How to Make Great English Sentences Ask Alisha
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Welcome to our first ever evening edition
of this series.
Because the sound in the original video was
destroyed.
Hi everybody, welcome back to Ask Alisha,
the weekly series where you ask me questions
and I answer them, maybe!
The first question this week.
The first question this week comes from Patrick.
Hi Patrick!
Patrick says, “I know the basic English
words and I understand if someone speaks in
English.
for example, I understand your videos perfectly
but I have problems building correct English
sentences, like when I speak with another
person.
Do you have any tips on how to build correct
sentences?”
I think that this just comes with practice,
honestly.
It’s difficult to do but I know that there’s
not always a person that you can ask for help.
I will tell you a secret when I don’t have
confidence with something but I don’t know
how to answer something this is what I do…
“I google it.”’
Seriously, just google it.
I put quotation marks around like the phrase
that I’m trying to make and then I search
Google for it and if it’s there, great!
Then that means I can use it, maybe like thousands
of people have used that phrase.
I know it’s probably a common phrase if there
are no results and that probably means I’ve
made a mistake somehow.
So, that’s maybe one good way to help you
as you try to build phrases by yourself.
So, try that out.
Next question!
Next question comes from Huang Sei Na.
Hi!
“I love your name, Alisha.
Is Alisha a common name in the US?
I happen to have a friend named Elisa also
what’s your personal favorite name?”
Um.
A common name in the US?
Alisha, I don’t think “Alisha” is so common
in the US and when I was growing up I didn’t
have any other friends named “Alisha.”
Also, the spelling of my name is a little
strange.
Usually, it spelled “A-L-I-C-I-A.”
Maybe you know the artist “Alicia Keys,”
that’s how she spells her name.
So, my name was commonly confused as “Alicia”
a lot.
So, like for example, Allison and Elisa and
Ali and so on, those are fairly common I think,
but “Alisha” especially my spelling is
not so common actually.
So what’s my favorite name?
My favorite name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Next question!
Next question comes from Long.
“Is the ‘H’ sound not always pronounced
when followed by another consonant?
For example, ‘wall hanger’ or ‘come
back home.’”
Yes, the “H” sound is often pronounced
very softly.
It’s quite difficult to pronounce all of
these syllables clearly like in the example,
“come back home,” it’s quite difficult
to say the “H” sound clearly.
So, in those cases, it’s quite common to
make the “H” sound quite soft like “come
back home.”
Next question!
Romeo from Vietnam.
Hi, again, Romeo!
Romeo says, “Hello, Alisha.
Do native speakers say, ‘You aren’t going
to blah, blah, blah?’
Or, ‘You’re not going to blah, blah, blah.’
Which contracted form is used more?”
I think they’re used equally like you can
choose which you prefer.
Me, I think I usually say “you’re not
going to.”
I probably use “you’re,” I contracted
“you are,” “you’re not going to,”
or, “You’re not going to do something?”
I probably use “you’re not” more often
than “you aren’t going to.”
Next question is from Wagner.
Wagner!
Wagner!
Vagner!
Have you written any operas?
“Why do American people pronounce EnglishClass
“one-O-one” instead of “one-zero-one”
or “hundred one?”
Oh!
This relates to like university and college
level courses, actually.
So, there are four levels to universities,
or it’s colleges in the US, first year,
second year, third year and fourth year.
So, the classes for each of those are numbered.
So first-year classes begin with 1, second-year
classes with 2, third-year classes with 3,
fourth-year classes with 4.
So, first-year classes, it tends to be like
the basic classes begin with a 1 and like
the most basic of those classes is usually
“one-O-one.”
so like EnglishClass101, that’s kind of
making like a friendly introduction to English
in other words.
So we say, “one-O-One.”
We always use that sort of pattern when speaking
we don’t say “one-hundred and one,”
we always use “one-O-one” or like “one-two-four”
or like “three-six-seven.”
I don’t know what those classes are but
we always say each individual number.
Nice question though, interesting!
Next question is from Danny.
“Would you tell us about? ‘here you are,’
‘here you go,’ ‘there you are,’ ‘there
you go’ and ‘here, there, we, you, it,
baby go.’”
Oh, gosh!
Okay, I’ll talk about the ones that you
introduced.
“What do they mean and how do you use them
naturally?”
So, let’s talk first about “here you are”
and “here you go.”
So, we use these when we present someone with
something.
So, you give someone something, “Here you
are,” “here you go,” like you are at
a restaurant maybe your order arrives “Here
you are.”
“Here you go.”
Something like in a service situation you
might hear this kind of form like a friendly
staffish, like a staff-related person, I suppose.
“Here you are.”
“Here you go.”
Or maybe from a teacher to a school child
maybe, “Here you go.”
We use it to like present something, to present
an object that maybe they are expecting to
receive
Let’s talk then about “there you go”
and “there you are.”
We use “there you go” when someone is
able to do a thing they’ve been practicing
for a while.
For example, if the child is learning how
to ride a bicycle and they’ve been struggling
with it for some time but then gradually they
get better at it and they can do it the parent
might say “Oh!
There you go!
You got it!
You got it!”
It’s like a support word and encouragement
word, “There you go.”
The last one on your list though, “there
you are.”
In American English, we use “there you are”
in a situation where we’re looking for someone,
we’ve been looking for someone we’re expecting
to meet and it’s been difficult to find
them.
Maybe you visit a few different spots, but
then, at last, you find this person.
Maybe like in a break room or someplace you
might not expect them but when you do find
them and you say, “Oh, there you are!”
We say it with that sort of intonation, “Oh,
there you are!”
It sounds immediately to the listener like,
“Oh, this person has been looking for me.”
Next question!
Next question is from L-O-J.
L-O-J?
Loj?
Loj says, “My question is about phrasal
verbs.
What is the meaning of ‘knock out’ like
here, examples sentence 1, ‘Knocked me out
of my possession,’ or 2, ‘Knocked the
wind out of me.’
I had a problem with the word ‘possession,’
“Knocked me out of my possession.’”
I’m not quite sure.
This could refer, though, too, in a very rare
situation.
We have this word “possession” which refers
to like this thing called “demonic possession,”
where there’s this idea that a bad spirit
gets into the body and controls a person’s
behavior.
We call that “possession.”
So, we could say like, “A priest knocked
me out of my possession.”
To go back to your original question though,
the word “knock out,” as a phrasal verb,
“to knock out” means like forcefully or
forcibly remove something because of some
impact an object is removed from its original
location.
So, for example, a jogger could be coming
at me and they run into me and they knock
my phone out of my hands.
So, in that case, my phone is being removed
because of the impact of the jogger.
So, “to knock something out” means like
to remove from its original location from
force.
In your second example then, “knocked the
wind out of me,” this is an expression we
use which means like to lose our breath because
of an impact.
If you get punched or kicked maybe this area,
you might feel the air in your lungs come
out of your body.
So, we call that “the wind” in this situation.
So, “He knocked the wind out of me,” means
he caused me to lose the air in my lungs,
the impact was so strong in my body, that
the air came out of my out of my lungs.
So, “he knocked the wind,” so the wind,
in this case, the air in my lungs in its original
location was removed from me because of this
impact.
You might also hear this expression in boxing,
“to knock out” or “to KO” someone
means to cause them to lose consciousness,
in this case.
So, “consciousness” is the thing that’s
going away, in this case.
So, “to knock someone out in a boxing match”
means they lose consciousness, in other words,
a “KO” was sometimes said.
The first example sentence is not actually
so clear to me.
It’s also possible there’s an error in
the original place, I don’t know.
Alright, those are all the questions that
I want to answer this week.
Thank you very much for sending your questions
to me.
Remember, you can send them to me at EnglishClass101.com/ask-alisha.
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Thank you very much for watching this episode
of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week.
Bye-bye!