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hey everyone welcome to the monthly
review the monthly show on language
learning
where you discover new learning
strategies motivational tips
new study tools and discover new
resources
by the way you can download all the
lessons and bonuses you’re about to see
right now on the website so click the
link in the description to sign up for
your free lifetime account
and start speaking in minutes okay
today’s topic is
21 ways to break your routine and master
a language
you’re going to learn one the importance
of taking a break
two how to update your language learning
routine and three
21 ways to break your learning routine
if you’ve ever felt like you’re not
making any learning progress
or are in a rut then this is for you
it’s time to break your routine
you’ll find out how in just a second
but first listen up here are this
month’s new lessons and resources
first the how to count to 1 billion pdf
ebook
maybe you can already count to 10 in
your target language
but with this new ebook you go all the
way up to 1 billion
download it for free right now second
do you know the 40 most common verbs
with this new useful verbs pdf cheat
sheet
you’ll master the 40 most common verbs
that all beginners should know
third do you know the 12 habits of
highly effective language learners
you’ll find out what smart learners do
differently
and you’ll learn how to say these habits
like don’t procrastinate in your target
language
fourth must know money phrases can you
talk about money
this one minute lesson will teach you
phrases like i’m broke
time is money and i want to be rich to
get these free resources
click the link in the description below
okay let’s jump into today’s topic
21 ways to break your routine and master
a language
so have you ever felt like you were in a
language learning rut
you have a routine going you’re studying
but you’re not really pushing the needle
on your progress
so what should you do let’s jump into
the first part
part one the importance of taking a
break so
before you quit learning languages
completely you should just take a day or
two off
why well there’s a good reason why many
cultures rest for one or two days out of
the week
it’s why we go on vacation why we take
days off
we need time to recharge our batteries
because language learning is work
it’s non-stop dedication to one of many
goals you have in your life right
you have other things in mind bills
relationships
work school vacations so first
if you feel like you’re in a rut take a
break for a day or two
do something else and let your brain
rest the next step
update your current language learning
routine part two
how to update your language learning
routine what do i mean by that
i mean do something completely different
with your language learning
do something you enjoy and there are two
ways you can update your routine
first do something new within the
specific skill you’re working on
for example if you like reading and want
to continue reading
change the resource put down the
textbook and try a comic
or our easy extensive reading books on
the website
the second way is to change it up
completely if you’re focusing on grammar
stop that and switch over to something
else like practicing your listening with
audio lessons or podcasts
the point here is you break a routine
you’re tired of and you do something
else
something you enjoy but you’re still
learning the language
the result is you don’t burn out you
have something new to look forward to
and you’re still taking action on your
language goal
so right now you might be thinking okay
i want to break my routine
what else can i do let’s get into the
third part
21 ways to break your learning routine
the key here is to do something new and
fun
or at least something that’s easy enough
so that you’re not overwhelmed
and for that you need some new resources
and study tools
so here are 21 examples but if you have
more approaches leave a comment
these are just suggestions and you need
to find out what works for you
okay if you’re focusing on vocabulary
set small goals
learn just five words a day that’s it
sign up for our free word of the day
emails
you learn one new word a day every day
learn words and phrases with our free
vocabulary lists
these cover all kinds of topics seasons
holidays and common phrases
use spaced repetition flashcards to
drill words
or if you’re listening to music or
watching a show or a youtube video
make it a goal to write down five words
you don’t know
for grammar listen to our audio lessons
with every lesson conversation
you’ll learn the grammar rules for the
lines used in the conversation
it’s a lot easier to hear grammar in
action than to read about the rule
look up example sentences using that
specific grammar rule
again it’s better to learn from multiple
examples and see the rules in action
get a grammar workbook and drill through
the problems
for speaking try and talk to yourself
say what you’re doing out loud
read out loud you can do this with any
reading resource
including our lessons shadow what you
hear
if you’ve heard this tactic before
there’s a good reason why you’re hearing
about it again
because it works and if you’re not doing
it you’re missing out
for listening this is the easiest skill
to practice
just watch a youtube lesson you can also
look up songs and tv show clips
listen to our audio lessons on the site
immerse yourself
download our dialogue tracks that give
you just the conversation in the
language
and play them on repeat for writing make
it a goal to write one or two sentences
about your day
or simply copy out text from elsewhere
whether our lesson or
a social media post you saw you can also
write down all the new words you learned
today
finally for reading it’s a bit tough to
find an easier
more fun routine but try these read
along as you listen to the audio
so you’ll need a resource that gives you
text and audio
the audio will make it easier for you to
follow along
you can easily do this with our audio
lessons try kids books or comics in your
target language
try our extensive reading practice books
these are easy
one line of page books that are designed
to get you reading fast
or find a book about a topic you’re
interested in
or a book you read before in your native
language
then try reading it in your target
language again the point is if you feel
that you’re in a language learning rut
the best thing to do is take a break and
then do something new
something easier something that’s fun
now what’s fun is really up to you as a
person
you just learned a whole bunch of ways
to learn but if you have more approaches
please leave a comment
these are just suggestions and you need
to find out what works for you
alright everyone in the last monthly
review we asked you to submit a video or
audio file of yourself speaking the
language
introducing yourself or talking about
your country in the language
so thank you to all of you that sent in
submissions you’ve all received a
premium plus subscription as a reward
now let’s take a look at some of the
videos
okay so we’ve received a few audio
messages from our viewers this month so
i’m going to have a listen to them let’s
get started alicia
hi how’s green good i’m tanjin
i’m from bangladesh bangladesh school i
wanna learn
language because i wanna go abroad
i can get good job and english is an
international advice but my english is
not so good
especially in grammar part i don’t know
what to do and how to improve in english
i’m also preparing for my ielts would
you
please help me how to improve in english
have a lovely day thank you
cool thank you and thanks for wishing us
a lovely day
yeah how to improve in english i think
the most important thing
is to continue your studies always
continue your studies
every day study a little bit so in your
case you said
grammar is really tough so i think if
you focus on grammar like you know that
grammar is tough for you
if you can focus on really studying
grammar a little bit
every day slowly over time over weeks
and months you’ll get used to it and
then you can move on to more
like different like a lot of different
things so like vocabulary
or you can move on to listening practice
and so on so in your case you already
know grammar is tough so start
there good luck with your continued
studies and make sure you keep studying
every day i think that’s super important
thanks for this message
okay let’s go on to the next one
hello my name is vikash bilung
i’ve been learning english
for two years
and i think i have
not gone too far
to
[Music]
have gained so much knowledge
about the language
i have been watching
english class 101
videos since 2018
and i have
got a lot of stuff
at this site and
i am stuck when
it comes to speaking
i have not interacted
much with native speakers
i’m looking forward to practice
more english with this
channel at english class
lastly i thank all the
staffs that english class put
uh to youtube
thank you nice
yeah speaking is tough i know many
people really struggle with speaking
like it’s hard to find a native speaker
to practice
with so for some people i know they like
to use
apps they found like study partners
online
and they use an app to practice with a
native speaker or someone
who has native speaker level english so
maybe that’s one thing that you can
try to do another thing you can do is
practice
shadowing we talk about shadowing a lot
on the channel
which means repeating after something
after a native speaker
so you can choose a video that i
did that i’ve made or you can choose a
video that like davey or michael appears
in
and you can practice speaking just after
them too so
i think those kinds of things can help
you to improve your speaking skills and
get used to making the sounds at a
faster pace
because like in your message here like
your sentences were grammatically
correct your vocabulary choices were
nice
like you said speaking and you know
speaking smoothly and getting unstuck
and feeling like you can communicate
naturally
i think in order to do that you have to
kind of push yourself to practice a
little bit
faster and like using the same words
that native speakers do
so try shadowing that’s one thing you
can do without a partner
and if you can find a partner great i
know for many people that isn’t possible
finding a partner and making these
recordings of yourself speaking that’s
another thing that can help you a lot i
think
thank you very much for this message
very cool okay i’m gonna go to the next
one
hello hi i’m javier i’m from mexico
sonora
of the country okay sonora is a state
where you can relax every day riding a
horse
watching horses race while you drink
zombies and listen panda music or
corridos
also usually those kind of bands to
concerts that are named isles
where people go and dance all night in
sonora we have
the best meat of mexico therefore
we make the best tacos oh well sonora
is like a big ranch
cool so javier thanks for sending us a
message
about your city sonora that sounds
really cool so
it sounds like uh lots of good food he
claims that the best tacos the best meat
is
uh in his city uh and he talked about
these really cool parties that go all
night i forgot the word already i have
to listen to your message again
but that was really cool i really
enjoyed learning about your city in just
like 43 seconds that was super cool
thanks for sending that i kind of want
to see like a picture of this now too
awesome thanks very much okay that is
everything that we have
for this month’s user submission so
thank you so
so much to everybody who sent one in and
i’m looking forward to hearing from you
all again
next month too thanks very much
so which entry did you like the best
leave a comment below
or do you think you can do better here’s
the challenge for you
yes everyone watching this record a 30
second to one minute video or audio clip
and tell us about where you’re from
you’ll win a one month premium plus
subscription
to submit click on the link in the
description sign up for your free
lifetime account
then fill out the form attach the audio
or video file and press submit
we may feature you in next month’s
episode so a lot of learners will see
you
and your progress and will hopefully get
inspired to improve and master the
language
to submit a recording click the link in
the description and follow the
instructions on the page
so thank you for watching this episode
of monthly review
next time we’ll talk about a brutally
honest way to improve your language
skills
if you enjoyed these tips hit the like
button share the video with anyone who’s
trying to learn a language and subscribe
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you next time bye
hey everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you
ask me questions and i answer them maybe
first question comes from
flavia hi flavia flavia says hi alicia
can you explain why you use if i were
you instead of was yeah so
the pattern if i were you is an example
of what’s called the subjunctive
mood so the subjunctive mood is
something that we use to talk about
unreal situations so things that are not
true so we use if i were you
to talk about the unreal situation the
unreal
present situation uh which refers to
like
the fact that i am not you like that’s
not a true situation so we use this
subjunctive pattern
if i were you to talk about that if
i was however would begin a simple past
statement so
something in the past but maybe the
speaker
is not so certain about that past thing
so for example
if i was wrong i’m sorry or
if i was noisy last night i apologize
so that means the speaker has some
uncertainty
about the past like if i was noisy last
night like i don’t know if i was but
maybe i was if i was i apologize
so those are past situations that
could be possible um they’re not
necessarily like
unreal um but we want to maybe express
like an apology
or we want to express some kind of
uncertainty
about something that might have affected
someone in the past
so maybe i was noisy last night or maybe
i was
wrong for example i don’t know but if i
was
then i apologize or i’m sorry so we use
this if i was for these simple
past tense statements so actually you
will commonly hear
native speakers using if i was you
but it’s not like that’s going to cause
any communication
problems actually so yes the technically
correct
pattern to use is if i were you but
there are so many people that say
if i was if i was that it’s not like a
communication
problem so technically yes it’s
incorrect to say if i was
but you’re not going to have any
problems if you use that pattern instead
so that’s the basic difference if i were
you refers to an
unreal present situation if i was
something
refers to uncertainty about a past
situation or a past event
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 kirill hi kirill
kirill says alicia i’m stumped by trying
to distinguish the difference in meaning
between
evaluate and assess could you help me
yeah great question and actually native
speakers have trouble with the
difference between these words too
so let’s talk first about the word
evaluate
so a great way to remember the
difference between the words evaluate
and assess
is to consider that inside the word
evaluate is the word
value so when we evaluate something
we are assigning or we are giving some
value to that thing or to that person
this can mean like the price of
something this can mean the
significance of something this can mean
like the condition
of something so some examples we
evaluated this camera and gave it an 8
out of 10 score
our company’s software was evaluated by
a tech website and given a low rating
so in each of these example sentences a
certain like level of value
is assigned or is given to something or
to someone
so when we evaluate we’re doing it in
order to give
value or like to assign or to find the
value of something
so it could be a score it could be a
price so let’s compare this to the word
assess
the pronunciation is assess assess so
the word assess then
has the same feel of evaluate but the
purpose of
assess is to understand something better
so we don’t assess something in order to
assign a value to that thing
we’re assessing something in order to
understand it better so like we try to
understand
deeper like information or like to learn
more about the details of something
we assess something so like uh you might
assess
a situation that means you look deep
into the details to
better understand the situation some
more examples
we need to assess the security of the
company’s data
he assessed his housing options before
making a decision
so this is the difference between
evaluate and assess
if you’re ever not sure just remember
that the word value
is inside evaluate to help you remember
that evaluate is used to assign
value to something 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 yasser hi yessir yasser says
what is the meaning of the expression
word i’ve seen it in some movies and i
can’t figure out what it means
yeah word is like a strong
laid-back expression of agreement among
close friends
you can also use it uh to like ask
really or is that true if you use kind
of like a question
intonation so like word so you might
also hear it used in a situation
where someone does something that like
you really admire
or that you kind of respect or you think
is impressive and you
like you might hear someone say like
word in response to that
so that kind of shows support or that
you were impressed or you admire that
thing
i feel like in a lot of cases it’s just
used as a simple expression of
agreement or understanding for example
we’re gonna watch the game tonight
word personally i don’t use this word
that much because it is kind of like a
cool word
and i’m not really like a cool like
hip-hop street culture kind of person
but if you want to use it i would
recommend using it among very close
friends and in very casual situations
so i hope that this helps you understand
it thanks very much for the question
all right let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from
brayan talaigua hi brian breon says hi
alicia
can you please explain to me the
meanings and uses of the word
happen specifically in these cases do
you happen to
my sister happens to be a lawyer etc i’m
confused yeah this is a nice
question okay to begin with i want to
introduce a few
very common patterns that we see with
the word happen
let’s take a look do you happen to have
would you happen to know if it just so
happens that
my sister happens to be okay
so kind of the theme with this use of
the word
happen is chance or by
chance of something so let’s take a look
at the first
two patterns here these first two are
question patterns
so the first one was do you happen to
have
and the second one was would you happen
to know if
so another way to say these is is there
any chance
you have or is there any chance you
know so you’re asking very politely
like is there a possibility is there a
chance
of this thing so we use this form of
happen to make very formal or like very
soft requests
so this is really useful when you’re
like speaking to a stranger
so if you can imagine like you’re a
tourist
and you need some help in a city that
you are unfamiliar
with you could say to a nearby person
like excuse me
do you happen to know where i could buy
a coffee around here
or excuse me would you happen to have
the time
so that’s like you’re making a very like
soft request that’s like saying
is there any chance or is it possible at
all that you have this information or
you could do this for me
so it’s a very soft request form so
let’s take a look
at the other two sentence patterns that
i introduced here
these are some statement patterns so
again these do mean
by chance but for these kinds of
statements
the context is actually really important
the situation is important
so for example it just so happens that i
got two free tickets to that concert you
were talking about last week
so it just so happens means like by
chance uh or like something happened
like that was very coincidental it just
so happens
that this situation fits nicely
with something else in my life right now
so it just so happens
i got these free tickets and this
relates to
having this discussion with you about a
concert last week
so those two things kind of fit nicely
together it’s a nice little coincidence
so
it just so happens that is used to do
that so
the other example pattern that you
introduced my sister
happens to be a lawyer is probably
something you would see
in a situation where a person is looking
for a lawyer
and the person who says that sentence is
introducing that like oh no i need a
lawyer do you have any recommendations
and person b might say oh my sister
happens to be a lawyer
so that’s like saying by chance my
sister is a lawyer like coincidentally
like
it matches your situation nicely that’s
kind of the feeling of
happens to in this case happens to be a
lawyer
so yes you could say like oh my sister
is a lawyer that’s fine as well
but it doesn’t have that same nuance of
coincidence
so kind of think of happens to or like
happens to be
as meaning by chance in these statement
uh
situations and when you’re using it as a
question it creates like this formal
very gentle
like is it possible to type request
so i hope that that helps you understand
using the word
happen or happens in cases like these
thanks very much for the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
comes from cloudy hi cloudy
cloudy says what’s the difference
between these words
admire adore and idolize
thanks okay let’s compare let’s make
some example sentences first
i admire beyonce i adore beyonce
i idolize beyonce okay so first
let’s look at i admire beyonce so we use
admire
for people usually people that we
respect
so maybe we respect that person’s work
or we want to be more like that person
or we think they’ve done like great
things uh they’re very talented so if i
say i admire beyonce it means like i
respect her i respect her work
so we use admire to mean like something
or someone that we
respect the second sentence i adore
beyonce
uses the word adore which means you love
something so when we say i adore
something we can use it to talk about
like uh people usually people in our
lives sometimes we use it to talk about
like our favorite activities as well
like i adore arts and crafts perhaps
but when we use it to talk about people
it’s usually for people that we have a
close
relationship to so like a beyonce super
fan
might say like i adore beyonce i just
love her
so that means that they feel like a
close connection to that person or like
they really really
enjoy in this case the celebrities work
so to adore something
can be used in that way also within
families like parents could say they
adore
their children so to adore means to love
something and have a very close
connection or you feel like you have a
close connection with someone
then the final example sentence was i
idolize beyonce
i idolize so to idolize that verb
has the word idol inside so idol
actually has a like a religious
kind of connection so an idol was
something like to be
worshipped so like a god or a goddess
figure
sort of thing so to idolize something
means to kind of have
that thing as like above you so
you have like this image in this case
like beyonce i idolize beyonce
that means she’s like above everything
like we really appreciate her
like we think she’s just amazing and
she’s like above
everybody else so to idolize someone is
like
has almost like this image of worshiping
someone
so maybe like a super super super
beyonce fan could say like i idolize
beyonce
i want to be like her like i want to do
everything a fan can do so maybe that’s
uh idolize in this case
so probably the most common words here
are
admire and adore idolize is not used
nearly as much
as these two um but that’s the
difference between those words so i hope
that that helps you understand
thanks very much for the question all
right that’s everything that i have for
this week thank you as always for
sending
your questions remember you can send
them to me at englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
the video please don’t forget to give it
a thumbs up
subscribe to the channel if you haven’t
already and check us out at
englishclass101.com for some other
things that can help you with your
english studies
thanks very much for watching this
week’s episode of ask alicia and i will
see you again
next week bye bye hi everybody welcome
back to ask alicia the weekly series
where you
ask me questions and i answer them maybe
first question
comes from nick hi nick nick says hi
alicia
what does to roll mean in this context
sugar was rare too if you could offer
guests a feast
featuring spices sugar and vegetables
from the new world
you were rolling is it about madness or
poverty
oh yeah great question so to roll or
like to be
rolling means to have a lot of money so
the image here is that
you have so much money that you can roll
your body
around in the money like you are so rich
you could roll in
it so like we will sometimes say he’s
rolling or she’s rolling or they’re
rolling which means they’re rolling in
money she inherited a lot of money from
her family
she’s rolling they bought a huge house
last year and this summer they bought a
yacht
they must be rolling in dough okay so i
hope that this helps you understand the
word
roll thanks very much for the question
all right let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from
gevor galstian hi givorg gborg says
what’s the difference between
gonna gotta and where should i use them
okay uh gonna is the short form of
going to i’m gonna go to the store
he’s gonna leave early we’re gonna watch
a movie
gotta is the short form of got to
which means have to so like i have got
to
means i have to do something but native
speakers will often drop the
the have part the contracted form of
have in speech
so we’re supposed to say i’ve gotta
which is the contracted form of i
have got to but we often drop the v
sound in quick speech so it sounds like
i gotta
or we gotta uh we do however keep it
when
the subject is he or she or its because
it’s easy to say quickly
so some examples i gotta go
he’s gotta leave we gotta work
so because gunna is like the reduced
form of going to
we use it to talk about upcoming plans
and because
gotta is like the reduced form of got2
meaning have to we use gotta to talk
about upcoming responsibilities
so i hope that this helps you understand
the difference between the two
thanks very much for the question okay
let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from
benny hi benny benny says hi alicia
could you please tell me which forms are
correct
hey i learned english in the morning b
i’ve learned english in the morning see
i’ve been learning in the morning
d i was learning in the morning two
a we will be eating dinner when he
arrives
b we will be eating dinner when he
arrive okay
i’m gonna stop here for your question
because it’s quite long so
before i talk about my responses to
these i also want to say that i’m going
to use the word study the verb study
instead of learn to answer this question
so you’ve used learn
in your example sentences but we use the
word
learn when we have finished learning
something
so like i learned how to use a computer
or i learned how to
do something we’re finished with that so
for that reason i’m going to use
study instead of your original learn
here so study sounds more
natural so with that in mind uh the
correct answers or the correct sentences
here
are sentences a and d b and c
both use forms of the present perfect
tense
sentence b uses just kind of a regular
present perfect
uh so i have studied in the morning
that sounds strange because we’re using
a specific point in time
in the morning plus present perfect
tense and we don’t use those two
together
really so we use present perfect tense
when we want to talk about
general life experience so we could say
for example like yeah
i’ve studied english before so before
just means sometime
before now so sometime in the past yeah
i’ve studied english before
so that’s okay but we would not use in
the morning a specific
time the second sentence c there is also
strange even though we’re using the
continuous form the present perfect
continuous form
because it’s like something that is
continuing yes but we have it at a
specific point in time so like
i’ve been studying in the morning we use
the present perfect continuous with like
for and since to talk about the time
when an action started we talked about
the specific point when the action
started so in this case you’re talking
about an action that is finished it’s
done
so it sounds strange to use in the
morning and it’s grammatically
incorrect you could say i’ve been
studying
since 10 this morning or i’ve been
studying
for three hours this morning those are
fine when you want to talk about a
duration of time
and you want to talk about the point in
time where you started that thing
so only sentence a and sentence d are
correct
you could change sentence b and sentence
c but you would change the meaning a
little bit
on to your second question then this is
a quick answer
the correct one is he arrives he arrives
this is because
arrive is connected to he so when you’re
using
he or she or it you need to use arrives
so when you’re using i you or we there
is no change to the verb
so he arrives she arrives it arrives i
you we
arrive so i hope that that helps you you
had one more question
which was uh this michael said
yeah that was a new one for me as well
i hope i don’t have to do that again can
i use this instead of that
um and really the answer is it depends
on the situation
so if in this case michael is gesturing
and pointing to something like ah
that was a new one for me or this was a
new one for me
i hope i don’t have to do this again and
we can clearly see
what’s this then it’s okay to use this
here
if it’s just general and he’s not
gesturing or anything to clearly show
us what this or that is it sounds more
natural to use
that so the answer is it depends a
little bit
if you can clearly show the other person
what you’re talking about
sure you can use this especially when
you’re gesturing you’re pointing at
something
so i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for all your questions
all right let’s move on to the next
question next
question comes from muhammad
abdel haqim hi muhammad muhammad says
are you using me for my brain what does
this mean
you mention this in 100 phrases every
english beginner must know
yeah okay i was making a small joke here
actually
so there’s a really common like
complaint or a really common problem
um that you sometimes hear in couples
who are in romantic relationships
so if one person or maybe both people i
don’t know
has just a really strong physical
attraction to somebody
um one there might be a complaint where
someone says like
are you using me for my body this is a
common complaint in a relationship where
a person thinks
it’s only physical this person only
cares about my physical appearance
they say are you using me for my body so
i was making a joke
in that one and saying are you using me
for my brain
to suggest that someone could just be
interested in like the things that i
think
so it’s not actually like a joke i was
just making a twist
on a common complaint i can’t quite
remember but i feel like in that video i
was maybe talking about like
relationships or something similar
but i wanted to twist the joke a little
bit to make it about like
knowledge i don’t know so it’s not
actually funny i was just twisting a
very common complaint
so i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay
let’s move on to your next question next
question
comes from silverway hi again silverway
silverway
says hi alicia i want to ask about the
expression
things couldn’t be better does this mean
in the past or can i use it to mean for
the time being like in the present
yeah this is a present tense expression
so when you say things couldn’t be
better it means
right now it’s not possible for my life
to be better so that means things are
great
so yes couldn’t is being used here but
it means things
now could not be better it’s not
possible for things to be better
so for example like hey how are things
oh couldn’t be better
work is going great and i have a
vacation coming up soon
or hey how’s the family uh couldn’t be
better
everyone’s happy and healthy so that
means like it’s not
possible to improve more it’s not
possible for things to be better
so we say couldn’t be better now that’s
a present tense expression
thanks very much for the question hope
that that helps all right
that’s everything that i have for this
week thank you as always for sending
your questions
remember you can send them to me at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
the video please don’t forget to give it
a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if
you haven’t already
and check us out at englishclass101.com
for some other things that can help you
with your english studies
thanks very much for watching this
week’s episode of ask alicia and i will
see you again
next week bye bye hi everybody welcome
back to ask alicia the weekly series
where you
ask me questions and i answer them maybe
first question
comes from i am hi ayan ayan says hi
alicia
which sentence is correct i think
someone break into my apartment
or i think someone broke into my family
when should i use the simple past tense
um actually
both sentences are close but neither
sentence
is correct the correct sentence would be
i think
someone broke into my apartment
so when we use the verb break into and
the regular present tense
we follow it with the actual place like
with the location so we don’t use
people as the object of this phrasal
verb we use the actual
place so i broke into an apartment
or someone broke into my house or i
think someone is breaking into your car
or a thief broke into the jewelry store
last night
okay so i hope that this helps with your
understanding of the phrase
break into thanks very much for the
question all right
let’s move on to your next question next
question comes from
vladimir hi vladimir vladimir says hi
uh what is the difference between what
as a conjunction
and that some examples i should have
said
what i said i don’t know that we can
show me that you can help me and i’ll
tell you where your friends are
i got these examples from tv shows yeah
really good question and a tough
question too
actually in these sentences what and
that
are not acting as conjunctions they’re
acting as
relative pronouns so relative pronouns
start a noun clause like a relative
clause they’re giving us some
information
and we begin these clauses with relative
pronouns
so let’s take a look at the examples
that you sent
let’s start with what so in your first
example sentence you said
i should have said what i said so
here what marks the beginning of this
new clause
what i said is the clause itself so i
should have said something so this
what i said refers to something the
speaker mentioned earlier or something
the speaker
like mentioned in a different
conversation so
what i said could be replaced with it
or that and the sentence would remain
grammatical
like i should have said it i should have
said
that what is acting as a relative
pronoun
and it means the thing which or the
things
which something something something so
you could say i should have said
the things which i said so that would be
a grammatically correct
sentence so in this case what does not
act as a conjunction it’s acting as a
relative pronoun
it’s starting off this clause this new
information
so let’s look at another example that
uses this
for example uh i shouldn’t have eaten
what i ate for lunch
so in this sentence what i ate for lunch
is like my extra information that’s my
noun clause there
and i’m using what to introduce that so
here the speaker is expressing
regret maybe the speaker ate lots of
junk food for lunch and now they feel
terrible
so i shouldn’t have eaten what i ate for
lunch so that means
that thing or those things that i ate
for lunch even though the speaker is not
specifically stating
everything he or she ate so we use what
in this way to mean the things which or
the thing
which so let’s continue on to your other
two examples the first one was
i don’t know that we can so here
that is the relative pronoun as we
talked about with
what but here that is used
to introduce like an idea or a concept
so that we can is the noun clause here
it’s acting as the object
of the verb no i don’t know that we can
so that we can is referring to something
that was said
earlier in the conversation so maybe for
example
like we should try to convince the
neighbors to build a pool and share it
with us
and then the speaker might respond with
um i don’t know that we can
so that we can like that seems like
it’s kind of an unfinished sentence like
what does can connect to there
but can actually connects to the verb
that was in the previous statement or
the previous sentence
in that case it was we should convince
the neighbors
so that we can connects to the verb
convince like i don’t know that we can
convince the neighbors that’s what it
means
so in order to introduce this clause we
use
that so we use that for like things
ideas concepts
it sounds quite informal too for more
information on using
that you can check out a video that we
have on the channel
about relative clauses as well let’s
look at your last example
so in this example you said show me that
you can help me
so here let’s focus on this clause
that’s that you can help
me so in this case it’s actually not
acting as the object the direct
object so the verb here is show the
direct object is me
and this clause is actually what’s
called the object
complement so an object complement
describes or gives us some more
information
about the direct object so in this case
it’s
show me like what are you going to show
me
that you can help me so there’s this
noun clause there and we begin the noun
clause with
that so this is the difference and this
is how we use these kinds of things in
sentences so i hope that this answers
your question
thanks very much for sending it along
okay let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from
muhammad bushra hi muhammad
muhammad says how do i use in terms of
in sentences
okay um using in terms of kind of like
helps you to explain a specific
focus for a situation or gives you more
context about a situation
so for example at like a company meeting
you could say
in terms of sales last month was a huge
success
but in terms of staff morale it was a
huge failure
so here you’re pointing out like two
parts of
one situation so you’re talking about
the company’s performance maybe
last month as a whole as one thing
but inside that there are small points
so you’re pointing out
smaller things inside something larger
so we use
in terms of to do that i would say we
tend to use this a little bit more in
formal conversations
i wouldn’t use this a lot with friends
but you could if you want to
so i hope that that helps you thanks
very much for the question
all right let’s move on to your next
question next question comes from
essan hi essan essan says hi alicia
could you please explain a bit about
past and
past and how to use them in different
situations because it’s quite
challenging for learners
i watched a few videos but i’m still a
bit confused thanks
okay sure let’s talk about past past
first so past can be a noun which refers
to
time before the present we can also use
past to refer to prior things
so that means it’s like an adjective so
my
past work or like my past relationships
or my past
job so past refers to things prior
in the past what kind of work have you
enjoyed doing
some of her past relationships ended
terribly
now let’s talk about past so p-a-s-s-e-d
this is the past tense form of the verb
to pass which can mean like to move
beyond something else or it can mean to
give someone something else usually like
a close range
we also use this verb to mean to
successfully complete a test or to get a
good grade on a test
to pass so again this is the past tense
and the past
participle form of this verb so that
means that
even though the pronunciations sound
very similar these two words have very
different grammatical functions
and therefore you can determine which
word is being used
depending on the positioning of the word
in the sentence
so let’s look at some examples with past
i passed my co-worker on the street
earlier
have you ever passed a test without
studying there’s one more use of
past that’s also very common which is to
pass out to pass
out means to fall asleep and we usually
use this when like
we’ve been drinking or when we’re just
super super tired so for example
i passed out as soon as i got home last
night or
he passed out in the back of the car so
pass out
is kind of a set phrase on its own which
like casually or roughly means to fall
asleep
so you can hear in these example
sentences that past p-a-s-s-e-d
and past p-a-s-t take different
positions in sentences
so we’re not just listening for the
pronunciations of these words
in speech we’re also kind of listening
to the grammar of this sentence as a
whole
so if you’re confused if you’re
listening to someone speaking and you’re
wondering did that person just say
past or did they say past which sound
extremely similar
think about the way the sentence is made
like what’s the position of the word
that you’re wondering about
and also think like does this word make
sense the meaning of this word so in
some these words do take different
positions and have different meanings so
try to listen to the sentence as a whole
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
fernardo valencia gonzalez hi again
fernando
bernardo says hi alicia my questions i
still can’t get the difference between
buy and purchase in the same way i don’t
know when or where to use a mid
among and between cool so first let’s
take a look at
buy and purchase yeah when we use these
as verbs they
share a meaning really but in everyday
conversation we use
buy like i need to buy a camera or i’m
gonna go buy
lunch or what did you buy last weekend
so they refer to just
like going shopping and exchanging money
for things
we use purchase more in like formal
situations maybe
in like contracts or maybe you see it in
like a customer service agreement
you might also see purchase as like the
verb used on an online shopping website
like the button to click something might
say buy or it might say purchase
so it’s just the verb that’s used you
might also see
purchase used as a noun we can use it as
a countable noun actually so like
customers should bring their purchases
to the register
it does sound more formal we cannot use
by
in this way we cannot use by as a noun
that would sound
very strange so please only use purchase
as a noun
so in everyday conversation i would
recommend using the verb
buy to talk about shopping in more
formal situations we might use
purchase more commonly regarding your
second question about the differences
between amid
and among and between the very short
answer
is that a mid is used with uncountable
nouns
among is used with countable nouns and
between is used in situations where
there are just two options to choose
from
we also use between to mean in the
middle
of two objects another point a mid
does tend to sound quite formal and we
tend to use a mid
with these kind of like abstract nouns
so for example
she lost her wallet amid the confusion
or
the thief escaped amid the excitement of
the concert
regarding among then when we use it with
countable nouns it kind of sounds a
little bit less
formal than amid like they walked among
the trees or
there’s a spy among us so between can be
used to mean
in the middle of two things so for
example
on the train this morning i sat between
two people wearing lots of perfume
or i put your lunch over there between
the microwave and the coffee maker
so this is a really quick introduction
to these i made a whiteboard video about
this question
so please keep an eye out for that on
the channel very soon
so i hope that that helps answer your
question thank you very much for sending
this along
all right that’s everything that i have
for this week thanks as always for
sending your questions
remember you can send them to me at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
this video please don’t forget to give
it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you haven’t
already and check us out at
englishclass101.com
for some other things that can help you
with your english studies
thanks very much for watching this
week’s episode of ask alicia and i will
see you again
next week bye bye hi everybody welcome
back to english topics my name is alicia
and today i’m joined again bye
i’m davey welcome back davey thank you
so in this episode we’re going to be
giving some
reading recommendations so these are a
few ideas that you can use
in your english reading so the idea here
is just kind of to remind
people that although we focus a lot on
speaking and listening on this channel
reading is also an important an
essential part
of learning a language so these are a
couple of ideas
if you’re struggling to find something
to read or if you just want something
new to read maybe
you can try one of the things that we’ll
suggest today
i hope all right um i have i guess i’ll
start because i chose
one of my items is actually quite
general and this was something that i
recommended in
a different video recently too but
um just to start things off quite
broadly i’ve written
magazines specific to your hobbies uh
this could be books as well or maybe
like online magazines
too um but this i chose
because actually this is something that
i did that helped me when i was studying
when i
i am studying now but this actually
helped me too
because um this was something
in my case it was about music i chose a
magazine related to
my hobby because i wanted to study the
vocabulary words
uh that were used for my hobby and i was
also interested
in the subject to start with three when
i
read the magazine i would also find out
about
other things related to my hobbies that
i might also want to know about but it
was
in the language i was studying so like
really a real example i had a band that
i really really liked when i was in high
school
i looked online because i could not buy
the magazine it was a magazine in
japanese i looked online
bought the magazine online and got it
sent to my house
and then i would sit with a dictionary
and try to read the interview of like my
favorite artists to understand what they
were saying
and then i’d look through the magazine
at some of the other things in the
magazine and it helped me
actually get an idea of like the other
similar things in that subculture that i
might be interested in
in the language i was studying right so
this was
very helpful for me in terms of
vocabulary in terms of learning about
something i was interested in
so this is something i would recommend
and this is also something i think
that’s easy to do quickly
especially if there’s like a blog or
something you follow that’s a good tip
too i think because you’ll be
motivated to read if that’s your hobby
that’s something you’re interested in
you will be motivated to read that you
won’t give up if it’s difficult
you’ll press on you’ll finish reading it
and also if that’s your hobby you’ll be
picking up vocabulary that you will use
if you want to go
talk with people about your hobby in
english you’ll be picking up vocabulary
related to your hobby when you’re
reading and then you can use that
exactly and i think you can do that i’ve
used hobbies for this tip
but i think you could also do that for
your profession yes absolutely yeah
i agree yeah so that’s just kind of a
broad open tip
but i think you have some more specific
ones i do i took a little bit
different approach from you um but my
first one here
is harry potter the harry potter books
uh because
they when the first harry potter book
was written
it was written for children of a certain
age and when the next harry potter book
was written
it was written for the same kids a year
or two
when they were a year or two older and
so the harry potter books get
longer and more complex and more
difficult to read
as you go through them so it’s nice to
start with a nice
simple book that was written for you
know a certain
age so it will be easier for you to read
if you are a language learner if you’re
an english learner
and as you get better you can move
through the books
and also this is a nice package of
extended reading
you know having how many harry potter
books are there seven
seven i’ve actually i’ve never read
harry potter actually
but there’s seven there’s seven there’s
seven books excellent stories
uh that’s all together that’s a lot of
reading
and so you will improve your reading
skills
a lot by just reading a lot even if you
don’t understand
everything you’re reading that’s all
right just press on
and you maybe you’ve already read harry
potter in your first language or in
another language maybe you’ve seen the
harry potter movies
being familiar with the story and the
characters and what’s going on
will help you fill in some of the gaps
if you don’t understand something when
you’re reading the books
and that way you don’t have to focus on
understanding
every single word or every single
sentence you can just focus on
enjoying what you’re reading and your
reading skills
will develop you might not notice and
notice
them developing but they will develop as
you as you press on and as you continue
reading
yeah i think your point about it being a
known story i think so many people
around the world have read harry potter
in their native language
that they know what to expect right i
will say however because i tried the
exact opposite i ordered
harry potter in japanese to try to read
it and so i would give
just one word of precaution for fantasy
stories
that is that there are a lot of nonsense
words in fantasy stories and fantasy
books so like harry potter is fairly
light
right it’s like but i mean it is
make-believe and there are some words
that
just like muggle for example is a word
that we cannot use
in everyday english so i think if you
can keep that in mind
fantasy books are a great thing to read
they’re so much fun i love them
but they can be challenging i think to
apply
all of those words to your everyday life
but yeah i think harry potter is so well
known and so well loved
and you can talk to people about it
that’s true you know you can watch the
movies then
in english as well like there’s a lot of
good stuff to do there that’s true and
read with subtitles actually that’s a
nice tip for improving
reading skills generally we’re talking
about reading recommendations but a nice
tip is reading
watching a movie with the subtitles on
and trying to trying to speed read the
subtitles is a nice little
boost as well yeah you can do that after
you read the book
yeah so that’s a great tool like like
you said it’s like there’s just the
whole
package you have all that material a lot
of content
for sure okay sounds good i will go on
to my next one
which is slightly less vague but i um i
thought this might be useful for
learners
of all ages there’s this are you
familiar with pearson english readers
yes
yeah so there are a lot of books for
kids here
uh but there are also some materials as
well as audio materials for adults
so what is an english reader a pearson
english reader pearson’s the company
that makes these um but they are
graded stories they are simplified
stories or stories that are
made to suit learners
of different levels so if you know your
level or you have an idea of your level
actually i think
their website you can do a short like
kind of level check
sort of thing to sort of get an idea of
the best level book for you
but based on your level you can find
books you can find stories
some of them are based i think on like
movies as well famous movies
but you can get these uh so that they’re
suited to your level
and then maybe you can also challenge
yourself by getting books that are like
the level above you when you’re starting
to feel confident
so these might be a good resource they
have kids books i know
so like you know kids three to five can
read story books in english really
simple ones
and then as kids get older they have
more um for like
like 9 to 11 year old kids and so on
but based on your level you can choose
uh the book
and the story um that you feel would be
best for you so that might be a good
resource to check out
so specifically created material right
for different levels absolutely yeah
that’s an idea
um so just for some examples like i
checked their website before we
uh before we started talking about this
and for kids stories they had
you know some common english language
children stories like little red riding
hood or the three bears
or maybe children’s adventure stories
when children start to get a little
older
a couple of the things i saw for adults
for example the movie love actually
apparently there’s like a reader plus
some kind of audio as well
to go along with that story so there are
some apparently famous like movies
that have also been turned into reading
material and listening material for
people
so that’s a resource that you can use as
an educator
one but also as a person learning uh
learning english so you can check out
their website i think
nice idea might be something to check
into so anyway
what’s your next recommendation so my
next one is for more advanced
uh readers higher level english readers
and that is to read something by ernest
hemingway
very famous uh nobel prize winning i
think he won the nobel yes he won the
nobel prize in literature
nobel prize winning writer ernest
hemingway who was writing in the middle
of the 20th century
he died in 1962 or something like that
uh and i recommend hemingway because
he famously has a very simple writing
style
even though he’s a very well-regarded
well-respected
american writer he wrote in a very
simple way
he used very very simple syntax so it’s
easy to understand his writing
vocabulary might be difficult but it’s
easy to
to read a short story of his or a
shorter novel of his
and get the idea get the gist of the
story
uh and he wrote a lot of he’s famous for
certain novels like the old man and the
sea
uh for whom the bell tolls uh but he
also
wrote a lot of short stories uh and so
that’s a good place to start
you could buy a collection of his short
stories or find some online i’m sure you
can find some of his
like the nick adams stories or other
stories online to try reading
for free and that’s a good place to
start and if you like what you read then
you can read more
so like i said he wrote novels and he
also wrote a lot of short stories
and i don’t know if i have one specific
favorite short story but
he has a series or a collection of his
stories that are called the nick
adams stories because they all feature
one character named nick adams and the
first nick adams story
is when nick adams is a young boy and
he’s you know five or six or seven or
eight years old
and we see nick adams kind of grow up
through these stories
and a lot of these stories are also
about fishing nick adams growing up
in illinois i think which is all which
is also where
hemingway is from and stories about nick
adams
kind of just going fishing and i grew up
in a fishing family and so i really like
those stories
uh and they’re they’re simple they’re
easy to understand they’re just stories
about
a young guy going fishing it might sound
really boring but they’re very
beautifully written they’re very nice
stories they’re easy to understand
i didn’t read much hemingway i read some
here and there in high school
sure but i think in my case i was always
more drawn towards like the fantasy and
science fiction
genre sure and so that always held more
appeal but
there were some authors and i think from
around the same time period as well
they gained uh notoriety for that style
that you’re describing that it was like
simple situations and simple
uh phrasing but like inability to
like create these just kind of
picturesque images like
um who wrote walden walden was
thoreau thoreau i remember that like
that’s the one about the guy
who just lives in the forest it’s a
journal
by himself yeah like but that’s one that
really stood out to me too like
there was nothing necessarily complex
about that
story like on the surface but that was
one that was like
um it made you think about just like the
pace of everyday life and it wasn’t so
difficult to read like we were reading
it in high school so
you know there are a lot of writers i
think
that have something similar i was also
thinking when you were talking about
kerouac
as well jack kerouac who did uh travel
stories but their stream of
consciousness
so a lot of them like on the road is
very stream of consciousness
sentences that go on for a page i see i
see
i was thinking in terms of material in
terms of topic
sure and in terms of like vocabulary use
and so on so
but that doesn’t make sense because they
are kind of rambly yes
pirouette might be hard so in general
that’s perhaps like a high school
reading list might not
be bad absolutely well i i shouldn’t say
that actually that’s not true it depends
that’s what you’re reading that’s like
homer as well like iliadi
you know did you read certain things are
going to be hard i like faulkner but
he’s not and
that is not an easy author to read i’m
trying to think it’s kind of like uh
in in that same vein then sort of those
um kind of adventure-ish
stories the uh william golding’s uh lord
of the flies
that one was kind of like it’s an
exciting adventure story for sure it
gets dark
as well too and there’s a movie oh is
there there is
yeah okay all right well anyway those
are those are some things that stood out
to me from my high school list
i don’t know what people are reading in
high school these days i’m kind of
curious
a lot of the same there’s a lot of
things in in the canon
a lot of historical stuff too i remember
reading uh the plague
i can’t remember who wrote that that’s
uh not cheery
not cheering that’s right french you’re
good at that you’re good at remembering
authors i am not i was a lit major
but oh that makes sense so yeah that’s a
dark story about
uh the the plague the black plague yes
it is happy times
and murder my man died today
maybe it was yesterday oh man that’s the
first line
i don’t remember i don’t remember these
things anyway i’ll go to something
that came to me uh because i was
thinking about
um adolescent level
books actually sure because i feel as a
learner a second language learner
adolescent level books are nice because
it’s like they’re not too hard and
they’re not too easy
and the subject matter
often has a little bit of like drama to
it
so anyway i chose two things here
actually
nancy drew and the party boys
no i never read babysitter’s club
actually i was never i was just never
into that sort of thing but
i did read nancy drew so i included both
of these here
uh basically both of these nancy nancy
drew is the story of a young
girl she’s a like she’s a detective
that’s the story here
the hardy boys they are two boys their
last name is hardy
uh i think they’re brothers yeah of
course the brothers already boys they
they are detectives also so these two it
was like
uh a detective series led by a girl and
a detective series led by boys
and i thought these could be nice
because these are books
these are huge huge like there’s so many
books a lot of books in both of these
series
and uh when i was thinking about
the genre of a mystery story
i was thinking about the different types
of grammar that get used in these
stories
like stuff that you might not use so
much in everyday conversations
like he would have been able to or he
might have been able to
or then we could maybe like sort of
these weird
future possibility or past possibility
sorts of things that can get discussed
in these mystery
stories but they’re made for like
teenagers essentially but that doesn’t
mean that the stories aren’t interesting
i remember really enjoying like nancy
drew
when i was a teenager did you ever read
these i
think i tried reading one or two hardy
boys books when i was a kid and i didn’t
really get into them
i see but i did similar to those kinds
of books i really liked an author called
john bellairs
who wrote similar kind of like
uh kind of mystery books for young
readers
like the mansion in the mist and these
sort of
weird kind of spooky baroque
kind of mystery books for for
children okay that were really good so
john belairs i recommend he’s a nice
good author too
did you read those uh choose your own
adventure style books
oh that’s a great one those are really
fun but the one thing that i would
caution about with those books is those
books
are often written in second person
meaning the subject
is you you those are kind of a rare
style of book in that respect that’s
true when it’s
what’s called what we’re talking about
is a choose your own adventure i had the
goosebumps series when i was little
this is like scary stories but when the
book is a choose your own adventure book
it means
you the reader are the focus of the
story and so as you read
you have to make decisions in the story
if you choose a
you turn to this page if you choose b
you turn to a different page
and you read what happens to you next so
you are
choosing your story as the character in
the story
so the way the story is written is
different from typical stories so the
focus in the story is
you go to the haunted house right you
see a ghost what do you
do next and that’s not very typical of
the way most stories are
they’re very interactive and very fun
and also very simple
because you’re reading just a few
sentences per page and then making a
decision
so they’re easy to read they are so as
long as you can keep that in mind it’s
called second
person the way those stories are written
but those are fun for sure
absolutely i always got scared i would i
would hold like the different pages
and like yeah if i died in the story i’d
be like no i go back
and then i’d choose the one where i live
and i escaped the haunted house
sort of thing i didn’t like to lose but
they’re actually that’s a good another
nice thing about those books is they’re
they you you will read them again and
again
because you want to discover the
different possibilities
and so rereading something it gets
easier to read and it’s good practice
for you yeah yeah so choose your own
adventure books yeah what was the series
that you read i don’t remember i they
were it was i remember it was like an
adventure series
sort of like indiana it wasn’t indiana
jones but it was that style of
adventures like you’re a treasure hunter
in the jungle
stuff like that i remember reading ones
like that i see
i see yeah i’m not sure what other ones
there are i’ve only had i think
i’m sure there’s a lot yeah they’re
those are very good nice nice idea
okay all right what’s your next one my
last one is also maybe
more for advanced or intermediate
learners
and it’s the new york times now bear
with me i know you might be thinking oh
that seems very difficult
but i recommend the new york times for a
few reasons one
it’s always nice to stay up on current
events and reading about the news and
current events in
english things that are happening now in
english you’ll be able to then go
talk about them in english the second
reason that i’ve recommended the new
york times is
similar to your first recommendation you
can find something to read in the new
york times
if you don’t want to read the news read
the travel section
read the the food section you know
there’s different sections of the new
york times that you can read
based on your interest and the third
reason i’ve chosen the new york times is
because the new york times online has a
very cool feature
you can double click on any word that
you don’t understand and it will give
you the definition
so for learners it’s very useful um so
if you’re worried about
you know understanding all the
vocabulary in an article or
improving your vocabulary this is a very
very easy way to do it
you don’t need to sit there with the
dictionary open while you read you just
need to double click on the word
a little pop-up window will tell you the
definition you can close the window and
keep reading so it’s very very useful
for vocabulary building that’s cool
that’s way cool
and as an extra bonus for extra advanced
learners
you can try the new york times crossword
puzzle oh yes you can
crossword puzzles are great
vocabulary practice
like games i guess it is essentially a
game
yeah new york times though like it’s
infamously difficult the new york times
they get harder through the week
it’s like the sunday crossword is the
most the most difficult
yeah i went through a phase a couple
years uh
doing the new york times crossroad
puzzle every day i want i wanted to get
good at it
and i could complete through wednesday
pretty easily
thursday maybe i never really made it
past thursday
friday i couldn’t really do weekends
were like forget it um so for reference
a crossword puzzle is a word game
so a crossword puzzle it’s like a grid
of uh
lines and columns and they’re empty
boxes
and each line or each column there’s a
word hint there’s a clue about which
word fits in the boxes so you have to
choose
and spell correctly the word so
you might need to erase the word or you
might need to try a few different words
but it’s a test of your spelling for one
it’s a test of your vocabulary too
and for more difficult crossword puzzles
it can be a test of your knowledge of
other subjects
so it’s not just words it’s also history
and science and literature like there
are
so many different things that go into uh
the clues for crossword puzzles so those
are really
really good ways to test your knowledge
they’re difficult even for native
speakers
absolutely totally difficult so if you
want to try
definitely google for some english
crossword puzzles
you can search for easy ones also yes
and they make crossword puzzles
for english learners and a lot of those
are
graded to a specific level or they’re on
a specific topic
you know you could do a crossword puzzle
on you know the ocean and learn
vocabulary related to the ocean for
example
so there’s a lot of different crosswords
that you could find you know at for your
level
yeah so that could be a fun way to
practice reading
and to practice spelling as well so fun
stuff
all right so those are a couple of
different reading recommendations
there’s quite
uh there’s quite a lot to choose from
but i think as long as you’re interested
in what you’re reading
like that’s maybe the hardest part at
least for me absolutely
you know just find a thing you like find
something that’s interesting and you
will stay motivated to read it
agreed agreed are you reading anything
now i
am reading something now i am reading
a book by david mitchell who is a very
wonderful author
who is maybe most famous for cloud atlas
and they made it which they made in two
movies and i’m reading a number
no what am i reading not number nine
dream i bought two books of his recently
i brought
number nine dream and uh uh
with something black swan green that’s
what it’s called black swan green
is the book i’m reading now by david
mitchell i see and it is a good book
cool yeah i’m reading uh i’ve gone
back into history i told you about this
the other day i’m reading uh letters
from a stoic at the moment
uh by seneca the old stoic philosopher
for kind of just
interesting essays and just showing off
advice
life advice so i’m not sure enough it’s
a common book
it’s a very common no i’ve got i’ve got
seneca on my nightstand as well
well i don’t read the things that you
read so it’s the show you know everybody
has something
to find something you like yeah and read
it absolutely
absolutely that’s the point here all
right so those are quite a few
recommendations some ideas
um but if you liked the video which we
hope you did please don’t forget to give
us a thumbs up
and subscribe to the channel if you have
not already also come and check us out
at englishclass101.com you can find some
other reading resources on the website
there so don’t forget to stop by thanks
very much for watching this episode of
english topics and we will see you again
next time bye bye hi everybody my name
is alicia welcome back to know your
verbs
in this episode we’re going to talk
about the verb read
let’s get started
the basic definition of the verb read is
to take in
information using letters or symbols
through your eyes or through touch
people can read through touch
also in example sentences i’ve been
reading interesting books recently
i’ve read a great article yesterday
let’s look at the conjugations of this
verb
present read reads
past read past participle
read progressive reading
so let’s look at some additional
meanings for this verb
the first meaning is to interpret
something
as if you are reading it so that means
you’re interpreting something
that is not a symbol it’s not letters
but you interpret it as though you
can read it in some way let’s look at
some examples he’s really
hard to read my best friends can read me
like a book
okay so the first example he’s really
hard
to read means he’s really hard to
interpret he’s really hard to understand
so maybe someone that you know their
emotions are not very clear
always or it’s not easy to know what
they’re thinking we can say
that person is hard to read like it’s
hard to interpret
their thinking it’s hard to interpret
them in the second example sentence i
said my friends can read me
like a book so that means my friends
think i’m
easy to understand i’m easy to interpret
through my body language or my face or
the sound of my voice
it’s really easy to read me it’s really
easy to interpret me
so easy it’s like reading a book so i’m
very easy to understand
is the meaning there so this kind of
read we can use for people or maybe even
we can use for like situations too
so to read something like its symbols
even though it’s not simple the second
meaning for this
verb is to assign meaning to something
else to assign
a meaning to something else so to give a
meaning to something so examples of this
this passage can be read totally
differently how did you read that
message
so here read doesn’t mean
like physically taking in the
information
in a message or in a book it means
understanding or giving a certain
meaning
to something so in the first example uh
it was this passage can be read
totally differently means this passage
or the meaning of this passage could be
understood
in a different way so that doesn’t mean
there’s a different way to read
like physically take the information in
it means there’s a different way to
understand the meaning of that
of that passage in the second example
sentence how did you read that message
it means how did you understand that
message
or what was the true meaning you
understood in that message what did you
get from that
how did you read that message so read
doesn’t only mean looking at the symbols
and letters
even if it seems like it here in these
sorts of situations it means
how do you assign meaning to that text
let’s go to a third meaning of the verb
read then so we can also use read to
mean
to indicate to indicate something as
with like signs
or time let’s look at some examples the
clock reads
tu the sign reads visitors not permitted
so here i’m using the present tense for
both of these example sentences
the clock reads means the clock
indicates two o’clock or the clock
says to a clock so when there’s some
indication
there’s some sort of message from a sign
from a clock
from i don’t know bulletin board maybe
whatever it’s
a indication it’s we can use the verb
read to talk about that so the sign
reads to a clock the sign reads
visitors not permitted to indicate
let’s look at some variations now for
this verb
the first one is to read into to read
into something
this means to believe in a deeper
meaning of something
however in some cases there’s there’s no
deeper meaning
it’s like we we think there’s deeper
meaning for something
but there really isn’t let’s look at
some examples of this
she’s being extra nice to him i’m trying
not to read into it but i wonder if
they’re dating
don’t read into his comments okay so
both of these mean
like uh actually in both of these i’ve
given kind of a negative
situation in the first one i’m trying
not to read into it means i’m trying not
to see
a deeper meaning in this situation but
i wonder if they’re dating because she’s
being extra nice to him
so there’s a little bit of curiosity
there in the second example sentence
don’t read into his comments means don’t
imagine there’s a deeper meaning there
don’t read into his comments
there’s not anything else for you to be
concerned about here it’s just this
comment that’s all
so don’t think there’s something behind
the comment okay let’s go to the second
variation for
read today the second variation is to
read between the lines to read between
the lines
um this means to understand something
that’s not
directly stated this is a very important
skill
and so many i think countries have
different ways of expressing this
concept
but in english we say to read between
the lines to see
or to see or to understand something
that people don’t explicitly
say examples the manager said he was
happy
with last month’s performance but
reading between the lines i think he
wishes we had done better
and i think if you read between the
lines you’ll see that the company is not
doing so well
so in the first example sentence we see
this presentation
the manager was happy with the
performance but
reading between the lines i think he
wishes we had done
better that suggests that maybe there is
a comment or there’s some information
there
that makes the speaker think the manager
is actually hiding some disappointment
so there’s something about the manager’s
behavior
that maybe indicates his true feelings
are different
from his happy kind of presentation
in the second example sentence i think
if you read between the lines you’ll see
that the company is not doing so well
again that means that there’s something
the speaker has noticed
or has sensed or has heard that suggest
that actually the company is
not doing so well even though it seems
that they
are this is a useful expression for
social situations like
if someone doesn’t quite understand like
the
feeling of a conversation or like the
sort of
uh sense in a room we can say like oh
that person
can’t really read between the lines can
he here so
that’s how we use it so those are a few
new ways of using the verb
read i hope if you have any other uses
that you know of or
if you have any questions or comments or
want to try to make a sentence with this
verb
please feel free to do so of course if
you liked the video please make sure to
give us a thumbs up
subscribe to the channel and check us
out at englishclass101.com for other
good stuff too
thanks very much for watching this
episode of know your verbs and we’ll see
you again
next time bye bye in the second
happens it happens happens accountant
accountant
adjective adjective
afternoon afternoon
air conditioner air conditioner
airplane airplane
airport airport
alcohol alcohol
ankle ankle
appetizer appetizer
apple apple
apricots apricots
april april
arm arm
arrive arrive
attic attic
august august
autumn autumn
back door back door
backbone
backbone
door door
banana banana
bandage
bandage
barley barley
basement basement
bathe bathe
bathroom bathroom
be late be late
beard beard
beautiful beautiful
bed bed
bedroom bedroom
beef beef
beer beer
to believe to believe
beverage beverage
bicycle bicycle
bird
bird
birthday
birthday
bitter
bitter
black black
black tea black
tea
blackboard blackboard
blog blog
blouse blouse
blue blue
boat boat
boiling water boiling water
bone bone
book book
boutique boutique
boyfriend
brazier brazier
bread bread
brown brown
buffet buffet
bus bus
busy busy
button button
buy buy
cake cake
call call
can can
candy candy
carrots carrots
cash cash
cashew nut cashew nut
cat cat
ceiling ceiling
cell phone cell phone
chair chair
chalk chalk
character character
cheap cheap
cheek
cheek
chef chef
chicken chicken
child child
chin chin
chopsticks chopsticks
city city
class class
clear sky clear sky
to clear up to clear up
clerk clerk
closet closet
cloth cloth
clothes clothes
cloudy cloudy
coffee coffee
cold cold
collar collar
college college
come come
worker company worker
computer computer
cook cook
corn corn
correct correct
cost cost
country country
cow cow
crab crab
credit card
credit card
cup cup
customer customer
daughter daughter
day day
debit card debit card
december december
department department
dessert dessert
dictation dictation
dictionary
dictionary
dining room dining room
dinner dinner
director director
dish dish
dishwasher dishwasher
do do
doctor doctor
dog
dog
doorway doorway
downstairs downstairs
draw draw
dream dream
dress dress
drink drink
drinking glass drinking glass
driver driver
ear
ear
eat eat
eat out eat out
eight 8
18 18
88 88
elastic band elastic band
elbow
elbow
electric plug
electric plug
electricity electricity
elementary school elementary school
elevator elevator
eleven eleven
email email
emergency room emergency room
engineer engineer
english english
enter enter
erase erase
eraser eraser
expensive expensive
explain explain
i
eye
eyebrow
eyebrow
eyelash eyelash
eyelid
eyelid
face
face
facial hair
facial hair
factory worker factory worker
fan fan
farmer farmer
father father
facts facts
to fear to fear
february february
feel feel
15 15
55 55
final final
firefighter firefighter
fish fish
five five
flight flight
flight attendant
flight attendant
floor floor
food food
foot foot
forehead
forehead
fork fork
44 44
four four
fourteen fourteen
freeze freeze
friday friday
friend friend
fruit fruit
fruit juice fruit juice
full
full
garden garden
get up get up
girlfriend girlfriend
glasses glasses
go go
go out go out
goat goat
gold gold
grape grape
grapefruit grapefruit
grass grass
gray gray
green green
gem gem
hair hair
hair dryer
hair dryer
hallway hallway
hand hand
headphones headphones
high school high school
holiday holiday
home cooking home cooking
homework homework
horse horse
hospital hospital
hot hot
hotel hotel
hour hour
house house
housewife housewife
humid humid
hungry
hungry
husband husband
ice ice
incorrect incorrect
information information
insurance insurance
internet internet
iphone iphone
jacket jacket
january january
jeans jeans
july july
june june
kitchen kitchen
knife knife
ladle ladle
lamb lamb
language language
laptop laptop
large l
large l
lawyer lawyer
learn learn
lecture lecture
leg
leg
lesson lesson
letter letter
library
library
license license
lip lip
living room living room
lobster lobster
luggage luggage
lunch lunch
main course main course
mall mall
man man
manager manager
map map
march
march
marker marker
may may
meet meet
medical doctor medical doctor
melons melons
microwave oven microwave oven
middle school middle school
midnight midnight
milk milk
miniskirt miniskirt
miss miss
monday monday
month month
moped moped
morning morning
mother mother
motorbike
motorbike
motorcycle motorcycle
mouse mouse
mouth mouth
mug mug
muggy muggy
muscle muscle
mushroom mushroom
mustache mustache
neck neck
necktie necktie
knead knead
needle needle
night night
9 9
19 19
99 99
noon noon
nose
nose
notebook notebook
noun noun
november november
nurse nurse
nut nut
october october
office worker office worker
1 1
100 100
onions onions
operation operation
orange
orange
oven oven
overcoat overcoat
pajamas pajamas
pants pants
paper paper
passenger passenger
passport passport
patient patient
peanut peanut
pen pen
pencil pencil
pepper pepper
pharmacy pharmacy
phone number phone number
pick up pick up
pig pig
pineapple pineapple
pink pink
picture picture
plate plate
pocket pocket
police officer police officer
pork pork
pot pot
potato
potato
power outlet power outlet
present present
president president
price price
problem problem
professional athlete professional
athlete
projector projector
purple purple
question question
quiz quiz
radio
radio
rain rain
rain coat raincoat
rainy rainy
read read
read aloud read aloud
receipt receipt
red red
refrigerator refrigerator
rent rent
repeat repeat
resemble resemble
respect respect
rest rest
restaurant
restaurant
return return
rice rice
room room
sale sale
sales person salesperson
salt salt
salty salty
say say
scooter scooter
seafood seafood
search search
c c
september september
serve serve
seven seven
seventeen seventeen
seventy-seven 77
sheep sheep
shirt blouse
shirt blouse
shop shop
shorts shorts
shower shower
site c site c
silver silver
six six
16 16
66 66
skirt skirt
skype skype
sleep sleep
sleep sleep
snack snack
snake
snake
social networking site
social networking site
sofa sofa
sun sun
sour sour
soy bean soybean
speak speak
spend money spend money
spicy spicy
spoon spoon
spring spring
stand stand
steak knife steak knife
stomach stomach
store store
student student
study
study
subway subway
sugar sugar
summer summer
sunday sunday
sunglasses sunglasses
sunny sunny
supermarket
supermarket
sweatsuit sweatsuit
sweater sweater
sweet potato sweet potato
suites suites
swimsuit swimsuit
table table
talk talk
taxi taxi
t t
teach teach
teacher
teacher
television television
temperature temperature
10 10
test test
text text
text message text message
textbook
textbook
think think
thermometer thermometer
thirsty
thirsty
13 13
33 33
3 3
thursday thursday
time time
today today
toilet paper toilet paper
tomatoes tomatoes
tomorrow tomorrow
tongue tongue
tooth
tooth
toothbrush toothbrush
toothpick toothpick
travel travel
truck truck
tuition tuition
turkey
turkey
turn off turn off
turn on turn on
turnip turnip
12 12
21 21
22 22
- two
ugly ugly
underline underline
undershirt undershirt
underwear underwear
university university
use use
vacation vacation
vacuum cleaner vacuum cleaner
vegetable vegetable
vehicle
vehicle
verb verb
vest vest
waistcoat waistcoat
wake up wake up
wall wall
want want
wash one’s face
wash one’s face
washing machine washing machine
watch
watch watch
water water
watermelon watermelon
weather weather
weather report weather report
weekend weekend
wheat wheat
whiskey whiskey
white white
white board
white board
wife wife
wi-fi wi-fi
window window
windy windy
wine wine
winter winter
wipes wipes
wireless wireless
woman woman
work work
wrinkle wrinkle
wrist wrist
right right
year year
yellow yellow
yesterday yesterday
zero zero
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