A while for a while in a while What is the difference in English
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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you
ask me questions and i answer them maybe
let’s get to your first question this
week
first question this week comes from
zakaria flifla hi zacharia
zakaria says hi alicia could you please
tell me why we sometimes use the verb
do before another verb thank you yeah
sure
i’ve talked about this before in the
series but we use
do before another verb when we want to
emphasize the opposite of something so
let’s take a look at a few
pairs of sentences to see how this works
sorry i don’t have time to help you
right now but you do
have time you’re just looking at
facebook and
i don’t know anything about today’s
meeting just that they’re making a big
announcement
aha so you do know something okay
so in both of these example sentences we
have a person a
and a person b person a says something
to the effective i don’t know something
or i can’t do something
or i don’t have time to help you as with
person a
in both of these examples and then
person b notices something about person
a
or about the things that person a said
and they
emphasize no that’s not true and they do
this
by including do before the verb
so in the first example situation the
person
person a in this situation said i don’t
have time to help you right now but
person b
said you do have time so you’ll often
hear
do emphasized before the verb that
follows to show
that’s not true so that emphasis in the
speaker’s voice means
that’s not true or the opposite of that
is true and the reason
is that person b presumably or we think
sees person a looking at facebook the
same thing happens in the second
situation
person a says i don’t know anything
about the meeting
just that there’s going to be a big
announcement and so person b
understands wait so you do know
something about the meeting
again do proceeds or comes before
the verb know there so speaker b is
emphasizing
that the speaker that speaker a rather
actually does know
something so we’re using do before the
verb
as emphasis in this way so i hope that
this helps you thanks very much for an
interesting question
all right let’s move on to our next
question next question comes from
emma hi emma emma says hi alicia i would
like to know if there are differences
between
a while for a while and in a while
if there is can you explain thanks so
much sure
a while means a period of time so we use
for a while and in a while quite
differently
for a while is used when we’re talking
about a duration of time
we’re using it to talk about the length
of time that something happens so
duration
is really the key here let’s take a look
at a few example sentences
i stayed in the restaurant for a while
after i finished eating
i’m going to take a walk around the
neighborhood for a while
i traveled around europe for a while
when i was in my twenties
okay so let’s compare this then to in a
while
when we use in a while we’re talking
about an upcoming activity so this is
not something that’s going to happen now
but it’s going to happen
soon so if it’s helpful you can think
about replacing
soon for in a while in the sentence it
has the same
meaning let’s look at some examples of
this i’m going to leave the office in a
while
we’re gonna go to the coffee shop in a
while you want anything
so a question that maybe some of you
have is what’s the difference between
these two sentences sentences like these
like
i’m gonna walk around the neighborhood
for a while and i’m going to walk around
the neighborhood
in a while so they seem very similar but
the
for a while sentence would be said by
somebody who is probably leaving
now like they are leaving their house
now and they just want to report to
someone
their upcoming activity they’re going
out of the house to walk around the
neighborhood
for a period of time that’s the duration
of the activity
on the other hand the in a while
sentence is like they’re sharing their
upcoming plan with someone
possibly to invite them like i’m going
to walk around the neighborhood in a
while do you want to come
so these are the small differences that
our preposition choices can make
especially
with an expression like a while so i
hope that this helps you thanks very
much for the question
okay let’s move on to our next question
next
question is from sung wan hi sunguan
seongwan says hi alisha what does
literally mean
do people use it the wrong way yeah okay
literally means the ordinary or the
simple meaning of a word
it can also mean like truly exactly and
so on
so it is used for emphasis yes but
it’s also used incorrectly a lot first
let’s take a look at the correct way to
use literally
for example we raised literally hundreds
of dollars at the fundraiser
he got his hands dirty literally helping
out at the farm for a tv show
okay so these two example sentences show
correct usage of the word literally in
the first example
it’s literally hundreds so the speaker
wants to emphasize that exactly really
truly hundreds of dollars were raised in
a fundraiser
the reason that we use literally here is
because we want to express that this is
not an exaggeration so an exaggeration
means something that sounds like it’s
better or bigger than it actually is
so the speaker wants to communicate it
was truly hundreds of dollars they used
literally to do that
in the second example sentence about
someone getting his hands dirty
the speaker wants to communicate that
actually the tv host in this case
truly did physically literally get his
hands dirty in the process of making a
tv show
so there are two reasons that we use
literally in this way
the first as in with the first example
sentence is to show that something is
not being exaggerated like the number or
the amount
that’s described in the sentence is
truly the number
so we’re not just doing it for effect
literally
some amount you may see this used the
second use though
as we see in the second example sentence
is with these expressions that have kind
of double meanings
so get one’s hands dirty or to get your
hands dirty has two meanings
yes there’s the literal meaning which is
as it’s written on the page
for your hands to physically become
dirty but there’s also another meaning
to this phrase which is to do the work
yourself to actually
do work so to get your hands dirty can
have two meanings
the speaker using literally in the
second example sentence
means they want to emphasize that
real true meaning of getting your hands
dirty like physically having dirt on
your hands
so these are the two reasons that we use
literally
for emphasis to make sure that we’re not
accidentally
exaggerating and to to make it clear
that we mean the actual
simple meaning of an expression so again
to return to your second question
literally is misused all the time
native speakers want to use it for
emphasis but they use it incorrectly
so let’s take a look at two examples
that are great examples
of misuse of the word literally ugh
i’m literally starving can we go to
lunch
and there were literally millions of
people at my house last night
okay so in both of these example
sentences literally is used
incorrectly literally starving in the
first sentence so the problem here
is that the speaker is probably not
actually
starving starving means they are so
hungry that they are actually
dying so literally starving is untrue
the speaker is probably
not actually starving they just want to
express that they are very hungry
the correct way to express that would
just be to say ugh i’m starving that’s
fine
you don’t need to use literally in this
sentence but this is something native
speakers probably say all the time
the second example sentence uses
literally with a number as in there were
literally
millions of people in my house last
night so it’s not possible for millions
of people to be in someone’s house
the speaker just wants to emphasize how
many people
were at his or her home the previous
night so using
literally is unnecessary here you could
just say there were so many people in my
house last night or there were millions
of people at my house last night
if you just drop literally from the
sentence we understand that you’re
exaggerating
so yes literally is used incorrectly
all the time and it’s usually for these
emphasis reasons
so i hope that this answer helped you
it’s a very interesting question
thanks very much for sending it along
okay let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from andrew
hi andrew
andrew says what’s the meaning of ball
game as in
youtube comments are a whole other ball
game is this a question about something
i
tweeted that’s funny a ball game here
means
situation situation so when we say a
whole other ball game this is actually a
set phrase
a whole other ball game means or is used
rather in situations where we’re talking
about one topic
and then a second topic is introduced
and the two are very
different so something something is a
whole other ballgame
means that second thing has like
different rules and different standards
from the first thing
so in the tweet that you took this
expression from i was talking about the
differences between instagram direct
messages like random messages on
and then another person commented like
joined my conversation on twitter
and said something about youtube
comments and i responded yeah
youtube comments are a whole other ball
game so that means
instagram direct messages random
messages on instagram
are completely different than youtube
comments so a whole other ball game
means it’s a whole other situation
i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay let’s move on to our
next
question next question comes from
claudia hi claudia
claudia says what is the difference
between outcome
and results nice question while in many
cases they can be
used in similar ways and to refer to
very similar things
the difference here is in like the
process
so we use results when we’ve done like
work or research or we’re actually like
actively trying to
do something we’re actually trying to
achieve
something or to accomplish something so
we use this like
when we’re doing mathematical equations
or as i said like when we’re doing
research maybe
or we’re working together with teammates
to achieve some kind of goal that’s when
we use
results outcome on the other hand is
kind of like
just the way things ended up so it’s
like maybe there wasn’t
so much work to achieve a specific goal
but
at the end of a situation this was like
the thing that we
ended up with so let’s take a look at a
few examples
my research results showed that the new
medication was effective
the test results were positive everyone
expected negative outcomes after the
government’s policy change
it wasn’t possible to predict these
outcomes
so the feeling here is that result is
something that someone or some group of
people
worked to achieve worked to get outcome
is kind of like this is just the way
that things are
so yes in some situations you may be
able to use
both like for example research results
or maybe research outcomes
but again when you use outcomes it
sounds like this is just the way it is
whereas results sounds a little bit more
like we tried
so this is kind of the difference in
feeling between these words
i hope that it helps you thanks for the
question okay that is
everything that i have for this week
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