A vs. An Indefinite Articles in English Basic English Grammar
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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
first question this week comes from
it’s memart hello it’s me martz it’s
remark says
when do we use the preposition to in a
sentence
in these examples why do we use two she
is now
engaged to her longtime boyfriend and
i gave birth to two healthy boys okay
this is a big question and a big answer
there are lots of reasons
that we use two in sentences let’s talk
about a few
first we use two to describe movement so
for example i went to france
or he went to the office we use two
before the destination the place that we
are traveling
to so we use two to talk about movement
we also use two in time expressions like
she worked from nine to five it means
until
in these cases or she jogged from three
to four
so we can use it to express time in this
way
we also use two when we’re using the
infinitive form of a verb in a sentence
so for a reminder the infinitive form of
a verb
is the base form like the dictionary
form the kind that you find in the
dictionary
so that’s two plus the verb there are
many cases there are many different
grammar patterns many different
structures
in which we use the infinitive form so a
few examples of this
are we’re going to buy lunch and he
called to say hello
in other cases though the rules kind of
disappear a bit
they fade away it’s not so easy to apply
a simple rule
this is because these uses of two like
the ones that you’ve shared in your
example sentences
are actually from idioms or they’re
parts of phrasal verbs
these rules don’t apply however when we
look at two
in phrasal verbs and in idioms so
you have to remember these kind of like
separate vocabulary words you have to
memorize them
the same way that you would vocabulary
words unfortunately there isn’t a
clear-cut
rule for when to use two in cases like
these
so for example in your first example
sentence she got engaged to her longtime
boyfriend
the two in that sense is part of the
get engaged to expression that’s an
idiom to get engaged
to someone that’s a set phrase in the
second example
sentence she gave birth to two healthy
boys
two in that sentence is part of the
expression give birth to
so there are lots of set expressions
phrasal verbs and
idioms that use two and you just have to
memorize them
like vocabulary words they’re like kind
of independent expressions independent
phrases that you need to think about
so this is a quick introduction to a few
uses of
two and also just consider that
sometimes there’s not
really a specific rule for the reason
why two
is used in an expression it’s just the
vocabulary word or it’s just the idiom
so a good way perhaps to practice this
is
read i would suggest reading and over
time
naturally you’ll start to kind of get a
feel for the expressions that used to
and the expressions that used by or at
or in or on and so on
similar issues exist with other
prepositions for sure
so i would suggest reading as much as
possible to help you identify
the most natural choice of preposition
you can read novels you can read news
articles you can read
social media posts whatever make sure
you’re reading a lot
and then you’ll kind of over time as i
said get a feel for what
should be uh the preposition used so i
hope that this helps you i hope this was
a good introduction to a few cases in
which
it is kind of rule-based use of two but
also
just to give you a heads up uh give you
some information about these expressions
that used to
uh as kind of a set expression so
thanks very much for the question all
right let’s move on to your next
question
next question comes from vinai hi venai
binay
says how do we talk about simultaneous
events in present continuous tense
okay to talk about two or more
events happening right now so two or
more things that are happening in the
present moment
you can try a pattern like one of these
i’m listening to music and working at
the same time
are you cooking and cleaning right now
he’s watching me while operating the
camera
so a reminder these patterns are used
for two actions that are happening
right now at the same time if you want
to talk about actions that happen
regularly like habits you need to use
simple present tense we don’t use that
ing form
for regular actions we can only use
these patterns
for actions that are happening now so
please keep this in mind but i hope that
this helps you describe
simultaneous actions in the present
thanks very much for the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
comes from nelly hi nelly nelly says hi
alicia
what is the meaning of educated guesses
thank you yeah sure great question an
educated guess
is a guest that we make after doing
research or after getting some
information about the topic
so we can compare this to just a guess
so a guess
is just something that we come up with
we have an
idea about something we share it we make
a guess about something
an educated guess sounds like something
we actually thought about we tried to
find information
to make our guests more accurate so for
example
if i asked you who do you think will be
the next president of the united states
and you have no idea
but you want to guess you could say a
famous person like beyonce or something
so that’s probably not a good strategy
making a guest like that though
president beyonce does sound pretty
awesome
so making an educated guess on the other
hand
would require you to do some research
who are the candidates
what is their position on various issues
are they popular or not so after doing
that kind of research
and then sharing a guess like choosing
one of the candidates
that would be an example of making an
educated guess
so this is the difference between an
educated guest and just
a guess keep in mind that lots of people
like to pretend to make an educated
guess when they’re really just guessing
so keep this in mind too
i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay let’s move on to your
next question
next question comes from lin hi lin lin
says hi alicia i know we use
a when it is followed by a consonant
sound and use
an when it is followed by a vowel sound
but i heard we pronounce a as a or
a depending on the consonant or vowel
sound condition as well
i just put these rules together and i’m
confused now what’s the difference
for example he is an or a
a european person or this is a
or a one-way street thank you so much ah
sure okay first let’s review the uh
or a and and rules we use
the indefinite article a or
uh before a word that begins
with a consonant sound we use
and before a word that begins with a
vowel sound
so a key difference here is sound
be careful this has nothing to do with
spelling
so for example an hour we use
and there because hour begins with a
vowel sound
it starts with an h yes in spelling but
the sound is a vowel sound
our so this is the rule for using a
or a and an to answer your question
however there actually isn’t a rule for
when native speakers use the a
or a pronunciation it’s completely up to
the speaker so don’t worry about what
you’ve studied you don’t have to change
anything there
so just keep in mind that native
speakers will use
a pronunciation for emphasis
sometimes so we do this when we want to
emphasize
that like there’s a key difference in
some situation
so here’s an example let’s imagine you
are looking for your phone
and i find one here and i say hey
i found this phone you might reply and
you might say
you found a phone you didn’t find
my phone so the reason that a native
speaker would choose to use the
a pronunciation there is to emphasize
that i just found this phone in
particular i found a
phone yes it belongs to the category
phone but it’s not the speaker’s phone
so the speaker is making a contrast
there they want to like clearly show the
difference between
a phone and my phone this desired thing
and this thing you found
are different so that’s the reason that
they would use this a emphasis
so that pronunciation as emphasis in
that situation
let’s try one more example imagine we’re
co-workers in this situation
and i’m looking for a file an important
file
and you offer to help me you find a file
that you think is correct
and you show it to me and i go uh yeah
you found
a file but it’s not the file
so in that case i’m contrasting i’m
showing a difference i’m emphasizing a
difference
between this file you found and the file
that i’m looking for in this case i’m
using the file
to mean the file that we both know about
this file that we both are looking for
right now
i’m using the a pronunciation to draw
attention
to kind of point out that this thing and
this thing are different
so when i say a pronunciation might be
used for emphasis
this is what i mean so in sum you can
use either a
or a it really doesn’t matter it’s up to
you but you might hear native speakers
using that
a pronunciation for the article when
they’re trying to emphasize a key
difference between this thing
and another thing so i hope that this
helps you thanks for the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
comes from godson ernst pierre luis
hello godson ernst uh godson ernst says
i often hear
two different pronunciations of the word
neither and today i’d like to know which
one is right for me please
thank you aha the answer is both both
neither and neither are both totally
acceptable pronunciations
there’s actually a famous george
gershwin song if you’re familiar with
george gershwin he wrote rhapsody in
blue he had some musicals anyway
he and his brother ira did some like
cool musical stuff but there’s a very
famous example
in their work that references this issue
so they have neither and neither is good
examples or like potato
and potato both acceptable or tomato and
tomato so there are different
pronunciations for a few words and you
might know some more
but they’re both fine they’re both
acceptable you can use neither or
neither
i would say personally that probably in
today’s american english we use
neither and for the other words that i
mentioned tomato and potato
those are the more common pronunciations
but you can still use the other
pronunciations if you like
so that would be my personal
recommendation but you can use
both they’re both fine so i hope that
this helps you thanks for the question
okay that is everything that i have for
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