How to Learn English with Movies without Subtitles
wanna speak real English from your first
lesson sign up for your free lifetime
account at English class 101.com
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 on Hill
McNamara or angel McNamara hi hi Alicia
and team I read this sentence having
weighed up the pros and cons he decided
against resigning present participle can
you please explain that to me okay so to
my understanding this question is about
the use of the present participle in
resigning in decided against resigning
so we can use the present participle to
function as a noun so this can take the
position of the subject of a sentence
the object of a sentence indirect object
can have many different functions here
its functioning as the object of the
preposition against so against resigning
it’s the object of this preposition
against so decided against is kind of
it’s an idiomatic phrase so to decide
against something to decide against a
noun phrase means to decide not to do
that thing so here decided against
resigning means he decided not to resign
but we’re just using this idiomatic
expression decided against something but
yes here the present participle is
acting as a noun we can do this we call
this a gerund so here are a couple other
examples of Gerrans in different parts
of speech cleaning bores me I always try
to finish as quickly as possible so here
cleaning is the subject of the verb
bores and the object of the verb is me
so cleaning here is the gerund we’re
seeing it as the present participle form
of the verb clean we love cooking
because we can try lots of different
things at home okay so in this example
sentence cooking is the gerund and in
this case it’s functioning as the object
of the verb love we love cooking so
these are just a couple of examples of
the different positions that
gerunds can take in sentences but yes we
use this present participle as a noun in
different places in sentences so I hope
that this helps answer your question
thanks very much all right let’s move on
to your next question next question
comes from then tied end then says what
is IPA I’m really confused about it okay
so in language learning IPA stands for
international phonetic alphabet so the
international phonetic alphabet is
different from this standard alphabet
like the ABCs that many of us know this
is different from the standard alphabet
because the phonetic alphabet is an
alphabet of sounds it’s an alphabet for
pronunciation so when we learn the ABCs
like many native speakers I think most
native speakers probably know like the
ABC song the ABCD efg song in that song
though we learned the names of the
letters we don’t actually learn how we
pronounce those letters so like a good
example is like the second and third
letters of the alphabet song B and C so
we learned that B is called B but we
don’t actually learn how to pronounce B
with the phonetic alphabet though we
learn that B makes a sound and if we
want to get really specific there are a
couple of marks that show us exactly
what kind of sound a B is supposed to
make with a complex letter like C though
the phonetic alphabet can be super
useful so in the alphabet song we
learned that the letter is C but we
don’t learn all the different
pronunciations that we can make with
this letter so of course there’s the
pronunciation as in like cat or car or
cape but we don’t actually hear that in
the song so this sound is represented
with a K actually in the phonetic
alphabet when we pair C with another
letter like CH to make the sound we see
this sound represented with a different
letter in the phonetic alphabet so it’s
like cheat or chair or chat so the
phonetic alphabet can show us
pronunciations so even if we don’t know
exactly how we should
a word like the first time we see it we
can find the pronunciation in many
dictionaries with the phonetic alphabet
so for example if I look for the word
chair in an online dictionary that uses
the phonetic alphabet
I’ll find a spelling like this so it
uses that symbol which doesn’t look like
a c and then it ends with this air part
so this er refers specifically to the
air sound so if you look at an
international phonetic alphabet chart
you’ll see some symbols that are the
same as the standard alphabet like with
consonants like B or K sounds for
example but when you’re looking at like
vowel sounds and some of these special
sounds like for example you’ll notice
that there are these new symbols so if
you look at these sorts of symbols and
kind of study them as sort of sounds
instead of just names instead of just
like symbols you can use these to help
with your pronunciation of something so
if I’m learning and I don’t know any
rules of pronunciation I might think the
word chair is pronounced like chi or
something if I’m reading each letter
individually with IPA however I can look
at this information and I can understand
the correct pronunciation easily as long
as I’ve studied the sounds so this is a
quick introduction to the IPA and how
you might use it so I hope that this is
helpful for you if you want to know more
about the IPA I would suggest a google
search for an IPA chart you can find a
few of them online Wikipedia has a nice
one and a nice explanation and there are
some that you can find that will play
audio so you can click a button near a
symbol and it will give you the sound
for that so the symbol corresponds to a
sound not just a letter name so I hope
that that helps you as a side note IPA
also has a beer reference IPA also means
Indian Pale Ale or India Pale Ale so
quite different from the alphabet we’re
talking about here but don’t get them
confused there are those two very common
abbreviations IPA or the very common
initialisms rather okay so I hope that
that helps you thanks very much for this
question let’s move on to
next question next question comes from
Alam hi Imam Alam says hi Alicia I want
to learn English by watching movies so
should I watch it with or without
subtitles and should the subtitles be in
English also or in the language that I
understand yeah we get this question a
lot and so what I usually say or what I
try to say what I recommend is that you
plan to watch your movie or your TV show
more than once so the strategy that I
like to use and that I have used in the
past is to watch one time with subtitles
in your native language so in my case I
watched with English subtitles so in
this example I was watching a Japanese
TV show so I watched it one time with
all the subtitles on in English so I
could read everything but I was
listening in Japanese in this case so as
I was doing this I was picking up like
commonly used words in the series I was
picking up grammar points that they used
a lot and I was listening to different
speaking styles that the different
characters used so in this way I had
like this kind of basis for the story
that I could gain and I had kind of this
understanding of like okay this is the
way these different people talk I was
kind of prepared then after a gap I went
back and I watched it again without
subtitles
so this forced me to try to remember the
words that I heard and that I saw on
screen in English the first time around
but it also kind of forced me to make
guesses so of course I couldn’t remember
everything and that meant I had to try
to make an educated guess about the
situation so if the characters used a
word I didn’t know I had to think about
like what did they do when I was
watching this the first time and I had
subtitles on so based on that I could
try to guess what words meant if that
makes sense so I remembered seeing this
episode in the past maybe I can remember
the sorts of things that happened in
this episode and maybe I can make a
guess about what they’re talking about
now so actually when I was first
watching this series I was also studying
Japanese in university so that really
helped me to
prove my vocabulary and grammar and just
kind of be able to enjoy the series and
enjoy watching it a little bit more and
having a little bit of space between my
first viewing and my second viewing also
helped me see just how much I had
improved so I would say maybe if you’re
planning on using a movie or a TV show
like try to space out your viewings a
little bit so don’t watch it like one
time with subtitles one time without
subtitles like in the same day so try to
space out your learning a little bit so
you give your brain a little time to try
to recall the information then maybe you
can try if you want to you can try
watching the movie with English
subtitles after that to review again and
to practice your reading as well so this
is something that I would do I hope that
this is helpful for you this was fun and
helpful for me so maybe it’ll work well
for you so thanks very much for sending
this question along and good luck and
enjoy your movie studies okay let’s move
on to your next question next question
comes from Arjun Singh hi Arjun Arjun
says hi Alicia could you please tell me
the difference between stress and
depression okay so this is kind of a
tough question because for some people
stress and depression are very closely
linked so I’ll speak very generally
about this stress refers to the everyday
feelings that we have that are negative
so this is like your anxiety your
worries maybe from lots of work or lots
of study to do or you feel tired or you
make a mistake you have problems so this
is all of the negative stuff that
happens that we think about that we kind
of carry in our minds we call that
stress so some examples in a sentence
I’m under a lot of stress at work right
now
you need to reduce the stress in your
life depression on the other hand refers
to a medical condition in many cases for
some people there’s something called
seasonal depression which usually
happens in winter and it’s like this
feeling of sadness loneliness this kind
of empty feeling that people experience
for other people depression is
year-round so it’s this really
like unhappy persistent unhappy feeling
that never really goes away so maybe
people with depression can have trouble
with everyday tasks or they might have
trouble getting out of bed or eating so
these very kind of basic things may be
difficult for people with depression so
that’s considered a medical issue and
some people get treatment for depression
so depression is something that’s
constant something that’s like a
constant emotional state or a medical
state that requires treatment stress on
the other hand is temporary or in most
cases it’s temporary it’s something that
kind of comes and goes with life
depression is something that’s much
longer period so some examples of
depression a friend of mine is
struggling with depression do you have a
history of depression so I hope this
helps you understand the differences
remember stress kind of comes and goes
for most people and depression is a
medical condition that sometimes
requires treatment thanks very much for
the question all right let’s move on to
your next question next question comes
from Ahmad Riza hi Ahmad Ahmad says hi
Alicia what’s the difference between
college and university oh yeah in
general conversation we tend to use
these words exactly the same I would say
too in American English we tend to use
college more often than university but
the actual difference is that colleges
offer just undergraduate education so an
undergraduate education in the u.s. is
four years so that’s a bachelor’s degree
you get a bachelor’s degree when you
finish your undergraduate education a
university however offers undergraduate
and graduate education so at a
university students can get a bachelor’s
degree a master’s they can get their PhD
there so a university offers more
courses more opportunities for education
than a college but as I said in
conversation these days most people use
them interchangeably so for example I
might say like I applied to five
universities last year we probably
wouldn’t say I applied to two colleges
in three universities last year because
we consider them pretty
the same so if you want to be super
specific I guess you could but it might
sound a little unnatural to use college
and university in the same sentence like
that
so again generally we use them the same
way but specifically there are those
differences in terms of the courses that
are offered so I hope that this helps
you thanks very much for the question
all right that’s everything that I have
for this week thank you as always for
sending your questions remember you can
send them to me at English class 101.com
slash ask - Alicia of course if you
liked this video please please please
don’t forget to give it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you haven’t
already and check us out at English
class 101.com for some other things that
can help you with your English Studies
thanks very much for watching this
week’s episode of ask Alisha and I will
see you again next week bye bye want to
speed up your language learning take
your very first lesson with us you’ll
start speaking in minutes and master
real conversations sign up for your free
lifetime account just click the link in
the description