150 English Questions And Answers Asked Frequently

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question romeo from vietnam hi

again romeo

romeo says hello alicia do native

speakers say you aren’t gonna blah blah

blah or you’re not gonna blah blah blah

which contracted form is used more i

think they’re used equally like you can

choose which you prefer

me i think i usually say you’re not

gonna i probably use

next question okay next question is from

femme femme

van pam what does you’re too good to be

true mean

is it good or not maybe you’ve heard

this in a famous song you’re too good to

be true

can’t take my eyes off of you in that

case it’s a good

meaning a different way to say this

expression is you are

so good you are so amazing that i can’t

believe you’re real so in other words

something

must be wrong there must be some problem

with you it’s not

possible for you to be real because you

are

so good you are so great so you’re too

good to be true

it’s like wow i’m amazed by you so it’s

a good expression

if however uh maybe in a more uncommon

situation

someone said like ah this guy’s too good

to be true like maybe reviewing a job

application for example

uh this girl she’s too good to be true

like if it’s said in that way

maybe there’s something suspicious about

that person this doesn’t seem right

there’s just too much good information

here there must be some problem with

this person

depending on the intonation it can

portray either

a very positive meaning or a very

suspicious meaning

in most cases however it’s a positive

meaning so if you heard this in a song

for example

it’s probably a very positive kind of

romantically nuanced phrase thanks very

much for that question femme nice one

next next question is from

wagner wagner wagner have you written

any operas

why do american people pronounce english

class 101

instead of 101 or 101. oh

this relates to uh like university and

college level courses actually

so um there are four levels to uh

universities or to colleges in the us

first year second year third year and

fourth year so the classes for each of

those

are numbered so first your classes begin

with one second year classes with two

third year classes with three

fourth year classes with four so first

year classes like

it tends to be like the basic classes uh

begin with a one

and like the most basic uh of those

classes is usually 101

so like english class 101 that’s kind of

making like a friendly introduction to

english in other words so we say 101. we

always use that sort of um

pattern when speaking we don’t say 101.

we always use 101 or like 1 2 4 or like

3

6 7 i don’t know what those classes are

but we always

say each

what’s the difference between can and

may

i saw this on the dining like a champ

cheat sheet

and noticed these words were used for

requests

what’s the difference can and may for

requests

in modern english men modern american

english are used

the same if i use them in a statement

can refers to ability

may refers to permission please just be

careful can and may are only used in the

same way

to make requests in modern american

english next

question is from danny would you tell us

about

here you are here you go there you are

there you go and here there we you

if they go oh gosh okay i’ll talk about

the

the ones that you introduce what do they

mean and how do you use them naturally

so let’s talk first about here you are

and here you go

so we use these when we present someone

with something so you give someone

something here you are

here you go like you are at a restaurant

maybe your order arrives here you are uh

here you go

something like in a service situation

you might hear this kind of from like a

friendly

staffish like staff related person i

suppose here you are

here you go or maybe from a teacher to a

school child maybe here you go

we use it to like present something to

present an

object that maybe they’re expecting to

receive let’s talk then about

there you go and there you are so we use

there you go when someone is

able to do a thing they’ve been

practicing for a while so for example

if a child is learning how to ride a

bicycle and they’ve been struggling with

it for

some time but then gradually they get

better at it and they can do it

a parent might say oh there you go you

got it you got it

it’s like a it’s like a support word an

encouragement word there you go

um the last one on your list though

there you are

in american english we use there you are

in a situation where we’re looking for

someone we’ve been looking for someone

we’re expecting to meet

and it’s been difficult to find that

maybe you visit a few different spots

but then at last you find this person

maybe like in a break room or

some place you might not expect them but

when you do find them and you say oh

there you are we say it with that sort

of intonation oh there you are

it sounds immediately to the listener

like oh

this person has been looking for me next

question is from taylor ah hi again

taylor

are where are you from and where were

you

born the same ah great question where

are you from

where were you born no not necessarily

not necessarily

where were you born is only the place

where you were physically brought into

the world

maybe your hometown the place you

identify as your hometown

is different from the place where you

were born maybe you were born

in spain but you grew up in the usa your

family moved after that

so you could say i was born in spain but

i grew up in new york city if someone

asks you where are you from

it might be a good idea to say i was

born in blah blah but i was raised in

blah blah blah in a different place

if the two places are different next

question next

question is from l.o.j

loj says my question is about phrasal

verbs what is the meaning of

knocked out like here example sentence

one

knocked me out of my possession for two

knocked the wind out of me i had a

problem with the word

possession knocked me out of my

possession i’m not quite sure

this could refer though to in a very

rare situation

um we have this word possession which

refers to like this thing called demonic

possession where there’s this idea that

a bad spirit gets into the body and

controls a person’s behavior we call

that

possession so we could say like a priest

knocked me out of my possession

to go back to your original question

though the word knock

out as a phrasal verb to knock out means

like it means forcefully or forcibly

remove something because of some impact

an object is removed

from its original location so for

example a jogger could be coming at me

and they run into me and they knock my

phone

out of my hands so in that case my phone

is being removed

because of the impact of the jogger so

to knock something out

means like to remove from its original

location

from force and your second example then

uh knocked the wind out of me this is an

expression we use which means like to

lose our breath

because of an impact so um if you

get like punched or kicked maybe in

maybe this area

uh you might feel the air in your lungs

come out of your body

so we call that the wind in this

situation so

um like he knocked the wind out of me it

means he caused me to lose the air in my

lungs the impact was so

strong in my body that the air came out

of my

out of my lungs so i like he knocked

the wind so the wind in this case the

air in my lungs

in its original location was removed

from me

because of this impact you might also

hear this expression in boxing

to knock out or to to ko

someone means to cause them to lose

consciousness in this case so

consciousness is the thing that’s uh

that’s going away in this case

so to knock someone out in like a boxing

match

means they they lose consciousness

the first

next question next question is from

hassan hassan says

how do we use gotta in the negative form

so we did a live stream about have to

and got to and need to on the youtube

channel and on facebook a while ago

gotta is a contraction a very casual

contraction of got

and two it’s not a real word uh gotta

is just the sound that we make when we

say got to

very quickly like i gotta go to school

today or i gotta finish my homework or i

gotta get to sleep i’m so tired in

american english we do not use

gotta in the negative instead we use

have to or

need to i don’t have to go to work

tomorrow i don’t need to go to work

tomorrow i don’t need to go to sleep

right now

but american english does not use gotta

in the negative form

first question is from the wrong

spreadsheet okay first question this

week comes from

danny danny says uh how do we say the th

sound naturally sometimes i can’t stick

my tongue out too much when speaking

or for example when i say something in a

long sentence quickly

a couple things to consider one there

are two th sounds there’s the th

sound like in think and this where as

danny’s talking about your tongue kind

of sticks out between your teeth

but it’s not such a big motion actually

so

it’s not like you have to be really

dramatic with how much you stick your

tongue out like

it’s a bit too much maybe when you

practice you can do that to kind of get

used to how it feels

but when i say that sound and when

native speakers make that th sound

we’re only sticking our tongue out a

tiny bit a really small bit between our

teeth so

think think it’s like the tip of the

tongue only so with practice that sound

will get easier

the other sound though with th is

something we hear in a word like

the the so the tongue is actually like

just touching the back of my teeth

the the or maybe like the back of my

teeth and the top of my mouth a little

bit the way that the sound is produced

is a little bit different so when i say

think and the they’re a little bit

different sounds

so keep this in mind if you’re trying to

say the don’t use the motion to

pronounce the word

think if i’m saying the the with a

really exaggerated th

sound like in think it’s going to slow

me down so think about that

next question next question comes from

maxime hi maxine

maxime says how do you pronounce i

shouldn’t have done it i couldn’t have

done it and i wouldn’t have done it so

here these are negative

past perfect statements so i’m using

kind of exaggerated pronunciation here i

should not have becomes shouldn’t div

but a native speaker

a native english speaker an american

english speaker will say shouldn’t

shouldn’t have done it couldn’t have

done it and wouldn’t have done it

shouldn’t

wouldn’t have and couldn’t have have

that same sound but

again it makes it hard to say all of

those sounds clearly in speech if we’re

focusing a lot on saying those sounds

clearly in speech our speaking slows

down

so we say shouldn’t wouldn’t

have couldn’t have and wouldn’t have i

guess it’s sort of the in between like

the medium kind of pronunciation there

but when speaking rapidly a very fast

like native level speed we’ll say should

nakana and wouldn’t

so give those a try shouldn’t i couldn’t

would not shouldn’t have couldn’t have

wouldn’t have should not have could not

have would not have

shouldn’t could not wouldn’t hope that

helps next question

next question is from i need to improve

my spoken english and my vocabulary

how do i do that i think there’s a tool

on the website where you can record your

voice

speaking english and compare it to a

native speaker

saying the same thing so i think that’s

a that’s a feature on the website so

check that out

if you haven’t been it’s an english

class 101.com there should be a

recording function there

where you can record your voice and

compare it to a native speaker

and keep practicing that until your

voice and your pronunciation

matches uh the native speaker’s

pronunciation so you’ll see like little

waveforms there

even on the recording page so you can

try to match your voice

to a native speaker so of course

practicing with native speakers where

possible

um repeating so creating your own speech

uh

is important too um practicing with like

recording tools voice recording tools

when you record yourself

you suddenly hear so many problems in

your speech

so recording yourself can be another

good tool but in terms of building your

vocabulary first i need to define a goal

what do i want to talk about if i want

to talk about food i should look for

materials

in my target language talking about food

and i should study those so think about

what

it is that you want to do and try to be

specific try to narrow your goal down

to you know what are the words that i

need to do and try focusing there

and then maybe you can widen the focus

to other interests here and there too

but start maybe with the things that are

going to help you communicate the things

that you really want to say

so always think about your goals what do

i want to learn how to say

next question from ricardo villarreal oh

hey ricardo welcome back

is it correct to learn several languages

at the same time

ooh is it correct i can’t answer that

whether it’s correct or not

so i’ve heard that if you want to try

for whatever your reason is if you want

to try to study more than one language

at the same time

it’s better to try to choose languages

that are quite different so that there’s

less chance of you making mistakes or

getting confused in your studies

the other thing that i think i would say

is if you’re studying more than one

language at the same time your progress

might be a bit slower than if you

studied just one language yeah is it

correct

i don’t know i can’t answer that that’s

up to you to decide okay next

follow-up question now follow-up

question to this

question comes from sunil sunil hi sunil

asks

can we use could for the future so i’m

guessing this is talking about

future plans in which case yes you can

when you’re thinking about something you

want to do

or you’re trying to decide what you

might do you can use

could just to talk about the possibility

of something

so we use could to say something is just

possible for example

i could go to the beach this weekend or

i could sleep in late tomorrow if i want

to

or i could go and visit my parents next

week so

these are all statements of just simple

possibility

we’re not saying i’m going to do that or

maybe i’ll do that

we’re only saying that it is possible so

that’s what we use

could for we’re talking about future

plans yes we can use could

for simple possibility first question

this week comes

from nura yuidaha i hope i said that

right hi naredoo yaha

says what’s the difference between home

and house

okay a home is a place where you live

a home can be an apartment building it

can be a tent

it can be a boat it can be a trailer it

can be

any place where you live the place where

you maybe

come back to at the end of every day is

the place that you

call your home a house on the other hand

is a type of building a house is not

attached to anything else

a house is standing by itself it’s alone

it’s one unit usually for one family

so a house can be a home but a home

does not necessarily have to be a house

so this for example we cannot call a

house

if we returned here though we could say

this is my home

or this is where i live if you wanted to

tell your friend about your building

but we would not say this is my house so

when we want to talk about the place

where we live we can say this is my home

but we only use house if it’s

specifically

this type of building if it’s

specifically a stand-alone building

there is one other use of the word house

that’s much less common unless you watch

like

really really big epic stories so for

example game of thrones

has a really good example of this house

stark for example or

house plus last name refers to all the

family members

that have that last name and that means

all the family members

living or dead so that can mean the

ancestors of that family

so in house stark for example that means

all of the family members in the stark

family so

alive dead whatever everybody so

this use of house is quite uncommon as i

said it may be

more commonly used in like fantasy

stories game of thrones is a great

example of this

but we don’t use this in everyday

english today so i hope that this helps

your understanding of the differences

between home and house thanks very much

for the question

next question is another follow-up

question follow-up question two from

bahar hi bahar bahar says my question is

about

can and could when i want to use these

when asking for something

how do i use can and could in the right

situation

when you’re making a request can is

going to sound more casual

could is going to sound a little more

polite if you’re

visiting a friend’s house you can say

can i have something to drink or

could i have something to drink could

sounds more polite in that case

can is probably a little more natural

since they’re your friend

if you are however at like someone’s

office you’re visiting a colleague you

might instead use

could i have something to drink or could

i have a glass of water

that sounds a little more formal if

you’re worried just go with could

it sounds a little more polite it’s

always correct then baja has a second

question are wood

and might similar a little bit and do

both of them consist of possibility yes

and no

would is used to talk about potential

situations so we’ve talked about on this

series before a pattern like if i were

blah blah blah i would like if i were a

teacher

i would teach math or if i were rich

i would buy a house so we use wood to

talk about

unreal situations in terms of like

actual possibility like future plans

we don’t really use wood in that way

might however

yes we do use might to talk about

possibilities so we use may and might

to talk about something that has a

fairly good chance maybe like

a 30 to 50 chance or so of happening

like i

may study later or i might meet up with

my friends for dinner tonight

the difference between may and might in

american english in this usage in terms

of talking about possibility

is that might is more casual might is

more often used in daily conversation

may sounds a bit formal may sounds like

a little bit too polite in most

situations

might is the one we use so might refers

to possibility

i might do something he might do

something i might

not do something as well so in these

situations

might is used for possibility yes so

wood is used more to talk about like

potential

potential in an unreal situation okay

let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from

zaina hi zaina zena says what is the

difference

between to fill in and to fill

out okay if you’re talking about a

form like paperwork an application for

example

then there is no difference between to

fill in

and to fill out for example please fill

in this form

and please fill out this form they mean

exactly the same thing

i would say perhaps in american english

fill in is less common than fill

out i think we use fill out more

commonly in american english

fill in might be a little more commonly

used in british english

if however you are not talking about an

application form

or some other type of form there are

different meanings

for fill in and fill out so

let’s look at fill in first to fill in

for someone means to act as a substitute

for someone so if we can imagine we’re

at

a rehearsal for a play for example you

might say

i filled in for a dancer who was injured

or

we need someone to fill in for the lead

role in today’s rehearsal

to fill in for someone means to

act as a substitute for someone to

fill in so this use is quite different

from the meaning of writing something on

a form

now then let’s compare this or let’s

contrast this rather

with fill out to fill out means

to get larger usually as a person

in terms of like your weight gain so to

fill

out means your body or your face becomes

larger so this can be used in positive

and in negative situations for example

he was very sick last year but he’s

recovering now and his face

has filled out nicely or

you’ve filled out a lot since the last

time i saw you

so again this use of fill out is quite

different from the meaning of fill out

that’s relating to

application forms and other types of

writing so i hope that this answer helps

you understand the differences between

fill out and fill in thanks very much

for sending this question

next question next question comes from

ong mai lin hong mai lin i hope i

pronounce right sorry pong my lin says

hi how do you pronounce i’d like and i

like please thank you so much aha this

is a very common question

i’d like versus i like lots of people

ask too how do i listen for the

difference between these two

i’d like and i like i’m trying to

pronounce it very clearly right now

i’d like and i like

of course there’s a d sound but when

native speakers speak quickly

the d sound kind of disappears i’d like

to i’d like to

i like to i like to my tongue touches

the top of my mouth when i make the

sound i’d i’d like i’d like

i think a better key to help you when

you’re listening for this sound

and i think that this is something

native speakers unconsciously do

is we listen for the grammar in the

entire sentence we’re not listening

specifically for the

i like or the i’d like there we’re

listening to the grammar in the sentence

if for example it’s at a restaurant and

you say

i’d like a beer please that sentence

makes sense

meaning i would like a beer please if we

say i like a beer please it’s

grammatically

incorrect i like beer is correct i like

beer or

i’d like a beer i would like a beer

those two sentences are correct but they

communicate different things

so listen for the grammar in the

sentence if you can listen

to the grammar of the sentence overall

it can help you identify

did the speaker say i like or i’d like

this is a key point i think

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question comes from eddie hi eddie

eddie says hey alicia i am french and i

have been learning english for a while

when should i use do not and when should

i use

don’t thanks okay basically do not

sounds more stiff and more formal than

don’t in everyday speech we use don’t

don’t do this don’t do that we use

do not in more formal situations like

when we’re giving

a speech for example or perhaps when

we’re writing an academic paper

when you want to sound more formal more

polite use

do not you’ll also see do not used for

official rules

for example do not throw away trash here

or do not smoke if you use do not in

everyday conversation it might sound

kind of dramatic or maybe even

mysterious so for example saying

do not be afraid sounds kind of

mysterious and dramatic

but if we say don’t be afraid it sounds

a little bit more friendly

so if you want to sound friendly and

normal please use the reduced form

if you want to sound dramatic or if you

need to sound more formal

please use do not in most cases this

means you should choose

don’t so i hope that this answer helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next

question comes from aya aya hi aya how

do i pronounce words like

important written and mountain in an

american accent ah

important written and mountain all have

these t

sounds in the middle of the word but

native speakers don’t pronounce the t

sound clearly like i just did instead we

say

important written mountain this has like

an apostrophe sound almost so

important important important

we drop the t sound or it sounds very

soft so this is how these three words

are pronounced you might hear this in

other words too thanks for the question

though next question comes from

sergio hi sergio sergio says what’s the

difference between

others and another’s okay first let’s

take a quick moment to review a past

episode of ask alicia where i talked

about a very similar question

i think it’s important for review what’s

the difference between

others the others and another

how do i use in the correct situation

yeah this is tough

okay let’s begin by introducing a sample

situation

look at this picture this is my sister

this is my other sister the others are

my parents

now let’s look at another picture so

here i introduced

other with my other sister in the second

sentence here i said

this is my sister third sentence was

this is my

other sister so i introduced sister in

the first sentence other

than refers to like the addition

to something that’s already known so

it’s kind of like there’s a very close

relationship between those two sentences

this is my sister this is my other

sister

shows that there’s like an addition to

the thing i just said

then when i say the other the other

refers to like the remaining

known things so if i’m looking at this

picture and i know that there are four

people in the picture and two people are

the speaker’s

sisters there are two people remaining

and i say

the other people that means the

remaining people in the picture that i

don’t yet know so the other people in

the picture are my parents

then i say let’s look at another picture

so

another refers to an addition or

something extra

from outside the existing situation

okay so let’s expand on this by looking

at your question words

others and anothers first of all

another’s is not a word

so don’t practice that word don’t use

that word don’t think about it

another is okay but another’s is not a

word so please don’t worry about that

let’s focus on the word others in this

example that i just showed you

i used the expression the others or the

other people

i said the other people in the picture

are my parents

or the others are my parents so the

others refers to people in a situation

remaining people in a situation that is

known

if you want to use others however

without that article we need to create

slightly different situations for

example

many people in the office want different

snacks

others are happy with the snacks we have

now

so others in that sentence in the second

sentence

matches with many people the subject of

the first sentence so the subject of the

first sentence was

many people in the office this is one

group of people in the office

others then refers to people of a

different group that are inside the same

office

so many people in the office have

opinion a

others in this case the plural because

there’s more than one person

have opinion b so we’re matching others

plural to many people which is referring

to

a number of people so we can use others

in this way to talk about a different

group within like the same category or

in this case the same building or the

same office

so others can be used in this way if you

like you could say

other people in the office are happy

with the snacks we have now

that’s fine as well but others is just a

little bit shorter than other people so

it might be more efficient to use so i

hope that this helps your understanding

of the differences between

other others and another thanks very

much for the question

next question next question comes from

casa varage cassavaraj quesa veras

quez queso casabares sorry what is the

difference between tonight and

this night we use tonight in everyday

conversation what are you doing tonight

where are you going tonight tonight i

want to tonight i’m going to blah blah

blah

we only use this night for like very

formal speeches for example

so uh tonight is the one that we use in

everyday conversation

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from raymond hi raymond

raymond says when and how do we use with

before or after a sentence okay

first let’s talk about using with at the

end of a sentence so many people who are

very strict about english grammar think

that it’s

incorrect or it’s not proper to end a

sentence with the word

with which is a preposition so let’s

look at an example

who are you going to the beach with this

sentence

is in strict grammar rules not

considered correct by many people

because it ends with the preposition

with the perfectly technically correct

version of this sentence would be with

whom are you going to the beach

so although this sentence is

grammatically correct

it actually sounds pretentious to some

people

pretentious means something that sounds

more important or more valuable or

grander than it actually is

so you might sound a little bit

pretentious if you use this style of

speaking

even though yes it is grammatically

correct in everyday

speech most people don’t actually use

this pattern this

with whom pattern in everyday speech we

tend to use

with a lot at the end of a sentence as

in the original example

so maybe you’ve noticed that my second

example sentence here

begins with with so with whom are you

going to the beach

this is a sentence that you would use if

you need to be extremely grammatically

correct

but as i’ve said in most cases in at

least modern american english

we don’t use this style of speaking this

is an example

of one way to use with in the starting

position

we can use it along with what or with

whom

for example with what camera are you

going to take photos

or with whom are you going to dinner so

these sentences again although

grammatically correct and

beginning with with sound a bit

unnatural

in most cases in everyday american

english we actually sound a little more

natural if we place that preposition

at the end of the sentence as in what

camera are you going to take photos with

or who are you going to dinner with so

these are a couple of examples of how

you can use with

at the beginning and at the end of a

sentence i hope that this helps answer

your question

thanks very much for sending it along

first question this week comes from

sithi hi city cythi says hi alicia

what is the difference between figure

out and

find out in terms of meaning and when to

use etc

okay nice question so first let’s look

at

figure out to figure out means to

solve we use figure out when we have a

challenging

problem or we have like a complex puzzle

something that we need to do research on

or we need to

investigate into a little bit in order

to find a solution

so to figure out means to solve for

example

i can’t figure out what’s wrong with my

computer i figured out why the house

smelled so bad

someone forgot to take out the garbage

we need to figure out why the software

isn’t working

so let’s compare this to find out

to find out means to discover especially

when we’re talking about a secret or a

surprise

or something else that we need to hide

for some reason

you may also hear it used as a neutral

way to say discover

but you can kind of tell depending on

the context

so to find out means to discover

especially when you’re talking about a

secret

for example my parents found out i left

the house late last night

my boss found out one of our employees

has been stealing

hey i found out about a great new

restaurant in the neighborhood wanna go

so we don’t use these words

interchangeably in some

to figure something out means to solve

something like a puzzle or you’re

finding the solution to a challenge

to find out means to discover and it

often has a negative meaning

as when someone finds information that

they were not

meant to find so i hope that this helps

you understand the difference thanks for

the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from kobe chan hi kobe chan kobe

chan says

hi which of these two sentences is

correct

waiting in the lobby and waiting at the

lobby

okay um in a sentence like waiting in

the lobby as in i’m waiting in the lobby

in the lobby is correct at the lobby

while used occasionally is not used

anywhere

near as often as in the lobby please be

careful though if you’re talking about a

specific

location inside the lobby you will

use at before the lobby and then you’ll

follow that with the specific

noun so for example i’m waiting at the

lobby

desk or i’m waiting at the lobby bar

or i’m waiting at the lobby entrance in

those cases we’re talking about a

specific location

inside the lobby so desk bar

or entrance and we use at for that to

talk about the general area of a lobby

however we use

in i’m waiting in the lobby so i hope

that this helps answer your question

thanks very much okay let’s move on to

your next

question next question comes from

jerry’s song hi jerry

jerry says i usually watch tv shows to

practice listening

but sometimes i can’t clearly hear what

the characters say

even though i know the words when i see

them in the subtitles

so how do i improve this ah that’s a

good question

keep in mind that there are a few

reasons why

it might be difficult to understand a

character

especially in unscripted tv like reality

tv where people

aren’t always speaking clearly the words

that people choose and the way that they

make sentences

may not be perfect so please keep that

in mind

people in unscripted tv shows often are

not speaking clearly

or maybe they have a specific accent or

a special way that they speak

they may also just be stopping and

starting in the middle of sentences and

that can create some weird sounds too

so try to keep in mind that unscripted

tv

in particular might not sound

as clear as scripted tv it might not

sound as clear as like this youtube

channel

either so those are a couple of things

to keep in mind

other things that you can consider

though are reductions

in speech and just speed of speech so

on this channel we speak at a slower

rate than

native pace and we also make an effort

to speak very clearly to help people as

they learn

english but native speakers don’t do

this usually

something in general to consider like

even though characters may have accents

that are difficult to understand even

for native speakers

something that you can consider for your

english learning is

to consider reductions in speech

so by that i mean the connections that

we make

between words and the ways that we make

words

shorter for example i’m going to go to

the store to pick up something for

dinner

that sentence said by a native speaker

at native speed would probably

sound something like i’m gonna go to the

store to pick up something for dinner

so we’ve reduced a lot of those sounds

together

these words like i’m going to go that

are

very commonly used together are often

reduced

to i’m gonna go or i’m gonna go to the

so think about these common reductions

that you hear

on tv and in movies and so on and try to

practice

those in addition to considering how it

looks on the page so yes

it’s i am going to in the subtitle or

i’m going to

but at native speed it doesn’t sound

like that in many cases i’m going to go

to the

is how i’m going to go to the or i’m

going to go to the

sounds in native speech so another point

about reductions in speech

is prepositional phrases so those words

like

to and at and by and even conjunctions

like and

and but and so on those words tend to

get very very short

when we’re speaking quickly because

they’re kind of giving us the structure

of the sentence

so you can think of these sort of

structure words as being sort of the

background of the sentence

and the content words like the nouns and

the verbs

are kind of taking the focus those are

sort of the highlights so these are some

other things that you can think of as

you’re practicing your listening

and your speaking with reductions so

please keep these things in mind and

also keep in mind as i said people speak

with different accents too

people from different areas of the us

speak differently people from different

areas of the world

speak different kinds of english too so

please keep in mind that in some cases

it’s actually difficult for native

speakers as well

but another thing that maybe you can

work on to kind of advance your

listening and even your speaking

is to consider reductions so listening

for those reductions and then

considering how you can use those

reductions in your speech as well to

sound more natural

so that would be my suggestion for

improving your listening

and improving your speaking as you

practice with these reductions in your

own speech

too so i hope that that helps you thanks

very much for the question

first question this week comes from

alexander hi alexander

alexander says hi alicia what’s the

difference between

error and mistake are these words

interchangeable

okay mistake sounds like something a

human

did error sounds like something a

machine did

that’s the basic difference here they

have the same meaning

like something made a mistake or

something had an error

we use those two expressions to mean

roughly the same thing but the feeling

is a little different

you’ll also notice that the verbs i used

with those expressions were different

when it’s a human we say i made a

mistake

or in present tense to make a mistake

when we use

error we use the expression to have an

error

as in my computer had an error so these

are some small differences

in how we use these as verbs but in

general the difference is that mistake

is applied more to

humans and error is applied more to

computers and machines and so on

you may also hear in certain situations

where a person made a

big mistake at like a company and it had

a really really bad effect

you might hear the company maybe write

an official statement

like we deeply apologize for the error

something like that

which kind of removes the human feeling

from the situation

so i can’t say whether that’s good or

not to do

but you may sometimes hear companies do

that sort of thing in official

statements where they need to make an

apology

so in sum they have the same meaning but

just a mistake is for humans

error is for machines i hope that this

helps you

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from juniad

raza junaid raza hello janae junaid says

hello alicia

most people are confused about the

difference between

motivation and inspiration i know there

are definitions available in

dictionaries but can you differentiate

these two words in detail

okay sure so inspiration is something

that

gives us an idea so we use

inspiration to create something new

inspiration is something that comes

naturally it comes from within us so we

have an experience we see something or

touch something we hear something we

smell something taste something whatever

we have some kind of experience and it

gives us an idea so it comes from

like inside us this idea comes from

inside us

based on this experience that we had so

for example

my mother’s stories were my inspiration

for this book

or my childhood by the seashore was my

inspiration for this

dish so these are the things that gave

the speaker

an idea to create something else in the

first example there

the speaker’s stories were the

inspiration

for this book so that means the

speaker’s mother’s

stories were the thing that gave the

speaker the idea

in the second example sentence we can

imagine it’s about a chef

so the chef’s inspiration was a

childhood by the seaside

so that gave the chef the inspiration to

create that dish

so it’s something that happens and

there’s

a natural response in a person that

makes them think

i’m going to create something in

contrast then

motivation is something that comes from

outside us

that gives us a push or that helps us to

continue doing something

and motivation is usually for something

that we maybe

don’t really want to do so like on this

channel we talk a lot about finding

motivation to study

so maybe studying is not something that

many people want to do

but we can recognize the benefits of

that so we need to find

different motivations for our studies so

some examples my mother’s encouragement

provided the motivation i needed to

finish writing my book

my motivation to create this dish was to

share my childhood with the people who

eat at my restaurant

so in these sentences that are kind of

slightly changed

from the first pair of sentences i

introduced we’re talking about like the

outside reason to do something so

inspiration refers to something that

kind of comes naturally from within you

motivation is more external it’s

something that’s pushing you or causing

you to move forward or to start

something to continue something

and it’s often for something we might

not otherwise have done

if this outside force had not been there

i would also say that personally i think

i probably use the verb

forms more than the noun forms here so

that means i would use something like

this music really inspired me and i hope

to create my own music one day

or my promotion really motivated me to

work harder

so personally i think i tend to use

these as verbs a little more often than

as nouns

but uh this is the difference in terms

of meaning between the two so i hope

that this helps you thanks for the

question

okay thanks for the question okay let’s

move on to your next question

next question comes from eliane hello

eliane

eliane says should i say have you

received my message

or did you receive my message ah i think

you may

hear both but in american english we

would probably use

did you receive my message did you

receive my message

it’s a simple question a simple yes or

no question

about a one-time action that happened in

the past

so did you receive my message you may

hear

have you received my message but i feel

that that’s probably

less common than did you receive my

message it’s just a simple yes or no

question

so i would probably use did you receive

my message

or to make it even more natural i would

probably say

did you get my message received sounds a

little bit more polite

in most cases i would say did you get my

message did you get my message

or if it’s a text message i would say

did you see my message did you see my

message

cases where i might use the have pattern

are in like correspondence sharing

situations

like if a colleague is sending a group

of people some information and i want to

ask if they have seen the information

have checked everything i might say have

you seen

his message or have you seen her message

that’s a situation where i might use the

have pattern as opposed to the

did pattern there’s a bit of flexibility

there so it kind of depends a little bit

on the situation

but if you just want to quickly confirm

if you just want to quickly check

i would suggest using the simple past

form did you see my message

that sounds very natural so i hope that

this helps answer your question

inserted into the chamber of a revolver

and then

the player spins the chamber and closes

the chamber and we don’t know where the

bullet is

then the player points the gun at their

own head or at someone else’s head and

pulls the trigger

so this is a very dangerous and very

risky game

so this is of course not a game that i

recommend

in any way but this is the origin of

this idiom

today this idiom means to do something

very dangerous or to do something very

risky

so it has a very dark origin so we tend

to use it to mean something very

dark for example he’s playing russian

roulette with his career by skipping

work all the time

so in this example sentence the item

that is kind of in danger is his career

so

playing russian roulette with his career

so his career

is the thing that is in danger we know

that because it’s connected to

russian roulette so to play russian

roulette with

this thing in danger and the action the

risky behavior is

skipping work all the time so he’s

playing russian roulette with his career

by skipping work all the time

that would mean in a non-idiomatic

expression

he’s in danger of losing his job at any

moment

because he skips work all the time one

more example

they’re playing russian roulette with

their savings by making this awful

investment

so again here after russian roulette we

see

with their savings so here savings

refers to like a savings account or

money in someone’s savings

so that’s thing in danger that is the

item of danger here

and then the risky behavior is by making

an

awful investment or by making this awful

investment

so the they in this situation is making

this terrible investment this risky

investment

and putting their savings at risk so to

play russian roulette

means to do something very risky and

very dangerous and it has a very dark

and negative feel about it

so i hope that this helps you understand

this idiom thanks for the question

thanks very much okay let’s move on to

your next

question next question comes from

muhammad jaiti hello muhammad muhammad

says

what is the difference between resign

and re-sign

also complement and complement

great so spelling is very important for

this one especially for the second

question

complement the first one is spelled with

an i and

complement the second one is spelled

with an e

let’s talk about the difference between

resign and

re-sign first so to resign means to

quit as in to quit a job or to quit an

official position

to re-sign something the hyphen is

important here

to re-sign something means to sign

something again

so the prefix re re means to do

something again or just again so we see

this

as in redo or like reheat for when we’re

using a microwave or when we’re using a

computer

so to resign means to sign something

again

some examples he resigned as manager

the ceo resigned yesterday can you

please re-sign your contract there was a

mistake in the previous version

we need to re-sign our paperwork there

were some changes

so i mentioned this hyphen in the second

one here so this hyphen

between the re and the sign helps

prevent

confusion between resign and re-sign

so you don’t see this kind of

hyphenation in the other words that i

mentioned like redo

for example because there’s not another

word to confuse it with

but in this case resign and resign look

very similar

so we use that hyphenated version to

mean re-sign to sign

something again let’s continue on to

complement

and complement which sound extremely

similar in speech

complement with an i can be used as a

noun and a

verb and it means to say something nice

so for example

your shirt looks nice is a compliment as

a noun

to use it as a verb i could say my

co-worker complemented my shirt

so to complement with an i is to say

something nice

complement with an e however means to

improve something or to enhance

something

so it’s something that goes well with

something else or something that

completes something else

for example maple syrup is an excellent

complement to pancakes so that’s used as

a noun there

or to use it as a verb i think that

maple syrup complements pancakes

wonderfully

so we can use that as a noun or a verb

but please keep in mind the spelling

difference between these words

say something nice i to enhance or

improve or complete something

e so i hope that this helps you

understand the differences between these

words thanks very much for the question

first question this week comes from

ahmad junaidi hi ahmad

ahmad says hi alicia what’s the

difference between

afraid and scared i’m a little confused

thank you okay sure if you are talking

about

fear afraid and scared mean the same

thing

when you’re using them as adjectives so

i’m afraid

and i’m scared mean the same thing we’re

talking about our emotions we’re talking

about

fear in different situations however

these words can be used in different

ways

let’s talk about scare first scare

can be used as a verb to scare

someone or to scare something means to

cause

someone to feel fear for example

you scared me or you scared the cat

so that means you caused fear in someone

else

past tense it’s scared as used in these

examples

we cannot use afraid in this way

afraid however can be used in a way

that’s scared cannot

afraid can be used in very formal

situations like business situations

as an apology for example i’m afraid i

don’t have time to meet with you today

or i’m afraid we don’t have that item

right now

so this afraid doesn’t mean i’m scared

it means i’m very sorry

but so i’m very sorry but we don’t have

that item in stock right now

or i’m very sorry but i don’t have time

to meet with you

so i’m afraid is like a short polite way

to say that

so these are the differences between

afraid and scared

i hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question okay let’s move on

to your next

question next question comes from ose

etienne i hope i said that right hi jose

jose says hi alicia

when do i definitely know that i am at

the advanced level

well i would suggest you first consider

what advanced

means to you so to me at an advanced

level

i think a person should be able to give

a business presentation

or to be able to write a research paper

or to be able to participate in a

business meeting as a key

person so those are things that i think

require an advanced

level of linguistic capability to do

so you should ask yourself can i do

those things

so once you can determine the things

that you think

are advanced skills think about can i do

those things in english can i do those

things in my target language

if the answer is yes cool then you’re

advanced

in terms of your judgment for what is

advanced if your answer is no

then you’re not advanced so i would

suggest if you’re having a little

trouble

determining your level maybe think about

the things that you would like to be

able to do

and ask yourself can i do those things

and if the answer is no

then focus your studies on those things

that you answered no to

if the answer is yes cool you can do

those things you can study something

else

so maybe begin by thinking about the

kinds of things that you consider

advanced i don’t necessarily think

knowing like

3 000 vocabulary words equals advanced

like maybe you know lots of vocabulary

words which is great

but that’s different from like

communication skills or

like the ability to put all of your

ideas together in a research paper

so think about those sorts of advanced

level things

and ask yourself can i do this or not

hopefully asking yourself these

questions of can i do this or not

will help you to be able to at any time

understand your level and the next thing

that you need to be able to do

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from bruno maria hello bruno

bruno says hi alicia can you tell me the

difference

between the words commitment and

compromise please

okay sure think about commitment

as a promise or as an agreement

so a commitment is something you agree

to with another person

or with a group of people as a verb

we say commit to commit to something

so a commitment is something you agree

upon

with other people some examples

i made a commitment to do my best in

this job

he’s afraid of commitment so the second

example sentence

is actually a common kind of complaint

in romantic relationships

he’s afraid of commitment or she’s

afraid of commitment

you may hear it in situations other than

romantic relationships but it generally

refers to someone who is afraid

to enter into a kind of agreement like a

romantic agreement

to date or to be in a relationship with

one person for a long time

so that’s the nuance of the second

example there

more generally however commitment

usually refers to

agreements and they can be in business

situations

let’s compare this now to compromise

compromise

so a compromise is a situation in which

two sides have different proposals for

something

and they each make changes to those

proposals to arrive at this

middle point this middle point is called

a compromise so as a noun

this point is called a compromise so

side a and side b

have different ideas they change their

ideas slightly slightly slightly

and find an agreement so that agreeing

point is the compromise

point as a verb it’s to compromise

so let’s look at some example sentences

with compromise

our team members reached a compromise

after discussing the project

my friends wanted to go bowling but i

wanted to play video games

so we compromised and went to an arcade

so in the second example sentence i’ve

used compromise as a verb in the past

tense

we compromise that means each side

changed the plan just a little bit and

we found this

middle solution so in sum commitment is

an agreement a compromise you can think

of as like a type of agreement

in which both sides change their ideas

slightly

so i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question okay

let’s move on to the next question for

this week next question comes from

newman hello newman newman says when

talking to teachers do we say

teacher miss or mr oh yeah good question

when you’re talking with your

instructors at least in american english

we do not use

teacher we don’t use that as a title for

our teachers

if you are talking to a high school

level

instructor or below in most cases we use

mr for male teachers we use mrs

for married female teachers and we use

miss

or ms for unmarried female teachers or

for female teachers that we don’t know

their marital status so we don’t know

if she is married or not that’s usually

the guideline we use

for instructors at high school level or

lower

if you are talking about a college

university level

instructor sometimes they ask you to

call them professor if they have a phd

they may prefer to be called

doctor some people prefer to just be

called mr

or ms as we talked about earlier some

people prefer you just use their first

name

so it’s actually very common for

instructors to

tell their students please call me

so-and-so for example in my lessons i

always want students to just call me

alicia

because it’s important to me to have a

friendly and conversational feel so i

don’t want

my students to ever feel like i’m above

them and they’re below me somehow

that’s not good so it should be a

friendly and open

communication setting so i prefer to use

first names in my class

so that’s my style but each teacher has

their own preferences and usually

they’ll tell their students if you’re

ever not sure

just go with mr or ms or mrs that’s a

pretty good guideline to follow

the only time we might use teacher is

in like a very very like specific

setting

it’s like for a little kid who doesn’t

yet know the name of his or her teacher

they might just say teacher teacher like

before they know the teacher’s name

that’s maybe the only situation i can

think of

where we use teacher as a title so once

you’re old enough to learn people’s

names it’s best to use those

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from paterne hello paterne

paterne says hi alicia what is the

difference between

supposed to and meant to

in terms of meaning nothing supposed to

and meant to have the same meaning

the only difference here is that meant

to is used in british english and we

don’t use

meant to in american english for example

i’m supposed to go to a company event

this weekend

and i’m meant to go to a company event

this weekend

an american english speaker would use

the first example sentence

i’m supposed to go to an event this

weekend a british english speaker would

use the second sentence

i meant to go to a company event this

weekend for me as an american english

speaker the second example sentence

feels a bit unnatural to say

it’s not something that we use in

american english but

these two sentences communicate the same

idea so

if you are studying american english

great i recommend using supposed to

if you’re studying british english great

use meant to it’ll sound more natural

i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question first question this week

comes

from amur ibrahim hi amber

amur says what is the difference between

two and into ah great question

yeah generally we use into when we’re

talking about

movement from one place inside

of another place two is used generally

to talk about moving from

point a to point b so let’s take a look

at a few examples first

let’s jump into the pool he walked into

the store

we drove into the car wash so in each of

these example sentences

there’s an object or a person moving

inside of

a location so they’re going from outside

a location

to inside of a location we use

into to show that the movement is

happening and to show that that object

or that person

is being enclosed in something else

let’s compare this then to the same

sentences with

two instead of in two for example

let’s jump to the pool he walked

to the store we drove to the car wash

these sentences are all grammatically

correct but they don’t

show movement from something outside a

place or outside of a situation

inside something else actually these

sentences

express the method by which we travel

so in the first sentence let’s jump to

the pool

it means like let’s travel by

jumping to the pool like to the area

next to the pool for example

in the second example sentence he walked

to the store

it means he traveled to the store by

walking in the third example sentence we

drove

to the car wash it means the speakers

used a car to travel to the car wash

so into actually means going inside

something

to means like the method by which we

travel to a location

so this is a key point of difference

you’ll notice that just changing the

preposition

in these example sentences totally

changes the meaning of the sentence so

please try to keep this in mind

when you’re choosing between into and

two

into is used to talk about moving inside

of something else

and two is used to talk about like the

actual part

where you’re moving to a location so

you’re moving from point a to point b

not necessarily being enclosed in

something

so this is a quick and general rough

guide for the difference between these

two

i hope that it helps you thanks for the

question okay let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from

alexi k hi alexi alexi says hi alicia

i can’t understand the difference

between be used to

and get used to especially in the past

tense

because there’s no continuous tense in

russian can you give me some advice

and a couple of examples yeah nice

question

and it does depend a little bit on the

sentence

especially for be used to so

just a reminder we can use be used to

or be used to they have the same

spelling

in different ways so we use be used

to to talk about something’s purpose for

example

this printer is used to print models

and we also use used to or used to

depending on the sentence to talk about

things we are accustomed to doing

so as in the example like i’m used to

having a busy schedule so please keep in

mind that although the spellings

are the same the meanings are different

depending on the sentence

i want to focus on the second type that

i introduced here this i’m used to

having a busy schedule

so as a refresher we use this kind of

pattern when we want to talk about

something we’re accustomed to doing

i’m used to having a busy schedule in

present tense

past tense and future tense however we

tend to use

get used to get used to so for example

i got used to having a busy schedule

or i’ll get used to having a busy

schedule

we can also use it in present perfect

tense as in

i’ve gotten used to having a busy

schedule

you could use it with the progressive

tense too i’m getting used to

having a busy schedule so what’s the

difference here with all of these sorts

of things

we don’t use that present tense i am

used to or i

am not used to unless we want to talk

about the current situation

something that’s true now or something

that’s not true now with the negative

for example i’m used to making q a

videos

or i’m not used to making q a videos

those refer to something that is true

now

we use get used to to talk about things

in the past

or in the future or which are currently

in progress as with the progressive form

i’m getting used to having a busy

schedule that means i’m in the process

of being accustomed to having a busy

schedule

let’s look a little bit more at the

other forms i talked about

i got used to i got used to having a

busy schedule

means i’m now accustomed to it that part

is finished that’s okay for me

in future tense i will get used to

having a busy schedule or i’ll get used

to having a busy schedule

it means i’m not used to it now i’m not

accustomed now

but in the future i will be so it will

become

okay is what it means in the perfect

tense i’ve gotten used to having a busy

schedule

means over time i have gradually become

accustomed

to having a busy schedule so in sum when

you want to talk about something that’s

true

now use the be used to structure or

not used to structure as i talked about

before if you want to talk about the

past or about the future

or if you want to talk about something

that started in the past and affects the

present

you can use the get used to pattern

these sound a little bit more natural

so i hope that this helps you it’s maybe

a lot of information but it’s a small

point

that i think will help you to sound a

little more fluent with this pattern

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from reuben hi again reuben

reuben says hi alicia is there any

difference between

loose and lose i’m also confused with

the words

uninterested and disinterested i think

they have the same meaning

but i’m not sure yes great question

there are key differences let’s start by

talking about

loose and lose loose with two

o’s is the opposite of tight

so for example huh my ring is loose or

wow

my pants are loose so this means the

opposite of

tight something tight is like under

pressure

or it’s kind of you can imagine it in

like this shape something that is tight

something that is loose is not that

there’s not so much pressure it’s easy

to move it’s flexible

so loose is an adjective lose on the

other hand

is a verb which means to no longer have

ownership of something or to not win

something as in sports so for example

i lost my cat in the forest or i think

we’re going to lose the basketball game

today

so lose and loose may seem to have

similar pronunciations and similar

spellings

but they do have very different meanings

also different parts of speech

lose is a verb and loose is

an adjective so keep these in mind and

be careful of your spellings when using

these words

let’s move on now to your second point

about the difference between

uninterested and disinterested

in many cases today we use uninterested

and disinterested to mean the same

thing which is having no interest in

something

like we just don’t care we don’t have

positive feelings or negative feelings

it’s just

there we’re very neutral so many people

use these two words to mean the same

thing

however disinterested can have a couple

of

other meanings one of these is unbiased

so for example politicians should make

disinterested decisions so that means

politicians should make decisions

without bias so bias means having an

opinion

in one way or another about something so

a disinterested decision

means an unbiased decision we can use

disinterested in this way we can also

use

disinterested to mean no longer

interested in something

so something you at one time were

interested in

but you are no longer interested in can

be described

as something you are now disinterested

in for example

i’ve become disinterested in my hobbies

compare this then to a couple of example

sentences that use

uninterested i told my friend about a

concert i went to last week but he was

uninterested

we’re so tired of having uninterested

people at our events

so please keep in mind as i said many

people use uninterested and

disinterested to mean the same thing

when the meaning is about not having any

emotions or not having any attention

focused on something

if however you want to talk about losing

interest

in something or about not being biased

with regard to something

use disinterested so i hope that this

helps you thanks for the question

so thanks very much for the question all

right let’s move on to your next

question

next question comes from

ivan hi ivan ivan says hi alicia

what’s the difference between past

simple and

present perfect for example i lost my

keys

versus i’ve lost my keys or

i bought a new car versus i’ve bought a

new car

thanks okay yeah nice question basically

when we use simple past tense we’re

talking about an action that started and

finished in the past

when we use simple past tense it’s like

we’re reporting information

so i lost my keys or i bought a new car

or i sold my house so it’s like a fact a

quick

fact a simple report it’s done when we

want to communicate that some

past action has an effect on the present

we can use the present perfect tense so

for example

i’ve lost my keys or i’ve bought a new

house

or i’ve sold my car so what could the

effect

be there in the first example i’ve lost

my keys

it’s like at some point in the past i

don’t know when but at some point in the

past i lost my keys

now i cannot find my keys i still cannot

find my keys

so this is the effect the negative

effect on me right now is like i can’t

use my car or maybe i can’t go home like

i have to find my keys

so there’s some effect from this past

situation losing your keys

in the other examples uh which were like

i’ve bought a house or i’ve sold my car

maybe the effects are like you have a

lot of money

or you have to move to a new house or

now you have a new car that you can use

to drive around

so when we use the present perfect tense

here we want to communicate that there’s

some kind of effect

from this past action when we’re using

simple

past tense it’s like we’re giving a

quick report something is done or

we don’t feel it’s so important to talk

about an effect we just want

like to give this information i lost my

keys so

it’s a little bit quicker yes and it’s

also just kind of like more direct

we don’t think about the effects so much

of that action

so that’s a really quick guide to maybe

why we would choose to use

present perfect tense as opposed to

simple past tense i hope that this helps

you

thanks for the question okay let’s move

on to your next question

next question comes from

sergey hi sergey sergey says hi alicia

what is the difference between consist

of

and include in what situations can i use

these

words yeah you can think of consist of

to mean is made of when we use consist

of

it’s like a more formal way of saying

something is made of

something else for example this cake

consists of flour eggs

butter and sugar or today’s tour

consists of a bus ride lunch and

a guided walk around the eiffel tower so

in each of these cases we’re talking

about

all of the things that make up the

subject of the sentence so in these

cases

the subjects were the cake and the tour

for the day

so consists of means is made of this

thing

is made of these various parts

include on the other hand is used when

we want to like

highlight something that’s especially

important

so we don’t list everything

inside something we it’s like we’re

choosing maybe some

category or we’re choosing some

important feature of something

so we might say like uh the ingredients

for this cake

include eggs and butter so maybe we need

to include that for like

allergy reasons or like today’s tour

includes

lunch so maybe there’s some key

information we want to include we want

to

share that there for some reason so

consists of

is like made of we talk about all of the

things

used to make something includes is used

to highlight something or to share a

feature of something it does not

necessarily mean that’s

everything like today’s tour includes

lunch doesn’t mean

the tour is only lunch it means that

inside today’s tour

there is also lunch so this is the

difference between

consists of and includes i hope that

this helps you thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question

comes from cecilia hi cecilia cecilia

says hi alicia

i found that sometimes there is a comma

before

and and sometimes not when should i add

a comma before and

thanks okay yes you should add a comma

before and

when you are joining two independent

clauses

an independent clause is an idea or

phrase

that can stand alone so it doesn’t need

any extra information it’s a complete

idea

a complete thought let’s take a look at

a few examples that show

different types of clauses together on

saturday i’m going to the mountains

and on sunday i’m going to the beach i

told my mother i loved her cooking

and i told my father i love his music

i’m tired and hungry i missed my train

and forgot my wallet

so the first two example sentences here

use a comma before

and this is because if we remove the

comma and

and the two ideas can be separated with

a period

and there’s no communication problem the

statements remain the same

on saturday i’m going to the mountains

on sunday i’m going to the beach

there’s no error there the second

example sentence is similar

i told my mother i love her cooking i

told my dad i love his music

if we remove the comma and and the

sentences are okay

because they are called independent

clauses they are complete ideas they

don’t need any more information

in the last two example sentences though

we cannot remove

and because the parts that it joins are

not

independent so i’m tired and hungry if

we remove and it becomes i’m tired

hungry

in the last example sentence i missed my

train and forgot my wallet

i missed my train forgot my wallet

that’s not a grammatical sentence

so this is a good way to test whether

your and

is connecting independent ideas or not

try removing it from the sentence

if the sentence remains grammatical

perhaps you have an independent clause

and you can use the comma

and there this is one way to use a comma

before an and

the other case where you may see a comma

before an

and is in the last item in a list for

example

i bought bread fruit and milk

i saw my family friends and neighbors

so before the final item in each of

these lists there’s an and

and there’s a comma before the and this

is what’s known as the

serial comma or the oxford comma

so some people choose to use this type

of comma and some people choose

not to there are some good reasons i

feel for using the oxford comma and i’m

a person who believes that this is a

good comma to use

because it can help prevent confusion

when you’re reading

for example i need to buy bread

fruits and vegetables and a meat and

cheese plate

there are many ands in that sentence

there are three ands in that sentence

and using commas to separate each

individual item

helps the reader understand what they

should be looking for

what is one item here a comma helps us

identify those things

in another example we might say this

weekend i’m excited to see my friends

beyonce and justin timberlake so a way

to interpret this sentence without an

oxford comma

is that beyonce and justin timberlake

are my friends but they’re not actually

my friends

the oxford comma helps prevent this kind

of confusion

this weekend i’m excited to see my

friends beyonce and justin timberlake

so it sounds like those are three

different things that are not

necessarily related

so the oxford comma helps prevent this

kind of confusion

for that reason i’m a big fan of it the

cases where you might see the oxford

comma

purposely not used are in journalism

really

so in newspapers in magazines for

example

those publications and the style guides

that they follow typically do not

advocate or do not suggest the use of

the oxford comma

you will see the oxford comma however in

novels and in short stories and other

things like that

so in those cases you may see it used

this is another reason why you may

sometimes see

a comma before an and and you may

sometimes not see it

there are a couple of different reasons

so in sum one reason is related to

independent clauses

and connecting those with a conjunction

and in this case and a comma

the other is related perhaps to the use

of the oxford comma or the serial comma

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

next question comes from pedro henrique

hi pedro

pedro says what does the expression have

a blast mean oh have a blast means to

have fun

it means to enjoy yourself to have a

great time

it’s a very casual friendly phrase that

you can use with your friends or with

your family

we tend to use it for things we expect

are going to be

super super exciting like going to an

amusement park or

seeing a concert or traveling to another

country

so you can use it in present tense you

can use it in past tense whatever

if you go to a concert and you want to

tell your friend about it you can

say i had a blast or the concert was a

blast

if you want to wish your friend an

exciting time you can say

have a blast before they go or if you

want to talk about a future plan

your friend is traveling somewhere you

can say oh wow

you’re gonna have a blast on your trip

to europe

so to have a blast means to have a great

time

i hope that this helps you okay let’s

get to your first question

this week first question this week comes

from muhammad arif hi muhammad

muhammad says hi alicia what’s the

difference between

not related to and nothing to do with

okay if you’re talking about anything

other than people so not people

objects situations then generally they

mean the same thing

nothing to do with has a little bit

stronger emphasis

nothing to do with sounds like

absolutely zero

nothing whereas not related to sounds

like a little bit less

intense not quite as strong some

examples

this question has nothing to do with

cooking

this question is not related to cooking

today’s meeting had nothing to do with

marketing

today’s meeting was not related to

marketing

so both of these example sentences or

both of these pairs of examples rather

communicate the same idea it’s just that

nothing to do with maybe sounds a little

more intense like closer to zero we

really want to emphasize

no connection at all if on the other

hand you’re talking about

people not related to and nothing to do

with are

very different for example he is not

related to me

he has nothing to do with me in the

first part

not related to it refers to no

family connection with me he has no

family connection with me he is not

related to me in the second example he

has nothing to do with me it means there

is no connection

at all he’s not my friend he’s not my

co-worker he’s not my family member

nothing there’s no connection there in

the sentence

he’s not related to me however it just

means there’s no

family connection he could be my friend

or my roommate or my co-worker

something like that but he’s not related

to me specifically means

family member so when you’re talking

about people

this is a key difference between these

two expressions

nothing to do with no connection at all

not related to

just means no family connection again

when you’re talking about things

other than people however you can use

them pretty much interchangeably

to me nothing to do with sounds a little

bit more like

emphatic than uh not related to

so i hope that this helps you thanks for

the question let’s get to your first

question this week first question comes

from

muad gitan again hi muad muad says hi

alicia my question what is the

difference between

perhaps and may be uh

perhaps sounds more formal i use it now

and then when i want to sound a little

bit

softer than usual i think that you’re

contrasting this

perhaps with maybe so please be careful

may be with a space is different from

maybe

uh we use maybe in conversations for

example

are you gonna go to the party later

maybe or is he coming to dinner

maybe or the way that i start this

series maybe like i might answer your

questions maybe i’ll answer your

questions i don’t know

perhaps sounds much more formal than

that like if i

started this video with i’ll answer your

questions perhaps

like it doesn’t sound quite the same it

sounds kind of formal

a bit softer too um but may be

reflects a possibility like this may be

the correct restaurant or this may be

the right textbook

so be careful in your speech and in your

writing

maybe and may be have different purposes

but generally speaking perhaps and maybe

the only difference there is that

perhaps is more formal

maybe it’s more casual hope that helps

you thanks very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from gennady hello again gennady

gennady says hey alicia i ran across the

word

overlap with a meaning like meat for

instance

we never overlapped does that mean we

never met before

or maybe we never met accidentally is

this correct or close

ah so this use of overlap means to be

in the same situation or the same

place as another person at the same time

so for example if you’re talking about

where you work

and you work at company a and my friend

risa

used to work at company a i might ask

you

oh did you know my friend resa she

worked at company a

and you could say ah yeah we overlapped

a little bit

or no we didn’t overlap so

in the yes answer there it means i

worked at company a

at the same time as risa so you can

imagine overlapping

being like your work overlapped so she

and i shared the same workspace for a

period of time

if the answer is negative no we didn’t

overlap it’s like saying no

we didn’t share the same situation we

didn’t share the same workplace

so overlap means being in the same place

or the same situation

so this is not so common in everyday

conversation

we use this as in the example in like

work or

business situations you might also hear

it used a lot in

politics and in government situations as

well to talk about like for example

when world leaders are in the same place

or when their terms

overlap so when they’re in office

holding their government positions as

the same time as

other people that’s another situation

you might hear it

you may hear it as well in like

universities or in

other like college school related

situations when you want to sound a bit

more formal

but in general we don’t use this so much

in everyday conversation

instead we might say oh i worked there

at the same time

as your person or oh i work there at the

same time as risa for example

so overlap means being in the same place

or the same situation

at the same time as someone or something

else

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s get to your next question

this week next question

comes from uh sarah hi sarah

sarah says what’s the difference between

would have

and would have been and how do we use

this

in a sentence um these follow the same

root pattern would have plus a past

participle verb

so the past participle form of b is bin

when we use would have with a verb other

than b we’re using a verb so that means

there’s an

action like i would have come if i had

had time or

i would have helped you but i had to

take care of a family emergency for

example

so we’re following would have with

another past participle verb form

when we’re using would have been we’re

talking about a potential

state so for example like a job

or maybe it’s like some other adjective

phrase

you use that reflects a person’s

condition

like she would have been fired if the

project

failed for example or we would have been

dead if you hadn’t saved us

something like that i hope that that

helps you thanks very much for the

question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from rubon hello again reubon

rubon says what is the difference

between as

and while for example while i was

walking

i ate an apple and as i was walking i

ate an apple

when do i use as and while there’s no

difference actually you can use both as

and while to talk about two actions that

happen at the same

time for example i ate potato chips

while i watch tv and i ate potato chips

as i watch tv to me personally as

sounds a little bit more formal so i

tend to use

while more when i’m speaking and when

i’m writing

also i will use while before the main

action and same thing for as i tend to

put the word before the main

action so in this case for me watching

tv is the main

action and eating potato chips is kind

of like the extra action or the bonus

action of course for some of you maybe

eating potato chips is the main action

that’s fine

but for me watching tv is the main

action so i usually put that

after while or as another example

i listened to music while i washed the

dishes

and i listened to music as i washed the

dishes

so again in this situation the main

activity is washing dishes

so i place while or as before that and

listening to music is sort of like the

bonus or the extra activity

so that comes before the expression so

yes you can use

as and while in the exact same way here

to talk about actions

that happen at the same time again for

me wild sounds a little more casual

so i tend to prefer that a bit more in

my everyday speaking and writing

i hope that this helps you thanks very

much for the question okay

let’s move on to your next question next

question

comes from darkdelphin83 hi again dark

delvin

dark delphin says what’s the difference

between inspiring and

inspirational good question um inspiring

is used for something that causes us to

feel that excitement like we are

motivated we want to do something

that’s inspiring it was an inspiring

speech

it was such an inspiring work so

something that causes us to feel

motivated inspirational however

is used to describe something that is

intended

to inspire so maybe it does maybe it

doesn’t but its aim is to inspire

so for example like the university hired

an inspirational speaker

for the event or i read a list of

inspirational quotes

today so something that aims to inspire

is inspirational

something that causes us to feel that

motivation

is inspiring i hope that that helps you

thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next

question comes from ali reza hello ali

ali says hi alicia what’s the difference

between

till and until and how do we use them

correctly

okay good question let me introduce one

more item here

so your original question included until

and till t-i-l-l i want to introduce

t-i-l

there are these three different

spellings so you will see

native speakers use all three of these

until

till with two l’s and till with one l

so until uh and till can be used

interchangeably until

until with one l i should specify here

we use

till like with one l commonly in

time and distance expressions for

example

it’s ten till two you might hear two

used in this situation as in

it’s ten to two uh but you can use till

in that case

or as in like a time and distance

related thing like when you’re traveling

for example

it’s gonna be another hour till we get

there

so that means until yes but speakers

will often use

till especially in quick speech so what

is the difference here really

an important difference comes into play

when we see

[Music]

use that’s spelling with two l’s so

t-i-l-l

can actually be used as a verb to till

means like to grow crops or like to move

soil as in

farming like to grow vegetables and it

can also

be used as a noun it’s an old-fashioned

word that means

cash register so for example the farmer

tilled the soil or lock the till

when you’re finished so there are these

other uses of the t-i-l-l spelling

for that reason and just for the sake of

consistency so that we’re always the

same

i would recommend you use till

t-i-l-l-2-l’s

for those words and use until and

till with one l to mean until that’s my

personal recommendation of course you

don’t have to follow that and not

all native speakers follow that by any

means but for me i prefer to keep the

two

separate just to be consistent like i

said

you’ll hear native speakers use this of

course in speech

till and until and you’ll also see it

used in writing

but my personal preference is to use

till as a verb with

two l’s and also to mean cash register

with two ls

and use the till with one l and no

apostrophe

to mean until so yes they are used in

the same way

but that’s kind of my recommendation for

making the differences

clear so i hope that this helps you

thanks very much for the question

all right let’s move along to your next

question next one comes from

carla hi carla carla says hi i’m from

argentina and next month i’m going to

live in australia for a couple months

what kind of advice do you have to give

me to start

talking um well it depends on what

you’re going to do

if you’re going to be a university

student you can try to

find other international students in

your university

there are often university groups or

meetups for international students where

people can meet

and chat and share their experiences

if you’re not going to a university you

can look for similar community groups so

like the website

meetup.com is sometimes a really good

resource where you can find people

interested in international exchange um

so you might look for that

or other international exchange groups

in the place where you’re going to live

third is just my personal favorite find

your hobby

in the place where you’re going like if

you already enjoy

doing that thing just try to do it in

english then you can listen to the

vocabulary words the way people speak

about

your hobby you can think about those

after you take your lesson or after you

participate in the activity

and maybe you can try to work on those

study those so that you’re more prepared

for the next time you take the lesson

so those are three maybe ideas um fourth

perhaps i don’t know how old you are

um but if you’re old enough to go to

like a bar

or a music venue or something like that

that can also be a really great way to

meet people and to feel relaxed when

talking to people too

so i hope that one of those tips helps

you enjoy your trip to australia

all right thanks very much for the

question okay let’s move on to your next

question next question comes from uh

mandy hello maddie mari says what’s the

difference between

american english conversation and

british english conversation

okay there are lots of differences

american english pronunciation and

british english pronunciation are very

different

and there are many different types of

pronunciation inside america

and inside britain so there are so many

different ways that people speak

i speak with a west coast american

english accent so i speak

very differently from maybe a person

from london

for example also there are many

differences in vocabulary words that are

used

for example in american english we use

the word elevator

in british english it’s not elevator but

lyft

so they have the same meaning yes but we

use different words to communicate that

i’ve made a video a whiteboard video

about some words that are different

between american english and british

english

so you can have a look at that you may

also hear some slight differences in the

prepositions that are used so for

example in american english

i tend to say something something is

different from

something something but in british

english you might hear something

something is different to

something something so there are these

small prepositional changes

that may vary that may change from

person to person

or from region to region so these are

just a few of the ways

in which british english and american

english conversation are

different as i said i speak american

english west coast american english

if you want to check out some british

english you can take a look at some of

the lessons that we have

we have lots of british english

listening and some other just regular

videos that use

british english and talk about british

culture too so have a look at those if

you want to know more

and maybe you can compare the way i

speak or the way like michael

or bridget or davey speaks to the way

our british english teachers do

so have a look at those for some more

information about british english

conversation

i hope that that helps you let’s move

along to your next question

okay next question comes from sami hi

sami

sammy says how do i know when to use as

or

like yeah i talked about this in one of

the early episodes of this series maybe

episode three

anyway to review we use like

when we follow the expression with a

simple

noun phrase so when you’re trying to

decide

should i use like or as here look at the

part that comes

after that kind of space in your word if

it’s just

a simple noun phrase use like if you’re

using

a clause with a verb in it use as

so some examples my neighbor’s cat

sounds like a monster

or recently i sleep like a baby so in

both of those example sentences

the part after like is just a simple

noun phrase there’s no

verb there our neighbors care for our

son as if he were their own child

the police treated her as if she were

the one that robbed the bank

so in both of these sentences you can

see that after as

there’s a clause that includes a verb in

both cases it’s

were but when you use something like

this you can use

as instead of like i should also say

that native speakers often make mistakes

with this like in american english we

tend to rely more on

like and not think so much about as but

this is the rule the generally accepted

rule for right now so i hope that that

helps you you can check out the other

episode for some more examples

first question comes from miyuki hi

miyuki

yuki says i want to know about test

taking

tips okay uh i will give you five tips

tip number one is to know your test on

your test do you need to write do you

need to read

listen speak what do you need to do

first make sure you know the test

and know the requirements of the test

number two check and see if the sections

are

timed check to see how much time you

have for each section of your test

number three is to ask yourself have you

taken the test before

what was good for you what was not good

for you so what do you need to improve

review your past tests to see what you

need to work on for the next

test number four if you can if it’s

available

take a practice test practice tests can

help you

find your weak points and your strong

points and help you if you have timed

sections in your test as well

number five if your test includes

speaking you need to practice speaking

if you don’t practice you won’t be able

to do it at the time that you need it

so if you don’t have a language partner

you can look for one online or you can

practice with media like repeating

shadowing media so those are five quick

test tips i know they’re very

general but i hope that they can apply

to lots of different tests so i hope

that this helps you

thanks for the question okay let’s go on

to your next question next question

comes from nerdon emmanet hi again

nerdon

nerdan says hi alicia what’s the

difference between blame

accuse and charge all right blame accuse

and charge

these are three verbs that have very

similar meanings

let’s begin with blame to blame means to

assign

someone responsibility for something

this has a negative

nuance to it some examples my parents

blamed me for the broken vase the police

blamed the

accident on a broken traffic light to

accuse someone means to suggest that

someone

did something bad so it’s a little bit

different from blame

blame is like assigning responsibility

to someone for

like a negative effect to accuse someone

of something

it’s like someone did something wrong

maybe on purpose

and you want to suggest that it was that

person

some examples the landlord accused him

of not paying rent

she accused the company of fraud let’s

move along then to the last one to

charge

to charge is a legal term this is a

legal word

which means you formally accuse someone

of wrongdoing

so we do not use charge in everyday

conversation when we’re saying like you

did this bad thing or i think it was you

charge is used in courts to charge

someone with a

crime means to officially and legally

accuse them of a crime

examples the suspect has been charged

with murder

she’s been charged with breaking and

entering so that’s a quick introduction

to the differences between these three

verbs i hope that that helped you thanks

for an interesting question

okay next question okay next one isn’t

really a question but something i have

noticed that many of you do

you like to put the article uh or an

before your adjective before an

adjective

but you forget to use a noun do you know

how like mario introduces himself and he

says

it’s a me when you forget to use

some kind of noun after after your

adjective or whatever but you sound a

bit like mario’s it’s a nice

it’s a nice it’s a nice what it’s funny

to me like it’s an eye so

it’s a me you need to include the noun

that you’re referring to

it’s a nice video or it’s a nice

explanation

it’s nice or it’s bad or it’s good or

this

was a nice explanation but don’t forget

to use your

noun after you use the adjective it’s a

nice

something it’s a good something it’s a

bad something so please

no article without a noun make sure to

use your noun and it should be in the

singular

form if you’re using a or an you need to

use the singular form

of the noun don’t sound like mario first

question for today

do you have an american accent or a

british accent a lot of you have asked

this over the course of the years i have

an american accent to be very specific i

suppose i speak

with a west coast american accent not

british english if you want to know what

british english sounds like there are

some videos on the youtube channel with

gina one of our other hosts she speaks

with a british accent so you can listen

to her to

kind of pick up some of the differences

between my accent

and her accent british english and

american english so thanks for that

question but yes i speak

american english next question what does

it mean they can’t

take that away from me who are they and

what does takeaway mean

we use the word they to mean generally

just

other people outside of us this is used

a lot to talk about

like news or to talk about general

opinions they say

that this pizza is the best pizza in the

city right now they say

that your english will only improve if

you study every day

they say that the most difficult thing

you can do in your life is moved to

another country

they is just anyone second point what

does take away mean

take away means to some object that

belongs

in one location is removed from that

location like take away food

in american english we use take out

actually but take away

food is a similar idea especially like

in british english takeaway

so you take away your food from the

restaurant so you’re taking

something else you’re removing your food

from the restaurant so

in the expression they can’t take that

away from me

they meaning other people outside you

can’t take

something away from you next question

how do we use the word cheers when do we

use it is it formal or

informal please help in american english

we use cheers when we’re drinking when

we want to

start off a drink with somebody else

we’ll often clink

glasses so like touch glasses together

and say

cheers we use cheers in this way in

american english in other

types of english like british english or

australian english for example

people might use the word cheers as a

way to say

thank you or as a way to say thank you

in advance for something

if my friend asks me for a favor and i

agree to do that favor

my friend can say cheers to me meaning

thank you

in advance so cheers it tends to be more

on the informal side it’s not a super

formal expression if you want to use it

in a formal situation when you’re

drinking with someone you can use

cheers but in most situations we use it

informally informally next one what does

the phrase

don’t be a creep don’t be a creep me i

think michael talked about this on an

old english topics video

so i talked in a live stream about the

word creepy adjective creepy

so something that causes like nervous

suspense is

something that’s creepy the word creep

is used as a noun don’t be

a creep a person who is creepy

a guy can be a creep a girl can be a

creep so a creep

is someone who causes creepy feelings

like uh something bad might happen i

feel nervous like that person’s a little

strange a little weird

that person is a creep he’s a creep

she’s a creep

so don’t be a creep means you

should not behave like a creep

don’t create nervous feelings in the

other person

don’t be a creepy person don’t be a

creep everybody that’s good advice don’t

be a creep

don’t be afraid try to be a nice and

understanding

um and respectful person next question

hey alicia how do i make this sentence

negative

let’s go to the park if you want to make

a let’s

blah blah sentence negative just put not

before the verb let’s not go to the part

let’s not

plus some verb or some verb phrase let’s

not go hiking this weekend

let’s not watch that movie tonight i’m

tired let’s

not blah blah blah to make a let’s

sentence negative thanks for the

question

first question first question this week

comes from iman i’m on hi i’m on what’s

the difference between

is that how it is is that how it works

that’s not what it says

that’s not how it works let’s start with

the first expression which is is that

how it is

this is a very casual expression that

you can use to express

like a confirmation confirmation about

a situation or confirmation about a

status

but it’s often uh used with kind of a

negative nuance

so for example if your friend makes a

plan that you disagree with

but your friend refuses to change the

plan you can say

is that how it is it’s kind of negative

and it’s kind of not so nice to use so

is that how it is that’s the first one

the second one is that how it works this

is an

expression that we use to confirm uh how

to use something

maybe it’s my first time using an iphone

for example when i get something right

when i learn how to use something

correctly

i can say usually with an upward

intonation oh

is that how it works meaning oh is that

the correct way to use it

so we use is that how it works to

confirm

the correct way to use something so you

can use this with a computer with like a

car

anything that you are learning how to

use is that how it works

so you can use um this expression as

confirmation before you do something to

the next expression you asked about is

that’s not what it says that’s not what

it says is used to express

disagreement about written information

let’s say you’re making instant soup or

like instant ramen or something

and you decide to pour cold water over

your noodles

to make the soup but your friend says no

no look at the package

that’s not what it says so it here

means the package and says refers to the

written directions on the package so

that’s not what it says

means there’s some mistake here or

you’ve made a mistake

so the written directions don’t match

your behavior that’s not what it says

you can use this to express disagreement

about written

information that’s not what it says the

last expression was that’s not how it

works that’s not how it works

this is something that we use to express

disagreement about how to use something

you use something incorrectly that’s not

correct that’s not how it works

so i hope that that’s helpful for you

next question next question

what does play down mean this is a

phrasal verb

to play down something or to play

something down

means to decrease the significance of

something

i don’t want to play down how delicious

my mom’s thanksgiving dinner was i don’t

want to play down my friend’s success

he’s doing an amazing job if something

is

really great or really interesting or it

could be negative too

to play something down means to make

this thing seem less than what it

actually is

if there’s a scandal for example the

president is trying to play down

the seriousness of this situation it

means that it’s a very serious situation

but the president is trying to make it

seem

less serious than it is so to play down

means to make something seem less than

it

actually is good question though thanks

next question comes from

kevin wang hi kevin kevin says uh

sometimes i see sentences like

your dad must have had it for at least

two years

why do they use have had and what are

the rules for this

so actually don’t think of it as have

and had being attached there

instead what you should focus on in this

sentence is the

must have here so must have had

when we want to talk about a high level

of possibility in the past

we use must have and then the past

participle form of the verb

so in this case the speaker is making a

guess

about something the listener’s father

owned in the past

for at least two years so your dad must

have had it for

at least two years so it’s a past tense

situation the speaker is making a guess

about the past but the speaker is making

a guess

with a high level of confidence so they

use must

have must have shows a high level of

possibility she’s not here

she must have gone to work the kids are

in the car they must have finished

swimming he’s smiling at the office he

must have had a good meeting

so all of these are guesses but these

guesses show a high level of confidence

there’s a high chance

that the speaker’s guess is correct so

the speaker uses must have

plus the past participle form of the

verb hope that’s helpful for you

next question the next question is about

if conditionals there’s no problem when

you say the main clause

first and you say the if clause after is

that correct yes that’s fine

in the live stream i introduced the

pattern if clause first

main clause second but i also mentioned

that we can use main clause first and

then if clause second if i finish

editing this video today i can go

running i can reverse

that sentence i can go running if i

finish editing this video today

both sentences are totally correct it’s

up to you to choose which order

you like thanks for the question now

good one next question

from mifta mister what is the difference

between

astronomy and astrology right

okay so astronomy refers to the

scientific study of space so that’s like

stars and planets

everything outside earth that’s the

scientific study of it

astrology refers to the idea that

we can make predictions uh make guesses

about human behavior and those

predictions

are based on the positions of like stars

and planets and things

and those positions can influence uh

human behavior can

can influence our lives hope that’s

helpful next

question the next question is about the

present

perfect progressive tense i said i have

been wanting

to blah blah blah why did i use the verb

want

in the continuous tense as wanting i

used the progressive form

wanting because from a point in the past

until

now there’s something i have desired

i have wanted to do continuously though

to give a strong nuance of the

continuous

nature of that i use the the progressive

or the continuous form

wanting i’ve been wanting to see that

movie i’ve been wanting to get a coffee

with my friend i’ve been wanting to

get more sleep i’ve been wanting to go

jogging something you

started to want in the past and

continued to want

until this point in time you can say i

have been wanting

we can apply other verbs to this pattern

too like i’ve been thinking about you

all week i’ve been worrying about you

all day

so these continuous past emotions too

we can use the progressive tense to talk

about those

next question is from a fee payoffif how

do i

study english speaking or how do i

improve my english speaking skills at

home alone yeah thanks for the question

check out this video i talked about it

in this video right here i think the

answer is at the 12 minute

and 40 second mark so there are several

tips there

for how to study english alone at home

hope that helps

next question next question comes from

ricardo

villarreal i’m very sorry what does

one mean as a subject one means any

person

it sounds rather formal in more casual

speech we say

you like if you went to the movie

theater where would you buy popcorn to

make it sound more

formal we could say where would one buy

popcorn instead of using

you we say one so you might see this

more in writing or perhaps

in situations where you is not

appropriate or it’s too casual

so one means any person it doesn’t mean

the number

it doesn’t refer to another noun

necessarily a lot of if sentences like

if one were a doctor how much

money would one make one just means a

person any person thanks ricardo

next question next question is from

asgar hi oscar

uh oscar says what’s the difference

between it’s up to you

and you’re up to oh okay uh

first uh it’s up to you means you can

decide so for example

where do you want to go for dinner

tonight it’s up to you what movie do you

want to see tonight

it’s up to you where do you want to go

for this weekend it’s up to you

you can decide you’re up to refers to

things that the other person has been

doing

so we use it in expressions like you’ve

been up to a lot of interesting things

lately

or a useful question is uh what are you

up to

meaning what are you doing as in what

are you up to this weekend or what are

you up to tonight

to check what someone else is doing you

can also use this for the past

what have you been up to lately these

are very nice questions to ask

instead of how are you or what are you

doing up to you

means you decide what are you up to

means what are you doing

next question from nita aprioni i hope i

said your name right on brazier can i

say the ketchup

on that crispy chicken was savory the

flavor was barbecued teriyaki or black

pepper

it wasn’t spicy ah yes you can say a

sauce is savory that’s very very common

so

something savory as we talked about

quickly in the

food live stream flavors that are not so

sweet but that are still very very

flavorful

something that’s usually a little bit

more salty we don’t really use

savory to explain sweet things it’s more

for

kind of salty things or things that have

like a really deep flavor about them

so yes you can describe your sauce or

your barbecue sauce or your chicken

whatever you put on your chicken as

savory that’s a great word to describe

thanks for that question next question

is from kiara hi kiara again so what

does sunglasses mean and what do

sunglasses mean

sunglasses is a plural noun should we

use do instead of does

ah this is interesting okay here your

example sentence is a little bit tricky

so when you’re asking about the meaning

of a word

even if you know that it’s a plural noun

don’t worry about that in this example

sentence

what does blah blah blah mean you can

use

anything in this pattern this is because

you’re not

actually asking about the object you’re

not

actually asking about that thing you’re

asking

about the word only the word itself

so just use does what does sunglasses

mean is fine because you’re looking for

the actual meaning of the word

you’re not asking about that actual

object you’re not asking something about

sunglasses so in this specific example

sentence you can always use what does

blah blah blah mean

so native speakers do that too what does

something something something

mean if we don’t know an expression or

if we don’t know a phrase we can use

anything in that pattern however if you

want to use

a plural noun like sunglasses or any

other plural noun in a sentence similar

to this you do need to change

what do sunglasses do or why do pants

have pockets

or who do penguins see most frequently

please use

do as you would for other plural nouns

then too

but great question nice point to

consider thank you i almost forgot

there’s one more thing i want to talk to

you about you guys did not ask this

question but i noticed it during the

food live stream that we did recently

the difference between dessert and

desert

is one s in spelling however these two

words are different let’s start with the

word

dessert the sweet food that comes at the

end of a meal dessert is spelled with

two s’s we use d-e-s-s-e-r-t

to spell dessert however the word desert

which is spelled d-e-s-e

refers to like a dry landscape not many

plants

not many animals live there that’s a

desert if you misspell the word

dessert and you forget that s it becomes

desert also very interestingly there’s

another way to pronounce the word that’s

spelled d-e-s-e-r-t

this is a verb to desert so to desert

means to leave something without

planning to come back like to desert a

town or to desert your family

to abandon something also it can mean

like leaving a military position like so

to desert

the army please note dessert as the end

of a meal

and to desert meaning to leave or to

abandon something

have the same pronunciation but

different grammatical functions

so please be careful of this point how

can we put them all together i’m going

to

desert my station so that i can enjoy

dessert in the desert next

question next question comes from kim in

thai hi

kim intai okay what does a spirit animal

mean as in what’s your spirit animal

i don’t think we have that kind of

question in my country also what are

some possible answers

okay a spirit animal can mean different

things depending on the person that

you’re talking to

generally though on especially on the

internet we use

spirit animal to refer to an animal that

we think matches our personality or

matches our behavior

so for example if i’m a slow lazy person

and i don’t like to do a lot of

activities i could say

a sloth is my spirit animal or if i’m

like an aggressive person and i’m alone

a lot and i’m like maybe see myself as

like a fighter or hunter

i don’t know maybe i could say a tiger

is my spirit animal for example

it’s an animal that we feel closely

matches us somehow and it can change

like maybe

on this day i feel a connection with

this specific animal

so we can say that just do be careful

there are some people who have

maybe a religious or a spiritual belief

that strongly connects them to

a spirit animal or you might also hear

the word i think spirit animal guide

perhaps

but just pay attention to the situation

and i think you can quickly understand

how the person is using spirit animal my

spirit animal i usually think like

depending on the day my spirit animal is

either a flying squirrel or a platypus

because both of these animals are kind

of like in between animals they have a

little bit of a couple different animals

in them

but like a flying squirrel is kind of

like flexible and adaptive and has lots

of energy and goes really really quickly

but then the platypus is just like this

silly looking creature that swims around

looking for food all day and then sleeps

forever so

like depending on the day i feel like

i’m sometimes a flying squirrel

sometimes a platypus out of them first

question first question this week comes

from iman hi again i’m

on i’m on says what is the use of

definite article

the we use the with a singular noun

to refer to a specific instance of that

noun

so when you’re telling a story we’ll

often introduce the first

instance of a noun with a and then

after that we’ll use the to refer to the

specific

instance of that thing so for example a

simple story

i was walking down the street and i saw

a dog

the dog was really cute i pet

the dog so in that situation when i

introduce

a dog in the story the first time i talk

about the dog

in the story i use uh to introduce it

then after that i use the to refer to

that specific dog that i introduced

earlier in the story

every other time that i want to talk

about that same dog

i use the before it so use the word

the when you need to refer to a specific

noun or when you have to refer to a

specific

group so for example the teachers in the

school district went on strike

so specifically we’re talking about

teachers in a specific

school district the teachers went on

strike the mothers at the pta meeting

organized a bake sale it’s a specific

group that is defined by something else

so in this case

the mothers at the pta meeting only the

mothers that were at that meeting

not the mothers from a different uh

group for example

so we use the to uh to talk about a

specific

instance of something first question

this week

comes from dave hi dave some people use

l-o-l

on the internet what does it mean yeah

l-o-l can mean

laugh out loud or lots of laughs i’ve

heard both

but either way we use this expression to

quickly

explain we thought something was funny

lol

next question next question comes from

johnny hi

johnny you wrote a very long message

thank you very much for watching there’s

a slang expression that i’ve heard

several times

and don’t understand well i know right

using i know right is like an invitation

then

for the other person to agree again

really i know

right so think of i know right as like

an

even stronger like even more emphasis on

the agreement

and an invitation for the other person

to agree

again i know right it’s like yes

and you agree too don’t you next

question

comes from pavel oh hi pavel says hey

alicia please tell us about the

difference between

to not and not to as in i want

to not and i want not to for example ah

yeah

so with these there’s not really a

difference between these like i want not

to

and i want to not do something both of

these are casual ways of explaining

a negative in speech the correct

sentence would be i don’t want to

do something something but like native

speakers sometimes like to kind of play

with grammar a little bit

that’s one reason they might use this

pattern uh either of these patterns

really

also sometimes we start a sentence and

we make it positive like i want to

and then we realize part of the way into

the sentence

oh wait i want to express something

negative so we change it to

to not or not to so i want not to

blah blah blah or i want to not blah

blah blah both are okay

but just keep in mind that we use that i

want not to or i want to not

blah blah blah in casual situations we

don’t

generally use these in formal situations

instead we use i don’t

want to blah blah blah i want to not get

in trouble

i want not to get in trouble the correct

sentence here would be i don’t want to

get in trouble

but you’ll hear native speakers do this

for a number of reasons so there’s not

really a difference between

these two uh but you will hear both of

those used by native speakers i hope

that helps thanks for the question

next quest john comes from zafar ahmad

zafar ahmad hi

zafar asks about two sentences okay

one have you ever cried in a film two

have you ever cried at a film my

question is about the preposition

in or at which sentence is correct and

explain the reason of course i’ll

explain the reason

let’s take a look at the first one have

you ever cried in a film

um this is actually a point where the

differences between british english and

american english

might come into play a little bit have

you ever cried

in a film could have a few different

meanings depending on the situation

if for example you are speaking to an

actor and you say have you ever cried in

a film

meaning when you were in a film when you

were

acting in a film did you cry

at any point in time so have you ever

cried in a film

it could also mean have you gone to

watch a movie in a movie theater

and cried at the movie theater or in the

movie theater

your second sentence have you ever cried

at a film

so using at shows like the direction

of an emotion like we use it with uh

other emotions as well like my mom is

mad at me

or my dad is angry at me so it’s showing

the direction of emotion

so in this case have you ever cried at

a film meaning did a film

cause you to cry have you ever cried

because

of a film uh in my case though if i

wanted to ask my friend

if a movie had ever caused them to cry

i would say have you ever cried at a

movie

next question comes from

sagri karakilar

i am so sorry hi alicia can i use though

instead of nevertheless it looks as if

their meanings are the same thank you

this is a great question uh though and

nevertheless

yes while they do have similar meanings

sometimes

they have different grammatical

functions so nevertheless

means in spite of the thing that was

said

before or despite the prior thing

nevertheless is used only as an adverb

though however can be used as an adverb

yes

but it can also be used as a conjunction

though can also mean nevertheless or in

spite of

however it also sometimes just has the

meaning of

but though i almost ran out of time

i finished the test with a perfect score

he told me he would call at eight

though it’s 8 15 and i haven’t heard

from him i almost ran out of time

nevertheless i finished the test with a

perfect score her proposal was rejected

nevertheless she continued with her

research hope that that helps answer

your

question though next question okay next

question comes from igor hi igor

why are verbs like berry hurry study

tidy and try

uh in the irregular verbs list their

past simple and past participle forms

have

ed endings like other regular verbs the

course books

used have listed these verbs in the

irregular verb list all right

tough question because i did not create

the textbooks and i don’t know the logic

that was used for the textbooks

but if i had to guess why those verbs

are included as

irregular verbs i would imagine it’s

because these verbs

all end in y and yes although the verbs

do

end in ed there is an irregular change

that happens with verbs that end

in y so that’s to drop the y and add

i e d instead of just an e d

so we maintain that e sound like tai d

berry however the spelling of the word

changes

next question comes from marcos korea hi

marcos

marcos says alicia help in all caps

alicia help the words weather and

weather have the same pronunciation and

does weather have the same sense of

if could you use it in some examples

please reply yes

yes you’re correct thanks marcos weather

as in like

clouds sunlight rain snow wind weather

and

weather h e r w-h-e-t-h-e-r have the

same pronunciation yes

and the wh form does contain the meaning

of if

as in whether or not something so native

speakers will often

say whether or not but we can reduce

this to

if some examples he hasn’t decided

whether or not he’s coming to dinner

i don’t know whether or not i’m going to

travel this summer do you know whether

or not your parents are at home

in each of these sentences we could

change whether or not

to if i hope that that answers your

question marcos thanks

next question is from poria

poriya asks what’s the difference

between these words

interior and internal exterior and

external alright well there are

grammatical differences

interior and exterior are nouns

uh internal and external are adjectives

we use interior and exterior to talk

about the

inside and the outside of something but

internal and external

are used those are adjectives we use

them to talk about

the qualities of something next question

comes from

cassava cassava hi again kesava says uh

what’s the difference between bored with

and

bored by great question there is no

difference actually

bored with and bored by also we use

board of board of so these are all used

in the same way

to explain something that causes us to

feel

bored i’m so bored by this lesson i’m so

bored with this textbook i’m so bored of

you

so we can use all of these in the same

way you might find that some people have

personal preferences for which one they

choose to use

but we use them all in the same way next

question

from stanislav hi stanislav stanislav

asks how do you politely address

unfamiliar women and men lady miss mrs

mister and sir ah nice question all

right if you’re in a formal situation

it’s better to use

mister with men sir tends to be used

more

in like a service relationship so uh the

same thing with mam for women

mrs is used for married women if i don’t

know if someone is married or not a

woman is married or not

i’ll use miss nice question though next

question

comes from paul hi paul let me ask a

question

or let me ask a question which is the

correct sentence

both of these are actually correct lemmy

is the reduced form of

let me so we use this in more casual

situations

let me ask a question it’s fine too it

just sounds more formal

and when we reduce the sounds actually

it sounds a little more natural so let

me ask you a question

let me ask you a question that’s fine to

use in speech

in writing however l-e-m-m-e looks very

casual

so we typically don’t use that informal

writing

but both of them are actually correct

next question

next question is from leon hi leon what

are the differences between

test exam quiz and questionnaire and

when should i use

each of them nice question all right

let’s start with

test and exam we use these two words

quite similarly when we’re talking about

um tests of knowledge or like

examinations at school we can use either

of those like i have a test this week or

i have an exam this week

i think in american english test is

probably used more commonly than exam

or the long form examination however

when we want to check the status of our

bodies we’ll often use the word

exam so for example a physical exam

that’s an expression we use to mean like

a full check

of the body which is commonly done maybe

once a year

or so so an exam um like a dental exam

or an eye exam

is a check of the condition of your body

as well a quiz is

essentially a mini test a questionnaire

however

is quite different from the three that

we’ve talked about thus far

a questionnaire is something that’s

given usually to customers

that is for feedback we use

questionnaires for feedback

first question this week comes from

danielle hi danielle

danielle says hi alicia is it really a

mistake to refer to animals with

she or he instead of it in cases where

the animal is considered part of the

family like

cats or dogs ah okay no it’s not a

mistake at all

if the pet is like a member of the

family like you’ve described

it’s very common to use he or she

to talk about the animal cats dogs we

can use this for birds hamsters

hedgehogs whatever the pet is

very common also when it’s your first

time

meeting someone else’s animal it’s quite

common to ask

is it a boy or a girl and then after

that you can use

he or she to talk about the animal we

tend to use

it when talking about animals we are not

familiar with

like a stray cat for example or maybe

like an animal we see at the zoo

we would use it in those cases when

we’re talking about

animals that are parts of our family we

tend to use he

or she to talk about that thanks for the

question first question this week

comes from silas hi silas silas says hi

alicia how’s it going

i’d like to know the meaning of the

expression weird flex

but okay and how do i use it in a

sentence

okay this is a bit of recent slang

weird flex but okay focuses in on the

meaning of the word

flex so if you are interested in like

health

or like muscle training or anything like

that you might know the verb

to flex so to flex is what we do when we

want to

show off a muscle we have been training

so when we

flex a muscle we put energy

into the muscle to make the muscle like

stand out

we want it to look bigger like we want

to show off

that muscle so when we flex a muscle

we’re trying to show it off we’re like

excited about that thing or we’re proud

about it or something like that

so flex here in this expression

weird flex does not refer to muscle it

doesn’t refer to the body

but actually something else that

the speaker or the writer is trying to

show off

so it’s something that seems strange

so in the example of muscles and muscle

training

like the person who wants to show off

wants to show their muscles

but when we use the expression weird

flex

someone is trying to show off something

that seems strange

and then we add but okay at the end to

mean

i don’t really understand but all right

so to give an example of this

if i on twitter write like i spent three

thousand dollars on socks this month

and i talk about how excited i am i’m

like showing off that i spent three

thousand dollars on socks

someone might respond to me weird flex

but okay

so that means like it’s strange that you

want to show off

that you spent three thousand dollars on

socks like that’s a really strange thing

to be excited about

but okay so to give another example

uh your friend might tell you something

like i have the biggest collection of

rocks in my whole neighborhood

and you might say weird flex but okay so

again it’s like that’s a strange

thing that you want to show off but okay

whatever it is like it’s not hurting

anybody it’s just a little bit

weird that you want to show that off or

you want to brag or boast about that

thing

so that’s what weird flex but okay means

you see this one a lot online i hope

that that helps you thanks very much for

this interesting question

next question next question comes from

dewey hi dewey

could you tell me when to use any more

and

no longer sure okay um so

both of these are used to refer to an

action something we did or something

someone did in the past

but from this point in the present that

action is

not going to continue we use anymore

when we use a negative in the sentence

some examples

i’m not going to go to that restaurant

anymore he doesn’t help me anymore

they don’t drink with us anymore we use

no longer

in positive statements and it tends to

sound more formal

you’ll also see that no longer can be

put at the beginning of the sentence to

increase the level of formality so you

might hear this

in speeches for example using no longer

at the beginning of the sentence

really emphasizes that the action is not

going to continue

and that it sounds quite formal so it no

longer might have a couple different

places in the sentence let’s look at

some examples no longer will we tolerate

these problems

she no longer has to come to work early

we will no longer be a part of the group

so i hope that helps you understand some

of the key differences between these two

expressions thanks for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

next question

comes from rigwins riggins hi riggins

reagan says hi alicia i’m regins from

haiti

i’m good at english but due to a lack of

practice i’ve kind of lost my touch

because i’m sick and tired of the

learning process

so i’d like to know how to keep my

english up please

okay first i’m sure that you’re not the

only person like i lose motivation

all the time i would say that if you are

having

trouble keeping your motivation up you

should try

looking for a different way to practice

or a different way to use

english so for example if there’s a

hobby that you have in your native

language

you could try doing that in english or

maybe there’s

a book or a movie that you are really

interested in or that seems cool

and you want to understand that in

english i would suggest trying to find

something that’s not like a traditional

textbook or it’s not a traditional way

of learning like going to a class and

doing worksheets and that kind of thing

i would suggest actually trying to use

english in your everyday life

to like do your work or to study

something or to accomplish a hobby

maybe you make a new friend who can

speak only english

so i would suggest finding something

outside of a traditional

learning setting to do i think that that

might help you a little bit with your

motivation that has helped me a lot in

the past actually

making friends with people who cannot

speak my language has been

hugely motivating for me and i try to

study the vocabulary words that they

often talk about and i try to learn from

their speech patterns

too so i would suggest trying to find

something to do with other people as

much as possible

that uses english so i hope that this

helps you and helps other people

with their motivation issues it happens

to all of us at some point in time but i

hope that these tips can help

thanks very much for this question next

question next question

comes from aravind hi aravind aravind

says what is the difference between took

and taken and have you ever been to

india okay took and taken took is the

past tense of the verb

take i took a break he took my drink

they took our passports

taken is the past participle form of

take have you ever taken a trip to

france she’s taken the test three times

we’ve taken long vacations every summer

for 10 years

so i hope that helps it’s a difference

in grammar and no i have not been to

india

thanks for the question okay let’s move

on to your next question

next question comes from ahmet

farooq hello ahmet ahmed says what is

the difference

between may and can

okay historically may is used to ask for

permission

can is used to express ability to do

something or

lack of ability to do something so

that’s the historical use of

may and can in today’s english however

lots of people use

can to ask for permission to do

something we do not however

use may to talk about ability so let’s

take a look at some examples

can i go to the restroom may i go to the

restroom

can i leave early today may i leave

early today

so in today’s english these all refer to

the same thing they’re all requests to

use the restroom or to leave early

in today’s american english i would say

that using

mei tends to sound a little bit more

formal than using

can if you ever want to be sure to sound

polite

and to make sure you’re communicating

clearly you can use

may but in most day-to-day conversations

we use

can so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

let’s go to the next question next

question comes from

pierre hi pierre pierre says hi could

you please explain the difference

between

belly tummy and stomach thanks sure

okay let’s start with stomach stomach is

the

most neutral word you can use to talk

about this

area of your body if you need to talk

about this area

in your life somewhere in a polite

situation stomach is probably the best

word to use

examples my stomach hurts he got hit

in the stomach they’ve been doing

stomach exercises

every other day so now let’s talk about

tummy tummy is a word that children use

adults use tummy when they’re talking to

children

it sounds very young it sounds very

childish

adults typically don’t use this word

when talking to other adults

unless they’re trying to be funny or

unless they really want to sound

childish for some reason so tummy is

really a children’s word

examples do you have a tummy ache i want

to put food

in my tummy now belly is a casual word

that adults

do use it sounds kind of rough it’s not

a dirty word at all

but it tends to be used more by men than

by women i think

it’s a very casual expression to refer

to

your stomach but we usually use it to

talk about

eating and food some examples my belly

is so

full i need to put some food in my belly

alright so i hope that helps you in most

situations if you’re not sure what to

use

use stomach you can’t go wrong with

stomach hope that helps

next question comes from yovani hi ovani

yovani says hi alicia my name is jovani

i’m from venezuela

i’ve always wanted to know the meaning

of this sentence

don’t get twisted even though it’s not

used very often

thanks yeah you’re right this isn’t such

a common expression

i found only a few references to this

expression and they were typically

from music actually uh so this

expression

could mean like don’t get angry or don’t

get upset

or don’t get nervous so it refers to

being

in like a negative condition so twisted

if you imagine like a

towel do we have some oh we do yeah for

this explanation let’s imagine like a

towel

so a regular just plain towel when we

hold the towel looks like this

but if we twist the towel like this it’s

under tension like it’s under pressure

so if we imagine ourselves as like the

towel like we’re under pressure we’re

really tight we’re really tense

we could be angry we could be nervous we

could be upset about something

so if someone says to you don’t get

twisted it’s like

chill out like don’t be upset don’t be

angry

relax in other words so i would guess

that this is what this word means or

what this expression means rather

but as you said this is not such a

common expression

we don’t say don’t get twisted really in

american english

you might hear people say something like

just chill out

as i’ve said or maybe like don’t worry

or there are a couple of other slightly

more rude expressions that we use too

so i hope that this helps you thanks

very much for the question

okay let’s move on to your next question

all right let’s go on to the next

question next question comes from

satish hi satish satish says what’s the

difference between i shall

and i will similarly between shall i

and will i ah okay first

any use of shall is going to sound

more formal than will the difference

between

i shall and shall i is that

i shall begins a statement

shall i begins an offer i shall

call the police this sounds very formal

shall i call the police that’s an offer

it sounds very formal

will however is quite different i will

begins a statement yes but will i does

not

begin an offer will i is used

to think out loud so when we are

imagining our future schedule and we’re

thinking about

something in the future uh we’re alone

we’re talking

to ourselves and thinking about our

future schedule

we might use will i so examples i will

call the police

that’s natural we would probably use the

contracted form i’ll call the police

hmm will i have time to go to the bank

today will i be able to get a coffee

this morning

so this is not used so much in

conversation we use this

will i sort of pattern when we’re

thinking about things we might be able

to do in the future

and we’re thinking to ourselves about it

so

i hope that helps that’s kind of a quick

introduction to the differences between

these two

thanks for the question next question

comes from

uh malek hi malek malik says

is this sentence correct the color of

shirts

of players could you explain more about

two possessive nouns in a row thanks in

advance

yeah great question this is kind of

tricky so in this situation

we would say the color of the player’s

shirts so a key here is that we’re using

players and we’re using an apostrophe

after the

s in players that apostrophe is acting

as a

possessive apostrophe so we have two

ways of creating the possessive in

english

we can use of as in the color of the

player’s shirts

and we can use the apostrophe s form so

for example

alicia’s would be alicia apostrophe s

the apostrophe s shows something is

belonging to

me that’s my thing alicia’s phone so in

this situation

we have players players here we’re

talking about

shirts that belong to players so it’s

not just

one person when a noun ends with an

s we make the plural possessive form by

adding an apostrophe to the end of the

word

and we do not add another s so in the

singular form when i said

alicia’s phone for example alicia is one

person so i write alicia apostrophe s

in this example however because we’re

talking about a group of people

players we don’t use an apostrophe s

because the word already ends in s and

it sounds kind of strange just try to

say like players is

or something like that so to avoid this

we simply write

players with s and add an apostrophe at

the end

so this shows the plural form that means

plural possessive

apostrophe there it’s very natural to

use that apostrophe form

of the possessive when we’re talking

about something that belongs to a

person so again in my example when i

said alicia’s

phone it sounds quite natural to use

that apostrophe s

to show possession as a person in the

plural form too

players shirts it’s a shirt or shirts

that belong to a player

so when we’re not using a person when

we’re using like an object

it might be a little bit more common to

see an

of pattern used there in this case it’s

color

of the shirts so color is like a

characteristic that belongs to

the shirt or in this case shirts so here

it sounds natural to use the

of pattern because there’s not a person

here we’re talking about the

characteristics of an

object color of the shirts so

of can be used to talk about like

characteristics of things

and the apostrophe s form can be used to

talk about like things that belong to

people let’s look at one more example

though that uses no

people so for example the color of the

seats

in the cars or the color of the car’s

seats so we could use either of these

patterns

i personally would probably use the

color of the seats in the cars because

we can clearly see like the levels of

belonging first we have color

and the color belongs to the seats and

the seats are in the cars

so i think that sounds much nicer you

might see that color of the car’s

seats sentence though as we talked about

it’s a little bit less natural maybe to

use the possessive apostrophe there

with car because it’s not actually a

person i think you might use that though

i don’t think it’s incorrect to use that

but i personally would prefer to use

something that kind of clearly shows

the hierarchy the level of belonging or

the levels of belonging

as in the first example the color of the

seats in the car

i hope that this helps you thank you

very much for this interesting question

okay let’s go to the next question next

question comes from

marcelo olivier hi marcelo marcello says

hi alicia are you okay

thanks for your awesome videos my

question is what’s the meaning of gung

ho i heard this in an interview with

taylor swift thanks a lot okay

um so gung-ho let’s start with an

example

i’m gung-ho about my new project gung-ho

means you are full of energy and you are

excited about something

it means that you’re enthusiastic you’re

going to put all your effort into that

thing so when i say

i’m gung-ho about my new project it

means i’m really excited i’m really

enthusiastic i’m going to do everything

i can

to make that a success gung-ho so i hope

that answers your question about

gung-ho first question from harley pasos

harley paso paso i’m very sorry harley

asks what is the use of

get plus adverb or preposition

for example i get down this is a

question about

phrasal verbs with get we can use a lot

of different things after the word

get in your example to get down we use

it when dancing for example like i want

to get down

this weekend it’s sort of an

old-fashioned expression though to get

down

we can use a lot of different uh words

after

the verb get though for example get into

to get into something

means to become interested in something

you might hear to get

at like get at me or get at your

professor to get at means to reach out

to or to communicate with

but it’s a very casual expression you

can say get after like i need to get

after my homework for example it means

to like chase after or try to do

something also to get in like to get

into a club to get into a restaurant to

get into a party

the nuance is that something is

challenging but you can gain

access to that thing like i got into the

party last night but i wasn’t on the

list there are a lot of different uses

of the word

get i can’t talk about all of them in

this video because there are so many

so if you’re curious about the various

phrasal verbs that we can use with the

word get check out a dictionary that’s a

really good place to start

next question next question comes from

long

and longan asks what is the difference

between simple

past tense and past continuous tense or

past progressive tense

simple past tense we use for actions

that started

and ended in the past so the beginning

of the action and the end of the action

happened in the past so for example the

sentence i ate

breakfast is a simple past tense

statement i

ate breakfast eight is the simple past

tense the past continuous tense however

or the past progressive tense

is something we use to talk about an

action that was continuing

at a specific point in time in the past

if i want to use the past progressive

tense i can say

i was eating breakfast using that

continuous tense using that progressive

tense implies i want to explain

something else that happened at that

time or maybe i want to add some more

information

so for example i was eating breakfast at

eight o’clock this morning or i was

eating breakfast when the phone rang

or i was eating breakfast and watching

tv at the same time

i was eating breakfast while studying

today by using the past progressive

i’m explaining that an action was

continuing at a specific point in time

as in the example i was eating breakfast

at eight o’clock

or i can use past progressive to show

one action was happening at the same

time as another action

in the past if i use just the simple

past tense i’m just saying

a simple fact in other words this action

happened i ate breakfast at eight

o’clock

if i want to emphasize the continuous

nature of the action for some reason

like i was eating breakfast at eight

o’clock

i can use the past progressive tense in

that case

it might be in response to a question

like what were you doing at eight

o’clock this morning so if someone wants

to ask

maybe uh what you were doing at a

specific point in time like someone is

suspicious of you like what were you

doing last night

you can say like oh i was having dinner

with my friends last night

but past ten simple past tense is

something we use for actions which

start uh and finish uh in the past but

progressive the progressive tense and

past

can be used to emphasize the continuing

nature of that situation or that action

hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and i

answer them maybe first question this

week first question this week comes from

patrick hi patrick patrick says i know

the basic english words and i understand

if someone speaks in english

for example i understand your videos

perfectly but i have problems building

correct english sentences like when i

speak with another person

do you have any tips for how to build

correct sentences

um i think that this just comes with

practice honestly it’s difficult to do

but i know that there’s not always a

person that you can ask

for help i will tell you a secret when i

don’t have confidence with something

when i don’t know how to answer

something

this is what i do i

google it seriously just google it i put

quotation marks around like the phrase

that i’m trying to make

and then i search google for it and if

it’s there great then that means i can

use it maybe like thousands of people

have used that phrase i know it’s

probably a common phrase if there are no

results then that probably means i’ve

made a mistake somehow

so that’s maybe one good way to help you

as you try to build phrases

by yourself so try that out next

question

next question comes from yasun yasim

yasin i’m very sorry what’s the

difference between

on time and in time is it you arrived

just on time

or you arrived just in time we use on

time

to refer to doing something at the

correct

time doing something at a scheduled time

so for example i need to get to work on

time

meaning at the correct time or did you

make it to your appointment

on time in time however is used when we

want to

kind of give a nuance of rushing or

hurrying for something

i need to leave my house now to get to

the airport in time

for my flight i need to study for my

test now if i want to be in time for the

party later

you should probably leave now if you

want to be in time for the movie

in time for something else so

i want to do action a to make my

schedule

meet this other condition this other

thing i would like to do or this other

thing i need to do

in time four has the nuance of a

deadline we can use this expression in

like a panic like oh my gosh i’m not

going to make it

in time like to submit a paper i’m not

going to make it in time

in time means like before the deadline

whereas on time has the meaning of

completing an action or completing

something at

a scheduled time next question next

question comes from huang

se na huang sena hi i love your name

alicia is alicia a common name in the us

i happen to have a friend named alyssa

also what’s your personal favorite name

um a common name in the u.s alicia i

don’t i don’t think alicia is so common

in the u.s and when i was growing up

i didn’t have any other friends named

alicia

also the spelling of my name is a little

strange usually it’s spelled a-l-i-c-i-a

maybe you know the artist alicia keys

that’s how she spells her name so my

name was commonly confused as alicia a

lot so i’ve heard like alison

and alyssa and ally and so on those are

fairly common i think but alicia

especially my spelling is not so common

actually so

what’s my favorite name my favorite name

is

obi-wan kenobi next question

next question comes from garrison silva

hi what is the difference between

shade and shadow oh great this is a

great question

both of these words can be used to refer

to a place

that is darker than its surroundings

because

there’s an object that is blocking the

light we can say

there’s shade over there or there’s a

shadow over there

in that sentence they are used the same

however

shadow refers to the dark shape only so

a person can

cast a shadow we use cast the verb cast

with a shadow

i cast a shadow when i stand in the sun

for example

shade however as a noun refers to or has

the nuance of a kind of shelter

so shelter provided by some other object

shelter from the light shelter from the

sun so we would say

stand in the shade because shade has the

nuance of

shelter we would not say stand in the

shadow

shadow does not carry the nuance of

shelter in the way that shade does

interestingly enough though shade and

shadow are both used as verbs as well

to shadow something means to follow

something closely

to shadow someone at work means to

follow someone at work

and try to understand their job for

example shade

is used as a verb to mean to create

shelter

from light for example the canopy shaded

us

from the sun shade also has some

interesting uses you might hear the

slang phrase to throw shade throwing

shade is a really

interesting slang expression that we use

which means to

communicate disrespect or to to

communicate like contempt

uh bad feelings for something when

you’re speaking generally in most cases

when you want to talk about a dark cool

area we should say

shade stand in the shade when you want

to talk only about the dark

area that dark object use shadow next

question uh next question comes from

long is the h

sound not always pronounced when

followed by another consonant

for example wall hanger or come back

home yes the h

sound is often pronounced very uh softly

it’s quite difficult to

pronounce all of these syllables clearly

like in the example come

back home it’s quite difficult to say

the h sound clearly so in those cases

it’s quite common to make the h sound

quite soft like come back home

danny’s second question can you talk

about ride and its uses

like take someone for a ride can i take

a ride

ryan is another verb that has a lot of

different uses you use the example

to take someone for a ride means to

drive together with someone

to go for a ride has the nuance of doing

something just for fun

it’s just for fun i want to take a ride

to a location i want to take a ride to

the mountains this weekend or take a

ride to the beach but to take someone

for a ride means to invite someone to

drive

somewhere with you in a car that’s one

way to use ride you can also say

give me a ride can you give me a ride so

this is a request

expression i don’t have a car my friend

has a car i want my friend to take me

in their car to a location i can say can

you give me a ride

to the movie theater can you give me a

ride to the lake

give me a ride is a request so give me a

ride in your car

so there are a lot of uses of ride if

you want to see all of them or if you

want to see more of them i recommend

checking a dictionary there are quite a

few and i can’t talk about them all in

this video so please check a dictionary

question comes from winston hi winston

winston says i don’t understand

english i want to learn but i don’t know

how to start

i’m a newbie right lots of questions

like this

um so really there are a lot of

different ways that you can start

studying a language of course we have

lots of videos

on our youtube channel and we have a

whole website

to try to help people who are studying

english you can check us out at

englishclass101.com

you can find like apps you can find

worksheets

podcasts to listen to so that can be a

nice way to start we have some videos

for beginners

also so if you’re just starting

you can check some of the beginner level

videos

we have on the channel for example

english

in three minutes that’s a good set of

videos you can watch

to learn some basic phrases i think

so that might be a nice place for you to

start

but let’s look at some other ideas

for beginners specifically one

join an english class in your city two

get an

english textbook and study at home

three make a language exchange with an

english speaker four study vocabulary

with apps try out those those are a few

ideas of course you can always use our

videos on the channel

as well so i hope that helps a little

bit

i’m sorry where do we use wanna and

gonna

and how ah this question is about the

casual contracted forms of

want to and going to so want to

becomes wanna going to becomes gonna

in casual speech we use them in exactly

the same way

we would use i want to i’m going to he

wants to

she wants to he’s going to she’s going

to we use them in exactly the same way

which means we use them in casual

situations like

i want to take a day off or i’m going to

go to the beach this weekend or

do you want to see a movie tonight we

use them in exactly the same way

we use want to and going to

but we use them in speech typically we

don’t write these unless we’re writing

very casual messages like text messages

to our friends or something

next one i got the next question uh a

couple times like maybe three or four

times okay the question was about the

adjective comparison video that we did a

while ago so

i introduced the word fun as an

irregular adjective

in terms of the comparative form so fun

is a word an adjective we use for an

activity or something that’s

enjoyable something we like to do fun is

different

from the adjective funny fun is an

adjective

and a noun actually funny is just an

adjective fun refers to an enjoyable

activity

funny however refers to something that

causes

us to laugh it makes us laugh because

something is humorous something is

humorous so

for example we can say going to an

amusement park

is fun it’s not funny it’s not humorous

but it’s fun let’s kind of break this

down a little bit let’s think about it

like

fun uh in the adjective form here

fun is an enjoyable activity something

we enjoy

doing um funny however causes laughter

because of humor something funny

is humorous it is like witty

or there’s interesting word play or

whatever so

fun is kind of think of fun as like

doing an

activity going to the movie theater is

fun going to an amusement park is fun

watching these videos maybe is fun i

don’t know making these videos

is fun but funny we use funny

for for example a person or a movie or

something that causes us to laugh

because of

humor so things that are fun fun fun

fun fun not fun

funny funny not funny not funny

funny not funny fun so going to watch a

funny movie

is fun think about that because these

two words are

different fun is an adjective funny is

an adjective

fun uh the comparative form is more fun

or

less fun the comparative form of funny

is funnier or not as funny so that’s why

i used two different examples in that

video thanks for that question

though next question next question comes

from

carmel carmel says do you have any ideas

on how to improve speaking skills in

english yeah well to improve your

speaking

you have to practice speaking here are a

couple of

ideas that you can use to maybe help you

improve your speaking these are ideas

for just

ways to practice so chances to practice

number one

get a partner you can practice speaking

english with

this can be in your city or in your

community so find a partner

to practice speaking english with this

can be a language exchange partner for

example

do if you can’t find anyone in your town

or in your city to practice speaking

english with

you can try to find a partner online

three try

recording yourself speaking you can use

your phone to do this if you like just

record your voice

saying something and then listen to it

again

you might not realize it but it’s

actually really helpful

to hear your own voice like outside of

your body

actually we have something on the

website you can check

at englishclass101.com there’s a voice

recorder function

so you can record your voice and then

compare your voice

to the sound of a native speaker’s voice

and try to practice

until your voice matches the sound of

their voice

so that could be another idea number

four try repeating the things the

characters in

english tv and english movies say

so if you’re watching tv if you’re

watching a video online

if you’re listening to music something

in english

try to repeat the thing you hear so

not only listening listening listening

but try to practice

saying the things the characters or the

artists are saying too

number five kind of a strange suggestion

maybe but try

talking to yourself in english actually

i do this a lot

i’m studying japanese and i talk to

myself

in japanese from time to time so that

helps me a little bit but

helps me get comfortable just saying

words saying phrases too so maybe that’s

helpful for you

those are five ideas for what you can do

to

improve your speaking next question next

question comes from huang se na huang

huang sena wang saina i’m very sorry i’m

very sorry

i’ve never been to japan i’ve never been

to japan before

i’ve never eaten horse i’ve never eaten

horse before

my question is if you put before at the

end of those sentences

does it mean you are in japan right now

or you are eating horse right now

no not necessarily think of before at

the end of the sentence as

before now i’ve never eaten horse before

now in other words you could use this

beef just before

you eat horse or just before you go to

japan if you like as an emphasis phrase

but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you

are in japan

now or that you’re eating horse now you

could use it

in that way sure but it doesn’t

necessarily mean it

if you’d like to emphasize it like if

you’re about to eat horse for example

and

i’ve never eaten horse before you could

show your interest or perhaps to show

maybe some

anxiety or nervous feelings about uh

what you’re about

to do but no it does not necessarily

mean

you are in that place like for example

you could just be having a conversation

have you eaten horse before no i’ve

never eaten a horse before it could just

be a conversation about it

but really before just means before now

next question next question comes from

luann garcia

hi luann one asks i would like to know

how to use

down up off in on and out

after a verb and why it’s necessary oh

dear won this is a very big question

your question is about phrasal verbs

these are all called phrasal verbs

verb plus adverb or preposition there

are an enormous

amount of phrasal verbs i cannot

possibly talk about all of them in one

video

phrasal verbs are necessary because they

are part of speech

they are simply a type of verb they are

a type of expression

so you need to know them because they

will help you to communicate effectively

um so if you want to know more about

specific phrasal verbs i would suggest

checking a dictionary

next question next question comes from

huang jang ik

i’m very sorry which one is correct i

work out for one to two hours a day

i work out for one or two hours a day i

drink coffee two to three times a day i

drink coffee two or three times a day

ah both of these are correct actually

in this case there are very very small

differences between these

one two two hours a day means between

one and two hours if you say

i work out for one or two hours a day it

means it’s determined like

uh one hour only for a workout or two

hours only for a workout

so the difference here is are you

determining are you deciding

one hour or two cups of coffee or three

cups of coffee

or is it between those two amounts

so using one two two or two two three

means between those two amounts using or

shows it’s either a or b but not

between those two this is the difference

between two and or

next question next question comes from

bowie dente

bowie bowie dente very sorry

when can i use ever in a present perfect

sentence

like i have ever ever means at any time

or at all times you can use ever when

you’re asking a question like

have you ever blah blah blah have you

ever been to france have you ever eaten

ramen have you ever taken a

trip to the mountains for example we can

use ever

when making questions that’s one but

because ever means at all time or at any

time

we may not use it to answer a question

like that have you ever blah blah blah

we usually say yes or no in that in

response to that we can say i have never

ever taken a trip to france or i have

never

ever forgotten my keys for example i

have never ever blah blah blah

but in that case it still means never an

expression like

never ever just emphasizes the word

never

so to use ever we need to pair ever with

a verb in a sentence so we can’t say i

have ever just i have plus a verb we

cannot say i

have ever that’s incorrect i have at

some

at any time or at all times it’s it’s

redundant it’s

it’s not necessary we can however use

ever in a negative expression like i

haven’t

ever been to france or she hasn’t

ever eaten cheese for example so

we have to pair ever with a negative

to make a response we use ever for

present perfect tense questions

and paired with a negative have or has

to make a response to make a negative

response so please keep those two in

mind

next question next question comes from

rashke

rush rashke rashkesh i’m sorry where do

we use wanna

and gonna and how ah this question is

about the casual contracted forms of

want to and going to so want to

becomes wanna going to becomes gonna

in casual speech we use them in exactly

the same way

we would use i want to i’m going to he

wants to she wants to he’s going to

she’s going

to we use them in exactly the same way

which means we use them in casual

situations like

i want to take a day off or i’m going to

go to the beach this weekend or

do you want to see a movie tonight we

use them in exactly the same way

we use want to and going to

but we use them in speech typically we

don’t write these unless we’re writing

very casual messages like text messages

to our friends or something first

question a lot of you have asked about

what to do to get a voice that sounds

like mine when i’m making these videos

i’m specifically trying to speak clearly

so i’m clearly separating my words

the way that i talk with my friends and

the way that i talk regularly

is a bit different in the way that i

talk on this channel but if you want to

try to get this kind of pronunciation

the best advice i have is just to repeat

this kind of pronunciation it depends on

your goal if you want to learn to speak

like me or to speak like somebody else

that you really admire you should try to

mimic them that’s what i do

and that’s uh actually a strategy that i

use when i study other languages

as well so if i hear something

interesting that a

a vocabulary word that a friend has used

like in japanese for example

or they have a really good intonation or

just the way they deliver the way they

say something

is really uh interesting to me or i want

to i want to be able to use that too

i put that in my head i think about that

and then i try to replicate that i try

to copy that essentially

to make this explanation shorter mimic

mimic if you want to learn to speak like

me mimic me

if you want to learn to speak like

somebody else try to mimic someone else

but

just keep in mind that the way that i

talk in these videos is different

from the way that i talk in real life

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question next question is from suha

how do we write a good

paragraph number one you need to think

about the position of your paragraph in

your overall document

let’s think about writing a document in

terms of three parts an introduction a

body and a conclusion in the

introduction section

you need to introduce the key

information your reader needs to know

what they’re going to read about later

in your document so

if your paragraph is in the introduction

you need to think about how to introduce

your

information there second the body

section of your document should be where

you include your evidence your

supporting materials your opinions

any references that you have so if your

paragraph falls in the body of the

document you should have these things in

mind

if your paragraph is in the conclusion

of your document at the end

you should be concluding or finishing

your ideas

it’s typically a good idea to summarize

the ideas you presented in the body

and the introduction of your document in

the concluding section

two use transitions when you’re writing

it’s good to transition from one

sentence to another

and to use good transitions between

paragraphs themselves so some example

transitions could be

first second third or next

then finally after that moreover

additionally

furthermore so transitions help the

reader

connect the ideas that you’re presenting

in your writing three

avoid trying to include too much

information in one sentence

remember you need to try to present your

ideas as clearly and

accurately as possible so if you find

you’re just writing and writing and

writing and the sentence is becoming

extremely long

take a moment and look at the goal of

this sentence what are you actually

trying to communicate

if you need to break it into smaller

sentences

and connect them with transitions next

question

next question comes from garrison silva

hey again garrison when can i use the

expression

take for granted take for granted this

is an expression

which we typically use in the negative

like don’t take something something for

granted don’t take blah blah blah for

granted

it means um don’t forget to

appreciate this thing or this person so

for example

don’t take your parents for granted or

don’t take this opportunity for granted

these expressions mean don’t forget to

appreciate these things or

um don’t just disregard your parents or

don’t

disregard this opportunity recognize the

importance of something

so if you are given a good opportunity

for example or someone gives you good

advice or

a very nice gift perhaps we would

typically use this

um with the negative don’t take

something something for

granted meaning don’t forget to show

your appreciation

for that thing or for that person

question comes from carla hi carla carla

asks how

do native speakers use to have i have

seen

i’ve i have got formal and informal

sure we use the verb to have for a lot

of different meaning there’s a

grammatical function for the verb

have when we pair it with the past

participle form of a verb like i

have plus past participle to make the

present perfect tense

or i had plus past participle to make

the past

perfect tense so there’s that kind of

grammatical function of the verb

have however if you just want to use the

verb

have in everyday situations like i have

a phone or i have a camera or

i don’t have any money for example then

to have in that

case just means to own something or to

hold something to be keeping something

so please consider the sentence that

you’re looking at with the verb

have in it if it comes before a verb in

the past participle

it’s probably a past perfect or a

present perfect expression

if you’re seeing something after the

verb have

like an object in my examples like a

phone or a camera or money

then it’s probably referring to owning

something or

keeping something so those are probably

two of the most

common ways that you’ll see the verb

have and its variations in

at least american english speech next

question

next question next question comes from

daniel silvero hi daniel

daniel asks what is the difference

between wish

and desire greetings from paraguay hey

uh what is the difference between

wish and desire wish is used to express

a a wants when you want something that

is different

from the present situation so we often

use it with i wish i were or i wish i

could

something we uh we want or an ability

we want but that we do not have now

something um for the future so i wish i

could speak

seven languages or i wish i had a

million dollars or

i wish i were taking more time off every

week for example

something that is different from the

present condition the present situation

we use

wish or i wish you would call me for

example i wish you would or i wish you

could

to express something that is not

happening now

desire on the other hand desire tends to

be used more formally

and it also can carry more romantic

nuances

it’s not used as much conversationally

as the word

wish is wish is used to express wants

things that we want that are not true

now

desire is used more um in romantic

situations

like to desire another person or

he desired more of her time for example

but

it sounds unnecessarily formal i feel

you might use it in a in a more formal

like a business context like our client

desires more information about the

situation um

that could be a different use of the

word desire but in general

it sounds a bit more formal and a bit

more romantically charged at times

depending on the situation when it’s

used

if you’re talking about a person as well

like if you say for example i desire you

it sounds actually quite odd at least in

american english

if you want to use the word desire i

think in romantic situations

it might be applied in a phrase like he

was filled with desire

or she was filled with desire used more

as a noun than as a verb

um so i would recommend not

using desire so much to talk about your

wants

as it can sound a little bit too formal

or can

give perhaps the wrong nuance to the

situation but wish is used

to express a a hope for something or

wanting something that is different from

the present situation so i hope that

helps

first question comes from ferrous gazali

faris gazali how do i stop

translating the meaning of english words

in my head

i can tell you about the things that

have helped me and maybe they’ll help

you

i put myself in situations where i could

not escape

into my native language in my case i

could not escape into english

i would go out like for food and drinks

with friends who

could not speak english i had no choice

but to use a different language with

them

two something that i’ve noticed some of

my students do that actually kind of

bothers me

they bring a dictionary to their lesson

and they’ll stop

conversations in lessons to check

words in their dictionary and say a

single word at a time

instead of just trying to find a

different way to explain that

one it totally stops the flow of

conversation two

you don’t have really the option to do

that in a conversation most of the time

you’re not going to be carrying around

your dictionary with you i hope unless

it’s in your phone

i suppose third i think that this is a

chance to develop a better skill instead

of trying to translate into english or

to translate into a different language

you should think about finding a

different way to explain the word you

want to use

let’s say for example that you want to

use the word beautiful but you can’t

remember the word

how would you explain that so think

about other ways to communicate

an idea even if you don’t have the

vocabulary word so going to your

dictionary

shouldn’t necessarily be the first

course of action it shouldn’t

necessarily be your first step

think about a different way to

communicate the idea you’re trying to

communicate

think of examples to explain the word

you’re looking for and then the other

person can teach you like if

you’re working with somebody or you’re

talking with somebody

who understands you’re not a native

speaker chances are if you can explain

the word

you’re looking for they will tell you

they will be your teacher

i just explain like with body language

sometimes too if i don’t know a word

so another thing that really helped me

was not just studying vocabulary words

but actually

approaching things as phrases so not

saying okay this word equals this word

in my language but rather here’s a

phrase that communicates a meaning

that is interesting to me or that i hear

my friends use a lot

i’m going to use that phrase so don’t

just input

input input start outputting too so i

hope that’s helpful

for you next question next question from

han yan hee han

han yon hee nah ni very sorry hey alicia

what’s the difference between

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

great question

maybe probably perhaps possibly

okay maybe probably perhaps and possibly

these are

all adverbs they have the same

grammatical function

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

maybe

and perhaps are very closely related

maybe and perhaps

are they have the same meaning but just

different levels of formality

maybe is like the lower level the more

casual version of the word

perhaps so maybe i’ll go to the beach

this weekend and

perhaps i’ll go to the beach this

weekend they have really the same

meaning but perhaps

sounds more formal probably however is

different

probably expresses a higher level of

possibility than the other words on this

list i’ll

probably go to the beach this weekend is

like a 75 to 80

chance the speaker is going to go to the

beach this weekend

possibly however possibly has more of a

nuance of just that something

can be done it is possible to do

something we use possibly more in

requests like could you possibly blah

blah blah

for me could you possibly send me this

file um

possibly sounds a little too formal for

a casual conversations and invitations

but if you’re using it at work for

example could you possibly meet me later

this week

instead of could you maybe meet me so

the difference between maybe and

possibly and perhaps there

possible has that root yeah possible

able to so maybe and perhaps don’t have

that nuance

possibly sounds like is it possible is

it are you able to do this thing maybe

and perhaps

don’t contain that nuance so to recap

maybe and perhaps are used to express

the same thing

a chance of something happening perhaps

is more formal

possibly is used in a similar way

however it refers more to

simple possibility than is it is are you

able to do that thing

probably expresses a high chance of

something next question

next question is from hwang jiang ik hi

hwangjang says i’m curious what do you

do in your days off

you want to know what i do in my days

off my days i’m pretty normal on my days

off i

cook i go jogging i sleep i

i go listen to my favorite djs i

see my friends i eat and drink and

watch tv that’s about it i’m a pretty

normal person

first question this comes from shunichi

saito hi

shinichi uh shinichi says i want to know

what does though mean for example it’s

very expensive though

i see the word though at the end of a

sentence very often

yeah a lot of you have sent this

question in recently

so i talked in a previous episode of ask

alicia about using the word

though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a

sentence

it means but at the end of a sentence

and we use it kind of casually so

when you see the word though t-h-o

it’s like an even more casual version of

though t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a

sentence

so you’ll see this a lot on like social

media uh you’ll see this when you’re on

like facebook or twitter or instagram

text messages maybe though just means

but

but at the end of a sentence so in your

example sentence which was

it’s really expensive though it means

it’s really expensive

but however it’s like just putting that

little

butt that little disagreement kind of

feeling at the end of the sentence

so it’s sort of like a soft you know

disagreement or a soft sort of

difference of opinion though means

though

t-h-o means though t-h-o-u-g-h

but it’s just extremely extremely casual

so for a little bit more detail

you can check this video where i talked

a little bit more about

t-h-o-u-g-h at the end of a sentence

with some other examples

so i hope that that helps you i know

many of you have asked that question

lately

next question the next person asked two

questions so the next two questions are

from

essa warsiadi where

i’m very sorry question one from isa can

you explain

through thorough though and thought

they sound similar yes indeed they do

sound similar and they even look similar

in writing for sure

however these words have different

meanings and different functions

in speech and in writing let’s look at

through to begin with though

through means to pass into

something and to come out the other side

of something

so for example to go through a tunnel or

if you’re looking at a document for

example to go through a document

means to read through read all of the

content of the document from beginning

to end

so through something is to to begin at

something

and pass through all of the content to

pass through everything

and come up come out the other side or

to complete something so we also use the

word

through to mean finished in american

english like are you through with dinner

or i’m through with my homework so

through those are a couple of different

ways we use the word

through the second word thorough

thorough so different from through

thorough means um comprehensive thorough

means completely

thorough means well done it has

typically a positive meaning

so for example she was very thorough in

her explanation of the word through or

she was very thorough in her explanation

of the word

thorough sorry she was very thorough in

her presentation meaning she gave a lot

of

information in her presentation thorough

means

well done containing a lot of knowledge

a lot of information in something

thorough so please be thorough in

completing your homework or

he wasn’t very thorough in cleaning his

room so

thorough means well done completely done

finished so considering

everything considering all points of

something even the small details is

considered

thorough so we can use thorough for

presentations for activities that

require small details a thorough safety

check for example

so these are actions that are done

completely fully to the small details so

that’s

thorough next word here is though though

though you can think of though

in the same way you think of the word

but so it’s used to contrast

information it’s used to express a

difference in something so you could

follow

someone’s opinion with an expression

like though so for example

i think summer is the best season though

winter is pretty fun too

so you can think of though in the same

way as you think of but

a though be so you’re presenting a

and then a contrasting opinion b and

you’re connecting those two ideas with

though in the same way you would but so

though though although is similar we use

although and though and but

in similar ways what’s the difference

but is much more casual and but

is used much more in casual conversation

in everyday

conversation if you’re writing a

document a formal document or if you’re

making a formal statement

you could use though in place of but so

though

shows contrasting information the last

one on this list is

thought thought thought is the past

tense of

think when used as a verb so i thought

you were coming today or

i thought it was going to rain later or

i thought this was such a great

afternoon

thought is used as the past tense of

think we can also use

thought to refer to an idea as a noun so

i have a thought for example or

do you have any thoughts about this

project so we can use thought as a verb

past tense of think or as a noun to

refer to an

idea so again that’s through thorough

though and thought some of you might be

wondering how do i

remember which is which when i’m reading

or when i’m listening

you have to pay attention to the grammar

of the sentence they all have different

grammatical functions

so you need to think about the grammar

surrounding the word

next question next question from han yan

hee han

han yong hee nah ni very sorry hey

alicia what’s the difference between

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

great question

maybe probably perhaps possibly

okay maybe probably perhaps and possibly

these are

all adverbs they have the same

grammatical function

maybe probably perhaps and possibly

maybe and perhaps

are very closely related maybe and

perhaps

are they have the same meaning but just

different levels of formality

maybe is like the lower level the more

casual version of the word

perhaps so maybe i’ll go to the beach

this weekend and

perhaps i’ll go to the beach this

weekend they have really the same

meaning but perhaps

sounds more formal probably however is

different

probably expresses a higher level of

possibility than the other words on this

list i’ll probably go to the beach this

weekend

is like a 75 to 80 chance the speaker

is going to go to the beach this weekend

possibly however

possibly has more of a nuance of just

that something

can be done it is possible to do

something

we use possibly more in requests like

could you possibly blah blah blah

for me could you possibly send me this

file um

possibly sounds a little too formal for

casual conversations and invitations

but if you’re using it at work for

example could you possibly meet me later

this week

instead of could you maybe meet me so

the difference between maybe and

possibly and perhaps there

possible has that root yeah possible

able to so maybe and perhaps don’t have

that nuance

possibly sounds like is it possible is

it

are you able to do this thing maybe and

perhaps

don’t contain that nuance so uh to recap

maybe and perhaps are used to express

the same thing a chance of something

happening

perhaps is more formal possibly is used

in a similar way however it refers more

to simple possibility

than is it is are you able to do that

thing

probably expresses a high chance of

something want to speak

real english from your first lesson sign

up for your free lifetime account at

englishclass101.com

next question next question is from

muhammad sohail

what is the difference between famous

and popular

great question famous is something that

is well known

many people know about that thing or

that person

beyonce is famous the statue of liberty

is famous the eiffel tower is

famous popular however means many people

know about it

and it is liked it has a positive

image so like beyonce is popular or like

a famous candy is popular like chocolate

cake is popular it’s a famous food

and many people like it so popular is

famous

plus like a positive image sometimes

we can use those two words for the same

thing so beyonce is famous

beyonce is popular but famous doesn’t

always mean they are popular so someone

can be famous for a bad thing

in that case though it’s typically

better to use the word infamous

infamous infamous means famous for a bad

reason so famous for something negative

on to question

two from isaf what does love to hate

mean and when can i use it love to hate

means it’s something that you really

really dislike

but it’s sort of enjoyable to dislike so

for example this is an

expression we can apply to reality tv

so many people think reality tv is

not very good entertainment or it’s not

very high quality entertainment

however it’s really really fun to watch

so maybe for example you just hate a

character

on a reality tv show but somehow

you enjoy watching that tv show too so

something that you feel

very strong dislike for and yet you

really enjoy it at the same time that’s

something you can love to

hate you love to hate that thing next

question next question comes from oh

you wrote the pronunciation of your name

very nice

iton iton i think okay hey alicia i hope

you’re well uh my level is intermediate

they feel that they’re stuck at the

intermediate level and want to reach the

advanced level

they’re watching lots of videos on

youtube reading academic articles on the

web but still feel that progress has

somehow

stopped could you give me some advice

okay you say in your message that you

feel your progress

somehow has stopped i have been here too

the intermediate plateau like you begin

learning a language and it’s like yeah

i’m learning all these things and then

you kind of like plateau you get to a

level where things don’t continue and

you feel like progress goes much more

slowly

i would say in this case um first

identify

how you feel your progress has stopped

by that i mean like

do you feel like uh your vocabulary is

lacking or do you find that it’s hard to

listen to people and to understand what

they’re

saying do you find it’s hard to write is

it hard

to to like to read things so first

identify

what is that thing that you feel like

you’re not good at and then

start to approach your further studies

with that as the focus

i think that if you can think about your

different skill sets your different

levels

in reading writing speaking and

listening you can identify which of

those four things is weakest for you

and start there so when you feel your

progress has stopped think like okay

what am i not good at doing and then

focus your time there so

maybe that’s a helpful first step for

you hope that helped this week’s first

question is a question from bahar

bahar behar i’m very sorry hi alicia i’d

like to learn about as

and like what’s the difference between

them to begin with

like is a preposition remember

prepositions are words we use

to show relationships to other words or

to position

the elements in a sentence so for

example at and by and on are also

prepositions

the word like is a preposition however

the word as

is a conjunction a conjunction is a word

that connects

elements in a sentence so for example

and but

or for so these words are conjunctions

that’s point one we use

like and as to make comparisons the

general agreement on how to use

like and as at this point in time is

that if you are

following the word like with a simple

statement like a noun phrase

you should use the word like if however

the part that comes

after the word like or as has a verb

in the clause there’s a verb in that

part of this sentence you should use

as to do that because as functions as a

conjunction remember it’s connecting the

elements in a sentence

so we should use like if there’s just a

simple phrase or a

like a simple noun phrase something like

that after

like or as so to give some examples my

co-worker eats like a pig in that case

i’ve used the word like because after

like comes a pig it’s just a simple noun

phrase

if however i said my co-worker eats as

if he were a pig

i’m using a verb i’m using the verb were

as if

he were so we can use as in cases where

we follow the statement with a verb we

can use

like in cases where we follow that

statement with a simple noun

phrase generally we use them both to

make comparisons

i’ll say though that native speakers

often make mistakes with this

generally speaking though especially in

spoken conversation and casual spoken

conversation at least american english

speakers

tend to use like more often than as

in everyday conversation i tend to use

like i rely on like

heavily for my comparisons in everyday

situations

it’s like you were it’s like he was it’s

like blah blah blah as

i feel is more common at least among

american english speakers

in writing so you might see as if and as

though

both of those we can use to make

comparisons like

comes before a simple noun phrase as is

used before something containing

a verb yeah thanks for that question

bahar next question

next question comes from kiara chiara

kiara kiara tiara asks

uh i’ll help you studying and i’ll help

you to study

what is the correct one thanks i’ll help

you something

i’ll help you do this so just the

regular plain form of the verb i would

suggest is probably the most natural

choice thanks for the question though

next question

next question comes from sheriff sheriff

ahmed

sheriff ahmed okay should i use the

singular or plural

verb after colloquial names for example

my team have won the match or has won

the match ah okay in this case

my team has won the match my team has

won the match so use the singular form

of the verb like same as like he has or

she has

my team has is the correct answer here

next question

the next question is from taylor taylor

asks which one sounds better

i read a newspaper every morning or i

read

the newspaper every morning nice

question this is a question about

articles this is just about being

specific

if for example there’s a specific

newspaper that you want to read like i

read the

abc newspaper every morning you should

use the

if it’s not important to you to be

specific about a newspaper and

if you want to imply that you just read

any newspaper

every morning you can use a newspaper i

read a newspaper every morning using

the instead though shows that there’s

maybe a specific newspaper

using the before uh newspaper in this

case though sounds like there’s a

specific newspaper you read

every morning if you say i read up

newspaper every morning it sounds like

you just choose

any newspaper that’s available to you on

that day

and you read that newspaper so using

the shows that there’s a specific or it

implies that there’s a specific

newspaper you read every day you don’t

have to be specific about which one you

can

like i read the new york times every day

or i read the guardian every day for

example but if you say i read a

newspaper every day it sounds like you

don’t choose the same newspaper

each day that’s the difference between

these two phrases most people however

do choose the same newspaper every day

and so they use i read

the newspaper every day you can say i

read the news every day as well but

using that set phrase the news it’s like

the news

for the day i read that day’s news every

day or i read the previous days news

every day so usually we say the news we

don’t use

a news it sounds a little strange to use

on news so the same sort of thing

applies to a newspaper most people

choose the same newspaper every day so

we say

the newspaper instead of a newspaper but

thanks for that question taylor nice

next question next question comes from

jeffrey hi jeffrey

jeffrey asks sometimes i watch movies

and some characters say

you wish with a very angry attitude or i

wish

in other situations what do these two

sentences

mean and how do i use it aha

interesting question okay when someone

responds with you wish

to a negative suggestion it’s like

they’re

mutually together they’re recognizing

that they don’t like each other so

usually the first character will say

something like make a negative

suggestion like you should

uh you should leave town and get a

different job like leave us alone

something like that and then the other

character will say yeah you wish

like yes this this character recognizes

you want me to do that yes but i’m not

going to do that

in other words so it’s sort of like a

challenge so this person says like this

negative suggestion

the other person recognizes this

suggestion says no

i’m not going to do that but i know you

want me to do that

so you wish in this way means it’s like

a negative challenge

they’re kind of fighting recognizing

they dislike each other so that’s one

the other one what was the other one so

i wish we talked about i wish

in the previous the previous episode of

ask alicia so please check that out but

essentially

i wish refers to something that we

cannot do now or something that is

different from the present situation but

we want

we want to happen or we want to be able

to do so please check the last

episode of ask alicia for more about i

wish like the positive

next question next question comes from

brain brian ryan i’m

very sorry hey alicia what’s your height

i am 1000 centimeters tall

or maybe i’m six centimeters tall and

this whole thing has just been

scanned the entire time next question

next question comes from

bowie dente bowie bowie dente

vale dante asks when can i use ever in a

present perfect sentence

like i have ever ever means at any time

or

at all times you can use ever when

you’re asking a question like have you

ever blah blah blah have you ever been

to france have you ever eaten ramen have

you ever taken

a trip to the mountains for example we

can use ever

when making questions that’s one but

because ever means at all time or at any

time

we may not use it to answer a question

like that have you ever blah blah blah

we usually say yes or no in that in

response to that

we can say i have never ever taken a

trip to france or i have never

ever forgotten my keys for example i

have never ever blah blah blah

but in that case it still means never an

expression like

never ever just emphasizes the word

never

so to use ever we need to pair ever with

a verb in a sentence so

we can’t say i have ever just i

have plus a verb we cannot say i have

ever

that’s incorrect i have at some at any

time or at all times

it’s it’s redundant it’s it’s not

necessary

we can however use ever in a negative

expression like i haven’t

ever been to france or she hasn’t

ever eaten cheese for example so

we have to pair ever with a negative

to make a response we use ever for

present perfect tense questions

and paired with a negative have or has

to make a response to make a negative

response so please keep those two in

mind first

question from harley passage harley paso

paso

passport i’m very sorry harley asks what

is the use of

get plus adverb or preposition

for example i get down this is a

question about

phrasal verbs with get we can use a lot

of different things

after the word get in your example to

get down

we use it when dancing for example like

i want to get down this weekend it’s

sort of an

old-fashioned expression though to get

down we can use a lot of different

words after the verb get though for

example get into to get into something

means to become interested in something

you might hear to get at

like get at me or get at your professor

to get at means to reach out to or to

communicate with

but it’s a very casual expression you

can say get after like i need to get

after my homework for

example it means to like chase after or

try to do

something also to get in like to get

into a club to get into a restaurant to

get into a party

the nuance is that something is

challenging but you can gain

access to that thing like i got into the

party last night but i wasn’t on the

list there are a lot of different uses

of the word

get i can’t talk about all of them in

this video because there are so many

so if you’re curious about the various

phrasal verbs that we can use with the

word get check out a dictionary that’s a

really good place to start

next question comes from uh alexander hi

alexander alexander

says hi alicia what’s the difference

between the words

intelligent smart and clever intelligent

and smart have the same meaning they

mean someone who has a lot of knowledge

and the image is that they got it from

like books from studying from classrooms

from lectures

intelligent and smart they have that

same feeling about them

but intelligence sounds more formal

smart is used

a lot among young people who have good

academic abilities

for example clever also means that

someone has a lot of knowledge

but the idea with clever maybe they have

knowledge from books and classes yes but

their knowledge is from world experience

so they’re really good with like people

in situations and they can think quickly

maybe and they have good ideas

that’s someone who is clever sometimes

clever has the image of being a little

bit like sneaky

too wanna speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

next question next question comes from

long

and long anne asks what is the

difference between simple

past tense and past continuous tense or

past progressive tense

simple past tense we use for actions

that started

and ended in the past so the beginning

of the action and the end of the action

happened in the past so for example the

sentence i ate

breakfast is a simple past tense

statement i ate

breakfast eight is the simple past tense

the past continuous tense however or the

past progressive tense

is something we use to talk about an

action that was continuing

at a specific point in time in the past

if i want to use the past progressive

tense i can say i was eating breakfast

using that

continuous tense using that progressive

tense implies i want to explain

something else

that happened at that time or maybe i

want to add some more information so for

example

i was eating breakfast at eight o’clock

this morning or i was eating breakfast

when the phone rang

or i was eating breakfast and watching

tv at the same time

i was eating breakfast while studying

today by using the past progressive i’m

explaining that an action was continuing

at a specific point in time as in the

example i was eating breakfast at eight

o’clock

or i can use past progressive to show

one action

was happening at the same time as

another action

in the past if i use just the simple

past tense i’m just saying

a simple fact in other words this action

happened i

ate breakfast at eight o’clock if i want

to emphasize the

continuous nature of the action for some

reason like i was eating breakfast at

eight o’clock

i can use the past progressive tense in

that case it might be in response to a

question like

what were you doing at eight o’clock

this morning so if someone wants to ask

maybe what you were doing at a specific

point in time like someone is suspicious

of you like

what were you doing last night you can

say like oh i was having dinner with my

friends last night but past ten simple

past tense is something we use for

actions which start

uh and finish in the past but

progressive the progressive tense and

past

can be used to emphasize the continuing

nature of that situation or that action

first question this week comes from

eduardo hi eduardo could you explain

please how to use the expressions one at

all

two kind of three actually

for a big picture sure number one at all

we use

at all as an emphasis phrase after

negative statements i don’t want to

study at all today he doesn’t like me at

all we can also use this expression in

question

question two about kind of it depends on

which expression you mean there’s kind

of which can mean

a little bit or somewhat i kind of want

to eat vietnamese food for dinner you’ll

also notice that the pronunciation there

changes to kinda

kinda not kind of but kana depending on

the way the sentence is made

though kind of can also refer to types

of something

what kind of ice cream do you like they

don’t know what kind of house they want

here kind of means type so they don’t

know what kind of house they want they

don’t know what kind of food they want

to eat for dinner for example so check

to see which way

kind of is being used if it’s coming

before a verb like i kind of want to eat

or i kind of want to go

then it probably means a little bit but

if it’s coming before a noun

then it probably means type of noun so

hope that helps third question

about the word actually actually right

we use the word

actually when we want to explain the

real

situation as we understand it so

people like to use actually actually to

introduce their opinion as though it’s

fact sometimes

so some examples of this actually i

don’t live in the united states

i don’t think he actually likes

chocolate so in these ways we’re

introducing a real situation

as we understand it we use actually to

do that

your fourth question is about uh big

picture

big picture is used to talk about a

broad

idea of something so going away from a

small detail

and talking about like the entire

situation at one time

i know you think studying vocabulary is

boring but look at the big picture

it’s important to know small details

he’s losing sight of the big picture

he’s wasting time and money so the big

picture is kind of like

maybe the the bigger situation hope that

helps next

question next question comes from yasun

yasim yasin i’m very sorry what’s the

difference between

on time and in time is it you arrived

just on time or you arrived just

in time we use on time to refer

to doing something at the correct time

doing something at a scheduled time so

for example

i need to get to work on time meaning at

the correct time

or did you make it to your appointment

on time

in time however is used when we want to

kind of give a nuance of

rushing or hurrying for something i need

to leave my house

now to get to the airport in time for my

flight i need to study for my test

now if i want to be in time for the

party later

you should probably leave now if you

want to be in time for the movie

in time for something else so i want to

do

action a to make my schedule meet

this other condition this other thing i

would like to do or this other thing i

need to do

in time for has the nuance of a deadline

we can use this expression in like a

panic like oh my gosh i’m not going to

make it in

time like to submit a paper i’m not

going to make it in time

in time means like before the deadline

whereas on time has the meaning of

completing an

action or completing something at a

scheduled time

next question next question is from wan

fang chen hi wong fun hey alicia what

does you just

made my day mean i heard this phrase but

i don’t fully understand it yeah

so you made my day is a really positive

phrase you can imagine this as you just

made my day

much better but we don’t say much better

so we use this when someone gives us

good news we can say you just made my

day

or you made my day just sounds like

something

happened very recently you just made my

day a raise

you just made my day we get to take the

afternoon off

you just made my day those are

situations where someone is really happy

and wants to express

that the other person improved their day

in that moment

nice expression next question next

question comes from gerson silva

hi what is the difference between shade

and

shadow oh great this is a great question

both of these words can be used to refer

to

a place that is darker than its

surroundings

because there’s an object that is

blocking the light

we can say there’s shade over there or

there’s a shadow over there in that

sentence they are used the same

however shadow refers to the dark shape

only so

a person can cast a shadow we use

cast the verb cast with a shadow i cast

a shadow when i stand

in the sun for example shade however as

a noun

refers to or has the nuance of a kind of

shelter so

shelter provided by some other object

shelter from the light shelter from the

sun so we would say

stand in the shade because shade has the

nuance of

shelter we would not say stand in the

shadow shadow does

not carry the nuance of shelter in the

way that shade does

interestingly enough though shade and

shadow are both used as

verbs as well to shadow something means

to follow something closely

to shadow someone at work means to

follow someone at work and

and try to understand their job for

example shade

is used as a verb to mean to create

shelter

from light for example the canopy shaded

us

from the sun shade also has some

interesting uses you might hear the

slang phrase to throw

shade throwing shade is a really

interesting slang expression that we use

which means to

communicate disrespect or to to

communicate like contempt

uh bad feelings for something when

you’re speaking generally in most cases

when you want to talk about a dark cool

area we should say

shade stand in the shade when you want

to talk only about the dark

area that dark object use shadow next

question comes

from kelso moreno you wrote your name in

all caps back to back

what does it mean sometimes i hear it in

baseball games

do you know yes i do know the expression

back to back means

one thing after another so we have two

things

sometimes more back to back to back you

can put that in a line

it means um in baseball for example like

one home run

after another we could say two home runs

back to back two or more things

happening quickly

in succession it’s used a lot in sports

next question

actually two questions from danny hi

danny danny’s first question

is you talked about lit as slang yes i

talked about lit in episode

2 episode 1 episode 2 of ask alicia can

you please talk about the verb

light and using it in active and passive

sure

light means to start a fire so to light

a fire to light a candle

some examples of active and passive

voice with this verb then why don’t we

light some candles for dinner tonight

all the candles in the restaurant were

lit on our camping trip my neighbors lit

a fire and we brought uh hamburgers to

me a fire was lit in the campsite while

we were gone

i was going to light a fire but i fell

asleep so to light means to start a fire

he lit the house on fire we can say to

light blah blah blah

on fire so there are a few different

examples of using the verb

light in active and in passive past

tense future tense as well so i hope

that that’s helpful danny’s

second question can you talk about ride

and its uses

like take someone for a ride can i take

a ride

ryan is another verb that has a lot of

different uses you use the example

to take someone for a ride means to

drive together with someone

to go for a ride has the nuance of doing

something just for fun

it’s just for fun i want to take a ride

to a location i want to take a ride to

the mountains this weekend or take a

ride to the beach but to take someone

for a ride means to invite someone to

drive

somewhere with you in a car that’s one

way to use ride you can also say

give me a ride can you give me a ride so

this is a request expression

i don’t have a car my friend has a car i

want my friend to take me

in their car to a location i can say can

you give me a ride

to the movie theater can you give me a

ride to the lake

give me a ride is a request so give me a

ride in your car

so there are a lot of uses of ride if

you want to see all of them or if you

want to see more of them i recommend

checking a dictionary there are quite a

few and i can’t talk about them all in

this video so please check a dictionary

next

question is from anderson souza anderson

souza hi anderson anderson asks hi

alicia how are you doing i’m reading

harry potter and i just saw the sentence

good night harry how do you pronounce

good night yeah good

night we sometimes say goodnight

goodnight so that in good is dropped we

remove that good

sound and we say goodnight goodnight so

goodnight

that’s how you say it hope. next

question okay next question is from

femme fem what does you’re too good to

be true mean

is it good or not maybe you’ve heard

this in a famous song you’re too good to

be true can’t take my eyes off of you

in that case it’s a good meaning a

different way to say this expression is

you are so good you are so amazing that

i can’t believe you’re real

so in other words something must be

wrong there must be some problem with

you it’s not

possible for you to be real because you

are

so good you are so great so you’re too

good to be true

it’s like wow i’m amazed by you so it’s

a good expression if however

uh maybe in a more uncommon situation

someone said like ah this guy is too

good to be true like

maybe reviewing a job application for

example uh this girl

she’s too good to be true like if it’s

said in that way maybe there’s something

suspicious

about that person this doesn’t seem

right there’s just too much good

information here there must be some

problem with this person depending on

the intonation it can portray either

a very positive meaning or a very

suspicious meaning

in most cases however it’s a positive

meaning so if you heard this in a song

for example it’s probably a very

positive kind of romantically nuanced

phrase

thanks very much for that question pham

nice one next

question is from oz rocha jr sorry i

hope i said that right

alicia how do we separate words in a

text when we get to the end of the line

your text formatting software should do

that for you do you use word

word should do that for you if you use

just

text or notepads there should be a word

wrap function i don’t know

google it google it if that doesn’t help

you your second question though

what is the difference in pronunciation

between life

and life or live for example

my life is good and two i live in a big

city right so life and the word that’s

spelled

l-i-v-e as in your example i live

in a big city have different

pronunciations

the vowel pronunciation of the i sound

is different

in life it’s a very open sound lie

like life life in the second word

uh live the eye sound is kind of tall

it’s very like kind of in your nose live

that’s the first sound that’s a bit

different so

li li li le that’s the that’s the i

sound that’s different um but then the

consonant sound is also different the

f in life so there’s there’s just

air coming out of my mouth i’m not

making any sound

with my vocal chords there just life

life with the word

live however i’m making a v sound so

that’s the difference so i have to i

have to use my vocal chords

to make the sound so life

no vocal chords live vocal chords used

however do be careful live l-i-v-e can

also be pronounced

live so that v sound i talked about

where you use your vocal chords

plus that open i sound live so

like a live performance for example so

you need to pay attention to the grammar

of the sentence

to understand if it’s live or live

as well so life and live have very

different pronunciations

good one nice sketch i hope you can

practice those wanna speak real english

from your first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at english englishclass101.com

next question rabia our shot rate rabia

arshad rabia are

very sorry what’s the difference between

can and

may i saw this on the dining like a

champ cheat sheet

and noticed these words were used for

requests

what’s the difference can and may for

requests in modern english men modern

american english are used

the same if i use them in a statement

can refers to ability

may refers to permission please just be

careful can and may are only used in the

same way

to make requests in modern american

english next

question is from harley hi harley hello

again

what is the correct use it’s i have

breakfast i have lunch i have dinner or

i breakfast i lunch i dinner

i dine ah nice question harley i use the

i have lunch i have dinner i have

breakfast version

if you drop have you sound very posh

posh means like

uh fashionable sophisticated a bit rich

as well

so i’m not any of those things but

saying

i breakfast i lunch i dinner it sounds

like you have a very high opinion

of that activity in most cases at least

in my life i don’t have a reason

to speak like that so i always say i

have breakfast or i have lunch or i have

dinner

it’s not incorrect to say i breakfast i

lunch

i dine but it sounds a bit unnatural in

most

everyday life situations you don’t

really need to talk with that level of

formality i don’t think

next question next question is from

ferris

faris gazali i’m very sorry

ferris asks hey alicia can we use hasn’t

in an essay hasn’t the contracted form

of has

not you can it’s physically possible for

you to use

hasn’t in an essay sure but if you use

contractions

in your writing it makes you in my

opinion it makes you sound a bit

less formal if you use the expanded form

the un

the non-contracted version you’re gonna

sound a bit more formal a bit more

polished i feel this does not only apply

to the word has not

and hasn’t therefore this applies to all

contractions really

the answer is yes you can but i don’t

necessarily recommend it if you want to

sound

uh formal and polished thanks for that

question now ferris next question

what does the word lit mean what does

the word lit mean

lit is actually a slang word it’s common

slang among young people especially in

the us

right now maybe many of you know that

the verb to

light has the past tense uh lit lit is

used to talk about for example a party

or um some kind of social gathering

usually

that’s really exciting or that’s really

really fun or that’s

kind of crazy so lit using the past

tense there

you can kind of imagine that like a fire

when you light a fire

it maybe it gets bigger and it gets kind

of wild a little bit crazy like there’s

a spark and then it starts so

if you see the word lit like this party

was lit it means it was really crazy it

was really good it was really fun

uh you can use it if you want but just

keep in mind that really young people

use that word

i don’t use that word for reference but

again i’m not cool first question

first question this week comes from i’m

on again hi i’m on you send lots of

questions thanks which one

is correct i want rest or i want to take

rest uh well you can say i want rest

to mean in general just you would like

to

do nothing to relax um grammatically

though i want to take

a rest is correct or i want to

rest both of those are correct however

in american english we don’t

usually say i want to take a rest it’s

more common to say i want

to take a break i want to take a break

or let’s take a break

or can we take a break something like

that is more common

you can say i want to take a rest but

again in american english

rest is less common next question what

is correct

i thought you were gone or i thought you

are gone i thought you are gone

we need to use i thought you were gone

here i thought you were

gone so i thought past tense and you

were

is also past tense it’s a past tense

thought past tense situation

um so please use passions yeah next

question

from gabriella hi gabriella uh hi alicia

what is the difference between

used to and used to in fast speech

the difference in pronunciation yeah um

basically

when we’re speaking quickly or i suppose

even not quickly

we tend to pronounce used to as used to

the grammar doesn’t change it’s just the

pronunciation changes because

it’s difficult to say used to very

quickly i used to i used to it’s very

difficult to say so we just say used to

instead i used to use a smartphone he

used to play soccer

we used to cook every day in each of

these sentences i contracted

used to to used to i think actually in

most cases we probably do say used to

instead of used to because it’s quite

difficult to say

again this shouldn’t really cause any

communication problems used to

and used to have the same meaning just

different pronunciation

next question also maybe about were and

was why do we use

if i were and not if i was this is a

great

question and actually a lot of native

speakers make mistakes with this

it’s a small point to be fair but if you

want to be correct

you should always use if i were this is

a grammar point

it refers to the subjunctive mood the

subjunctive mood

an explanation of subjunctive is a bit

beyond the scope

it’s a bit much for this video but we

will always use

if i were when the subject there is i

in the conditional if i were we always

use were

you will hear native speakers say if i

was if i was

if you want to be extremely strict and

extremely nitpicky

um were is actually the correct one but

if you use was if you make a mistake and

you use was you will still be

understood so um but yes this is related

to the subjunctive mood in english

next question from suinte

says hi alicia which word do you prefer

using as an american

america the united states the united

states of america the u.s the usa or the

states

i only started using america to refer to

my country when i moved

to japan because the people around me

used the word

america to refer to the country but i

think before that i said

the u.s i used the u.s people would say

where are you from

the u.s why did i use the u.s because

it’s short and easy to say the u.s i

don’t want to say the united states of

america it sounds long

to me thanks for the question 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

想从你的口中说真正的英语

第一课

注册您的终身免费帐户

在englishclass101.com

下一个问题来自越南的罗密欧你好

再次罗密欧

罗密欧说你好艾丽西亚做本地人

演讲者说你不会胡说八道

废话，或者你不会废话废话

哪种合同形式使用得更多我

认为它们像你一样被平等使用

选择你喜欢的

我想我通常会说你不是

我可能会用

下一个问题 好的 下一个问题来自

娘娘腔

van pam you’re too good to be 是什么意思

真正的意思

好不好也许你听说过

这在一首著名的歌曲中你太好了

是真的

不能把我的眼睛从你身上移开

情况很好

意思不同的说法

表达是你

太好了，你太棒了，我不能

相信你是真实的，换句话说

某物

一定是错的 一定有问题

和你不是

你可能是真实的，因为你

是

太好了，你太棒了，所以你也是

真好

就像哇，我对你感到惊讶，所以它是

一个好的表达

如果但是，呃，也许在一个更不常见的情况下

情况

有人说这家伙太好了

说实话，就像可能正在审查一份工作

例如应用

呃这个女孩她好得令人难以置信

就像这样说的

也许有什么可疑之处

那个人，这似乎不对

有太多的好信息

这里一定有问题

这个人

取决于语调它可以

描绘任何一个

非常积极的意思或非常

可疑的意思

但在大多数情况下，这是积极的

意思是如果你在一首歌中听到这个

例如

这可能是一种非常积极的

浪漫微妙的短语非常感谢

非常适合这个问题

下一个问题来自

瓦格纳 瓦格纳 瓦格纳 你写过吗

任何歌剧

美国人为什么说英语

101级

而不是 101 或 101。哦

这涉及到像大学和

实际上大学水平的课程

所以嗯有四个级别

大学或美国的大学

第一年 第二年 第三年和

第四年，所以每个班级

那些

编号，所以首先你的课开始

有两个第二年的课程

第三年班与三个

四年级的四个所以第一

像这样的年级

它往往像基础课，呃

从一个开始

就像最基本的呃

课程通常是 101

就像英语 101 课一样

做一个友好的介绍

换句话说，英语所以我们说 101. 我们

总是用那种嗯

说话时的模式我们不说 101。

我们总是使用 101 或类似 1 2 4 或类似

3

6 7 我不知道这些课程是什么

但我们总是

说每个

can 和 can 和有什么不一样

可能

我像冠军一样在餐厅看到这个

备忘单

并注意到这些词被用于

要求

有什么区别可以和可能

要求

在现代英国男人现代美国

使用英语

如果我在声明中使用它们也是一样的

can指能力

可能是指许可，请只是

小心可以和可能只用于

同样的方法

用现代美式提出要求

下一个英语

问题来自丹尼，你能告诉我们吗

关于

你在这里 你去那里 你在这里

你去那里，我们在这里

如果他们走了，天哪，好吧，我会谈谈

这

你介绍的那些他们做什么

意思是你如何自然地使用它们

所以让我们先谈谈你在这里

给你

所以我们在介绍某人时使用这些

有东西所以你给别人

你在这里

给你，就像在餐厅里一样

也许你的订单到了你是呃

干得好

类似服务的情况

你可能会听到这样的声音

友好的

像工作人员一样的工作人员我

假设你在这里

给你，或者从老师到

小学生也许给你

我们用它来喜欢呈现一些东西

提出一个

他们可能期望的对象

让我们谈谈吧

你去那里，你就在那儿，所以我们使用

当有人在的时候你去

能够做他们一直在做的事情

练习一段时间，例如

如果孩子正在学习如何骑

自行车，他们一直在苦苦挣扎

为了

一段时间，然后逐渐他们得到

做得更好，他们可以做到

父母可能会说哦，你去吧

明白了，你明白了

这就像一个它就像一个支持词

鼓励的话给你

嗯，你名单上的最后一个

你在这

用美式英语，我们用那里你是

在我们正在寻找的情况下

我们一直在寻找的人

我们期待着见面

很难找到

也许你会去几个不同的地方

但最后你找到了这个人

也许就像在休息室或

一些你可能没想到的地方，但是

当你找到他们并说哦

你在那里，我们用那种方式说

哦，你来了

听者立刻听到

喜欢哦

这个人接下来一直在找我

问题又是来自 taylor ah hi

泰勒

你从哪里来，从哪里来

你

天生一样啊 好问题在哪里

你是从

你在哪里出生 不一定

不必要

你出生的地方只是那个地方

你被带入的地方

世界

也许你的家乡 你的地方

确定为您的家乡

与你所在的地方不同

出生也许你出生

在西班牙，但你在美国长大

之后全家搬家

所以你可以说我出生在西班牙，但是

如果有人，我在纽约长大

问你你来自哪里

说我是个好主意

出生在blah blah，但我在

呜呜呜在不同的地方

如果这两个地方不一样接下来

下一个问题

问题来自 l.o.j

loj 说我的问题是关于短语的

动词是什么意思

像这里一样被击倒 例句

一

把我从我的财产中敲了两下

把我的风吹走了，我有一个

这个词有问题

占有把我从我的

占有我不太确定

这可以指一个非常

罕见的情况

嗯，我们有拥有这个词

指像这种东西叫做恶魔

拥有这个想法的地方

恶灵进入身体，

控制一个人的行为，我们称之为

那

占有所以我们可以像牧师一样说

把我从我的财产中击倒

回到你原来的问题

虽然敲这个词

out 作为短语动词 to knock out 的意思

like 强行或强行的意思

由于某些影响而删除某些东西

一个对象被移除

从它原来的位置，所以

例如，一个慢跑者可能会朝我走来

他们撞到我，他们敲我的

电话

不在我的手中所以在那种情况下我的手机

正在被移除

因为慢跑者的影响所以

敲出某事

表示喜欢从原来的样子中删除

地点

然后从武力和你的第二个例子

呃，把我的风吹走了，这是一个

我们使用的表达方式，表示喜欢

失去呼吸

因为影响所以如果你

可能会被打或被踢

也许这个地区

呃，你可能会感觉到肺部的空气

从你的身体里出来

所以我们称之为风

情况如此

嗯，就像他把我的风吹走了

意味着他让我失去了我的空气

肺的影响是如此

我的身体很强壮，空气出来了

我的

从我的肺里出来，所以我喜欢他敲门

风所以风在这种情况下

我肺里的空气

在其原始位置被删除

从我

由于这种影响，您可能还

在拳击中听到这个表达

击倒或击倒

某人的意思是让他们失去

在这种情况下意识如此

意识就是那个东西

在这种情况下会消失

所以像拳击一样将某人击倒

比赛

意味着他们失去知觉

首先

下一个问题下一个问题来自

哈桑哈桑 说

我们如何以否定形式使用 gotta

所以我们做了一个关于必须的直播

并且需要在 youtube 上

不久前在频道和脸书上

得是宫缩 很随意

got的收缩

还有两个这不是一个真实的词

只是我们发出的声音

说必须

很快就像我要去上学一样

今天，或者我要完成我的作业，或者我

我要睡觉了，我太累了

我们不使用的美式英语

必须否定，而不是我们使用

必须或

需要我不必去上班

明天我不需要上班

明天我不需要睡觉

现在

但是美式英语不使用 gotta

否定形式

第一个问题是错误的

电子表格好的第一个问题

周来自

danny danny 说 uh we say the th

声音自然有时我无法坚持

我说话的时候吐舌头太多了

或者例如当我在一个

长句快

有几件事要考虑

有两个声音吗？

听起来像在想，这在哪里

丹尼在谈论你的舌头

在你的牙齿之间伸出

但实际上这并不是什么大动作

所以

你不必真的

戏剧性的是你坚持了多少

吐舌头

这有点太多了，也许当你

练习你可以这样做

习惯了它的感觉

但是当我说那个声音时

母语人士会发出这种声音

我们只是伸出舌头

在我们之间

牙齿如此

认为它就像是尖端

舌头只有这样练习才能发出声音

会变得更容易

另一个声音虽然是

我们听到的一句话

所以舌头其实是这样的

只是触摸我的牙齿后部

或者可能像我的背面

牙齿和我的嘴巴有点

咬住声音的产生方式

有点不同，所以当我说

想想，他们有点

不同的声音

因此，如果您尝试这样做，请记住这一点

说不要使用动作

发音

想想如果我说的是

真的很夸张

听起来好像会变慢

我很沮丧，所以想一想

下一个问题下一个问题来自

马克西姆嗨马克辛

maxime 说你怎么发音 i

我不应该这样做

做到了，我不会这样做

这里这些是负面的

过去完美的陈述，所以我正在使用

有点夸张的发音我在这里

不应该变成不应该 div

但是一个母语人士

一个以英语为母语的美国人

说英语的人会说不应该

不应该做的

做了并且不会做

不应该

不会有也不能有

同样的声音，但是

再一次让人很难说出全部

如果我们是

非常注重说那些声音

很明显，我们说话的速度变慢了

向下

所以我们说不应该不会

不能拥有，也不会拥有我

猜猜它介于两者之间

那里的中等发音

但是当快速说话时非常快

就像我们会说的原生速度一样

nakana 并且不会

所以试一试我不应该

不会 不应该 不可能

不会 不应该 不会

不会有

不应该 不能 不希望

帮助下一个问题

下一个问题来自我需要改进

我的英语口语和词汇量

我该怎么做我认为有一个工具

在网站上，您可以记录您的

嗓音

说英语并将其与

母语人士

说同样的话，所以我认为那是

这是网站上的一个功能，所以

检查出

如果你没去过那是英语

class 101.com 应该有一个

有录音功能

在那里你可以录制你的声音和

将其与母语人士进行比较

并继续练习，直到你

声音和你的发音

匹配呃母语者的

发音，所以你会看到一点点

那里的波形

即使在录制页面上，您也可以

尝试匹配你的声音

对母语人士当然如此

与母语人士一起练习

可能的

嗯重复所以创建你自己的演讲

呃

也很重要

录音工具 录音工具

当你记录自己

你突然听到很多问题

您的发言

所以录制自己可以是另一个

好工具，但在构建你的

词汇首先我需要定义一个目标

如果我想谈什么

谈论我应该寻找的食物

材料

用我的目标语言谈论食物

我应该研究那些所以想想

什么

这是你想做的，并试图成为

具体尝试缩小你的目标

你知道我说的是什么词

需要做并尝试专注于那里

然后也许你可以扩大焦点

在这里和那里也有其他兴趣

但也许从那些事情开始

会帮你沟通的事情

你真的想说

所以总是想想你的目标做什么

我想学怎么说

里卡多·比利亚雷亚尔的下一个问题哦

嘿，里卡多，欢迎回来

学好几种语言对吗

同时

哦，对吗？我无法回答

是否正确

所以我听说如果你想试试

不管你的理由是什么，如果你愿意

尝试学习不止一种语言

同时

最好尝试选择语言

这是完全不同的，所以有

你犯错的机会更少或

在学习中感到困惑

我想我会说的另一件事

是如果你学习不止一个

语言同时你的进步

可能会比你慢一点

只学过一种语言 是的

正确的

我不知道我不能回答那是

接下来由你决定

后续问题现在跟进

对这个问题

问题来自 sunil sunil 嗨 sunil

问

我们可以在未来使用可能吗，所以我

猜这是在谈论

未来的计划在这种情况下是的，你可以

当你在想某事时

想要做

或者你正试图决定你

你可以用吗

只能谈谈可能性

东西

所以我们用 can 来表示某事只是

例如可能

这个周末我可以去海滩或者

如果我愿意，我明天可以睡到很晚

到

或者我接下来可以去看看我的父母

一周如此

这些都是简单的陈述

可能性

我们不是说我会这样做或

也许我会那样做

我们只是说这是可能的

这就是我们使用的

可以因为我们在谈论未来

计划是的，我们可以使用

对于简单的可能性第一个问题

这周来了

从 nura yuidaha 我希望我这么说

对，嗨，naredoo yaha

说家和家有什么区别

和房子

好吧，家就是你住的地方

一个家可以是一个公寓楼

可以是帐篷

可以是船 可以是拖车

可

你住的任何地方

你可能会

回到每天结束的时候是

你的地方

另一方面，称你的家为房子

是一种建筑类型的房子不是

依附于其他任何事物

一所房子是独立的，它是孤独的

它通常是一个家庭的一个单元

所以房子可以是一个家，但一个家

不一定是房子

所以这例如我们不能称之为

房子

如果我们回到这里虽然我们可以说

这是我的家

或者如果你愿意，这就是我住的地方

告诉你的朋友你的建筑

但我们不会说这是我的房子所以

当我们想谈论这个地方时

我们住的地方我们可以说这是我的家

但我们只使用房子，如果它是

具体来说

如果是这种类型的建筑

特别是独立的建筑

房子这个词还有另一种用法

除非您观看，否则这种情况很少见

喜欢

非常非常大的史诗故事，所以对于

权力的游戏示例

这房子有一个很好的例子

例如，鲜明或

房子加姓氏是指所有

家庭成员

有那个姓氏，这意味着

所有的家庭成员

活着或死去，所以这可能意味着

那个家族的祖先

所以在房子斯塔克例如这意味着

斯塔克的所有家庭成员

家庭如此

不管每个人都这样活着死了

房子的这种用途很不常见，因为我

说可能是

更常用于喜欢幻想

故事 权力的游戏是一个伟大的

这个例子

但我们不会在日常生活中使用它

今天英语所以我希望这会有所帮助

你对差异的理解

家与家之间 非常感谢

对于这个问题

下一个问题是另一个后续

问题后续问题二来自

bahar hi bahar bahar 说我的问题是

关于

当我想使用这些时可以而且可以

当要求某事时

我如何正确使用罐头和罐头

情况

当您提出请求时，可以

听起来更随意

可能会听起来更多

如果你有礼貌

去朋友家你可以说

我可以喝点什么吗

我可以喝点东西吗

在这种情况下听起来更有礼貌

can可能更自然一点

因为他们是你的朋友

但是，如果您像某人一样

办公室 你正在拜访一位同事 你

可能改为使用

我可以喝点什么吗？

我有一杯水

如果这听起来更正式一些

你担心就去吧

听起来更有礼貌

总是正确的，然后 baja 有第二个

问题是木头

并且可能有点相似并且做

它们都包含可能性是的

和不

will用于谈论潜力

所以我们已经讨论过这个

像我一样的模式之前的系列

等等等等，如果我是一个

老师

我会教数学，或者如果我有钱

我会买房子，所以我们用木头

谈论

像这样的不真实情况

未来计划等实际可能性

我们并没有真正以那种方式使用木材

然而可能

是的，我们确实使用可能来谈论

可能性，所以我们使用可能和可能

谈论有

相当好的机会也许像

大约有 30 到 50 次发生的机会

像我一样

可以稍后学习，或者我可能会遇到

我的朋友们今晚共进晚餐

may 和 might 之间的区别

美式英语在这种用法中的术语

谈论可能性

是那可能更随意 可能是

更常用于日常对话

可能听起来有点正式 可能听起来像

在大多数情况下有点太客气了

情况

可能是我们使用的，所以可能是指

对可能性

我可能会做他可能会做的事

我可能会

在这些方面做得不好

情况

可能用于可能性是所以

木材更多地用于谈论喜欢

潜在的

在不真实的情况下的潜力可以

让我们继续你的下一个

question下一个问题来自

zaina 嗨 zaina zena 说什么是

不同之处

在填写和填写之间

好吧，如果你在谈论一个

像文书工作一样申请

例子

那么 to 之间没有区别

填写

并填写例如请填写

以这种形式

请填写他们的意思这张表格

完全一样的东西

我会用美式英语说

填写比填写少见

我想我们用填写更多

通常用美式英语

填写可能更常见一些

用于英式英语

但是，如果您不是在谈论

申请表

或其他一些形式

不同的含义

填写并填写所以

我们先来看看填写

对于某人意味着充当替代品

对于某人，所以如果我们可以想象我们是

在

一个戏剧的排练，例如你

可能说

我替一个受伤的舞者代课

或者

我们需要有人来填补线索

在今天的排练中扮演的角色

填写某人的意思是

代替某人

填写所以这个用途是完全不同的

写东西的意思

表单

现在让我们比较一下或者让我们

对比一下

with fill to 填写的意思

通常作为一个人变大

就喜欢你的体重增加而言

充满

out 意味着你的身体或你的脸变得

更大，所以这可以用于积极

例如在消极的情况下

他去年病得很重，但他

现在正在恢复和他的脸

填写得很好或

自上次以来你已经填写了很多

我见到你的时候

所以再次使用填充是相当的

不同于填写的意思

这与

申请表和其他类型的

写作所以我希望这个答案有帮助

你了解两者之间的区别

填写并填写非常感谢

发送这个问题

下一个问题下一个问题来自

ong mai lin hong mai lin 我希望我

发音正确对不起乒乓我的林说

嗨，我想和我怎么发音

非常感谢你啊哈这个

是一个很常见的问题

我喜欢与我喜欢很多人

也问我怎么听

这两者之间的区别

我想要并且我喜欢我正在尝试

现在发音很清楚

我想要并且我喜欢

当然有 d 的声音，但是当

母语人士说得很快

我想要的d声音消失了

我想

我喜欢我喜欢我的舌头触摸

当我做的时候我的嘴巴

听起来我愿意 我愿意

我认为一个更好的钥匙可以帮助你什么时候

你在听这个声音

我认为这是某事

以母语为母语的人会不自觉地做

我们是在听语法吗？

整个句子我们没有听

专门为

我喜欢或者我想要我们在那里

听句子中的语法

例如，如果它在一家餐馆，并且

你说

我想喝杯啤酒请那句话

说得通

意思是我想要一杯啤酒，如果我们

请说我喜欢啤酒

语法上

不正确的我喜欢啤酒是正确的我喜欢

啤酒或

我要啤酒 我要啤酒

这两句话是正确的，但他们

沟通不同的事物

所以请听中的语法

如果你能听的话

对整个句子的语法

它可以帮助您识别

说话者是说我喜欢还是我想要

这是我认为的关键点

好吧，让我们继续你的下一个问题

下一个问题来自 eddie hi eddie

埃迪说嘿，艾丽西亚，我是法国人，我

学英语有一段时间了

我什么时候应该不使用，什么时候应该使用

我用

不用谢谢 好吧 基本上不用

听起来比

不要在我们使用的日常讲话中不要

不要这样做 不要这样做 我们使用

不要在更正式的情况下，比如

当我们给予

例如演讲，或者也许当

我们正在写一篇学术论文

当你想听起来更正式更

礼貌使用

难道你也会看到不用于

官方规则

例如不要在这里扔垃圾

或者如果您使用 do not in，请不要吸烟

听起来可能是日常对话

有点戏剧性，甚至可能

神秘，例如说

不要害怕听起来有点像

神秘而戏剧性

但如果我们说不要害怕听起来

更友好一点

所以如果你想听起来友好

正常请使用简化形式

如果你想听起来很戏剧化，或者如果你

需要听起来更正式

请不要在大多数情况下使用这个

意味着你应该选择

不要这样我希望这个答案有帮助

你非常感谢这个问题

好吧，让我们继续你的下一个问题

下一个

问题来自aya aya hi aya how

我会发音像这样的词吗

重要的书面和山

美国口音啊

重要的文字和山都有

这些吨

听起来在单词的中间，但是

母语人士不发音 t

听起来像我刚刚做的，而不是我们

说

重要的书面山，这就像

撇号的声音几乎如此

重要 重要 重要

我们放弃 t 音，或者听起来很

软 所以这三个字是这样的

发音你可能会听到这个

其他的话也谢谢你的问题

虽然下一个问题来自

sergio hi sergio sergio 说是什么

之间的区别

别人和别人都好，先让我们

花点时间回顾过去

问艾丽西亚我在哪里说话的插曲

关于一个非常相似的问题

我认为审查什么很重要

和…之间的不同

其他 其他 其他 其他

我如何在正确的情况下使用

是的，这很难

好的，让我们从介绍一个示例开始

情况

看这张照片，这是我姐姐

这是我的另一个姐姐

我的父母

现在让我们看另一张照片

这里我介绍了

另一个和我的另一个姐姐在第二个

我在这里说的那句话

这是我姐姐的第三句话是

这是我的

另一个姐姐，所以我介绍了姐姐

第一句其他

比指喜欢加法

对于已经知道的事情

有点像有一个非常接近

这两个句子之间的关系

这是我的妹妹 这是我的另一个

姐姐

表明有一个补充

我刚才说的

然后当我说另一个

指像剩下的

知道的事情，所以如果我在看这个

图片，我知道有四个

图中的人和两个人是

演讲者的

姐妹们还有两个人

我说

其他人，这意味着

剩下的人在我的照片中

还不知道所以其他人在

照片是我的父母

然后我说让我们看另一张照片

所以

另一个是指添加或

额外的东西

从现有情况之外

好的，让我们通过查看来扩展这一点

在你的疑问词中

首先是其他人和其他人

另一个不是一个词

所以不要练习那个词不要使用

这个词别想

另一个是好的，但另一个不是

所以请不要担心

让我们专注于这个词的其他人

我刚刚向您展示的示例

我用了其他人或

其他人

我说图片中的其他人

是我的父母吗

或者其他人是我的父母，所以

其他人是指处于某种情况的人

让人们处于一种

已知

但是，如果您想使用其他人

没有那篇文章，我们需要创建

略有不同的情况

例子

办公室里的很多人都想要不同的

零食

其他人对我们的零食很满意

现在

所以第二句话中的其他人

句子

与许多人的主题相匹配

第一句话所以主语

第一句话是

办公室里很多人这是其中之一

办公室里的一群人

其他人然后指的是一个人

同一组内的不同组

办公室

办公室里有这么多人

意见一

其他人在这种情况下是复数，因为

不止一个人

有意见 b 所以我们正在匹配其他人

许多人的复数形式

到

很多人，所以我们可以使用其他人

以这种方式谈论不同的

在同一类别中分组或

在这种情况下，同一建筑物或

同一个办公室

所以其他人可以这样使用，如果你

就像你可以说的

办公室里的其他人都很开心

和我们现在的零食

这也很好，但其他人只是

比其他人短一点所以

使用起来可能更有效，所以我

希望这有助于您的理解

之间的差异

其他人，另一个非常感谢

这个问题很重要

下一个问题下一个问题来自

casa varage 卡萨瓦拉吉 quesa veras

quez queso casabares 对不起 什么是

今晚和今晚的区别

今晚我们每天都用今晚

谈话你今晚在做什么

今晚你要去哪里我

想今晚我要去胡说八道

废话

我们只用这个晚上非常喜欢

例如正式演讲

所以今晚是我们使用的那个

日常对话

好吧，让我们继续你的下一个问题

下一个问题

来自雷蒙德 嗨雷蒙德

雷蒙德说我们何时以及如何使用

在句子之前或之后

首先让我们谈谈在

一句话的结尾这么多人

非常严格的英语语法思考

那是

不正确或不适合结束

有这个词的句子

with which 是介词，所以让我们

看一个例子

你要和谁一起去海滩

句子

在严格的语法规则中不是

被很多人认为是正确的

因为它以介词结尾

技术上完全正确

这句话的版本是

你要去谁的海滩

所以虽然这句话是

语法正确

对某些人来说，这实际上听起来很自命不凡

人们

自命不凡的意思是听起来

更重要或更有价值或

比实际更宏伟

所以你可能听起来有点

自命不凡，如果你使用这种风格

请讲

即使是的，它在语法上是

每天正确

大多数人实际上不使用的演讲

这个图案这个

我们与谁在日常讲话中的模式

倾向于使用

句尾有很多

在原始示例中

所以也许你已经注意到我的第二个

例句在这里

以你和谁一起开始

去海滩

这是一个你会使用的句子 if

你需要非常语法

正确的

但正如我在大多数情况下所说的那样

最不现代的美式英语

我们不使用这种说话方式

是一个例子

在开始时使用 with 的一种方式

位置

我们可以将它与 what 或 with 一起使用

谁

例如你用什么相机

要去拍照

或者你要和谁共进晚餐

这些句子再次虽然

语法正确和

从声音开始

不自然

在大多数情况下在日常美国人中

英语我们实际上听起来多一点

如果我们放置那个介词自然

在句子的结尾，就像在什么

相机你要拍照吗

或者你要和谁共进晚餐

这些是几个例子

你可以使用

在开头和结尾

句子我希望这有助于回答

你的问题

非常感谢您发送它

本周第一个问题来自

sithi hi city cythi 说你好艾丽西亚

图有什么区别

出去和

找出意义和何时

使用等

好的，好问题，所以首先让我们看看

在

弄明白的意思

解决当我们有一个

具有挑战性的

问题，或者我们有一个复杂的难题

我们需要研究的东西

或者我们需要

稍微调查一下

找到解决办法

所以要找出解决方法

例子

我不知道我有什么问题

电脑 我知道为什么房子

闻起来很糟糕

有人忘了倒垃圾

我们需要弄清楚为什么软件

不工作

所以让我们比较一下

发现特别是发现的意思

当我们谈论一个秘密或一个

惊喜

或者我们需要隐藏的其他东西

由于某些原因

您可能还会听到它用作中性线

怎么说发现

但你可以根据

上下文

所以发现意味着发现

尤其是当你谈论一个

秘密

例如我的父母发现我离开了

昨晚很晚的房子

我的老板发现了我们的一名员工

一直在偷

嘿，我发现了一个很棒的新东西

附近的餐馆想去

所以我们不用这些词

在某些情况下可以互换

to figure out 意味着解决

像谜题之类的东西，或者你是

找到挑战的解决方案

发现意味着发现和它

往往有否定意义

就像当有人发现信息

它们不是

打算找到所以我希望这会有所帮助

你明白区别谢谢

问题

好吧，让我们继续你的下一个问题

下一个问题

来自kobe chan hi kobe chan kobe

陈说

嗨，这两个句子中的哪一个是

正确的

在大厅等候，在大厅等候

大堂

OK um造句像waiting in

大堂 就像我在大堂等

在大堂是正确的 在大堂

虽然偶尔使用 不使用

任何地方

请经常在大堂附近

如果你在谈论一个

具体的

您将在大厅内的位置

在大堂前使用，然后你会

按照具体的

名词所以例如我在等待

大堂

或者我在大堂吧等

或者我在大厅入口处等

我们正在谈论的那些案例

具体位置

大堂内所以办公桌吧

或入口，我们使用 at

谈论大厅的一般区域

但是我们使用

我在大厅等着所以我希望

这有助于回答你的问题

非常感谢 好的让我们继续

你的下一个