How to Explain and Support Your Opinions in English
my name is alicia and in this week’s
lesson we are going to talk about how to
support your opinions and ideas in last
week’s live lesson i talked about how to
give a basic presentation and in that
live stream i talked about how to
express the details of your presentation
how to give details about your topic
your presentation topic so
in today’s live lesson i want to talk
about that point in more detail how do
you uh support your beliefs how do you
support the things
that you want other people to believe in
so this will be the focus for this
week’s lesson so as you joined please
please please please make sure to hit
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today’s lesson okay
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oscar miss appleberry hi marvin mauricio
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doki so this is the end of the
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to our main topic uh our main topic for
today is how to
support your opinions and ideas so let’s
take a look at today’s lesson boards
so today we’re going to begin by talking
about uh how to express your opinion so
a review
so how to express your opinion
and i also included a tip to make
yourself sound a little more confident
when you do this
then part two and part three will be
about reporting speech sharing data and
explaining sources so these two parts
these two parts part two and part three
these are about
supporting your ideas so three different
ways to support your opinions and
support your ideas so we’re going to
focus a lot on example sentences today
okay
cool so let’s get started with the first
part here okay let’s begin with
expressing your opinion oh also if you
have not please make sure to like and
share this video so others can find it
we would
really appreciate that okay
let’s go
so first part expressing your opinion
this will include
some basic review i think but i want to
talk about a way to kind of increase the
level of confidence you can express here
okay so expressing your opinion we have
very basic ways to do this like i think
or i believe
or i’m pretty sure
and so on right so i think blah blah
blah or i believe blah blah blah
i’m pretty sure blah blah blah so we
begin our opinion and idea related
sentences with expressions like these
right
what’s the difference between i think
and i believe i believe we tend to use
more in uh like formal or professional
situations
and we also use it more when we want to
kind of express a strong idea like we
want to talk about something we feel
like in our heart is super is true it’s
something that’s like at our core so for
more serious topics we might say i
believe okay
this one i’m pretty sure i included this
one uh here of course you can say i’m
sure which means i’m 100
about something i think 100 this is true
you can use i’m pretty sure
i mean i have a high level of confidence
about this thing
so
these are some quick ways to express
your opinion also a basic pattern you
can use is noun phrase is
adjective noun phrase is adjective
that’s an opinion expression right so
let’s look at some examples of this
first one let’s use i think for example
i think this is a good price i think
this is a good price so this expresses
uh your opinion your idea about the
value of something right i think this is
a good price
okay another one you can use
i’m pretty sure
he’s coming to the meeting
i’m pretty sure he’s coming to the
meeting so this one expresses
a fairly high level of certainty we’re
not sure yet but the speaker thinks
there’s a good chance they’re correct
i’m pretty sure
he’s coming to the meeting
okay
here’s one i believe i believe and i
believe sentence i believe this is the
best choice i believe this is the best
choice so you might use this expression
in a meeting i believe this is the best
choice when you’re discussing options
maybe i believe this is the best choice
finally
an example of noun phrase is adjective
it’s very simple we use these all the
time we use these very often the movie
was awesome right the movie was awesome
in this case i used past tense the movie
was awesome so noun phrase is adjective
noun phrase is adjective okay
so
we have these basic sentence starters
right i think i believe i’m pretty sure
here is my tip to make your opinion or
your idea statements sound more
confident
remove
the i think or the i believe from the
beginning of the sentence so what do i
mean
so this sentence i think this is a good
price this is totally correct yeah
but to make it sound more confident
remove i think ah i think so just say
this is a good price
that sounds more confident it’s a lit
it’s more direct right
this is a good price so this sounds more
confident and more sure of yourself yeah
here’s another one so you can remove i’m
pretty sure he’s coming to the meeting
this is one where you might not want to
sound super super confident because the
information is about another person but
if you want to express confidence you
can say he’s coming to the meeting he’s
coming to the meeting it sounds very
confident
okay
another one i believe this is the best
choice you can make this sound more
confident by just saying this is the
best choice this is the best choice so
it sounds very direct right
and finally this one we don’t have to
make a change this one is already very
direct straightforward okay
cool so the movie was awesome
okay so this is part one for today’s
lesson uh if you have any questions i
will check in the chat um
let’s see miguel says i’m pretty sure to
finish i’m pretty sure i’m going to
finish yeah i’m pretty sure i’m going to
finish my homework today
okay
i don’t see other questions all right
let’s go to a quick break and then
sorry i made myself
then we’ll go to part two okay so quick
break quick break i showed you this at
the beginning of today’s lesson but if
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okay
let’s go to part two now also if you
haven’t please please please make sure
to like and share this video yeah helps
other people find the lesson
continue okay let’s continue let’s
continue to part two so part two
and part three of this lesson will be
about supporting those opinions so part
one
was about expressing your opinion
sharing your opinion part two and three
will be about supporting those things
okay so
first the first way to support your
opinion is to report speech report
speech what does that mean
you explain with these kinds of
expressions he said or she said or that
person said so why do i think this is
true because that person said it so
here’s one way to support your opinion
he said or she said or person said for
example alicia said blah blah blah
or he or she told me he or she told me
so one common question is what’s the
difference between said and told here so
say is like a flat just a neutral report
of speech doesn’t sound good doesn’t
sound bad it’s just neutral report
someone used those words someone said
that thing
this one
the verb tell so uh told is the past
tense form of tell yeah so tell sounds
like it’s a one-way conversation so like
my boss
gives me information only my boss is
speaking or mainly my boss is speaking
i’m not saying anything i’m listening
we use tell to talk about those one-way
conversations or maybe one-way important
pieces of information yeah so he or she
told me
okay so
let’s look at some examples of how we
use reported speech together with an
opinion
first one from the beginning of the
lesson i’m pretty sure he’s coming to
the meeting
he said
he’s coming to the meeting
so
just now with my voice i emphasized said
he said he’s coming to the meeting
this emphasis
is showing that this is the report i
received so this is the information i
got
i can communicate that with my voice i
emphasize that with my voice you can
hear that uh in a lot of cases with
native speakers we do that
with uh reporting verbs like these
that’s what he’s going to do
so we have our opinion here i’m pretty
sure he’s coming to the meeting and our
support statement he said he’s coming to
the meeting so this is why i think it’s
true
okay let’s look at another example so
from the beginning again the same
situation i think this is a good price i
think this is a good price
why
the staff told me this product is on
sale
the staff told me
this product is on sale so in this case
we use
tell so past tense told
as our reporting verb
so the staff is giving the customer lots
and lots and lots of information the
customer is listening right
so tell sounds nice you could use say
here say is also correct but in this
case you just have told so the staff
told me this product is on sale
so you can use reported speech to
support your ideas
okay
cool i’m checking your
questions i don’t see others uh nahora
says i’m pretty sure he’s going to buy a
car he said he’s going to buy it soon
okay nice example no hold up okay good
so let’s go to the next part then let’s
take a look now
at the next way to support your ideas
with data with data i love data
right data is great data is great
because we can measure data we can
easily understand sometimes numbers and
statistics so data is a great way to
help the other person understand
something yeah okay so let’s look how do
we share data to support your opinions
okay
so we can use this mark this mark right
here maybe you can see
this is the percent mark yeah the
percent mark so we can use percentages
percentages
to share data we can use numbers of
course how many people or how many times
these sorts of things
also i want to talk about these two
verbs increased past tense and decreased
also in past tense
increased by or increased to
versus decreased by and decreased too so
this preposition is very important this
preposition is very important here we’re
going to practice and uh
learn a little bit about this in this
section so
first let’s look at how to share data
with a percent
mark okay for example
50
of our customers said
they were interested in our product idea
we should develop it
so once more 50 of our customers said
they were interested in our product idea
we should develop it so in this sentence
or in this situation
the speaker shares the support
information first
then
they share their opinion we should
develop it so we should develop the
product so develop means make create so
plan create
uh together develop something yeah so 50
of our customers i’ve used this one said
again so reporting
said they were interested in our product
idea so this helps us understand
how many people very quickly and very
easily yeah so data is good
okay
i don’t see questions so let’s go to the
next one i want to use these two
sentences
to talk about the difference between by
and to
in these kinds of sentences so before i
look at the examples
i want to note that by
is used to express the
amount of change in something
two
is used to express the end point of a
change so what does that mean okay so
let’s look at some examples these two
examples
sales increased by 10
last month sales increased by 10
last month so sales
went up increased means went up past
tense by 10
that means if sales were at 10 so we had
10 sales
uh or rather
we want to express the amount
of change here with this number so
compared to last month
we had 10 percent more
this month so
buy
expresses that buy expresses the level
of change the amount of change okay
let’s compare this to this one
yesterday the high temperature was 30
degrees
today
it decreased to 27.
so again yesterday the high temperature
was 30 degrees
today it decreased to 27 degrees
so in this sentence we see decrease yeah
decrease means went down something went
down so yesterday the high temperature
was 30 degrees here today it decreased
to 27 degrees so
we use two
here two marks the end point of the
change so 27 it decreased to
27 and stopped so that’s the end point
of the change
if we say today it decreased by
27 degrees that means the amount of
change that means the high temperature
was 30 or 3 degrees
so
so we really need to make sure we use
the correct preposition here yeah so
today it went down
to 27 city
okay
so
these are a couple ways that we can
create
uh support for our ideas all right
awesome okay i’m looking for your
questions
rafael says alicia how do i mention a
person i don’t know exactly using they
it or he or she sorry the question went
away say it he or she it’s kind of an
unknown subject oh yeah if you don’t
know so like up here
uh when we don’t know exactly who
someone is like maybe you’re talking to
someone in an email or you get a
notification
in the mail or something we use they for
that we use they so for example like the
staff at a
i don’t know hotel maybe in an email
you want to report something you
received in an email from staff
something like that you can say they
they said this they said that we use
they for that okay
johnathan willian says alicia what’s the
difference between i’m sure and i’m
pretty sure again i’m sure means i’m 100
confident in this i know this it’s a
fact i’m sure he’s coming
i’m pretty sure it’s like i’m like 70
confident so it’s kind of like lower
lower level of confidence okay
all right uh i don’t see
other questions yet so
let’s go to the last part for today’s
lesson the last part will be about
explaining sources yes explaining
sources this is extremely important if
you are a student always cite your
sources students
okay i’m not going to talk about that
today but very important okay let’s go
to sources how do you explain the source
of your information explaining the
source of info info and information
source means where did your information
come from so that’s what we’re doing
here expressing
where we learned some information
all right so
we have four
patterns here of course there are more
according to the
source of your information but let’s
look quickly at the basic ideas here in
practice okay so according to
according to so according to is used
before a source so according to alicia
we should use pretty sure when we are 70
sure
so according to source according to a
person according to a news outlet
according to this book or according to
something whatever your information
sources you can use according to before
the source and then give the information
maurices says can i say according to me
um i guess like grammatically according
to me this is correct but the idea here
like you don’t need to say according to
me because you can just say your opinion
you can just say the information right
like you don’t need to say according to
me we use according to to talk about uh
something that comes from someone else
right so it would sound like that made
me laugh like it would sound funny
if you want to make a joke you could say
that
we use this to give information about
another source
okay
uh all right so let’s go to the next one
in an article i read
in an article
i read
so i have this in in parentheses we have
a couple different patterns we use with
this kind of thing in an article i read
or an article i read
described blah blah blah there are a
couple of different patterns that we use
with this we’ll look at um
some examples in just a second okay
uh and then here’s another one in a book
about this topic or a book about this
topic said blah blah blah all right so
we can use articles books maybe podcasts
youtube videos whatever your sources can
go here
here’s another useful one
i saw in the news today i saw in the
news today
or you could use i read in the news
today so we always use this plural and
the the news the news that means uh the
recent news
like today’s news or uh the week’s news
we always use that
okay
cool
let’s go to some examples now some
examples now so first i want to talk
about using
according to
according to
so how do we use according to
to express our sources it sounds kind of
formal as well so this uh according to
we typically use more in like writing
like professional writing or maybe in
like uh professional situations
according to another person okay
so according to our customer data
a lot of people are interested in our
new product idea we should create it so
according to our customer data so this
shows us the source the source
of my opinion or the source of this
information
is customer data customer data so
according to our customer data
a lot of people are interested in our
new product idea so we should create it
okay cool
good so this is how we can use according
to
then next here’s one about the news how
do we report about the news
i saw
in the news today that a lot of people
are getting sick lately
we should be careful
i saw in the news today that a lot of
people are getting sick lately so let’s
break this down so i saw in the news
today that’s the same as this pattern
yeah i saw in the news today
that so this is our relative pronoun
that introduces this idea this uh topic
yeah
a lot of people are getting sick lately
this is a like just a basic statement
yeah a lot of people are getting sick
lately so we connect these ideas with
that i saw in the news today that a lot
of people
we should be careful so this is the
opinion we should be careful
okay
and finally
some articles okay so i mentioned how to
express
uh articles when we read articles about
topics like this
i read past tense i read some articles
about sleep and rest it’s really
important to give yourself time to
recharge because it makes you mentally
and physically healthier
this was a long one yeah i read some
articles about sleep and rest so here’s
my source right i talked about this
pattern but another way to express this
is with i read an article about this
topic or in this case plural i read some
articles about topic i read some
articles about sleep and rest it’s
really important to give yourself time
to recharge because it makes you
mentally and physically
healthier
okay so these are some ways to express
the source of your information so maybe
according to it’s very easy to use but
it does sound a little bit more formal
so if you want to express speech you can
just use said like we talked about
earlier
that’s very very common
okay
let’s see i don’t see any questions from
you
everybody’s saying hello
some things okay i don’t see any
questions from you i’m a student from
cambodia cool welcome okay uh so raphael
says according to my professor and
grades i wasn’t approved this semester
so maybe according to my professor
my grades weren’t enough so we need to
when you use according to when you use
this pattern here according to
right here
according to person is good like
according to my professor
uh so we we use according to to show we
received some information
from that source so in your example
raphael we cannot like get information
like my grades don’t tell me
like information they cannot speak right
so we need to read or hear information
or process like written information to
use according to
okay
other questions according to alicia you
need to learn english everyday to get
better that would be great that would be
great so i think that’s a very good idea
is to practice every day
all right uh let’s go to the end oh my
gosh that’s the end
so we have to finish there
oh my gosh that’s funny uh so we are
done
uh with today’s lesson so
thanks very much for joining me i will
show you today’s lesson boards one more
time if you want to take a screenshot
there you go so we talked about
expressing your opinion first of all we
talked about reporting speech as well
and we talked about explaining the
source of your information okay so i
hope this was helpful for you i hope it
was helpful for you in terms of uh
presenting your ideas and explaining
where you got your information it’s
really important okay
let’s go
to next week’s information next week’s
lesson information is here next week
i’ll be back of course next week’s
lesson will be august 18th 10 p.m
eastern standard time that is new york
city time if you do not know your local
time please use your google skills and
figure it out or you can set a
notification on youtube or on facebook
uh if you follow me on instagram also i
always post a link and a topic reminder
in my story so you can follow me on
instagram to get that update too the
link is in the description next week i’m
going to talk about how to talk
naturally about your schedule how to
talk naturally about your schedule we’re
going to cover simple present tense for
sure in this one we’ll cover some very
basic grammar points so i think this
will be a good lesson for beginners okay
cool so i will say goodbye for today
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so enjoy the rest of your day thanks
very very much for liking sharing and
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was awesome have a good day have