How to use THOUGH in daily English conversation
Hi, I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
How can you use the word “though”?
Let’s talk about it.
In this English lesson you’re going to learn
how native English speakers use the word “though”
in daily conversations.
You’re also going to learn a common mistake
that English learners often make with the
word “though”.
And then we’re going to talk about some casual
uses of this word.
Let’s talk about the best way to use it in
daily conversation.
The other day I met with my friend and she
was telling me about her job, her life, her
family and she had a lot of energy.
She seemed pretty positive.
But I could tell by the look on her face,
the look in her eyes that something wasn’t
right.
Something was a little different.
Her fact wasn’t matching her words.
So, in this situation we could say, “Her words
are happy but look at her face though.”
Here we have two contrasting parts.
The first part her face is happy.
She’s positive.
She’s energetic.
But, look at her face.
Something is different.
Something is not matching her words.
So we need to use a contrasting word “though”.
What if you said, “English is tough.
Learning with Vanessa is easy though.”
What does this mean?
We have a contrasting part.
The first part, “Learning English is tough.”
It’s difficult.
Oh it’s not always easy.
But the second part, “Learning with Vanessa
is easy though.”
We have a contrasting second section of your
sentence.
“It’s easy though.”
So when you use the word “though” you’re contrasting
with something that you already said.
You could say, “English is tough.
Learning with Vanessa is easy.”
But this is kind of beginner-level English
and you’re here to use advanced English.
So the best thing you can do is add “though”
at the end of the sentence.
“English is tough.
Learning with Vanessa is easy though.”
You’re often going to hear native English
speakers combine two sentences together using
a conjunction, but.
“English is tough, but learning with Vanessa
is easy though.”
And in this sentence we already have a contrasting
word.
We already are using “but” to show that there’s
a difference between the first part of your
sentence and the second part of your sentence.
So why do native speakers sometimes add “though”
at the end when you’re already contrasting?
Well this is kind of just for extra emphasis.
You’re extra emphasizing that English with
Vanessa is easy.
You’re trying to really show a difference.
“Learning English is tough, but with Vanessa
it’s easy though.”
Let’s take a look at a couple other examples.
Let’s imagine that you hate onions.
Some people hate onions.
They’re pretty strong tasting.
You might say, “Well, I hate onions, but this
onion snack is pretty good though.”
You’re contrasting your hate of onions and
this onion snack.
What about if you said, “Learning online is
great.
My time is limited though.”
My time is limited though.
We have one part.
Learning online is great.
It’s a positive statement.
And then you’re using a negative statement.
“My time is limited though.”
What about if you said, “I like my job.
Waking up is hard though.”
For you if you don’t like waking up in the
morning, this might be the perfect sentence
for you.
“I like my job.
Waking up is hard though.”
Or you could say, “I like my job but waking
up is hard though.”
Now that you know how native speakers use
“though” in daily conversation, let’s talk
about a common mistake that I hear English
learners use all the time.
Have you ever said, “Though it’s raining,
I’m going to go hiking anyway.
Though I feel hesitant, I’m going to marry
him anyway.”
“Though” plus the rest of your sentence.
Does this look structurally different than
the other sentences?
What’s the main thing that you notice that’s
different?
Well, “though” is at the beginning of the
sentence and this is something that is too
formal for daily conversations.
If you want to use this in a formal email,
maybe in a really formal presentation, go
ahead.
No problem.
But I know a lot of you use English just while
you’re traveling or in daily conversations
in less formal situations.
So make sure that when you use “though” you
put it at the end of that contrasting statement.
Don’t put it at the beginning.
“Though I feel hesitant, I’m going to marry
him anyway.”
Way too formal.
Not natural.
Make sure that you use it at the end.
So you could say, “I’m going to marry him.
Well, I feel hesitate though.”
You’re using it at the end and that’s natural.
Now we’re going to talk about two casual ways
to use the word though.
The first one is if I said to you, “That cake
looks good, but its taste though.”
What do you notice about this sentence?
Did I finish it?
Did I say, “But its taste is bad though.”?
No I didn’t explicitly say what I think about
the, but it is implied.
Implied means you can understand my meaning
even though I didn’t use those exact words.
So, when I say, “That cake looks good, but
its taste though,” you can understand that
I think the taste and the look are opposites.
We have two contrasting statements.
Because the cake looks good, you can imagine
that I think the taste is not good.
It’s the opposite.
So you might use this in situations where
you want to be a little bit more polite.
You’re saying something negative but you don’t
want to say it so directly.
Let’s imagine that you said, “I like Vanessa’s
videos, but her facial expressions though.”
This means that you enjoy my lessons but you
don’t feel the same way about my facial expressions.
Maybe you think my facial expressions are
a little crazy or strange or it’s just not
a good fit for your learning style, but you
don’t want to directly say that.
You don’t want to say, “I like Vanessa’s lessons,
but her facial expressions are strange though.”
Instead, you’re going to just stop your sentence.
Maybe have a little pause.
Maybe elongate that final part.
“Her facial expressions though,” and you’re
kind of letting your listener imagine what
you think.
You’re not directly saying it, but it’s a
little more casual.
It’s implied.
For the second casual use of the word “though”
you’re going to see this most often in really
casual situations like an Instagram hashtag.
Somewhere like this you probably aren’t going
to say this in conversation.
You might see this.
You might hear it in a TV show.
But I want you to understand what it means.
Let’s take the example, “That smile though.”
Here we have that plus a noun plus “though”.
What does this mean?
Well I’d like to give you a quick example.
I saw a video clip of a girl who got her purse
stolen.
It was just a skit, it wasn’t really real.
But she said, “Hey, he stole my purse.”
And this guy runs up to save her and to get
her purse, but instead he does a backflip
off the wall.
And she looks really surprised and says, “Hey,
he got away.
He got my purse.”
And he looks at the camera really proud and
says, “The backflip though.”
Why did he use the word “though”?
Here he’s really just drawing attention to
something impressive.
It’s not a contrast.
It’s not really comparing something.
It’s just something that he thinks is impressive
and he wants you to realize that it’s impressive
too.
So you might see this if you are looking at
Instagram and you see a picture of some famous
celebrity.
Maybe someone would comment, “Whoa, that smile
though,” and this just means they think that
his smile is really handsome.
They want to let everyone know, look, draw
attention to his smile.
It’s handsome.
This is more common in urban or even African-American
English.
So you’re going to see this, you might see
this as slang but it might not be a good fit
for you to use in daily conversation, but
now you know what it means.
Before we go let’s do a quick recap or review.
You might say, “There is a lot of English
vocabulary.
This lesson made it easy though.”
I hope that this lesson make it easy for you
to understand how to use the word “though”,
when to use it and how not to make some common
mistakes with this word.
Let me know in the comments a sentence using
the word “though”.
Try your best to use this and repeat it.
Say it out loud.
Use it yourself.
Thanks so much for learning English with me
and I’ll see you again next Friday for a new
YouTube lesson here on my channel.
See you again the next time.
Bye.
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Speaker.
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confidently and fluently.
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Thanks so much.
Bye.