end or you

can put it between the two words so

phrasal verbs that you can do this with

are called separable phrasal verbs so

that means you can put the object of the

verb after it or in between the two

words there are some phrasal verbs that

you cannot do this with these are called

inseparable phrasal verbs so turn off is

one example of a separable phrasal verb

you can split it and choose whichever

form you like thanks i hope that that

answers your question okay on to the

next question next question comes from

saeed

i hope i said that right hi sayyid

says hi alicia i’m from jordan i want to

ask you about the difference between d

value and down play many thanks okay

yeah nice question so to devalue

something means to take value away from

something so d value consists of that

prefix d which means off or away and

then value right referring to how much

something costs or how much we think

something is worth so to devalue

something means to remove value from

something some examples

a poor quality product can devalue your

brand

my home was devalued due to damage from

a natural disaster

okay so now let’s talk about down play

to downplay something means to minimize

or decrease the seriousness of something

so we use down play when we’re trying to

make something not seem like as big of a

deal as it actually is sometimes we want

to make people feel more calm or

sometimes we’re trying to hide

information but downplay means to try to

reduce someone’s perception or someone’s

idea of how serious a situation is some

examples

we should not downplay the seriousness

of this deadly disease

my manager downplayed my concerns at the

meeting i was angry

okay so i hope this helps you understand

the differences between devalue and

downplay thanks very much for the

question all right let’s move on to your

next question next question comes from

sergey hi sergey sergey says hi alicia

what is the difference between check up

and check out thank you in advance okay

there are a few different ways to use

these phrasal verbs generally check up

means to request or look for an update

from someone so you might say you need

to check up on someone we typically use

that when we’re talking about a person

for example can you check up on your

sister i haven’t heard from her recently

that means please go get an update from

your sister or please get some

information about the current status of

your sister so we tend to use check up

on something when we want to talk about

another person you might also hear like

check up on a specific place like go

check up on the barn or like go check up

on the animals outside to mean you want

to know the current status or the

current condition you might also see

checkup used with no space between check

and up to talk about visiting a doctor

to check your current condition so in

these cases we say something like i need

to go to the doctor for a checkup or you

should really get a checkup when’s the

last time you visited the doctor

please note that this use of checkup is

as a noun in your original question you

used check up as a phrasal verb so both

are possible so just please note that

the space does make a difference check

up with a space refers to the phrasal

verb checkup with no space refers to the

noun and that’s the one that refers to

going to a doctor to review your current

condition so let’s compare this then to

check out check out generally check out

means to finish your transaction and

leave a place most commonly we use check

out when we’re at the supermarket or at

a hotel so you might say something like

please check out at the register after

you finish shopping or i checked out of

the hotel at 10 am so these uses of

checkout refer to finishing some kind of

business or service transaction and

leaving that location you might also

hear check out used to mean go quickly

look at something like let’s check out

that new restaurant or oh i want to

check out that event later it means to

take a quick look at something generally

to see what’s happening

finally you might also hear check out

used sometimes to mean looking at a

person with romantic interest like

you’re physically attracted to that

person

for example that guy just checked you

out or wow check out that girl she’s so

pretty something like that might be used

to indicate that you find someone

physically attractive but generally

check out is used in the first two

senses most commonly in everyday

conversation to finish a transaction and

leave a place or to mean to take a quick

look at something so i hope this helps

you understand the differences between

checkup and checkout thanks for the

question okay let’s go to your next

question next question comes from

uh sarah hello sarah sarah says hi

alicia what is the difference between

knowledge and acknowledge when can i use

them good question okay so knowledge and

acknowledge i know they have that same

knowledge inside them but they’re quite

different knowledge is a noun

acknowledge is a verb so knowledge

refers to the things that we gain the

information that we learn from books

from experience and so on so we use

knowledge to operate in the world to

live our lives right so for example it’s

important to gain a lot of knowledge as

a child or make sure that you review all

of the knowledge on this subject so

knowledge is a noun that refers to the

things that you know or the things that

are known in the world

acknowledge on the other hand like i

said is a verb it means to recognize

something for example the company

acknowledged his hard work

or she acknowledged it would take a few

weeks to reach her goal so think of

acknowledge as meaning recognize it’s

kind of like a more formal way of saying

recognize so again yes although

knowledge and acknowledge do seem very

similar when you see them written they

do have quite different meanings and

different parts of speech so i hope that

this helps answer your question thanks

very much

okay next question comes from masume

tabrizi hi masume i hope i said your

name right masume says when we tell a

story can we use passive yeah of course

you can use passive when you tell

stories i think that some people have

learned at some point that passive is

maybe bad or passive sounds weak or

maybe passive should be avoided and we

should focus on using active but

actually passive is an important way

it’s an important tool a grammar tool to

explaining stories and sharing

information so yes there are sometimes

when it’s a good idea to use passive for

example you should use passive when the

person who did the action is not known

or it’s not important so a classic

example of this is if someone steals a

bag and we don’t know who it is we can

say my bag was stolen so that’s a great

example of using passive when you don’t

know the person who did the action you

can also use passive when it’s not

important to refer to the person who

completed the action that’s fine as well

you can use passive when you need to

hide information or when you need to

keep something secret so there are lots

of different ways to use passive to tell

a story and we do this all the time in

our everyday life another example might

be if a glass of water is knocked over

in my house and i don’t know who did it

i don’t know how it happened i might say

ah my glass of water got knocked over or

my glass of water was knocked over so

there are lots of different situations

where it’s very natural to use passive

if you learn that using passive is bad

or something like that

try to forget it passive has a time and

a place there are definitely times when

it’s a great idea to use passive so yes

please include it in your stories when

it feels right i hope that this answers

your question all right that is

everything that i have for this week

thank you very much for sending me your

awesome questions i really appreciate it

of course if you want to send me a

question you can do so at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia you can check a link

in the description to find it there as

well

also if you enjoyed this video please

don’t forget to give it a thumbs up and

subscribe to this channel if you haven’t

already thanks very much for watching

this episode of ask alicia and i will

see you again next time bye

restaurant

a restaurant is a place you can go to

have someone else cook food and serve it

to you it’s often a place we go for a

treat or a special occasion

that’s a good restaurant

that’s a

good

restaurant

cafe

cafe a cafe is another place you can go

to to have someone else cook for you and

prepare drinks for you but a cafe tends

to be a little bit smaller than a

restaurant in size and the menu is also

a little smaller usually at cafes you

can find tea coffee and other drinks in

addition to very light food like cakes

or donuts

where is the closest cafe

coffee shop

sometimes we use coffee shop and cafe to

mean the same thing but a coffee shop

specifically is a shop that serves just

coffee so there are no other drinks on

the menu just coffee in terms of food

you might see a cookie or something else

small like that

shall we stop by a coffee shop

bar

a bar is a place you can visit to have

alcoholic drinks bars usually also have

non-alcoholic drinks available too in

most cases bars are available for adults

to enter only kids are not allowed

my favorite bar was closed

my favorite bar

was closed

furniture

furniture refers to all of the objects

we have in our house that we use for

sitting for laying and for other kinds

of decoration and storage for example a

couch or a bed or a shelf these are all

examples of furniture

we’ll load the furniture into the truck

we’ll

load the furniture into the truck

grass

grass is very commonly found in front of

people’s houses when they live in the

suburbs so in the area outside of big

cities in the usa people like to take

care of the grass in front of their

house you can also find wild grass so it

tends to not be so green you might see

wild grass in yellow or orange colors

the grasses that you see in front of

people’s homes in the u.s tends to be a

green color

the green grass smells fresh

soil

soil is what we use to put plants in

that will help them grow soil has lots

and lots of minerals and good things

that are helpful for plants as they get

bigger

the soil cracked due to the drought

dirt

so dirt and soil look very similar the

difference between dirt and soil is that

soil has lots of minerals and things

that are good for plants that helps them

grow

dirt on the other hand does not have

minerals it doesn’t have all those

things that are helpful for plants

the baby elephant is playing with dirt

in a zoo

the baby elephant is playing with dirt

in a zoo

the baby elephant is playing with dirt

in a zoo

rock

a rock is a very small hard object we

see rocks all over the place in nature

they can be small as i described but you

might also see larger rocks too so they

are very hard to break and very

dangerous if you throw them

the two crabs are walking on a rock

tree

a tree is a type of plant a tree is

generally quite tall usually taller than

people and they can stretch to be

extremely extremely tall in forests for

example

he was reading a book under a tree

taoism

taoism is a philosophy that began in

china a key focus of taoism is living in

harmony

taoism is also known as taoism

bible

a bible is a book of sacred or holy

texts important in the christian

religion

he reads the bible

quran

qaran

quran refers to the collection of sacred

or holy texts important in the religion

of islam

the quran is the holy book of the muslim

religion

the quran is the holy book of the muslim

religion

the quran

is the holy book of the muslim religion

priest

a priest is a religious leader in a

community priest is used to refer to men

he got advice from a priest

got advice from

a priest

judaism

judaism is a religion connected to the

culture traditions and history of the

jewish people

judaism has been practiced for over

three thousand years

judaism has been practiced for over

three thousand years

judaism has been practiced for over 3000

years

one thousand

one

thousand so one thousand refers to one

thousand of something

there is only one thousand yen in my

wallet

there is only one thousand yen in my

wallet

there is only one thousand yen in my

wallet

two thousand

two

thousand two thousand refers to two one

thousands of something

it costs two thousand dollars

costs two

thousand dollars

eight thousand

eight

thousand

eight thousand refers to eight one

thousands of something when you

pronounce this the eight and thousands

sound like they connect a little bit so

not eight

thousand but eight thousand

eight thousand people live in that

village

eight thousand people live in that

village

eight thousand people

live in that village

ten thousand

ten thousand refers to ten thousands of

something

they raised ten thousand euro for

charity

they raised ten thousand euro for

charity

they

raised 10

000 euro for charity

four thousand

four

thousand

4000 refers to four one thousands of

something

the stadium is four thousand square

meters

the stadium is four thousand square

meters

the stadium is 4 000 square meters

landlord

land lord

a landlord is the person who owns land

or a person who owns a building if you

rent a house or if you rent an apartment

you probably have to pay your rent to a

landlord every month

my brother’s landlord will not accept a

check

my brother’s landlord will not accept a

check

my brother’s landlord will not accept a

check

dormitory

dorm-e-tori

a dormitory is a place where many people

live together usually students live in

dormitories especially their first or

maybe second year of college you may

also see company dormitories for company

staff this word is long so we often call

them dorms

i lived in the dormitory for all four

years of college

i lived in the dormitory for all four

years of college

i lived in the dormitory for all four

years of

college

apartment building

apartment

building

an apartment building is a building

that’s used just for apartments so

there’s lots and lots of small houses

inside an apartment building this is

different from a dormitory because a

dormitory is usually a bunch of small

rooms just rooms together apartment

buildings are composed of like small

houses you can find kitchens living

rooms bathrooms everything inside one

apartment

there are 24 apartments in this

apartment building

there are 24 apartments in this

apartment building

there

are

24 apartments

in this apartment building

city

a city is like a very big town a city is

a place with many people it’s very

lively there are lots of activities lots

of things to do it can be noisy at times

so think of a city as something bigger

and much more exciting perhaps than a

town

he moved from the country to the city

farm

a farm is a place where food is grown

this can be vegetables fruits it can

also be livestock so livestock means for

example cows pigs sheep and so on so a

farm is a place where food comes from

the goats are playing on the farm

tsunami

a tsunami is like a very very large very

fast moving

a tsunami is a very very dangerous

natural occurrence it can cause huge

disasters in cities and towns

the tsunami hit the city

the tsunami hit the

city the

tsunami hit

the city

avalanche

an avalanche is another type of natural

disaster when a lot of snow

becomes dislodged meaning it gets moved

from its original position high up in

the mountains and a lot of snow moves

together it can create a very very large

amount of snow that falls down a

mountain very very fast this can be

extremely dangerous if you’re hiking or

skiing or snowboarding

the avalanche destroyed the ski resort

but luckily nobody was hurt

the avalanche destroyed the ski resort

but luckily nobody was hurt

the avalanche destroyed the ski resort

but luckily nobody was hurt

fire

so there are many situations where we

use the word fire we can of course use

it to talk about like the top of a

candle for example but when we need to

talk about a disaster or an emergency

situation we call it a fire we use the

article uh or we use the as well to talk

about a specific disaster when we talk

about it to describe a disaster it’s

typically a very large scale fire as in

like a building fire or perhaps a fire

at a store

the fire is burning

earthquake

earth

quake

an earthquake is another type of natural

disaster it may be helpful to break this

word into two parts to understand the

meaning earth refers to our planet so

the ground quake means to shake so we

can imagine this as together meaning

ground and shake so earthquake means

shaking ground or the planet shaking in

some way earthquakes can be very big or

very small so sometimes they can be very

dangerous generally they are fairly

surprising

the earthquake is shaking the ground

sandstorm

sand storm

so a sandstorm is a type of storm where

instead of rain or clouds or thunder and

lightning in the air there’s sand that

is moving around quickly high speeds in

the air so a sandstorm can move up way

way way high up in the air and then it

can fall to the ground or it can touch

down is what we call it when a sandstorm

moves from high up in the air to ground

level we call that touching down this

can be a very very dangerous situation

the sandstorm has touched down

the sand storm has touched down

glove

a glove is an article of clothing it’s a

piece of clothing we wear gloves on our

hands a glove is different from a mitten

which you might know about because a

glove has space for individual fingers

there’s a pocket for each finger with a

glove a mitten uses one pocket only for

all of these fingers

i need new gloves for autumn

umbrella

an umbrella is something we use to

protect ourselves from the rain we can

carry small folding umbrellas or we can

choose to use a larger umbrella when we

use an umbrella we put it up above our

heads to protect us from falling

raindrops i forgot my umbrella in the

office

i forgot my umbrella in the office

hat

so a hat is a type of clothing we wear

hats on our head

hat is the most general type of hat

there are many different types of hat

inside the category you might see

beanies you might see baseball hats or

baseball caps you might see cowboy hats

there are many different types we can

understand all of these as hats

how much is this hat

long-sleeved

long-sleeved is an adjective we use

long-sleeved to talk about the length of

a sleeve on a shirt something that is

long-sleeved goes until the wrist this

is what we consider long and make sure

you clearly pronounce that d sound at

the end so not long sleeve but long

sleeved

shirt

long-sleeved shirts are good for cold

weather

long-sleeve shirts are good for cold

weather

long-sleeved shirts are good for cold

weather

short sleeved

short

sleeved

so a short sleeved shirt is the opposite

of a long-sleeved shirt if a

long-sleeved shirt goes all the way to

the wrist a short-sleeved shirt

generally ends about here if you can

imagine a t-shirt that’s a very good

example of a short sleeved shirt

short sleeve shirts are better when it’s

warm

short sleeved shirts are better when it

is warm

short sleeved shirts are better when it

is warm

painful

painful is an adjective we use painful

to talk about things that hurt us things

that cause pain this can refer to

physical pain something that causes us

to feel

unpleasant sensations in the body we can

also use this word to talk about things

that are emotionally difficult so

something that is emotionally painful

might be something that causes us to

feel sad or angry for example

a jellyfish sting is very painful

jellyfish sting

is very painful

shy

shy is an adjective that we use to talk

about people we might use it to talk

about animals like pets from time to

time too someone who is shy doesn’t like

to talk to other people or maybe they

feel nervous in social situations

don’t be shy

nervous

so nervous is an adjective and we use

nervus to describe our feelings usually

before we do something kind of exciting

like a performance or maybe before we do

something a little bit dangerous so a

key difference here nervous versus shy

someone who is shy we use shy to talk

about a person’s personality trait

nervous is used to talk about our

feelings in a moment so we could say i

feel nervous right now but we would use

shy to describe someone’s personality

she is shy or he is shy nervous is

temporary hopefully

speaking in public makes me nervous

excited

excited is an adjective that we use to

talk about feelings of happiness or

feelings of enthusiasm

again this is an adjective we use to

talk about a temporary situation so we

use excited to talk about something

maybe we are looking forward to

the young scientist was excited

embarrassed

embarrassed is an adjective we use to

describe our feelings after something

usually

unpleasant happens to us we’ve made a

mistake in front of many people for

example and we want to describe that

feeling of shame we can use embarrassed

to do that

my face turns red when i’m embarrassed

my face turns red when i am embarrassed

country

kuntri

the word country has a few different

uses so you probably know about country

as in the place where you were born you

know there are many different countries

in the world

this use of country however refers to a

place outside the city you might know

the word countryside to refer to some

place out in nature we often use country

to make that word a little shorter in

everyday conversation

they have a big house in the country

village

a village is like a very very small town

there are not so many people and not so

many buildings it’s a very small

community of people

my grandfather lives in a small village

town

a town is a little bit larger than a

village there are more people maybe

there are more stores restaurants

perhaps more activities more things to

excuse me where is the nearest town

excuse me

where is the nearest town

suburb

sub

herb

a suburb is an area just outside a big

city so if you imagine a big city as

being at the core of a circle the suburb

area is the area a little bit outside of

that core city area so the suburbs are

generally considered good places to

raise families because you have access

to the big city but there’s a little

more nature and they’re generally safer

places

i moved to the suburbs last year

i moved to the suburbs last

year room

room

so a room is a space inside a house or

an apartment or other kind of living

situation we usually use the word room

to talk about the place where you sleep

you may also see room at the end of

other words to talk about the function

of that room like living room or dining

room or bathroom

my room is small

burn

a burn is a type of injury when we have

a burn it’s usually very very painful

kind of stings a little bit it turns red

and it can hurt to touch a burn is

caused by something very hot like fire

or perhaps touching a hot stove

my burn hurts a lot

chest

chest is a very well-known board game

it’s played between two people each

player has a lot of pieces and the goal

of the game is to use your pieces to

move into a position so that you’re

ready to take your opponent’s king

chess is a game of strategy and

concentration

chess is a game of strategy and

concentration

chess is a game of strategy and

concentration

language

language refers to vocabulary words

grammar rules idioms and so on all of

the things that work together that allow

you to communicate with another person

think in the language you want to learn

blow dry

so to blow dry refers to using a drying

machine of some kind usually for hair

to cause something to become dry

i blow dry my hair every

morning i blow dry my hair every morning

i blow dry my hair every morning

martial arts

martial

arts

martial arts refers to methods of combat

so fighting with other people and

self-defense so protecting yourself from

attackers

in today’s world they can be used for

fighting and for self-defense but they

are widely commonly practiced as sports

do you like martial arts

satisfied

satisfied is used to talk about being

happy with the outcome of something you

can use this after a meal after

purchasing a product after you have some

kind of experience you can describe a

pleasant reaction to the experience with

satisfied

i’m satisfied with the result

calm

calm is an adjective we can use to talk

about people and that we can use to talk

about environments like the weather or

nature so when something is calm or when

a person is calm it is undisturbed so

someone who is calm doesn’t get angry or

upset easily when we want to describe an

environment that is calm it’s the same

idea so it’s not turbulent there are not

lots of waves or not lots of wind

everything is very still

the ocean is calm

comb

comb can be used as a noun or as a verb

as a verb it means the action of using a

comb to remove something from hair or to

straighten hair

i comb my dog every day

gargle

gar gull

so gargle this is a verb we use it to

describe the health practice of taking

water or another liquid into your mouth

and kind of using your throat muscles to

mix that around in your mouth maybe to

clear out bacteria or to clear out germs

so typically we do not swallow or take

that liquid into our body we usually

spit it out this is called gargling

i gargle several times a day

gargle several times a day

dissatisfied

dissatisfied is used to describe an

unhappy feeling at the outcome of

something so after a meal that’s not

good or if we buy a product that’s not

very good we can describe our feelings

our unhappy feelings with the word

dissatisfied

the man is dissatisfied with the product

the man is dissatisfied

with the product

five thousand

five

thousand

five thousand refers to five thousands

of something remember when you use the

word thousand as a counter word simply

put the basic form of the number before

the word thousand you don’t need to make

any changes to that number word

five thousand people were protesting on

the square

five thousand people were protesting on

the square

five thousand people were protesting on

the square

three thousand

three

thousand

so three thousand refers to three

thousands of something again before

using the word thousand simply use the

basic number word

in peru more than three thousand types

of potatoes exist

in peru more than three thousand types

of potatoes exist

in peru

more than three thousand types of

potatoes exist

six thousand

six

thousand

six thousand refers to six one thousands

of something

there are around six thousand islands in

greece

there are around six thousand islands in

greece

there are around six thousand islands in

greece

seven thousand

seven thousand refers to seven one

thousands of something

she sold seven thousand albums

nine thousand

nine

thousand

nine thousand refers to nine one

thousands of something

nine thousand troops withdrew from the

country

nine thousand troops withdrew from the

country

nine thousand troops withdrew from the

country

rose

a rose is a very common and very popular

flower it’s very commonly associated

with romance it’s given as a romantic

gift or sometimes just as a friendly

gift

i was given a white rose

i was

given a white

rose

flower

a flower is a plant that has a generally

very colorful and often good smelling

part many people like to pick flowers

and give them as gifts to others

there are many types of flowers in the

park

there are many types of flowers in the

park there are many types of flowers in

the park

lily

a lily is one type of flower generally

lilies are white they might look very

very pure and have kind of a peaceful

appearance about them

she bought some lilies on her way home

sunflower

sunflower sunflower

a sunflower is a very bright flower it’s

generally yellow or orange and many

people think of sunflowers as being very

cheerful

the field is full of sunflowers

dandelion

a dandelion is a small bright yellow

flower lots of people think of this as

kind of a nuisance as a pest flower

because it’s very very easy for a

dandelion to grow anywhere lots of

people like to blow on dandelions and

make wishes as they do

dandelions are eaten in soups and salads

in some places

dandelions are eaten in soups and salads

in some places

dandelions are eaten in soups and salads

in some places

traveling traveling

traveling

traveling simply means moving from one

place to another when we talk about

traveling we sometimes are talking about

traveling for business going someplace

for business though we can also use it

to talk about vacation for fun

traveling requires a lot of preparation

exercising

exercising refers to moving the body

like running or jogging or doing yoga we

do some kind of physical motion to

improve our health or to keep our body

in good shape

the woman is exercising on the floor

workout

work

out

so a workout refers to an exercise

routine like your exercise plan for a

day or a session or a month for example

a 30-minute workout every day can

improve your health

a 30-minute workout every day can

improve your health

a 30-minute workout every day can

improve your health

reading

re-ding

reading is the simple act of looking at

words on a page and taking them into

your mind so reading is a very very

common hobby many people love reading

whether it’s books or newspapers or

magazines

i really like reading books

playing cards

playing cards used as a noun refers to

what’s called a deck of cards where we

have numbers from ace through two to ten

included and then we have a jack a queen

and a king so a set of these is called

playing cards those are called playing

cards when we use these to play a game

we use the expression to play cards for

example we often play cards on a warm

summer evening

we often play cards on a warm summer

evening

often play cards on a warm summer

evening

earring

ear ring

an earring is a type of jewelry we wear

earrings in our ears many people have

places for earrings at the base of their

ears though you can also wear them up at

the top of the ear a good way to

remember earring is to break the word

into two parts ear and ring this can

help you to remember it’s a ring though

not always in a ring shape that goes in

your ear

big earrings are fashionable

necklace

neck

less

a necklace is another type of jewelry we

wear a necklace around our neck so again

we can break this word into two parts to

help us remember the word neck is the

first part and lace is the second part

so today although we don’t usually wear

lace around our neck as jewelry it’s

still a type of decoration so this can

help us to connect the meaning with the

word in our mind

how much is that diamond necklace

how much is that

diamond necklace

ring

a ring is a type of jewelry that we wear

on the finger men and women wear rings

very very commonly

the jeweler showed me a beautiful ring

boxer shorts

boxer

shorts

boxer shorts are a very common type of

underwear typically men wear them but

really anybody can wear them if they

decide to

boxer shorts are an undergarment for men

skirt

a skirt is a type of clothing we wear

skirts from the waist down they can be

very short skirts or very long skirts

many women like to wear skirts but these

days anyone can wear whatever they like

she is wearing a yellow skirt

hamburger

a hamburger is a very very popular type

of food a hamburger in the most basic

sense of the word is a patty so a piece

of meat usually made of beef though

sometimes of pork

and it is between two pieces of bread

this is a hamburger

i have just ordered a hamburger

cheeseburger

a cheeseburger is just like a hamburger

so a hamburger is a piece of grilled

meat and it’s between two pieces of

bread a cheeseburger is different

because we put cheese on top of the meat

between the pieces of bread

a cheeseburger is a hamburger with a

slice of cheese

a cheeseburger is a hamburger with a

slice of cheese

cheeseburger is a hamburger with a slice

of cheese

pizza

pizza is a very common and very popular

food all around the world pizza very

simply is a large piece of bread that we

call crust it’s very very thin bread and

there’s typically a sauce on top in

addition to meats cheeses vegetables

whatever you like

pizza is an italian dish but it is a

popular dish around the world

pizza is an italian dish but it is a

popular dish around the world

pizza is an italian dish but it is a

popular dish around the world

hot dog

hot

dog

a hot dog is a food that’s very commonly

eaten at sporting events in the usa and

in other countries as well a hot dog is

a piece of meat usually a type of pork

that is quite long and it’s inside two

pieces of bread usually as toppings we

have mustard or ketchup or maybe other

things as well

i prefer hot dogs at a bbq

i prefer

hot dogs at a bbq

tip

a tip is something that you might not

have in your country it’s like an extra

amount we pay after a service situation

so typically when you go to a cafe or to

a restaurant in the usa or in some other

countries after your meal after you have

your experience there it’s common to

leave what’s called a tip so it’s extra

money that you give to the server at

that place to thank them for their

service

do not forget to leave a tip for the

waiter or waitress

do not forget to leave a tip for the

waiter or waitress

do not forget to leave a tip for the

waiter or waitress

hey everyone

welcome to the monthly review the

monthly show on language learning

[Music]

where you discover new learning

strategies motivational tips study tools

and resources

by the way all the lessons and bonuses

you’re about to see can be downloaded

for free on our website

so click the link in the description

right now to sign up for your free

lifetime account okay today’s topic is

how to boost your motivation and learn

more by adding others to the mix

if you’re learning a language all by

yourself then you should know that

there’s a way to boost your chance of

success boost your motivation your

progress it’s simply by including other

people in your language learning journey

and in today’s episode you’ll discover

one how adding a human dynamic boosts

your motivation and two how you can

apply this tactic to your language

learning

[Music]

but first here are this month’s new

lessons and resources be sure to

download these now before we take them

down in a few days first the making

movies conversation cheat sheet with

this new cheat sheet you’ll learn words

like actor screenwriter director and

much more download it for free on the

inside

second the 400 everyday phrases for

beginners ebook this bonus ebook will

teach you over 400 words and phrases

related to daily activities like waking

up making breakfast going to work or

school and more

third can you talk about fishing in your

target language learn how to say words

like fishing rod bait and fishing net

with this quick vocab bonus

fourth must know online shopping

vocabulary if you like shopping then

you’ll want to be able to talk about it

in your target language with this one

minute lesson you’ll learn must know

words like sale add to cart and much

to get your free resources click the

link in the description below right now

they’re yours to keep forever okay let’s

jump into today’s topic

how to boost your motivation and learn

more by adding others to the mix

part one how adding a human dynamic

boosts your motivation

so first here’s a question for you how

do you think most people start learning

a language leave a comment

most people start learning by themselves

they’ll either watch youtube videos like

this download an app or if they’re a

little more serious by a textbook

but after the first week or month most

self-learners also end up falling off

because of a lack of motivation it’s

pretty hard to motivate yourself and

keep yourself going it’s hard because

you have to one rely on yourself to

motivate yourself two do the learning

and three do the practice all of this is

a lot of work for one person

sure there’s a small group of super

self-motivated people out there that can

do it and stick with it but that’s not

the case for most of us

so then if you want to boost your

motivation and not have to rely on

yourself that’s where you should start

getting other people involved in your

language learning journey just picture a

graph where on the y-axis you have

motivation and on the x-axis you have

the chance of success so first you have

self-study and that’s probably closest

to lower motivation and probably a low

chance of succeeding as you move further

to the right where you start involving

tutors or joining group classes the

higher your motivation and chance of

success becomes

does this mean motivation is lowest when

you’re on your own yes and no there are

people who are very motivated on their

own but motivation tends to come and go

for many of us and the last thing you

want to do is rely on a feeling that may

not always be there but when you start

including more personal connections live

interactions maybe someone you speak

with at a cafe you have more reasons and

more pressure to keep on going for

example if you have a tutor that expects

you to do homework and come prepared

next time if you have a language partner

whom you want to impress

or if you’re in a language class you

want to be better than other students

the point is the more people you involve

the more anchor points and commitments

you have to the language and these boost

your motivation

in psychology this is called social

facilitation or the audience effect when

you’re with other people or when you

think someone is watching you you put a

little pressure on yourself and for many

people this can have a positive result

but if you’re on your own you wouldn’t

try so hard

so just to recap a lot of us start

learning on our own and in the case of

language learning there will always be

self-study involved but if you want to

take it to the next level then you

should follow that graph

the only issue is the more you go up

that graph the more expensive it gets

it’s very affordable to learn on your

own once you start involving others such

as a teacher it starts getting expensive

so it’s up to you as the learner here so

if you’re interested in adding a human

dynamic what can you do

part two how you can apply this to your

language learning

one give our premium plus plan a try and

get access to your own teacher you also

get weekly assignments from your teacher

which adds a nice layer of

accountability to your learning

two enroll in an online class and this

is something we started offering for a

few of our major languages japanese

english chinese italian korean french

and spanish

three get an online or in-person tutor

now teachers and classes can be pricey

but there are other ways to learn with

others

four get a study buddy or join a

learning community learning and

competing with others will definitely

have a positive impact on your

motivation and language progress

five simply talk with others about your

language goals and your current progress

when you’re surrounded by people talking

about how much they’ve learned or what

goals they hit or miss you’ll be more

inspired to hit your own goals

track your progress and share it on

your social media for others to see for

example if you keep a daily planner

write in i did three lessons today or

spend 30 minutes on learning a language

and share that

once you start involving more people in

your language journey whether for

learning or for practice adding that

extra human element will boost your

productivity and motivation and help you

reach your language goals

so thank you for watching this episode

of monthly review

next time we’ll talk about how to learn

a new language in the new year

if you enjoyed these tips hit the like

button

share the video with anyone who’s trying

to learn a language and subscribe to our

channel we release new videos every week

and if you’re ready to finally learn

language the fast fun and easy way and

start speaking from your very first

lesson get our complete learning program

right now click the link in the

description see you next time bye

since you’re learning the language and

coming across new words all the time do

you have trouble remembering new words

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answer to confirm the meaning then mark

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you can study with three modes

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choose one two or all three modes of

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you can create flashcard decks from key

phrases presented in lessons

the 2000 core word list

words saved in your word bank and our

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want to see how many words and phrases

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visit my stats for your daily weekly and

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so take advantage of the smart flash

cards right now

the top 100 must know words deck is

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you don’t yet have access sign up for a

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if you want to learn your target

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if you’re wondering which plan to choose

then today you’ll discover how our

premium plan helps you master the

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special lessons that get you speaking

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but first if you don’t have access to

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just click the link in the description

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how does the premium plan help you learn

a language faster

one you get one simple learning pathway

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if you’ve always felt that language

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here’s a small taste of what you can do

you can

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