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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you

ask me questions and i answer them maybe

first question this week comes from

manuel carlos hi manuel manuel says hi

there

when it comes to inversions in formal

english to give

emphasis i have two questions first i

talked to an american english native

speaker about it and was told these

structures are no longer used they were

used back in the 1920s

what do you think second in one of my

books it says that we can also use

once in a while and very often at the

beginning of the sentences for emphasis

the point is that these two expressions

are not listed in other books or video

classes

what are your thoughts some examples

very often does she come here

very often do they arrive late once in a

while does he wash his car

once in a while do i drink alcohol thank

you very much

interesting question inversion is still

used today though as you’ve said it’s

used more in like formal situations

or it’s used in like poetic kinds of

writing

so situations where having control

over the rhythm and the feel of a

sentence is really strongly desired

so inversion it is still used today

but a key point and this is in regard to

the second

part of your question a key point though

is

to note that when we when we make

sentences that use this inversion

pattern

we’re using negative adverbs and

negative adverbial phrases

at the beginning so perhaps this is what

you’ve seen in other textbooks and in

other videos

and this is what makes me think that

your examples or the sentences that you

provided are not

so natural this is because very often

and once in a while are not negative

adverbial expressions

so to make them negative you could say

not very often like not very often does

she

wash her car or whatever so but that’s

not really something that i feel is so

natural we wouldn’t really say that the

other example that you provided once in

a while

we could make that one negative by

adding only

like only once in a while do i drink

alcohol

so that’s something that i feel might

actually be said

only once in a while do i that sounds

like a more natural pattern

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

not very often pattern

would so often be used as like in in

kind of like these

inversion type sentences so to answer

your question

uh yes they are still used in some in

certain situations

yes perhaps not so much in everyday

conversation at least not in american

english you

maybe could hear it a little bit more in

british english i suppose

um and also the focus generally is on

using

negative adverbs and negative adverbial

phrases at the beginning of those

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for this interesting question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from nuria garayeva hello nuria

maria says hello alicia can you explain

the difference

between which and that sure i have

talked about this topic many times but

not very recently

so let’s refresh ourselves the

short answer is that the difference

between that and

which is that that is used for

restrictive clauses and which is used

for

non-restrictive clauses so what’s a

restrictive clause what’s a

non-restrictive clause

a restrictive clause is a clause in a

sentence

that gives us essential information

about a noun we

need that information about the noun in

order to understand the noun completely

a non-restrictive clause is a clause in

a sentence

that gives us extra or like bonus

information about the noun

if we don’t have that clause we can

still understand the noun

so there may be different words that are

used for restrictive or non-restrictive

like descriptive or non-descriptive

clauses but they’re talking about the

same things

so let’s take a look at an example of a

restrictive clause and a non-restrictive

clause

the phone that i bought at the apple

store works perfectly

this phone which i bought at the apple

store works

perfectly okay so these two sentences

they have

essentially the same information so why

am i

saying one is a restrictive clause and

why is one a non-restrictive clause

so in this case we understand easily i’m

talking about this phone

yes like we know in both cases it’s this

phone

but where restrictive clauses become

important

is in cases where for example we have

many phones let’s imagine the speaker

has three phones

and the speaker needs to differentiate

the speaker needs to communicate

which phone he or she is talking about

in the conversation

we can use restrictive clauses to do

that so for example

the phone that i got at the apple store

works perfectly

the phone that i bought from a

secondhand shop is really slow

the phone that i receive from my company

is a little old

so in those sentences we’re using that

because we’re giving some specific

identifying information about each phone

so in a case like that where we’re

talking about three different

objects and we need to make the

differences very clear we would use a

restrictive clause

in cases where it’s not so important

like when we clearly know i mean this

phone right here

we can use which and a non-restrictive

clause to talk about the phone

so this is the basic difference between

that

and which of course native speakers

don’t always get this correct

unfortunately

so you may see people using the two

interchangeably

but that’s actually one very common way

of differentiating the two so if you

want to know more about this topic i

made a video about this

please check out the relative clauses

which or that

video on the english class 101 youtube

channel for some more examples

and for some more explanation i hope

that that helps you thanks for the

question

okay let’s go to your next question next

question comes from

nicole hi nicole nicole says let me know

whether you can use

if i were you i will sure

you cannot use this pattern if you want

to begin

your if conditional statement with if i

were you

you need to use something in your main

clause that reflects an

unreal or an untrue situation this is

because

if i were you is unreal it’s not true

i am not you that’s not real so our main

clause needs to match our

if clause our main clause needs to

include would

or wouldn’t to match the were in

the if clause so if i were you i would

or if i were you

i wouldn’t for example if i were you i

would take a vacation

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

so you cannot use

will in place of will please use would

or

wouldn’t i hope that that helps you

thanks for the question

okay let’s go to your next question next

question

comes from pandy hi pandy pandy says

authorization authentication what is the

difference

okay sure both are nouns uh

authorization

is the act of allowing someone to do

something authentication is the process

of proving that something or someone is

true

or real some examples i need management

authorization to enter the secret room

in the building

we finally got authorization to move

forward with a new product

the thief’s paperwork didn’t pass

authentication

unknown login detected user

authentication required

so the last example sentence there about

user authentication

is one that you might see online like if

someone tries to access your account or

maybe if you try to access your email

your social media account from like a

different place or something strange

happens with your account

you might be requested to do user

authentication which means proving that

you

are you which we usually do through like

checking an email address or phone

number or something similar

so authentication refers to checking to

see if something is true

authorization refers to the act or the

process of allowing

someone to do something so i hope that

that helps you

thanks very much for the question okay

on to our next question

next question comes from silas

fast hi silas silas says hi alicia how’s

it going

good uh my question is about the

structure

2b 2 in the following sentences

the queen is to visit canada you are to

wear

formal clothing to the white house

dinner you are not to leave the room

could you explain how it works yeah nice

question we use this

to be plus the infinitive form of a verb

when we’re talking about like

official rules or we’re talking about

like an official

schedule so this is not something that

we use so much in everyday conversation

in american english

it’s usually in a formal situation like

when we’re taking a test

or we’re talking about an official

schedule or we’re talking about official

rules like in an examination situation

or maybe a

like a big organization when we want to

make a negative rule too

we place not before the verb

so some more examples of this students

are not

to exit the room until the exam has

finished

guests are to leave their shoes at the

door

employees are to check in when they

begin work

so i hope that this helps you this

structure is for formal or official

rules and schedules

thanks very much for the question okay

that is everything that i have for this

week

thanks as always for sending your

questions and remember you can send them

to me at englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you like

this week’s lesson don’t forget to give

it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you haven’t

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

week’s episode of ask alicia and i will

see you again

next week 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 aisha abdullah hi

aisha

aisha says hi alicia can you please talk

about

how and where to use apostrophes

which of these options is correct okay

so

take a look at the three examples that

are on this screen

and note the places where the

apostrophes are

in each of these so i’ll talk about this

the sentence is the two buildings doors

and windows okay sure so we can use

apostrophes to show possession

and to show the reduced forms of words

like it’s

or can’t and so on so those are the two

ways that we use apostrophes

in this explanation i’m going to focus

on using apostrophes

for possessives so actually to address

your question about which example

sentence is correct none of those

examples

are correct the correct use of an

apostrophe in this sentence would be

just an apostrophe after the s

in buildings so the two buildings

apostrophe doors and windows that’s the

only place that we need an apostrophe

this is because the doors and windows in

the sentence kind of

belong to the two buildings so the two

buildings are the subject

so we don’t need to use like an

apostrophe we don’t need to use some

kind of

a possessive marker after doors and

windows

because we’re not showing that the doors

or the windows are like the owners of

something

actually here the buildings are like the

owners so

we mark the possession with an

apostrophe to go a little bit deeper

into why this is

when we have a word that ends in s

we use an apostrophe but we do not add

another

s to the word please note though we do

not

ever use apostrophes to make nouns

plural

as a general guide then when you are

using a noun that

ends in an s simply add an apostrophe

after the s to show possession if the

noun does not end in an s

add apostrophe s to show possession so

let’s look at a couple examples

of nouns that end in s in the singular

and in the plural form

for example the dress’s color that’s

singular

and the dress’s colors plural

the car’s lights so you can see

that even though the singular form and

the plural form

have the same pronunciation by that i

mean like the dress’s color

and the dress’s colors we understand

that

one is plural because the following word

is plural so in the first example

sentence there

the dresses color so the dress ends in

s yes and we show possession with an

apostrophe after the s

and then a singular color so that shows

us it’s one color

one dress in the second example though

the dresses

colors so dresses is plural

in speech they sound the same but plural

dresses is followed by an apostrophe to

show possession

and then we follow that with colors in

the plural also

so this shows us that it’s not just one

dress and we can hear that

also in speech so it shows us it’s not

just one dress it’s two dresses or more

and we know that because more than one

color is described there

so we can generally guess these sorts of

things from context

but again this is for nouns that end in

s whether they’re plural or singular

let’s compare this then to nouns that do

not end in s

when a noun does not end in s we simply

add apostrophe s to show possession

some examples the children’s books

the team’s work our hotel’s staff

so these all end in apostrophe s because

the noun itself does not end in s so

this is the general rule

for using apostrophes to show possession

so please do remember we do not use

apostrophes

to show plural forms of words i hope

that this helps you

thanks very much for the question okay

let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from amar ismail

hello amar

amar says hey alicia what does beat the

wrap mean

and how can i use it okay cool so to

beat the rap

means to escape from punishment and it’s

usually

punishment that you deserve so it’s like

you did something wrong

you should be punished but you escape

somehow

so this is an interesting expression i

found some

history some information about this

expression and this

rap means like legal punishment or like

the punishment that is official

for you and rap this meaning of rap or

this use of rap

comes from or it can come from the

expression to wrap someone’s knuckles

so the knuckles are this part of your

hand

uh so this part of your finger really

the places where like your

fingers can bend those are called your

knuckles so a

common punishment a long time ago for

school children

was to wrap kids knuckles

as a punishment for bad behavior so to

wrap something

means to hit or like strike in a strong

way like quickly

sharply so this is the verb form of

rap but because of that to rap became

associated with

punishment therefore to beat the rap

means to like conquer to overcome some

kind of punishment

so to beat the rap means to get away

with something in other words or to find

a way

to escape the punishment that’s due to

you so in an example sentence you could

say something like

i came home late and my mom was really

mad but i beat the rap by telling her

that i had to take a friend home

or he made a huge mistake at work but he

beat the rap by blaming it on computer

problems

so to beat the wrap means like to escape

somehow from punishment that you are

probably supposed to receive you’re

probably supposed to get that

you might also hear a similar expression

which is take

the rap take the rap so again rap refers

to punishment

but to take the wrap means to take the

punishment

that should be for somebody else so you

didn’t do anything wrong somebody else

did but you decide to like take their

punishment instead

so you might hear that expression used

to so another point to mention is that

this is not

such a common phrase these days you

might hear

like take the hit to mean take someone

else’s punishment

but we don’t really use this expression

so much in everyday speech at least in

american english these days but if you

encounter this in like a movie or in a

book maybe

that’s what it means so i hope that this

is helpful for you thanks very much for

the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

is from hector hi hector hector says hi

alicia

i want to know how to refer to a person

who asks a lot of questions

i think it’s something like inquire or

curious but i’m not sure

for example in a job interview how do i

explain that i consider myself a person

who likes to ask

questions if something is not clear for

me okay yeah i think in this case maybe

the best word would be

inquisitive inquisitive so inquisitive

is an adjective

it means someone who likes to ask a lot

of questions someone who naturally asks

lots of questions about things

curious is similar yes curious sounds

like you’re naturally interested in

learning things like maybe you want to

look and see

lots of different things but it doesn’t

only mean

like wanting to ask questions

inquisitive

has this feeling of like really asking

questions and trying to learn

things so my kind of impression of an

inquisitive person

is generally positive maybe someone

who’s kind of smart

and interested in learning things it’s

pretty good

but if you ask a lot of questions

especially personal questions

you can be perceived as nosy so

nosy is another adjective which refers

to someone who likes to ask questions

yes

but they’re generally too personal it’s

too much it’s like someone who likes to

gossip about other people’s lives

so there’s kind of a fine line like a

close they’re a bit close inquisitive

and nosy so inquisitive is generally a

good

thing but you don’t want to be nosy so

in this case i would say inquisitive

however as you mentioned in your example

if you want to talk about liking to ask

lots of questions

in order to make something clear that is

not how we would use

inquisitive we use inquisitive to talk

about somebody who

naturally wants to learn about things

and asks

questions like just because they want to

learn

not because something is unclear like

it has the feeling of something that a

person does from like

internal motivation they just want to

know things

they’re not trying to like fix a mistake

or try to understand something that is

difficult for them at work so we

wouldn’t really use

inquisitive in that case instead we

would probably use an expression exactly

like the one that you presented

you would say something like i’m the

kind of person that prefers to ask lots

of questions

if something is not clear to me so

that’s a very natural response

if you want to express that you are

inquisitive like you naturally like to

ask questions you can say that too

though i’m an inquisitive person

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from alexander hi alexander

alexander says hi alicia my name is

alexander or alex and i’m from brazil

i was studying collocations and

yesterday when i was studying about

coffee i found three words that i have

never seen before

one percolated two lukewarm and three

tepid i would like to know if these

words are common in everyday speech

i’ve been in dublin for one year and

i’ve not heard them so far

thanks okay great interesting question

first let’s talk about the word

collocation so everybody can understand

what this means

a collocation is a word that is commonly

used with another word

so for example with this word coffee a

common collocation of coffee

is cup so cup and coffee often go

together because of the expression

coffee cup for example

so we can also use this as a verb to

collocate so when we want to use it as a

verb we could say

the word cup collocates with coffee

so that refers to two words or maybe

more

that are often used together studying

collocations can be really helpful

because you can see

which words are commonly used together

and it can help you to make more natural

word choices

so now that we know what collocations

are let’s take a look at these examples

the first word was

percolated in this case you have it in

the past tense verb form

so two percolate means to cause

a liquid to pass through another

substance that is not

a liquid to pass through a permeable

substance

so a permeable substance is a substance

it’s not solid

so we can pass liquid through it or like

sunlight can come through a window a

window can be permeable

so things can pass through this

substance

so like soil like dirt is a permeable

substance or coffee grounds are a

permeable

thing so permeable substances

are kind of the key point for this word

liquid passes through those

so percolate on the other hand is

actually like a very scientific word

so we don’t use it so much in everyday

speech to talk about making coffee

when we want to talk about coffee we say

i’m going to make coffee we don’t

generally say

i’m going to percolate water through the

coffee grounds it sounds very

scientific and very stiff and we don’t

generally say this

but you might encounter it if you are

reading some information

about like expensive coffee beans or if

you are learning about

a very like expensive coffee shop and

they want to share

information like the detailed process of

how they make their coffee

you might see it in that way but

generally percolate is

not so common in everyday speech so i

hope that answers that one

the second though uh and the third for

that matter were

lukewarm and tepid lukewarm and tepid

mean the same thing

so they both mean just sort of warm like

it’s kind of like room temperature or a

little bit cooler

than body temperature so lukewarm and

tepid are both used to refer to the

temperature

of coffee so most people want coffee

hot or cold lukewarm coffee is generally

not a good thing so we could say uh i

hate drinking lukewarm coffee

or this coffee is tepid so

that means that it’s not at a good

temperature it’s like this room

temperature coffee

so lukewarm and tepid are more commonly

used in speech than percolate for me

personally i tend to use lukewarm a lot

more than tepid but other people might

prefer to use tepid more

those two words are fairly commonly used

percolate is not as commonly used but

you might see it from time to time

so i hope that this helps you and good

luck with your continued studies of

collocations

okay let’s move on to our next question

next question for this week

comes from sanju hi again sanju

sanju says hi alicia how are you i’ve

been watching your videos for a long

time

my question is what is the difference

between no longer

and any longer okay nice question the

meaning of these expressions is the same

it’s totally the same we use it to refer

to something that

was true up until this point and into

the future

will not be true so the difference is

actually just in

how we make the sentence there are a

couple of changes that we need to think

about

in the structure of our sentences when

we use these so let’s take a look at two

example sentences

first we will no longer offer free lunch

for staff

we will not offer free lunch for staff

any longer

okay so in the first example sentence

you can see that

no longer comes before the verb in this

case the verb is offer

so when we want to use no longer we

typically place it before the verb in

the sentence

you may hear no longer coming at the end

of a sentence especially

in short sentences but that kind of

sounds old-fashioned so

these days we tend to use it in front of

the verb so

we will no longer offer free lunch for

staff

on the other hand when we use any longer

we need to put it at the end of the

sentence

and we put a negative we need to put not

before the verb earlier in the sentence

so

we will not offer free lunch for staff

any longer

so these are the differences in terms of

the structure

of the sentences that we need to think

about one more like additional point

if you want to use any more follow the

same pattern as any longer they mean the

same thing

so let’s take a look at one more pair of

examples

i can no longer wait or i can wait no

longer

and i can’t wait any longer

so we follow the same pattern here in

the first example which uses no longer

we put that before the verb i can no

longer

wait and i gave the example of no longer

at the end of the sentence too but this

sounds rather old-fashioned and kind of

too polite

the second one however you might notice

instead of using

not wait i’ve made can into can’t so i

can’t wait any longer

this is because it sounds more natural

so the original sentence could be i can

not wait any longer but we can combine

can and not into can’t and that sounds

much more natural so

i can’t wait any longer so they have the

same meanings yes

it’s just a difference in terms of how

you build the sentences with these words

so

thanks very much for an interesting

question and i hope that that helped you

thanks very much

okay that is everything that i have for

this week thank you as always for

sending your questions

remember to send them to me at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you liked

this week’s lesson please don’t forget

to give it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you haven’t

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 week’s episode of ask

alicia and i will see you again

next week bye bye hi everybody welcome

back to ask alicia the weekly series

where you ask me questions and i answer

them

maybe first question this week comes

from

sadaf yasmin hi sadaf sadaf says hi

alicia i have two questions

first what does ain’t mean and how do

you use it

i’ve seen this word in lyrics like ain’t

nobody who makes me feel this way

my second question what does the phrase

wide awake mean

i read it in the sentence lying here

wide awake

on my own now i couldn’t completely

understand it okay

first let’s talk about ain’t nice

question

ain’t is a really interesting word

because it can mean a lot of things

it can mean is not are not

am not have not and has not it can mean

all of those things and ain’t is also

considered a very casual kind of rough

in some cases

cool word and it really depends on the

person who uses it

so for example in the u.s the images

that we have that are associated with

the word ain’t

are like maybe country western like

musicians or maybe like cowboys

they might use the word ain’t to sound

kind of casual or rough and cool

you might also hear ain’t used in other

music like pop music or rap or r and b

again

the feeling of ain’t is kind of casual

it’s kind of rough it’s like tough maybe

sometimes as well too

so it really depends on the personality

of the person who’s using the word

ain’t is also special because we follow

the word

ain’t with a negative so as in your

example you said

ain’t nobody or another example

might be something like ain’t never done

this

thing so it feels actually very strange

for me to say that because i’m not the

type of person who would use the word

ain’t

but when we use ain’t we follow it with

a negative like ain’t

nobody so in your example ain’t nobody

who makes me feel this

way means there isn’t anybody who makes

me feel this way

so in many cases like with your example

here we

follow ain’t with a negative like ain’t

nobody or ain’t no

or ain’t nothing so this just means

isn’t or

are not whatever follows that but there

might be some cases where you don’t see

a negative after age like i ain’t having

that

or i ain’t buying that so that just

means the negative

i am not buying that or they are not

doing that

so again this really depends on the

person uh this really

depends maybe on the region as well too

so pay attention to the kinds of people

that you see and hear using this word

and maybe you can kind of understand

uh the times at which it might be

appropriate to use it

and whether or not it’s good for you to

use the word to as i mentioned i

personally don’t use this word

but this is how we use it in american

english anyway

regarding your second question about the

expression wide awake

to be wide awake means to be awake but

we use it at a time when we are usually

asleep

so for example maybe at like two in the

morning most people

are asleep usually but if you are wide

awake it’s like you’re awake

and you cannot close your eyes and go to

sleep

so it might be helpful to think of your

eyes like your eyes themselves as being

wide

open like you cannot close your eyes you

are wide

awake so you can’t go to sleep usually

we use this expression at a time

uh when we should be asleep so for

example

i woke up at 2 am i was wide awake for

hours

or when i got up to use the bathroom i

saw my dog was wide awake it was weird

so wide awake is used in this way to

talk about

being awake at kind of a strange time i

hope that this helps you

thanks for the questions okay let’s move

on to your next question

next question comes from rubo hi roubo

rubo says hi alicia what is the

difference between

scrape and scratch ah

good question generally well in many

cases they do have the same meaning

but for scrape we use scrape usually

with

non-living things and we use scrape when

we’re talking about

taking a very heavy or a very sharp

object across a surface we often use

scrape when we’re talking about trying

to remove

something that is difficult to remove

so for example oh no i scraped

my car on the gate or i scraped the

paint off the wall with a knife

so it’s like there’s some kind of heavy

or sharp object

moving across another surface oftentimes

with the intent or with the plan to

remove something

else scratch on the other hand is

something that we use

much more commonly with living things so

with people or with animals

we use scratch usually when we’re

talking about like using a

sharp part of our body like uh nails or

claws or maybe even

teeth we talk about using something

sharp

and dragging that across a surface so

for example i might say like ouch i

scratched my arm

or be careful my cat might scratch you

so scratch is typically used with humans

with living things

and scrape is usually used to talk about

like maybe machines

or other very heavy and sharp objects

being pulled or dragged across a surface

so i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from

saith aldine hi saif saif says hi alicia

can you explain

why we use out and in or up

like when someone says i go up to the

door and i open it

if it were me i would say i go to the

door

and i open it what is the difference

between the two sentences

thanks yes super great question we often

use

up along with bodily motion like

physical motion related verbs

to mean we did that action up until a

point so we went

to that thing or we moved to that thing

and stopped

so verbs that we use this with commonly

are like

walk run open close

go as well so we use up after these

to mark the point at which that action

stopped you might also hear

over used with this so as in your

example

i walked up to the door and opened it or

i went up to the door and opened it

means i moved until the point

of the door and then i opened it so it

shows the point at which

an activity or an action stopped another

situation you might use that

is like talking to someone at your

office like i walked up to my boss

and asked if she had a moment another

example might be

my co-worker ran over to my desk to help

me

so using up and over in these ways

followed by

two marks the point at which some action

stopped so you can use up and over to do

this we don’t really use

down you might hear down used if you’re

talking about

traveling like i’m going down to this

city or i’m going down

to the post office you might hear that

used

but generally when we’re talking about

like these bodily these physical

activities

we’ll use up to mark the stopping point

so i hope that that helps you regarding

up

and over regarding in and out however

these follow the same rules as the

prepositions themselves follow so we

typically use these

when we’re talking about entering or

exiting a building

like or other location so for example he

walked

into the bank or they ran out of the

police station

so we can use these same verbs relating

to

bodily motions relating to movement and

when we use in and out with those

we’re talking about moving from one

location

to outside that location and the

opposite so from moving outside of a

location

to inside of the location so in and out

follows uh the prepositional rules so

i hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question all right

that is everything that i have for this

week thank you as always for sending

your questions

remember you can send them to me at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you like

this week’s episode please don’t forget

to hit the like button give it a thumbs

up and subscribe to our channel if you

have not already

thanks very much for watching this

week’s episode of ask alicia and i will

see you again

next week bye bye

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i answer them

maybe all right let’s get to your first

question

first question this week comes from

fabio hi fabio

fabio says hello alicia i would like to

know the meaning of the expression

every other day can i also say every

other week

every other year every other hour minute

thanks a lot

yep every other day refers to a schedule

of activities

in which you do one thing for one day

and then the next day you take it off

that you don’t do the activity the next

day the following day you do the

activity

then the next day you don’t do the

activity so it’s this one day on

one day off pattern we call this an

every other day

schedule so yes you can replace day in

this expression

with another time period so you could

say every other year

or every other hour every other minute

whatever it just means you do something

for

one unit of time so one year or one hour

or one minute

and then the following period of time

you do not do that thing

so yes you could use this to express

something like every other minute i’m

not sure what activity you need to talk

about and use every other minute to

describe it

but you could do it so every other day

is a very common way

to express this one day on one day off

pattern

i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question okay let’s move on to your

next

question next question comes from

clinton hi clinton

clinton says when i meet a person that

tries to speak a language with me that i

don’t understand

what should i say in english to respond

um

you can say i don’t speak that language

so you could say i don’t speak spanish

or i don’t speak dutch or i don’t speak

chinese you can just say something very

direct like that you don’t have to say

i’m sorry i suppose if you want to you

could but you don’t really have to

apologize in this situation

just be direct i don’t speak that

language you could

follow up this statement by saying

something like

do you speak english or do you speak

your native language

so if the person maybe needs help or if

you’re trying to communicate with that

person

you can try to find a solution try to

find a common language by asking

do you speak english or do you speak

spanish or whatever your native language

is

so again just to respond i don’t speak

that language

i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question okay let’s move on to

your next question next question is from

sanju hi sanju

sanju says hi alicia and team how are

you all

my question what is the difference

between dying

to and vying for and how do we use them

properly

okay we use dying to for things that we

want to do very very much so we’re like

exaggerating we’re making this

desire for something seem much stronger

than it is

we tend to use this in casual situations

for example i’m dying to watch that

movie

or we’ve been dying to go to that new

restaurant

so we’re expressing a strong desire for

something and it’s usually something

that’s kind of casual

kind of light vying for on the other

hand

is used in like competitive situations

so you might hear it in sports you might

hear it

in business you might hear it in

politics when two or more people

are trying to get the same result or the

same outcome we can express

that with vying for different from

dying to which is followed by a verb

vying for is followed by a noun

phrase so vying for noun phrase where

the noun phrase is the desired result

the desired outcome

so some examples of this might be the

two candidates were vying for the

mayor’s position

or all of the children were vying for

the teacher’s attention

so vying for something means actively

engaged in

trying to win something but that’s quite

a long expression so we say

vying for the base verb is to vi to vi

for something so this is the difference

between dying to which expresses a

strong desire for something

and vying for which also expresses a

desire to win something

but we talk about this along with the

desired

results the desired result not the

desired action 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

animal virg hello animal animal says

hung or hanged

snuck or sneaked yes this is a question

about the past

tense forms of verbs so the first one

hung or hanged

the verb in question here is the verb to

hang to hang so should we use hung or

should we use hanged for past tense

the answer in most cases is you should

use hung

for example he hung a picture on the

wall

or we hung our coats up in the closet

when you’re talking about this action of

putting something on a wall or putting

clothing on a hanger

please use hung the past tense hung

hanged on the other hand has a very

specific use we use

hanged when we’re talking about someone

who has been punished

with death by hanging so hanging is a

very specific type of

death penalty in which a rope is tied

around a person’s neck

and the rope is used to end the person’s

life

when we want to talk about this in past

tense we

use hanged as in the criminal was

hanged or hundreds of years ago many

people were hanged for crimes

so hanged is used in this specific case

in all other cases of the verb hang in

present tense

please use hung to refer to the past

form of the verb

so this is quite a clear distinction in

terms of meaning

please keep it in mind when you’re

speaking and when you’re writing too

regarding your other question about the

past tense form of the verb

sneak there are two forms and there are

two forms that remain today actually

initially originally this is according

to merriam-webster my favorite

dictionary

according to merriam-webster sneaked was

the original past tense

form of this verb but in the late 1800s

or so

snuck began being used so today we still

use both of them actually

snuck and sneaked some examples then

might be like

i snuck into the office late last night

or she sneaked around the neighborhood

so you can use both of them i personally

feel that i like snuck better that could

just be me

but whatever you choose please just be

consistent with it so i hope that this

helps you thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from

anathu shaji hi enough anathu says could

you please explain the differences

between

ever since and since then sure

while they have the same meaning the

structure of the sentence

changes depending on which one you use

so let’s take a look at a couple of

example sentences

i graduated college last year since then

i’ve worked in a tech company and ever

since i graduated college

i’ve worked in a tech company so these

sentences communicate the same idea

the speaker graduated college and since

that point in time

the speaker has worked at a tech company

so we can use both

since then and ever since to describe

that the difference

is that since then tends to follow a

past

tense statement in the first example

sentence it was i graduated college

last year so we have a simple path tense

statement there

since then refers to the point in time

that was described in the previous

sentence so in this case

last year since that point in time i

referred to in the previous sentence

so this is a common position for since

then

ever since however can take a couple

different positions in the sentence

in this example i’ve placed it before

the simple past tense action

ever since i graduated college so we can

place it before the action

you may also see ever since used in the

same position as

since then so for example i graduated

college ever since i’ve worked in a tech

company

though in these cases as you might have

noticed in this example

i’ve removed i’ve omitted the specific

point in time so instead of saying

i graduated college last year ever since

i’ve worked in a tech company

you might hear some people remove that

specific point in time it’s just kind of

the speaker’s preference i suppose but

ever since can take a lot of different

positions we don’t see

since then taking these different

positions so since then again refers to

a specific point in time that

then in since then means that point in

time i just referred to so we have to

have that

we don’t have that then in ever since so

that means we don’t have to refer to a

specific point in time and that’s why it

sounds kind of natural sometimes

not to use this paired together with a

specific point in time in your past

tense statement

you might hear people say ever since

then in which case yes you must include

a point in time in the past but this is

the difference it’s the positioning of

the expression in the sentence and the

relationship of the past tense statement

to the outcome so i hope that this helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay that is everything that i have for

you this week thank you as always for

sending your great questions

remember you can send them to me at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you like

this lesson please don’t forget to give

it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you haven’t

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

week’s episode of ask alicia 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

baby okay let’s get to your first

question this week

first question this week comes from

henry laurent

cossaci hello henry henry says i once

heard this conversation in a tv series

hey how much are we short b 18

30 cents my question is is the

expression

how much are we short commonly used in

spoken english to describe this kind of

situation

thanks love from indonesia yes great

question

to be short means to not have enough of

something

this is a very common expression in

american english anyway

and we use this short in many different

grammatical forms

so in a question how much are we short

means how much more

or how many more of this thing do we

need

in statements you might hear i’m three

dollars short

or he’s short by about 150 dollars

or we’re short a few chairs i’ll get

some from the other room

so you’ll notice that there’s a buy

after

short in example two here and he’s short

by

about 150 dollars you can choose to

include that if the number or if the

amount

comes after the word short if the number

comes before the word

short you should not include buy so i’m

three dollars short i’m 150 dollars

short

perfect if the number follows short he’s

short

by about 150 you can include it

but you do not have to as in the third

example sentence

we’re short of few chairs so we do not

have to include buy but we can

we’re short buy a few chairs is also

totally correct

so that’s up to you we can also use

short in this way to mean

not enough as a verb as in the bartender

shorted me on my drink

which means the bartender did not pour

enough

liquid into my drink or i think the

cashier shorted me on my change which

means

i think the cashier did not give me

enough change

so you may also hear this used as a verb

in this way

so yes to answer your question again it

is a very common expression it’s very

useful

and it means to not have enough of

something and to recognize that

and to kind of make a question or a

statement

about what should have been provided or

what is still needed

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

let’s move on to your next question next

question comes from

nilo pena flor hello nilo

nilo says hi alicia i’m confused about

the word

compromise it has several meanings can

you please explain it and use it in some

sentences

sure i talked a little bit about the

difference between

compromise and agreement in a recent

episode of ask alicia

so let’s refresh there to begin a

compromise refers to an agreement

that you reach an agreement that you

make after changing your plans a little

bit

so side a and side b have different

ideas about something

they change their ideas slightly and

make an agreement

so that agreement is called a compromise

so it’s not

quite a’s idea not quite bee’s idea but

they kind of work together

to find a solution so that’s a

compromise that’s a noun

we can use this as a verb as well to

compromise

means to make an agreement after

changing both plans a little bit

where there might be some confusion

however is in the

other ways to use compromise as a verb

we use compromise as a verb to mean to

expose

or to reveal something that’s supposed

to be hidden or to reveal something that

is supposed to be secret

so you might have heard it used in this

way in like action films like james bond

movies or like mission impossible

movies you might hear a sentence like

for example

james bond has been compromised which

means

someone realized james bond the spy

was in a location and he was supposed to

be hidden

he was supposed to be like a secret

agent like no one is supposed to know

about him

but someone learns about him someone

exposes

james bond he’s no longer safe so

compromised

in that way refers to something or in

this case someone

being exposed or revealed that was

supposed to be confidential that was

supposed to be secret

we can also use compromise as a verb in

this way

to talk about communication this can be

like phone calls

paperwork official documents and so on

in an example sentence you might hear

something like

the president’s phone call was

compromised which means for example

someone who was not supposed to listen

to the phone call

heard information private information or

maybe

information inside the call was shared

to someone who was not supposed to have

the information

so was compromised or has been

compromised as in my james bond example

sentence you can see that this

verb is commonly used in the passive

form because we don’t

always know the recipient of the

information we don’t always know

the person who exposed something or

revealed something

so there is this meaning of compromise

as i said you will very commonly see

this

in a passive sentence structure when you

talk about making an agreement with

someone you’ll probably see it

more i would say in an active sentence

structure

as a noun then it’s kind of different so

to make a compromise you’ll usually see

it

in something like that to make a

compromise as part of that expression

so i hope that this gives you a good

introduction to the different ways that

we use compromise

especially this special meaning of

revealing or exposing something that is

secret

i hope that this helps you thanks for an

interesting question okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question

comes from kunduzai

i hope i said that right hello kundazai

kundazai says hi alicia

my question is about this statement is

it grammatical to say

i don’t feel like plus verb in the ing

form

how do we use it in the correct way in

what cases can i use it

thanks for your answer yes it is

grammatical to say

i don’t feel like verb in the ing form

totally grammatical totally natural

totally correct

you could say i don’t feel like watching

a movie or

i don’t feel like going out tonight or i

don’t feel like doing that right now

so this is a very casual expression

which means

i am not in the mood for that activity

we usually use it with at this time

or right now or tonight it sounds like

something you don’t want to do

now but maybe you want to do it in the

future like i don’t feel like watching a

movie tonight

totally natural you should know however

that this is a very

casual expression we tend to use this

with very close friends or with family

members so people that we have a very

close relationship with

i would not recommend you use this at

work or in any other professional

situation

because it sounds like you have kind of

a low opinion of that activity like

i don’t feel like doing that right now

so it sounds like it’s kind of emotional

or feeling based decision so don’t use

this in professional situations but yes

you can absolutely use this expression

to talk about something you don’t want

to do

at a specific point in time usually so i

hope that this helps you

thanks for your question okay let’s move

on to our next question

next question comes from ahmed hello

ahmed ahmed said

adele said but it don’t matter why did

she say

don’t with it yeah in terms of standard

like correct

english this is grammatically incorrect

but

many singers like to use this kind of

technically

incorrect grammar to sound kind of cool

or to sound kind of rough

so yes the sentence in like standard

english

should be but it doesn’t matter

but for various reasons including like

sentence rhythm or

song rhythm in this case or also just to

sound kind of cool or rough

a singer or an artist might choose to

use on purpose

in correct grammar in this case but it

don’t matter

so if you want to sing along with the

song great you should use the same words

that adele uses

but if you’re speaking and you want to

express this idea make sure you use the

correct grammar but it doesn’t matter is

actually the correct way to say this so

i hope that this helps you

thanks for the question okay on to our

next question

next question comes from rachel hello

razel rassel

says hi alicia my question is what is

the difference between

race and ethnicity great question

for a very broad answer so for a very

general answer

you can think of race as related to

your biology so this is something that

you

cannot change your race is the stuff

that you’re born with essentially

so common things that we think about

with race relating to race or maybe the

color of a person’s skin

or the shapes of the features of their

face and so on so we

cannot change race ethnicity on the

other hand

is like your cultural identity so what

are like the traditions what are the

shared values

in your community the things that make

your community what it is

so to give an example of the difference

imagine you are

a person from india and you move to the

usa

with your family when you’re a baby so

you could say

my race is indian my ethnicity

is indian american so that’s the

difference here so your race is

something you cannot change

ethnicity may change over time for some

people

so this is a very general answer to this

question this is a very big discussion

as well too but a very interesting one

so thanks very much for this interesting

question

okay that is everything that i have for

this week thank you as always for

sending along your great questions

remember you can send them to me at

englishclass101.com

ask hyphen alicia of course if you like

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

week’s episode of ask alicia and i will

see you again

next week bye bye how are your english

listening skills

first you’ll see an image and hear a

question

next comes a short dialogue listen

carefully

and see if you can answer correctly

we’ll show you the answer at the end

a man and a woman are talking

when is the man painting

do you paint every day yep from 9 a.m

to 7 p.m nine to seven

ten hours every day well yeah

it’s my job

when is the man painting

a man and a woman are talking

when is the man painting do you paint

every day yep from 9am to 7pm

9-7 10 hours every day

well yeah it’s my job

did you get it right i hope you learned

something from this quiz

let us know if you have any questions

see you next time

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about some

english greetings and their responses

this lesson has been prepared to present

american english greetings let’s get

started okay

i first want to begin with the most

basic and most

casual greetings that we use i’ve marked

some of these with a star

like you’ll see here that means that

when you respond

to this greeting you can use the same

word you don’t need to worry about a

special response just use the same word

that you heard

the person use when they greet you so

these two the casual

friendly hey and hi are very common we

use these with friends

co-workers colleagues it’s fine to use

at any time of day

i included yo here as well yo is very

casual

probably don’t use this one at work but

you can use this with your friends your

close friends and your family members if

you like

yo so when someone says hey just say

hey or if someone uses hi just respond

with

hi hi sounds a little more stiff than

hey

hey sounds a little more relaxed a

little more friendly

yo is really relaxed super casual

you might hear young people use yo a lot

more than

older people the next expression here is

hello hello you can use hello to greet

people that you meet

face to face that’s fine but we usually

use

hello as the standard phone greeting

it’s used when we pick up the phone

hello and you can say my name is or

hello this

is or hello alicia speaking for example

you can use hello on the phone we tend

to use it mostly

on the phone uh it can be used it is

correct

to greet someone with hello in everyday

life

face to face but it might sound a little

less friendly than

hi or another greeting i’ll talk about

later

so hello is good for the phone usually

i would recommend using hello for the

phone

okay then let’s go to these three

questions we can respond to these three

questions with the same

response let’s read their questions

first first one

how are you how are you you’ll hear

native speakers reduce

this a lot this question is not clearly

pronounced as

how are you but we’ll say

how are you how are you it sounds

much shorter how are you instead of how

are you how are you

how are you the answer good you good

you this is the standard response

another question

how’s it going how’s it going how is

it going it means your life how is it

going how’s it going

how’s it going how’s your life in other

words good

you we can use the same response my life

is going good

everything is good so going means like

happening

how is your life happening how are

things in your life

another one how are you doing how are

you doing very similar to how

are you just a slight variation we added

doing here how are you doing just like

how are you is reduced to how are you we

can make this

how ya

how you doing so you’ll notice i use

this apostrophe mark apostrophe is this

dash here

so it makes a short sound i removed the

g in doing

how you doing how you doing how you

doing sounds more casual

and is much more commonly used and how

are you doing

how are you doing again the answer good

you

so i chose good here because this is the

most common response to these questions

you can say great you can say all right

you can say

not bad all of those are fine if you

give

a negative response for example if you

say

not so good or i feel sick

or i’m really tired or i’m upset you

should be prepared

to explain that it’s like you’re

starting a conversation

this is the standard response the other

person will probably say

good and then they’ll continue to the

next part of their conversation

so these are some listening points how

are you changes to how are you

and how are you doing changes to how you

doing

a little more natural a little more

friendly too

okay let’s continue to some time of day

greetings they are good morning good

afternoon and

good evening these tend to sound a

little bit more

formal than just hay or high or

other greetings i’ll talk about later so

good morning

used in the morning very commonly used

at work when you arrive

at the office and you see your

co-workers we use

good morning to say hello first thing in

the morning

good afternoon is a little more

commonly used in workplaces or

in perhaps in like client or customer

relationship situation

so for example if i’m teaching a lesson

and i see my students in the classroom i

come to the classroom

i say good afternoon to my students

because it’s sort of

there’s a little bit of distance there

good evening as well good evening would

begin

like a formal event we could begin a

formal event with good evening

we could use it at a restaurant for

example again in a customer

client relationship you could use it

with

friends and co-workers i suppose but it

might sound a little

too polite good evening so it’s not

wrong

but it might sound a little bit formal

we would probably with friends

in the evening we would probably just

say hey or hello or how are you

that sounds a little more friendly so to

respond to these

just repeat again i’ve marked this with

a star here just repeat

if someone says good morning to you you

can say good morning

something else we do here is we remove

good so this is to make it a little bit

more casual

and we’ll remove as i did with doing

down here this apostrophe

will drop this g sound and add an

apostrophe

here it’s more difficult to do with

afternoon but

instead of saying good morning like

clearly pronouncing everything

we’ll often drop good and say warnin

so there’s no g sound there mornin i end

on the

n sound or just afternoon or

evening so it sounds much more friendly

and it’s not quite as polite

actually so if someone says this to you

like morning you can just say

morning you can use the g sound as well

it’s up to you to choose

some people ask what’s the difference

between good evening

and have a good evening the difference

is

good evening is a greeting to a way to

say hello

have a good evening is a way to say

goodbye

so when you say have a good day have a

good evening

you’re saying goodbye actually so that’s

the difference if you want to say hello

please use good evening if you want to

say goodbye use

have a good evening also please be

careful

you’ll notice good night is not here

good night is also a way to say goodbye

or especially like for children like

from parents to children

a way to say like the day is finished

just before bed so good night

is used just before we go to sleep as

well so again a good buy

so please be careful not have a good

evening or good night

these are greetings we can use good

evening is a much better greeting

it’s the correct greeting to you so

please use good evening

don’t use goodnight okay let’s continue

to the next

couple uh these are related you might

not know at first but uh what’s

up what’s up this is a question that

causes people a lot of nervousness i

think how do i respond

to this so just answer not much

not much this is the standard reply just

like

good is the standard reply here use

not much to answer what’s up what’s up

not much what’s up nothing is also okay

nothing what’s up nothing nothing

or again we’ll often drop this g sound

nothing

or nothing so that sounds more casual

so what’s up not much you nothing or not

much

the other person will probably say the

same thing

again if you choose to use something

like

oh i had a bad day or you start to

explain like a difficult situation or

you

hint that something bad happened you

should probably be prepared to talk

about that

so what’s up not much you and nothing

that’s a very typical greeting

actually okay so then this sup

this sup comes from what’s up it comes

from this

s-u-p what’s up

so this is a very casual way of saying

what’s up what’s up is casual

this is even more casual sup

so you can say not much or you can just

reply to

sup with sub

so you might use this again very close

friends sup

sup that’s it it’s like saying hello

saying what’s up

what’s new with you but just really

quick really short

sup sup okay let’s move along then to

kind of some more special use greetings

depending on the situation you might

need to say hello to someone you have

not

seen for a long time these are

expressions you can use to do that

first one i haven’t seen you in so

long or i haven’t seen you in

ages ages an age is a very long time

so ages shows a very very

long time so i have not seen you i have

not seen you

in so long another one very common

a long time no c long time no see

one more it’s been a while it’s been a

while where this

it’s is actually it has been a

while it has been a while since i last

saw you it’s been a while since i last

saw you but

we only say it’s been a while we drop

the

last part of that one more

nice to see you again or it’s nice to

see you again

nice to see you again so these all are

like

greetings we can use when we haven’t

seen the other person for a long time

so how do we answer this we can answer

all of these with the same pattern

first agree yeah it’s been a long time

so again

you can use these expressions you know

uh

yeah a long time to see or yeah it’s

been a while or i said

yeah it’s been a long time so first

agree with the person

and then ask a follow-up how are

things how are things you can use this

similarly to how are you or how is it

going

how are things means how is your life

how are things good the answer is good

how are things

good or how are things busy how are

things

all right those are all very common very

standard responses to use

others if you want to level up your

grammar a bit

how have you been how have you been

and what have you been up to so you’ll

notice here

the grammar here is very similar to

these expressions that we talked about

over here

how have you been this is like a past

perfect way of asking how are you so how

are you now how have you been

in the period since i saw you last

since the last time i saw you up until

now how have you been that’s how we can

ask about that

same thing what have you been up to

what have you been up to is like the

past perfect

question of what’s up what’s up so

you’ll see this up what is up

now what is up with what have you been

up to so in other words since i last saw

you

until now what did you do what have you

been doing

so asking about those activities in that

period

since you last met that person so this

will change depending on your activities

you can say um for example for this one

what have you been up to you can answer

with

for example nothing just work

if you have no special news what have

you been up to nothing just work

so that’s fine if you have special news

you can say

you know i got married or i moved or i

got a new job something quick

is the best way to answer this for this

one

how have you been go back to this good

you so very very simple answers are the

best

okay let’s go on to two more kind of

special youth greetings then first one

it’s great to finally meet you it’s

great to finally meet you

so you’ll see if i remove finally here

this becomes a very common greeting

it’s great to meet you it’s nice to meet

you

but if you’re meeting someone that you

admire or you really respect

or you were really excited to meet that

person like you’re a fan

they’re a famous musician or a celebrity

or an artist or

an athlete for example you’re really

excited to meet that person

you can say it’s great to finally meet

you this

shows the listener that you were really

looking forward to meeting them to

having the chance to meet with them

if someone says this to you or if you

use this with someone

a typical response is thank you

it’s nice to meet you too so they’ll

typically say something like thank you

or

that’s really nice it’s nice to meet you

too

so this is just the same as any other

first greeting first time meeting

someone it’s nice to meet you too

thanks it’s nice to meet you too another

one this one you might uh hear

actually when talking with friends and

meeting new people

especially if you’re studying or working

in another country

the expression is i’ve heard so much

about you i’ve heard so much about you

this i’ve

i’ve i have i’ve heard so much about you

and sometimes i’ve heard so much about

i’ve heard so much about you

from my colleagues or i’ve heard so much

about you from

my roommate so using from here

shows where that person got the

information so

this may or may not be included i’ve

heard so much about you

a typical response is really i hope

nothing bad

or i hope you haven’t heard anything bad

so this is kind of a

very casual way to respond i hope

nothing bad

meaning i hope you haven’t heard

anything bad

about me so this shows that

the speaker has gotten information has

gained information

about the person they’re meeting but

this is still the first time meeting

that person

so this tends to be used in situations

where

the speaker has heard positive

information

if you’ve heard negative information

about a person i don’t recommend using

this expression

this has a positive feel about it i’ve

heard so much about you

tends to sound very happy and cheerful

so you can say

really i hope nothing bad or i hope it’s

good

so that’s kind of a friendly way to

start a conversation

with someone who already has some

information about you

so this is a quick introduction to some

very common

english greetings i hope that that was

helpful for you and i hope that you got

some ideas

for responses to these greetings of

course if you have any questions or

comments or want to practice greetings

please feel free to do so in the comment

section of this video

also if you like the video please don’t

forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe

to our channel 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 next time bye-bye

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about the

differences

between in time and on time

let’s begin let’s begin with

in time the expression in time

we use this expression to refer to

activities

with deadlines or limited time

periods for completion let’s take a look

at some examples so we can see

how to use this phrase first

he made it to the station in time

for his train so made it means like was

able to arrive he was able to arrive

to the station he made it to the station

in time for his train this use of

in time before the noun phrase

his train shows us that

he in this situation was able to arrive

at the station before the deadline

for his train so his train has a

specific

time there’s a specific time period in

which

he is able to catch a train enabled is

able to catch his

train rather so using in time

shows us that he was able to do that and

we have a positive

sentence here so he made it to his train

he was able to catch his train

let’s look at another expression or

another example of this expression

i finished work in time to watch

the soccer game i finished work in time

to watch the soccer game so here in time

comes before this verb phrase to watch

the soccer game this means i finished

work

with enough time to watch the soccer

game so the soccer game

there’s a fixed amount of time a limited

time period that i can watch the soccer

game

i finished work at a point in time

that allowed me to watch the soccer game

so i finished work and there was still

time remaining to watch the soccer game

so we use

in time to show that i was still able to

do that thing

here it’s with a verb phrase let’s

continue to the next

example sentence this one is a negative

she didn’t arrive at the examination

center in time to take the test

in time to take the test here we see

it’s another

verb phrase in time to take the test so

in time

to do this action so this is the action

here as we’ve seen

in each of these example sentences the

item the noun phrase or the verb the

activity

comes after the end time expression

so in this case in time to take the test

but remember i pointed out this is a

negative

she didn’t arrive at the examination

center

in time to take the test means

she didn’t arrive at the center with

enough

time to take the test so there was a

deadline

to take the test there was some limited

like period of time

within which she needed to arrive in

order to complete this action

however she did not arrive

in time she did not arrive within that

limited time period or before

that deadline and therefore she did not

take the test let’s continue to another

negative example of this they didn’t get

to the concert hall

in time for the show so again here

after in time we see for the show

in this case it’s a noun phrase so we

see

this is the thing that was not able to

happen

we know that it was not able to happen

because of this negative

they didn’t get get means arrive or come

to

they didn’t get to the concert hall in

time for

meaning they weren’t able to arrive

before the show began

or in the limited period that the show

was happening

they didn’t arrive in time to do that

so we use in time to show these sorts of

deadlines or that we weren’t

able to do something within the limited

time period that we have to complete

that activity

we can also use this expression in

questions

for example are you going to get to the

office

in time for your meeting here we see get

again

which means like arrive or come to are

you gonna get to the office

in time for your meeting this is a

question that’s asking are you going to

arrive at the office

with enough time to join this meeting so

that means a meeting is scheduled

there’s some plan

and the speaker is asking the listener

if the listener is going to arrive

with enough time or within this limited

time

period to participate in this activity

so we can use this in questions as well

i pointed out throughout the example

sentences too

these noun phrases and verb phrases that

we see

after in time so you’ll notice

when we use in time four we follow

four with our noun phrase so we saw

in time for his train or in time

for the show in time for your

meeting so these are all noun phrases

when we want to talk about a verb

however

like an action doing some kind of action

we use

to with our verb phrase and the verb is

in the infinitive

form so we saw here time

to watch the soccer game so here’s my

verb in the infinitive form in time to

watch the soccer game

here in time to take the test so the

infinitive form of the verb is there

so when you use in time please make sure

to think about these two points is it a

noun phrase

is it a verb phrase you’re talking about

okay so with this in mind let’s continue

to the second part of this lesson

on time on time on time

the meaning here is it refers to

activities

that happen at the appointed appointed

means scheduled

time so on time therefore

implies or we know when we hear on time

that in the past a schedule was set

so we decided on something for example

like transportations or like meeting

schedules class schedules

those kinds of timetables are very

commonly used with

on time so on time refers to something

happening at a

scheduled time in time refers to

activities with

deadlines or there’s a limited time

period to

complete it let’s look at some examples

of how we can use

on time then first

she arrived at the office on time

so here what was the action the action

was this

arrived she arrived past tense she

arrived

at the office on time this shows us

she arrived at the office at the

scheduled

time or as scheduled this is another way

to say it she arrived at the office

as scheduled she arrived at the office

at the scheduled time

let’s look at one more we finished work

on time

today so we finished work at the

scheduled

time today is another way to say this we

finished work on time

today not we finished work in time today

i’ll come back to a point like that in

just a moment but on time

shows it was scheduled another example

this one a negative

the game didn’t start on time the game

didn’t start on time shows as the game

was probably

late the game didn’t start on time the

game was supposed to or the game was

scheduled to start

at 3 pm for example but the game started

at 3 30

for example in that case we could say

the game

didn’t start on time a negative

let’s look at another negative i didn’t

turn in my homework

on time i didn’t turn in my homework on

time

so here i did not turn in my homework

but this shows on time this shows us the

action was completed it was just

late so i didn’t turn in my homework on

time at the scheduled time

in other words the homework was due at

10 o’clock i

turned in the homework at 10 30 or 11

for example

so this sentence i didn’t turn in my

homework means the action just did not

happen

i didn’t turn in my homework on time

means the action happened

late okay let’s take a look at a couple

other expressions

one he’s on time for his 3 p.m

meeting he’s on time for his 3 p.m

meeting this

is something you might hear for example

a secretary or an assistant

or just someone else reporting the

activities

of another person he’s on time

for his 3 p.m meeting this is a sentence

that means

the person here he or she they this

person

their activities throughout the day

today

have led them to be in a position

of being on time in the future now

that’s a very strange way to say this i

know

but it means that person has been doing

many things all day long

and so now they know that they have this

3 p.m

meeting but they’ve been doing all these

other things and now

they’re still okay they’re still okay to

attend this meeting at 3 p.m that’s what

this uh

implies he’s on time for a 3 p.m meeting

so this is typically something that’s

used for like busy people to describe

busy people’s schedules

he’s on time for this she’s on time for

that so

like you might hear it used for like a

president or a prime minister like

someone that has a very very hectic or

crazy schedule

you might hear people reporting about

that person’s schedule and that person’s

upcoming activities with something like

this

okay we can use this in a question as we

saw within time

for example is the conference going to

finish

on time is the conference going to

finish on time

means is the conference going to finish

as scheduled at the scheduled

time so you can see we use on time to

refer to

scheduled to like asking questions and

making statements

about scheduled things we use in time to

refer to deadlines for completion

of an action i mentioned one point

though

i think i talked about it here we

finished work on

time today i mentioned this is one

situation where i might see

some like mistakes from students we

finished work

in time today we could say this we

finished work

in time today we finished work in time

today for something else

so when you’re using in time you need to

explain

the activity the thing that you were

able to do

or not able to do when you’re using in

time

when you’re using on time you’re

referring to some

past scheduled action so you don’t

always need to

explain the specific thing that you’re

talking about so for example she arrived

at the office on time

there was some schedule or every day she

starts work at 9 00 am

for example that’s on time when you’re

talking about

in time it may be a good idea to include

it

in your sentence here as i’ve done

occasionally in conversation when the

activity is obvious native speakers will

drop that from

in time but you don’t always need to

include it with on time

it might be a good idea to include the

activity with

in time however so this is a quick

introduction to some differences between

in time and on time and some sample

sentences

of course if you have any questions or

comments or if you want to practice

making sentences

with one of these two points please feel

free to do so in the comment section of

this video

of course if you like 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 english

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

your condition is not getting better and

you decide to go to the nearby clinic

you receive a medical report what is the

diagnosis

foreign

you receive a medical report what is the

diagnosis

the diagnosis is food poisoning caused

by contaminated food

you just bought a few items from a local

shop online

what information does the website say

about the delivery date

what information does the website say

about the delivery date

the website says that delivery dates

differ depending on the delivery method

but all

dates should be calculated from the next

working day

hi everybody welcome back to know your

verbs my name is alicia and in this

episode we’re going to talk about the

verb

push let’s get started

let’s look at the basic definition of

the verb push

the basic definition is to use force

to move something away from you usually

examples we push the car out of the

garage

he pushed his chair into the aisle

let’s look at the conjugations for this

verb present

push pushes past

pushed past participle pushed

progressive pushing

now let’s talk about some additional

meanings for this verb

the first additional meaning is to

persuade someone

with force examples my boss is pushing

me to work more hours

don’t let them push you into a bad

decision so in both of these example

sentences

we see a situation where someone is

being

persuaded to do something

so when we use push it sounds like the

person

who is the object in the situation

does not want to do the thing that’s

being discussed okay so in the first

example sentence that means someone’s

boss

is pushing for more overtime work

so the boss wants more overtime however

the person involved in the situation the

person in the situation

does not want to work more over time the

boss tries to persuade

and they’re kind of using force so we

use

push to talk about that the boss does

not physically

i hope push this person but the boss

pushes

using words trying to persuade trying to

use

strong words to convince the other

person

to do overtime in the second example

sentence

don’t let them push you into a bad

decision it’s like there’s some

outside force outside person that’s

trying to convince

the listener in this case to make a

decision

but the decision might be a bad decision

for the listener

so in other words it means don’t let

them persuade

you or don’t let them convince you to

make a choice

that’s bad for you don’t let them push

you into a bad decision

the second additional meaning for the

verb push is to

advertise something a lot to advertise

something a lot

examples we’re really pushing our pdf

cheat sheets lately

what products should we push at the

trade show little joke about our pdf

cheat sheets there uh

totally my joke they didn’t tell me to

put it in but anyway

so when i say we’ve been pushing our pdf

cheat sheets recently it means we’ve

been advertising that product a lot

we’ve been advertising our pdf cheat

sheets a lot like on our live streams

and on our website and everywhere

like on our social media it means we’re

advertising that thing a lot so that’s

the thing that we hope

people see we want people to check out

that item

the second example sentence is a

question what products do we want to

push at the trade show

meaning what’s the focus advertisement

or what are the items we really really

want people to look at and we want to

show as much as possible what products

do we want to

push at the trade show okay let’s go on

to the third additional meaning

the third additional meaning is to try

to go

beyond something let’s look at some

examples first

marathon runners push the limits of

their bodies

the engineers are really pushing the

capabilities of the software

so in these example sentences we see

there’s some kind of

limit like in the first example it’s

body

limits so marathon runners try to push

the limits of their bodies

meaning the body has some established

limit like that means the body can do

this amount so

in this case it’s marathon running so

maybe the body could run

three to four hours at a time for

example where the body can run at this

speed i don’t know

it’s a lot so marathon runners try to

push this limit means they try to go

beyond

this limit that’s the image we’re

looking at here

so marathon runners try to push the

limits of their bodies try to go

beyond the limits of their bodies the

second example sentence is the same

but we’re talking about software

capabilities

so here the capabilities of the software

are the limit so the engineers

are pushing the capabilities of the

software

so now the software can do this but

maybe the engineers are making updates

are making changes

and they’re trying to go beyond the

current limits of the software so this

is maybe a nice visual i suppose for

this meaning of the verb

push okay let’s look at the fourth one

the fourth additional meaning for the

verb push

is to approach a number to approach a

number

let’s look at some examples sales are

pushing into the millions this year

grandpa is pushing 90. so we use this

when we’re like

wanting to express usually a high number

actually

when we’re talking about low numbers we

don’t really use

push push sounds like you’re approaching

a big

milestone so in the first example

sentence

sales are pushing into the millions it’s

like we’re gonna reach this milestone of

millions of sales so that’s a really

important number

so we can use pushing into which is like

it sounds like it’s an achievement

we’re going to move into the millions of

sales but pushing

sounds like a little bit like it was

kind of a struggle

maybe and so it’s like a special

achievement to reach this point

the second example sentence is similar

but we see it with

age so grandpa is pushing 90 means he’s

almost 90 maybe he’s 89 right now or 88

perhaps

but he’s nearly at the level of 90 years

old so that might be a difficult thing

to do

to live to 90 years old it sounds like

an achievement

and so it sounds like something that

could be a struggle so we can use

pushing to refer to nearly reaching that

point

we typically use this in the progressive

form actually we don’t use this in past

tense or in present tense really um

we don’t say like he pushes or she

pushed 90 or something like that we tend

to use it

in the progressive form to mean like

this is happening

now sales are pushing into the millions

grandpa is pushing 90. like right now

he’s approaching 90. so interesting

let’s move on to some variations for

this verb the first variation for the

verb push

is to push your luck to push your luck

so this has a very long

explanation to push your luck means to

try

too hard to get more

of something you already have and then

risk losing what you already have with

you

okay so let’s look at some examples it’s

hard to see okay

first one he agreed to take out the

trash

i probably shouldn’t push my luck and

ask him to

clean the kitchen too don’t push your

luck

the department isn’t likely to make any

more budget changes

so in the first example sentence he

agreed to take out the trash so that’s

like the achievement

the speaker got that he agreed to take

out the trash

the speaker also wants this person to

clean the kitchen

but they think uh i shouldn’t push my

luck

meaning i shouldn’t try too hard to get

something

more from this person i shouldn’t try

too hard for more from this person

because he might quit and

stop doing the task he originally agreed

to do

so i want him to clean the kitchen yes

but

i’ll stop i shouldn’t try too hard

because he might

quit the second example sentence there’s

kind of a subtle thing going on there

the second example sentence says don’t

push your luck so that’s an

advice statement the department isn’t

likely to make

any more budget changes so this sentence

implies we can guess that the listener

already got some kind of budget update

or maybe a budget increase

the person speaking in this situation is

advising

don’t try to get more in other words

like don’t try to ask for another budget

change or another budget update

because if you ask you might lose the

update you

already received so don’t push your luck

means don’t try to ask for

more of the thing you might lose what

you already gained

the second variation for the verb push

is to push around to push around means

to

bully someone to have mean behavior

towards someone

that has no meaning there’s no reason

for it you just push them around

they’re smaller or they’re not as

powerful as you

and so you can actually visually see

this like

to physically push someone around or to

push someone with your words as well

examples don’t let your co-workers push

you around

you shouldn’t push people around just

because they’re different from you

so to push around means probably in most

cases

using your words to push people around i

can’t think of many cases except in like

schools

where someone would physically just push

people around

in most cases it’s with words so you’re

using

like mean words or kind of bullying

behavior

to try to make uh yourself sound better

than another person

so don’t push people around in other

words you should try to be equal with

other people

so both of these example sentences show

them

the second example sentence you

shouldn’t push people around just

because they’re different from you

means you shouldn’t bully people just

because of a difference because of the

way they look or the way they sound or

where they work or live or whatever

so you should not do that you should not

push people around in other words you

should be kind to people

so those are a few new ways i hope that

you can use the verb

push if you have any questions or

comments or if you know another way to

use the word push please feel free to

let us know in the comment section of

this video

of course if you like the video please

don’t forget to give us a thumbs up and

subscribe to the channel too if you have

not already

also come check us out at

englishclass101.com

for other good english study tools

thanks very much for watching this

episode of know your verbs and we will

see you again

soon bye-bye

this is me pushing

good fun everybody great work all right

hi everybody welcome back to know your

verbs my name is alicia and in this

episode we’re going to talk about the

verb

adopt let’s get started

okay let’s start with the basic

definition of the verb adopt

the basic definition is to legally take

another person’s child and raise the

child as one’s own

examples one of my family members was

adopted

have you ever thought about adopting a

child

now let’s take a look at the

conjugations for this verb

present adopt adopts past

adopted past participle adopted

progressive adopting

now let’s talk about some additional

meanings for this verb the first

additional meaning

is to take and use usually something

that is new

examples she adopted an upbeat

personality for the evening

maybe the company should adopt a new

strategy

so these sentences use the word adopt as

in

like finding something new or finding

something that’s

not usually used but putting that thing

to

use in that situation so this is a

rather open meaning i know

so let’s look at the first example

sentence to get a little bit more detail

in the first example sentence we see she

adopted an

upbeat personality for the evening so

adopted in this meaning means to take

something and to put it to use something

that’s new

so that means she isn’t usually

an upbeat person necessarily but for

this

evening she had this idea to have an

upbeat personality so she took on she

decided to become a more

upbeat person for the evening so that

means it’s something different

from her past behavior so for the

evening only

she decided to be upbeat she adopted an

upbeat personality for the evening

in the second sentence maybe the company

should adopt a new strategy

we see adopt being used to mean like

take on a new

strategy maybe the company should take

on some kind of

new strategy is what this sentence means

but

adopt is a quick and easy way to say

that to

take something like to take an idea in

and to put the idea to use

is like adopt to adopt an idea to adopt

a strategy in this way

let’s look at the second additional

meaning for adopt the second additional

meaning

is to accept something and implement it

examples the government has adopted a

new policy

we adopted the architect’s proposals for

our new home

so here we’re seeing adopt used very

similarly to the first additional

meaning

however it means that there’s something

that’s accepted

so like there is some outside idea like

some kind of proposal

that’s presented somewhere to somebody

some group

and then it’s accepted following the

acceptance

it’s implemented that idea is used it’s

put into effect

so there’s kind of this flow happening

with this use of

adopt so it’s not only taking on

something new

and using it like we saw in the first

additional meaning

it’s like there are a few different

steps there’s like a proposal a new idea

acceptance of that idea and then use of

that thing

in the first example sentence it’s about

the government the government has

adopted

a new policy means a new policy

was presented to the government the

government accepted the policy and the

government is now

using that new policy so there are

effects of that new policy there are all

these different stages of the new policy

so the government has adopted a new

policy

means it’s at this final stage so now

this new policy

is like in effect um so it’s been

accepted and now it’s going

to be in effect if it’s not in effect

already

in the second example sentence we

adopted the architect’s proposals for

our new home

we see the same sort of flow so there

was some idea from the architect

presented to the client

the client accepted the idea and the

architect put it into practice the

architect put it into effect

so there’s some acceptance and then

implementation of that thing so they

adopted the ideas in other words so they

took on that ideas and put them into use

into practice

the next additional meaning is to

promise to care for something to promise

to care for something

some examples our community group

adopted a park

the organization is adopting a highway

and plans regular cleaning

so in this use of adopt we’re often not

talking about

a person being adopted rather it’s a

place

like in the examples here it’s a park or

you might often hear a highway or some

other kind of community space

so to adopt that space to adopt that

location

means to care for that location in many

cases

adopting a park or adopting a highway or

something similar

means that a person or an organization

pays some money and their name becomes

attached to that location

but they are also then responsible for

caring

for that location so you might see this

on highways like i remember when i was

growing up

on the highways in california it would

say

adopt a highway program on the signs

there so

to adopt a highway means to give some

money have your name

attached to that part of the highway and

then have some responsibility for caring

for that part of the highway

so there might be some community places

that have been

adopted by people or by organizations in

the city

so there’s some kind of name recognition

yes but there’s also responsibility to

care for that

so it’s adopting like adopting a child i

suppose

but we’re adopting a place we have to

care for that place

make sure the place is nicely maintained

and

is safe and good for the community

essentially

so in addition to this you’ll also see

adopt used

to talk about pets this can be used

more to talk about adopting animals from

shelters so we don’t really use adopt

when we talk about

buying a pet from a pet store

rather adopting a pet is something that

occurs more

when an animal is in a shelter like the

animal has been

um like lost or the animal has been

abused or

um bad or negative past experience

there are a number of reasons why

animals might be in a shelter

but people who come to the shelter and

choose a pet from the shelter

we can use the verb adopt to describe

that activity of choosing a pet and

taking the pet

home in that case also to adopt a pet

means to come to a shelter and choose a

pet and take the pet home

with the promise of caring for that

pet so feeding the pet cleaning the pet

making a safe

environment for the pet too so

adopt can mean a location it can mean

for children as we talked about in the

basic definition

and we can also use adopt to talk about

pets as well pets that we

can find at shelters too okay so i hope

that you found a new way to use the verb

adopt in your everyday life uh if you

have any questions or comments or if you

want to try to make a sentence with the

verb adopt please feel free in the

comment section of this video of course

don’t forget to subscribe to the channel

if you haven’t already

give the video a thumbs up if you liked

it and check us out at

englishclass101.com for other good

english study resources

thanks very much for watching this

episode of know your verbs and we’ll see

you again soon

bye-bye hey everyone

welcome to the monthly review the

monthly show on language learning

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 five ways to make

sure you start on the right foot with

language learning

ever wondered if you’re on the right

path with your language learning or

if you’re studying the right things and

taking the right steps

well today you’ll learn how to start on

the right foot with your language

learning journey

we’ll talk about one why you must know

your reason for learning the language

two how to set fail-proof goals and

rewards

three how to match your daily routine to

your learning so that you don’t struggle

with the actual learning

4. why you need anchor points for

long-term motivation

and 5. how to improve faster with

ongoing assessment

how to start off on the right foot with

your language learning journey

there are five things you as a language

learner need to address

if you want to start off on the right

foot here they are

one your reason for learning two

your goal and reward three

matching your routine to your medium

four

anchor points and five assessments

if you get these squared away in your

first month you’ll be set up to succeed

with any language

goal you set and today we’ll walk you

through each point

the first one your reason for learning

why are you learning the language

so why is thinking about your why so

important

here’s an example think back to when you

were a kid and you were trying to save

money

what was the first thing you wanted to

buy and how much did it cost

you probably still remember what it was

and how much it cost

and because you knew the specific price

you were able to save up for it

if not at the very least you made more

progress than if you just said

i want to save money with no specific

purpose in mind

and that’s the thing if you know

precisely why you’re doing something

it’s easy to tie a goal to it and there

are all kinds of reasons to learn a

language

there’s travel family friends love or

maybe you’re living in a country that

speaks it

so knowing your reason clarifies your

mission

and gives you motivation from the start

now some reasons are

stronger than others for example living

in a country that speaks the language is

a powerful reason

you need it for survival if your reason

for learning is something simpler

like i just want to watch tv in that

language it’s not exactly something you

need to survive

does it matter whether you have a strong

reason or not not necessarily

strong reasons help with motivation

initially but people with strong reasons

can and do

fail and people with weak reasons

succeed it’s all up to the individual

but the point is you need to know why

you’re doing this

and that’s enough for you to take the

first step the second point

goals and rewards once you’ve clarified

your reason

it’s time to set your goals if you want

to succeed

your goal can’t just be i want to be

fluent one day

why because this tells you nothing about

how you’ll achieve it or

when you’ll reach fluency it’s too vague

your goal needs to be small measurable

realistic

and have a deadline so you can clearly

see the steps you need to take to reach

your goal

instead of saying i want to be fluent

one day which you can’t measure

and can’t precisely determine aim for

for example

30 words or one minute of conversation

you can measure these goals if you have

a deadline like

by next month you know your time frame

and unlike a goal like i want to be

fluent

a goal like i want to be able to talk

for one minute is much more realistic

now what about rewards now that you’ve

set a goal

you need to tie rewards to your goal why

rewards

shouldn’t you work hard first and worry

about rewards later

because rewards are powerful motivators

you should be working hard

but hard work often is not fun and you

need something to push you through

when you come home after a long day of

work on a rainy day

soaking wet the last thing you want to

do is open a book and start studying

it’s so much easier to turn on netflix

or something

but having that reward reminds you if i

achieve this then i get that

so defining what’s in it for me what do

i get boosts your motivation

you have something to look forward to

and get you through times when you don’t

feel like doing work

the third point is match your routine to

the study medium

once you have your goals and rewards you

need to fit your language learning

into your current life and daily routine

how

sit down and write out your daily

schedule for every day of the week

for example wake up at 7 00 am breakfast

at 8 a.m

get on the bus at 9 00 a.m work from 9

30 a.m

lunch at 1 pm and so on do this for

every day of the week

that way you can see where you can fit

in learning for example

if you ride the bus in the morning you

can use that time to listen to our audio

lessons

why do this well language learning is a

brand new routine

if you don’t work from your existing

daily routines it may not work out

for example if you decide to wake up an

hour earlier to study

now you’re adding two new routines

waking up earlier

and learning a language at once one is

hard enough but two makes it even harder

you may not wake up on time you may not

get out of bed you may fall right back

to sleep

the point here is you should piggyback

off of your existing routines

and use a learning medium that matches

your routine

so instead of waking up earlier keep

your daily routine

but look for another way to introduce

language learning

write out your daily routine see where

you spend your time and then match your

routine to learn it

if you take walks and listen to music

swap out music for language lessons and

listen along

if you take the bus or train check out

our audio and video lessons

if you usually read in the evenings and

can focus try using a textbook

in all of these examples you’re taking

an existing routine and adding language

learning inside

the fourth point is set anchor points

anchor points are the connections you

make to a language that boosts your

motivation and keep you attached or

anchored

to your goal so you don’t slip away so

what’s an example of an anchor point

for example if you have friends or

relatives that speak the language

and if you’re around them and you’re

exposed to the language you’re more

likely to learn

same thing with watching tv shows in the

target language you’re exposed to it

more

so your interest in learning naturally

goes up also

investing in a textbook or learning

program signing up for classes or for a

proficiency test

all of these are anchor points that

connect you back to the language

why do you need anchor points oftentimes

your initial reason for learning the

language

isn’t as motivating as it used to be

maybe you were motivated in month one

but not in month five that’s why people

with strong reasons

might fail so an anchor point gives you

another reason to keep going and boost

your motivation

and also often times the reason we start

isn’t the same as the reason we continue

anchor points are not something you need

to worry about in your first month of

learning

but adding them in the second month and

afterward will help you keep going

can you think of any anchor points you

can add leave a comment

finally the fifth point is you need

assessment

now that you have goals rewards routine

and anchor points

it’s not enough to learn a language

alone in a vacuum you need

feedback and course correction from a

native speaker

with our learning program you can learn

with your very own teacher

you can also leave comments on lessons

and get answers from the others

or you can find a tutor of your own

someone that will assess your progress

and correct you as needed

so let’s recap there are five things you

as a language learner need to address if

you want to start off on the right foot

one clarify your reason for learning

two set goals and rewards three

match your routine with your study

medium

four set anchor points and five get

ongoing assessment

so thank you for watching this episode

of monthly review

next time we’ll talk about how to deal

with missed language goals and failure

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

sign up for your free lifetime account

right now click the link in the

description

see you next time bye

want to cut your language studying time

in half in this video you’ll discover

how learning a language using pdf

lessons

is convenient efficient and can help you

cut your studying time

nearly in half many people give up on

their dream of learning a second

language because traditional classroom

instruction is too much of a hassle

between getting to class studying on

someone else’s schedule

and just the sheer expense of the book’s

intuition traditional learning can be

tough

many people simply give up online

classes are an

option but sometimes limited data plans

can derail the dream of learning a new

language

fortunately there is a solution learning

language using pdf lesson notes

let’s take a closer look at how studying

language lessons in pdf format

can help you reach your dream in about

half the time of normal video or audio

lessons

first print all lessons and pdf tools

and take them with you anywhere

sometimes a tiny smartphone screen just

isn’t adequate

especially when you’re trying to learn

something new the great thing about pdf

lessons is that they can be quickly

printed

and taken anywhere after you download

them in fact

printing out lessons in pdf format can

actually save you

time when compared to going through the

material on a smartphone with a small

screen

even with the extra printing time second

they’re a great study tool to boost

retention

and mastery studying video or audio

lessons online is a great way to learn a

language

because students can play and rewind

sections as many times as needed until

the lesson is mastered

but when you review the same lessons

again in pdf format

an incredible thing happens your

retention dramatically improves

thanks to time-space repetition seeing

the information again

in written format helps reinforce the

information in your mind

and improves both retention and recall

the benefits of learning a language

using pdf lessons

quickly add up to significant time

savings for you your data plan

and your dream of learning a new

language third

all lessons in pdf format include

in-depth instructor notes

we have thousands of hd video and audio

lessons

and each one includes a pdf version with

a line-by-line transcript so you can

read along with the lesson as it appears

online

in addition to the line-by-line

transcript all lessons include in-depth

instructor notes with more information

sample sentences explanations and

translations

the additional information and notes

help you learn faster

and with greater mastery than using the

video or audio lessons alone

and when paired with language learning

video games

video and audio lessons or other study

aids

our pdf lessons help you reach your

dream of learning a new language faster

and

easier than many traditional classroom

settings

fourth you can download the world’s

largest online collection of lessons by

real instructors planning on going on

vacation

and don’t know if you’ll have reliable

internet service if you’re learning

through pdf lessons it’s not a problem

once you download lessons in pdf format

to your smartphone

pc or favorite media device they are

yours to use and keep forever

once downloaded you can either print out

or access your lessons in pdf format

regardless of internet access

when you consistently learn through pdf

lessons the time savings and benefits

quickly compound

from quicker access to faster learning

pdf lessons can potentially reduce

total study time required to learn a

concept our pdf lessons include

instructor notes and supplemental

resources that help you learn faster and

with less effort

so if you’re ready to finally learn a

new language the fast

fun and easy way sign up for your free

lifetime account by clicking on the link

in the description

signing up takes less than 30 seconds

and you’ll start speaking from your very

first

lesson if you enjoyed these tips hit the

like button

share the video with anyone who’s trying

to learn a new language and subscribe to

our channel

we release new videos every week i’ll

see you next time bye

are you afraid of making mistakes in

your target language

afraid you’ll never ever be able to have

a conversation or give a presentation

or maybe you’re afraid of something else

in this video we’ll cover four fears

related to language learning and how to

overcome them

the first one is i’m afraid i’m not good

enough to speak

i freeze do you feel like you’re not

good enough to speak yet

a lot of people can relate to this one

probably all language learners have felt

this at some point

it’s a pretty common fear here are some

tips to overcome it

first speak from day one the best way to

get good at speaking is to practice

speaking

if you’re holding yourself back because

you think you’re not good enough you’re

making a mistake

that’s exactly why you’re not improving

you need to open your mouth and start

talking

second if you’re not sure what to say to

start speaking

consider practicing with existing

dialogues in our lessons

you get scripts for introducing yourself

making small talk ordering food

expressing opinions and

much more if you’re looking for some

things to use for speaking practice

the lessons will give you the exact

lines and conversations

our third tip learn with your own

teacher with our premium plus plan

with premium plus you get an actual

native speaker teacher to tell you what

to say

and how to say it you can actually learn

to speak with the help of a real native

teacher

fear number two is i’m afraid i’ll never

be fluent

this is a common fear for beginner

learners once you start improving and

seeing progress

this goes away when you’re just starting

out with a new language fluency can feel

like an impossible goal there are so

many new things to learn and so many

methods you can use

it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all

the options but you can’t let yourself

fall into that trap

the longer you keep at it the better

your language skills will become

and slowly you’ll stop worrying about

fluency

what’s important is that you put in time

and continue working on moving forward

so how do you overcome worries about

never becoming fluent

how do you motivate yourself to continue

first

set small specific goals instead of just

saying i want to become fluent

how do you know when you become fluent

fluency is hard to determine

instead of creating a vague hard to

understand goal for yourself

focus on working towards smaller goals

for example set goals like being able to

introduce yourself

or having a five-minute conversation

something you can measure

so you’ll know when you’ve reached it

fluency can be difficult to measure

if you set goals that you can measure

you can track your progress

this helps keep your motivation up over

time

the third fear is i’m afraid i’m not

actually learning or making progress

if you’re afraid you’re not making

progress there are a few things you can

do right now

first of all review a lot of people hear

a new phrase once

and think they’ll remember it but that

usually doesn’t happen

so when they forget what they’ve learned

they get worried that they’re not

learning

or that the lessons don’t work but the

truth is you have to review again and

again to truly master something

second use the dashboard to track your

progress

if numbers and data are helpful for you

as you track your learning

check out our dashboard it tracks your

progress and gives you dynamic reports

third try a harder lesson on the site

you might not understand it all at first

and that’s okay

you’ll be able to after some study all

lessons come with line-by-line

translations and our teachers explain

every single word break down these

harder lessons

if you have to work a little more slowly

it’s okay when you finish the lesson you

can be sure of your progress

because you’ll be able to understand

something you didn’t understand a few

minutes earlier

fourth learn one-on-one with a teacher

with our premium plus plan

they will personally review your writing

and your speaking and will fix your

mistakes

getting regular feedback from a native

speaker is a great way to know if you’re

making progress

it’s such a great feeling to hear a

native speaker tell you wow you’re

getting good

the fourth fear is i’m afraid of not

understanding anything i hear this is

very common

you hear advanced grammar and vocabulary

and it goes completely over your head

you have no idea what you’ve just heard

here are some tips for working on this

issue

if you’re taking an advanced lesson read

along with the script reading along with

our line-by-line dialogue is the best

way to improve your understanding of

advanced conversations

if you’re in a real life situation the

solution is quite simple

learn useful phrases like excuse me can

you say it again slower

or can you say it in simpler words or

even just

i don’t understand there’s nothing wrong

with saying that you didn’t understand

something or asking for help

these are some common fears for most

language learners and we hope these tips

help you

is there anything else that you’re

afraid of when it comes to learning

another language

let us know in the comments and maybe we

can share some suggestions for how to

overcome them

for the tools we’ve talked about in this

video and much more

check out our complete language learning

program sign up for your free lifetime

account by clicking on the link in the

description

get tons of resources to have you

speaking in your target language

and if you enjoyed these tips hit the

like button

share the video with anyone who’s trying

to learn a new language and subscribe to

our channel

we release new videos every week i’ll

see you next time

bye are you struggling to reach your

language learning goals

or losing motivation for learning in

this video we’re going to talk about how

to reach your goals

how to enjoy the process and the

importance of rewarding yourself

part one how to reach your language

goals

it’s pretty exciting when you reach a

goal you know your hard work is paid off

and you can see your results

but how do you set goals to ensure you

can reach them and get that feeling of

satisfaction

the best way to see real results and

achieve your language learning goals is

to set small

measurable goals many people make the

mistake of setting big

vague goals like i want to be fluent or

i want to speak a new language then they

download an app

or get a textbook and they try to reach

their goal but they quickly give up

because the goal they’ve set for

themselves is too

overwhelming this is why it’s important

to set small

measurable monthly or weekly goals from

the beginning of your studies

reaching your goals helps you develop

confidence in yourself and your ability

to get things done

for example you might make it a goal to

be able to have a one minute

conversation by the end of your first

month of studies

and have a two-minute conversation by

the end of month two

maybe after six months you aim to have a

10-minute conversation with someone

specific measurable goals like these

help you track your progress and prevent

you from getting overwhelmed

by creating small goals like these you

set yourself up for success

when you reach one of your goals even if

it’s a small one you feel a sense of

accomplishment

this helps you enjoy the learning

process which is the next topic we’re

going to focus on

part two how to enjoy the language

learning process

if you’re always focused on goals and

results though how do you enjoy the

process of learning a language

okay so let’s say that in addition to

larger goals you’ve made small realistic

goals like learning 100 words in a month

that’s three to four words per day goals

like these are very easy to accomplish

and when you complete them it feels good

this is one of the enjoyable parts of

learning a language

so imagine accomplishing small goals all

throughout your week

it’s a great way to keep your motivation

up and enjoy the process of learning

smaller goals can help you stay on track

and keep your confidence up

when we feel like we’re not making

progress we can get frustrated and lose

motivation

think about days when you’re super busy

at work or at school

some days you might be so busy you don’t

complete any tasks

when nothing seems to move forward we

can lose confidence in ourselves and

feel like quitting

this is why giving yourself some small

easy to accomplish goals can be

extremely helpful

you can approach your studies with

confidence because you know that you’re

working towards your next goal

and that you can actually achieve it

here’s something you can try if you feel

like your progress has slowed down

go back and review something you studied

a few weeks or a few months earlier

try to remember how difficult it was at

first looking over past materials can

help us understand how much we’ve grown

the same thing is true for conversations

when you start learning a language

you’ll learn things like how to

introduce yourself

ask basic questions and talk about the

weather after a few months of study

though

you’ll learn how to talk about your

hobbies your neighborhood or your

personality

it’s sometimes hard to remember just how

much progress we’ve made

but look back on your work from time to

time all those hours you put in are

reflected in your current abilities

it’s exciting when you realize how far

you’ve come of course

some people might also reflect on

mistakes they made especially if these

mistakes led to miscommunications with

native speakers

while these memories can be embarrassing

they can still be useful for your

studies

try to shift your mindset towards

mistakes making an embarrassing mistake

can be helpful in the long run

because we remember the experience

vividly and we want to avoid repeating

it

if the mistake wasn’t so embarrassing

maybe you can laugh about it and use

that memory to ensure you make the right

decision in the future

lastly we want to remind everyone of the

most enjoyable part of the language

learning process

the new friends connections and

experiences you gain through the

language

you can use the language you’re studying

as a tool to create friendships to meet

new people and to travel

if you ever get to a point where

learning isn’t fun or interesting

anymore

take a moment and consider why are you

getting overwhelmed

falling behind on your goals if your

schedule has changed or your goals have

changed that’s fine

adjust your study plan and your study

goals to make the learning process work

for you

revise your approach and make sure

you’re enjoying learning

part three the importance of rewards

if you haven’t gotten into the practice

of rewarding yourself for reaching a

goal

now is a great time to start a reward

can be a powerful way to motivate

yourself to complete a goal

if your reward is travel or event

related it can also act as a finite

deadline

this can push you to focus even more you

can decide to reward yourself with

something you buy with an experience or

maybe just with some time to relax

choose a reward that will work best for

you

positive reinforcement can be very

helpful in the learning process

it’s one thing to hit a goal and feel

good about it but if you have a reward

too it seals the deal

it helps you keep the cycle going and

will help you keep learning

so today we covered goal setting how to

enjoy the process of learning

and the importance of rewards make sure

you set small measurable goals in

addition to your larger goals

find ways to enjoy the process of

studying and make sure to reward

yourself for your achievements

learning a language should be fun and

satisfying

for some more resources to help you

reach your goals check out our complete

language learning program

sign up for your free lifetime account

by clicking on the link in the

description

get tons of resources to have you

speaking in your target language

and if you enjoyed these tips hit the

like button share the video with anyone

who’s trying to learn a new language and

subscribe to our

channel we release new videos every week

i’ll see you next time

bye want to speak and understand more of

your target language

if so of course you’ll need to know more

words and phrases than you do now in

this video we’ll cover

five ways to master new words and

phrases fast

number one use our free vocabulary list

this is a free library of vocabulary and

phrase lessons for

all kinds of situations you can learn

words and phrases for current events

holidays like halloween and thanksgiving

and useful topics

like the top 10 ways to say hello

conversational phrases

and more you’ll learn phrases that you

won’t

find in textbooks if you want to learn

extra fast use the slideshow tool

just tap or click on view slideshow then

sit back and review the words and

phrases

find the vocabulary list in the

vocabulary drop down menu on the site

these vocabulary lists are free for all

users

number two take the audio and video

lessons

one of the best ways to learn new words

is by hearing and using them in

conversations

this is because it gives you the

opportunity to understand how the words

are actually used

in every lesson dialogue you’ll likely

come across some words you don’t know

but don’t worry because our teachers

translate everything

when you hear the conversation again at

the end of the lesson you’ll be familiar

with the words you didn’t know at first

number three learn with our 2000 most

common words list

a quick question how many words do you

think you need for conversational

fluency

3000 5000 it’s actually not as many as

you think

language experts say you need about 1

500 words to reach conversational

fluency

with our 2000 most common words list

you’ll get access to key vocabulary

words you need to boost your

conversation skills

the words are broken down into simple

categories such as adjectives

nouns verbs food drinks numbers months

and so on

so you can go category by category and

focus on what you’re most interested in

first

with this tip we’re not talking about

paper flash cards

we’re talking about the smart flash

cards that you can find in our premium

study tools

this is an automatic system

individualized for each member based on

their study needs

first you’ll use the cards to check your

knowledge then

according to your answers the cards will

be sorted according to which words you

need more practice with

words that you struggle with will be

shown to you more and more

you’ll see words that you know well less

often this system helps you study more

efficiently

it displays the words you need to work

on and knows when you should refresh

your knowledge

this helps make sure you don’t forget

vocabulary

in every study session these cards will

help you refresh your memory on the

words you learned last time

and introduce new words number five

use the words after you learn a new word

using it right away is crucial to

remembering it

so when you’re done with a lesson or a

vocab list here’s something you can do

leave a comment make up a sample

sentence and post it in the comment

section

write it down in a notebook or shadow

the word with a lessons dialogue

our language learning program is full of

tools that can help you speak more

just pick one and get started if you

want to unlock

all of these study tools check out our

complete language learning program

sign up for your free lifetime account

by clicking on the link in the

description

get tons of resources to have you

speaking in your target language

and if you enjoyed these tips hit the

like button

share the video with anyone who’s trying

to learn a new language and subscribe to

our channel

we release new videos every week i’ll

see you next time bye

great work here’s a reward speed up your

language learning with our pdf lessons

get all of our best pdf cheat sheets and

ebooks for free

just click the link in the description