How to give your opinion in English talking about the past year

all right i think it’s rolling hi

everybody and welcome back to our weekly

live stream my name is alicia and in

this week’s live lesson we are going to

talk about how to give your opinion

about the past year in this week’s

lesson i’m going to talk about some

expressions you can use for positive

opinions about the year so things you

were happy about i’m going to talk about

ways to express regret about the year

and i’m also going to share some other

expressions that we tend to use as the

year finishes so i hope that you have a

chance to use some of these expressions

and you can even send messages in the

chat and you can use these expressions

to share about your experience of this

year and future years as well too so as

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to today’s lesson flow today’s lesson

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can find today’s lesson okay let’s take

a look at

our

lesson boards for today here is what

we’re going to talk about so

we’re ending the year with some positive

or happy opinions

maybe expressing regret and sadness in

part two and finally we’ll have some

other expressions to talk about in part

three just some other things that we

commonly say to end the year so let’s

get started by talking about some

positive or happy expressions

some kind of

good things maybe happened for you this

year and you want to talk about that we

might use these patterns to do that so

first one it was a good year it was a

good year so this is the most basic way

to express that you feel this year was

pretty okay so it can be for work it can

be for school

anything it’s fine

it was a good year a lot of people will

use this just to finish the conversation

if they don’t have anything special to

share it was a good year you can replace

this word it was a good year you can

replace this with the adjective of your

choice so you could say it was a great

year or it was an awesome year or it was

an okay year yeah so you can use this

pattern right here to express your happy

or i suppose unhappy feeling about the

year so it was a good year

okay the next one is i learned and grew

a lot this year i learned and grew

a lot this year so you’ll notice this i

learned and this and grew a lot this

year so what does this mean i learned

and grew a lot this year means i learned

a lot of information so i got some new

knowledge right that’s a positive thing

i learned and grew so this this is the

past tense form of grow i learned and

grew a lot this year this means that i

grew in terms of knowledge so

i became better so we use the verb to

grow to talk about that so yes we use

grow to talk about our body getting

bigger of course but we also use grow to

talk about improving our mind so when we

say i learned and grew a lot this year

it sounds like we gained some knowledge

and it was really positive for us okay

cool

so i learned and grew a lot this year if

you want to be specific you could say i

learned about blah blah blah this year

or i learned about this thing this year

it was good so you can be specific with

this verb i learned this and it was good

okay awesome all right let’s continue on

to the next one this was a good year for

me professionally or this was a good

year for me personally so i have

these two words here professionally and

personally so if you say this was a good

year for me professionally it means in

my work life this was a good year for me

so maybe i had a lot of success i had

lots of good points in my work life this

year to express that we say this was a

good year for me professionally this was

a good year for me professionally

personally refers to your private life

so this was a good year for me

personally like i got married i had kids

or i had a kid maybe and i moved to a

new house or i changed jobs perhaps

something that was good for your private

life

you can express it with this word at the

end this was a good year for me

personally you could put them together

both of them this was a good year for me

professionally and personally okay

cool all right so this again uh you can

use

great or awesome or okay or whatever but

usually i think we say good this was a

good year for me professionally

okay cool let’s move along to the next

point

the next point is i’m grateful to have

met a lot of new

interesting people this year i’m

grateful to have met a lot of new

interesting people this year so in this

case i’ve put uh

i’m grateful to

and then have and this is my item met a

lot of new interesting people this year

so this is a kind of common maybe one of

i suppose

a more common expression we might use we

talk a little bit about the things we

feel grateful for right

grateful

means i feel

appreciation for this thing so this i

chose met a lot of new interesting

people this year as this is the thing i

feel appreciation for but you can use

i’m grateful to have blah blah blah for

some other situation too like i’m

grateful to have done this or i’m

grateful to have been there i’m grateful

to have traveled to this location so

this pattern i’m grateful to have blah

blah blah is one that you can use to

talk about something you feel

appreciation for i’m grateful to

something something something so i’m

grateful to have whatever

okay cool so in this case i’m grateful

to have met a lot of new interesting

people this year

okay

last one then last one is i achieved my

new year’s resolution this year i

achieved my new year’s resolution this

year so this one i achieved so i was

able to do something right i achieved my

new year’s resolution so new year’s

resolution i’m going to talk about this

at the beginning of next year your new

year’s resolution is your goal for the

new year so it’s very common for people

to set goals for a year so we call this

goal our new year’s resolution so if you

achieved your new year’s resolution your

goal for the year you can say that i

achieved my new year’s resolution this

year i made more money or i changed my

job whatever so i achieved my new year’s

resolution this year

all right cool so these are a few

expressions uh a few ways that you can

express positive or happy opinions about

the past year so you can get creative

with this too but generally these these

are the kinds of expressions we use to

think back on the year

at the end of the year okay cool so

let’s take one super quick break and

then we will go to part two and talk

about how to express our regrets or our

sad feelings about the year so if you

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let’s get into our second part for today

uh if you’re just joining today’s live

lesson is about how

to

express your opinions about the new year

or rather about the past year so how do

you express uh your feelings about the

previous year we’re gonna go to part two

now and we’re gonna talk about regrets

okay so if you haven’t please please

please make sure to hit the like button

and share this video so that other

people can find today’s lesson all right

let’s get into our regret patterns ah

okay so these are important to know it’s

important to know how to express regret

and for this lesson i chose two patterns

to talk about

we use them in the same way but the

grammar structure the grammar patterns

are different so even though

these two things

are used to mean

to express the same feeling it’s

important to know the different grammar

structures so let’s practice this so the

first way to express regret so regret a

reminder a regret that’s an emotion when

we feel sad about something in the past

right something that we did and we feel

sad it was a mistake or something we did

not do and we feel sad like oh i wanted

to do that so when we feel sadness about

the past that’s called regret so we

expressed that for the year with these

kinds of patterns we’re going to cover

two today so i wish i had

past participle verb i wish i had past

participle verb for example i wish i had

exercised more i wish i had exercised

more

or i wish i had taken more time off i

wish i’d taken more time off

or i wish i had eaten healthier i wish i

had eaten healthier

so you might notice in this one we are

using these comparatives yeah

exercised more taken more time off

eating healthier we have these

comparative forms here yeah so these

sentences

are expressing a comparison but not so

directly so this sentence is like saying

i wish i had exercised more than i did

this year

but we often remove that end part of the

sentence i wish i had exercised more

because we know from context we know

from the situation we’re talking about

this year right so i wish i had

exercised more than i did this year or i

wish i had taken more time off than i

did this year or i wish i had eaten

healthier than i did this year

but as you can see all of these end with

than i did this year so we typically we

remove it from the end of this sentence

so you can make

a regret expression with this pattern

make sure you use the past participle

verb form here so past participle verb

in this case exercised and taken and

eaten i wish i had exercised more i wish

i had taken not took not took so i wish

i had taken more time off i wish i had

eaten healthier okay so this is one of

the patterns we can use to express

regret okay great so let’s continue on

to the second regret pattern here i

should have past participle verb i

should have past participle verb so the

examples here i should have

spent more time with family i should

have spent more time with family

and

i should have made better decisions i

should have made better decisions

and i should have been more responsible

i should have been more responsible

responsible here this adjective

responsible means you take care of the

things you need to do so your work or

your studies or your tasks around the

house or maybe your relationships with

your friends or other family members and

so on so being responsible means taking

care of everything in your life right or

doing your best to take care of

everything

so this pattern is i should have plus

past participle verb the same verb form

that we used here so this pattern in

this pattern there’s really in this

context not much difference between the

meanings both of these are used to

express regret like ah i should have

spent more time with my family we could

change these we could swap the examples

for the grammar patterns and it would

still be perfectly okay for example i

wish i had spent more time with family

perfectly natural or i should have

exercised more perfectly natural so we

can use both of these

for this for these rig rep patterns but

i wanted to mention these because we use

these two patterns very very commonly

but you’ll notice the grammar is

different yeah i wish i had

blah blah blah right and i should

have

right so we use have in this should

pattern and we use i wish i had

in this pattern so this is a key point

to remember in native speech too this

sounds very quick so not i wish i had

exercised more we reduced this i wish i

had exercised more i wish i’d

this becomes i’d i had and this one i

should have is reduced to i shoulda

i shoulda it sounds like a native speed

it sounds like i should have spent more

time with family or i should have made

better decisions i should have been more

responsible

so these are very small things i know

especially in speech it sounds super

super fast right but it’s really

important to know the differences so

make sure you practice both of these

regret patterns and of course you can

use the negatives too i wish i hadn’t

done something or i shouldn’t have done

something you can use that to talk about

things that did happen and that you

regret too okay so these are our regret

patterns finally i want to end with a

very direct

expression of regret so i regret to make

a negative put not here so i regret ing

verb phrase this is very open so you can

choose the verb phrase here but use this

ing form of your verb yeah so i regret

spending lots of money so here’s my ing

i regret spending lots of money this

year for example so i regret that means

i feel bad about spending lots of money

this year i spent a lot of money i feel

bad about it so i regret spending lots

of money

or i regret not talking with friends

more i regret not talking with friends

more so this uses the negative i regret

not talking so that means i didn’t talk

to my friends so much or maybe only a

little bit and i feel sad about that so

i regret not talking to them

if you say i regret talking with my

friends it sounds like i did talk to my

friends and i feel bad about that

so you want to express that you didn’t

talk enough with your friends you can

use this pattern to express that i

regret not talking with friends more

okay so these are our regret and sadness

patterns some good grammar points to

keep in mind here okay cool all right so

that is part two for today’s lesson in

part three we’re just gonna cover some

other expressions that we use around the

end of the year okay awesome so uh

really really super super quickly if you

missed it just a quick reminder there is

free stuff for you from the link below

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later but time is running out so let’s

get to part three for today so part

three i just chose some other

expressions we use we like to use at the

end of the year this is the time i know

for many people to think about the year

to reflect like what did i do

how did i change and so on so these are

some other expressions

we might use at the end of the year of

course there are many others depending

on the person so here’s one um for to

express a happy event when you want to

talk about a specific happy event like

if you have a new year’s party with your

friends or your family members and you

want to remember a happy event you can

use this pattern i’m so glad happy event

for example i’m so glad we met i’m so

glad we met or i’m so glad i moved to a

new apartment i’m so glad i moved to a

new apartment you might also hear people

say things like i’m so glad we’re

friends i’m so glad we’re friends so

that’s a good way to express

appreciation for your friendship so i’m

so glad plus the happy event

so you can use a lot of different events

here so i’m so glad

my child was born healthy this year for

example so you can use happy events in

this pattern

okay next one is this expression this is

a good one people use this one when they

feel kind of motivated for the next year

coming up so this pattern is i want to

make next year even better i want to

make next year even better so even is in

parentheses these marks sometimes we use

it sometimes we don’t so

if you had a so-so year or maybe a bad

year it wasn’t a good year for you don’t

use even so i want to make next year

better

this better you’ll see again this

comparative form yeah i want to make

next year better so this better it means

i want to make next year better than

this year so this year was here i want

to make next year here better right so

we can use this pattern

even is used for emphasis this is an

emphasis word so if your year was really

good this year and you want to express

you want to make next year better than

this year this year was already really

good but you want to express you want to

emphasize next year should be way up

here so

use even even so we use this for an

emphasis word so we cannot use this if

if the previous year if this year was

bad for you we would not say i want to

make next year even better we use it if

it’s already good and we want to make

the next year better than our very good

year already was so emphasis word for

even i want to make next year even

better so a very positive expression

okay all right our last two for the year

then so this first one is a very common

expression um some people some people

don’t want to think about the year

they’re just ready to be done with work

or school they want to relax for the

holidays so they use this i’m just glad

the year is finally over

i’m just glad the year is finally over

so you can see this just i’m just glad

so when someone uses this pattern it’s

like saying i don’t care

this is all i care about i’m just glad

it’s finished that’s all i have to say

it’s just a quick comment really i’m

just glad the year is finally over

so finally over over means finished yeah

and finally means at last i’ve waited

for so long that’s the feeling here i’m

just glad the year is finally over so

maybe the last few years we we all feel

this way a little bit oh my gosh this

year is finally over what’s gonna happen

next year so you can use this if you

have no special comments about the year

but you’re just glad it’s done it’s time

for the holidays okay and finally the

last expression for this lesson another

year has come and gone another year has

come and gone you might have heard this

expression in like songs or in media

yeah this is uh just

it’s just a kind of neutral expression

it’s not good or bad

it’s just like saying okay one year has

finished one year has finished but we

just say has come so the year started

and gone and finished so this is kind of

a little bit old-fashioned a little bit

old-fashioned way to say this but you

might hear expressions like this around

this time of year so

another year has come and gone time

passes so quickly so you might hear

someone use that it’s a little a little

bit old-fashioned but at this time of

the year around the holidays and the new

year time we tend to use a little bit of

kind of these old-fashioned words yeah

they feel kind of comfortable i think so

you might hear this another year has

come and gone all right so uh that is

about it for our opinions about the past

year i hope that you found something

useful and i hope that you can find

something positive uh about the year

something that you learned or something

that helped you to grow as well as maybe

you can express some things that you

want to change about the year as well

too okay so

i will share the lesson boards with you

again one more time if you want to take

a screenshot get ready because here they

come all right there we are so in

today’s lesson we talked about uh how to

express your positive or happy opinions

about the year we talked about two

patterns for expressing regret and

sadness

keep in mind the grammar differences

with this one and then we also talked

about some other expressions we commonly

use at the end of the year so i hope

that this lesson was helpful for you and

i hope that you found something you can

use here at the end of the year uh to

talk about your own experiences

uh all right so i have to wrap it up now

time is always going quickly but i have

to wrap up this lesson our last lesson

for the year uh but i’ll be back next

week of course so here is the next

lesson information where is it okay next

week’s lesson information i’ll be back

next week uh january 5th that is january

5th wednesday at 10 p.m eastern standard

time that is new york city time if you

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below in the next lesson i’m going to

talk about how to talk about your goals

for the year how to talk about your

goals for the year so i mentioned uh in

today’s lesson about

new year’s resolutions so that will be

kind of the theme for the first live

stream for next year so join me again

next time for some ideas for how to talk

about your goals for the year always

a good one to think about all right uh

so i will wrap up today’s lesson thanks

everybody for joining that’s super super

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say goodbye for this week’s live lesson

thank you so so so so much for everybody

who joined us live this year thank you

so much to everybody who sent comments

and questions and participated and liked

and shared all of that it was super

super great uh and i wish you a happy

holiday and a happy new year and i will

see you again next time so have a good

day have a good week have a good holiday

and i will see you again soon bye