Learn English in 90 Minutes The Best of 2020
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kick off the first word is kick off
kick off to kick off means to start
something it usually has the nuance of
something big like a big project like
we’re going to kick off a new project
next year or let’s kick off this new
policy
in january or what time should we kick
off the party
as well we can use it for parties too
but for
business it means to start a project to
start something new
and it sounds like the beginning to
something big
so kick off to kick off something means
to start
something set out
the next phrasal verb is set out set out
means decide
or determine or choose something so we
usually use
set out to mean to decide something
within
a project for example we need to set out
some guidelines for this project
or we need to set out some rules for
dress code in the company
or what do you think about setting out
some
new guidelines for company parties for
example so set out means to decide
something and determine
something usually like a policy rule
guideline
check in the next phrasal verb is check
in so check in means update or give a
status report to
share new information check in about
something
we usually say to check in about blah
blah blah so
for example what time should we check in
about the project or do you have time to
check in about this later
or when can i check in with you we can
also use it
uh to refer to a person so can i check
in with you
about this later or will you check in
with me later
we usually say check in with please be
careful this is different
from check-in to a hotel totally
different meaning
here at work check in with someone or
check in
about something so check in with someone
means to give
someone an update to share new
information with them
check in about means to share new
information
probably with someone like in a meeting
about a specific
project so you can use check in with or
check in about
something go through go
over the next one is go through
or go over we can use go through or go
over
these both mean to review something like
i want to go through your essay with you
or i want to go over
the latest draft with you i want to go
through our new policies with everyone
in the company
i want to go over some changes that are
going to happen
so it means review usually like review
plus maybe explain
it means to do this in detail usually
too so
introduce some new ideas review some old
ideas perhaps
and have a chance to discuss things so
to go through or to go
over is sort of to examine to review
to look at some information with
somebody
so we can also say i want to go over
this with
you later or can we go through this
together
later so it means to look in detail to
examine something
clock in clock out the next
pair of expressions really is clock in
and clock
out clock in is to check in
at your office to clock in means to
begin your work day
officially to register the time you
begin work
and to clock out is the opposite to
register the time when you
leave work when you finish work for the
day so when you you
maybe depending on your office you have
to clock in
in other words register or record the
time you begin work or arrive at your
office and clock out so record the time
you leave your office
so in a sentence we could say i always
forget to clock in to work
or what time did i clock out yesterday i
totally forgot
or it’s important to clock in and clock
out at the same time every day
start up okay so the next phrasal verb
is start
up start up means begin to begin
something
please be cautious start up something
like start up a new policy or start up
a new project means to begin a new
project however
you may see the noun expression no space
between start and
up startup maybe you can hear the slight
difference in pronunciation
when i say the phrasal verb start up
there’s a disconnect between the words
like we need to start
up a new project for example however
startup
is a little bit different startup as a
noun means a
usually small new company it’s big in
the news these days startups
so startup companies are very small
companies they are
just beginning that’s the nuance of a
startup company that’s the noun phrase a
startup
however to start up something sounds a
little bit different like we should
start up some new projects this year
it’s more used for like policies
projects uh maybe a new product launch
um we should start up some new things
for example but it means
to begin to begin something
call back the next phrasal verb is call
back
call back call back means to return
a phone call to return a phone call is
call
back so some common examples are just
uh i’ll call you back later or please
call me back when you have time
um you can separate a call and back like
i just said please call
me back when you have time you can
separate the person
receiving the call you can separate call
and back
and put the person receiving the call
between
call and back so please call me back
when you have time or i’ll
call you back so this person between
call
and back is the person receiving the
call
so uh you should call her back later
or um why don’t you call your mother
back tonight for
example you can separate these two
that’s fine
one more example sentence would be i
need to call my clients back this
afternoon
send over the next expression is
send over send over means to email
or to physically mail something to send
over it means to send to someone else’s
office or to send to someone else’s
computer
send it over there is the idea sending
it away from you
over to a different building or to a
different department
please send this over when you have a
chance so again just as with callback
we can use the expression send over
separately we can separate these two
words uh please send
this over please send the files over
please send the documents over
or please send over the documents both
are fine we can use both of them here
so send over just means mail or send
something
in another example sentence hey can you
send over the updated files
clean up clean out the next phrasal verb
is really a pair
it’s clean up or clean out we can use
clean up and clean out these are a
little bit different but i put them
together because they both use the word
clean so to clean up something means to
tidy or to make it nice again to clean
up something like you need to clean up
your house we can also use this at home
meaning like to wash windows or to to
wash dishes
or to to make something tidy and clean
to get rid of
germs to keep germs away to clean up
your house to clean up your office to
clean up your desk
there’s a similar phrasal verb however
clean out
to clean out means to remove
everything from some location so if i
say
i’m cleaning out my desk it has the
nuance of i’m removing
everything from my desk maybe i’m
leaving my job
for example maybe i’ve quit or maybe my
desk just has a lot of things i don’t
need
but clean out has the nuance of removing
a lot of things we can also use this
phrasal verb at home like clean out your
closet
i’m cleaning out my closet so it
cleaning out my closet in that case
it means removing everything from your
closet
the same nuance applies to your desk so
to clean out your desk at work
means to remove everything you can also
use this for the refrigerator like i
need to clean out the refrigerator it
smells really bad
so meaning take everything out clean it
and maybe put some things back
so clean up is just too tidy clean out
is like a deep clean of something
make up for the next phrasal verb is
make up make up usually make up for
please be careful not
makeup as in like things that we put on
our face to change our appearance makeup
but make up for something so to make
up for means to compensate to compensate
so if there’s been a problem in a
project for example like a
delay or a schedule change or some
some unexpected thing happens and you
need to
compensate for that you need to make
some changes
to fix that problem you can use the
phrasal verb
make up for so for example our project
was delayed because
our president got sick for example we
need to make up
for lost time so we follow make
up for with the item that is the problem
so in my example sentence we need to
make up for lost
time lost time is the problem we lost
time it should be a noun phrase we lost
time on the project we need to
compensate for it so we need to make up
for
lost time or we need to make up for the
mistake that we made last week or
we need to make up for lost sales last
quarter for example
angry first is the word angry
angry so angry is the most basic word
you can use
i feel angry she is angry he is angry
it’s the basic level of a negative and
slightly aggressive
feeling my dog looks angry my boss was
angry um we use it to talk about that
feeling so in a sentence
my mother was really angry with me
furious next is furious
furious so furious means very angry
so instead of saying i’m very angry you
can say i’m
furious this sounds much stronger it’s
one word
it means very angry but it sounds like
much stronger than just
very angry so angry is aggressive and
negative
furious is like the next level or maybe
two levels up so like my boss was
furious at the team for their mistake or
my neighbors were furious with me
for my huge pool party last night or
i was furious with my brother for
locking me out of the house
for example uh one more my teacher is
furious with us today mad
the next word is mad mad mad is like
going back down to that sort of basic
level angry and mad or pretty much the
same thing
mad sounds like a word a little kid
would use though like i’m so
mad right now or i’m so mad i can’t do
this or
it’s like it’s it’s like unhappy with a
little bit of aggressive so it means
angry really but
um a lot of adults don’t really use the
word mad
it sounds more childish the word mad
does like i’m really mad right now
or i’m mad at you or she’s mad at him or
something like that it sounds a little
bit childish the word mad so another
example sentence
i’m so mad i lost my keys
upset the next word is upset
upset this is a really useful word we
can use it to mean
angry yes but upset means just
that you are different from the regular
like your regular personality your
regular
level of emotion like your calm state
if you feel disappointed or you feel sad
or you feel angry
you can use the word upset to describe
that it means you’re just
not in the right place you’re not quite
in balance
upset so we can use the word upset
actually as a verb it’s kind of an old
meaning but like if i use my water
bottle my thermos whatever
as an example the verb upset means to
move
something from its correct position like
so in my case i could say like i
upset my water bottle when i moved my
arm so i
moved it from its correct position we
can use the word
as an adjective then too i’m upset
meaning my
emotions have been moved from their
original or their correct position
so we can use it to mean angry too like
i’m so upset with my boss right now or
i’m so upset with myself
as well so we usually say like i’m upset
with something or someone in another
example sentence
i’m really upset pissed off
okay warning next one is a little bit
rude a little bit rude
but you might hear it in uh in british
english and you’ll hear it in american
english as well
um it’s it’s sort of light on the scale
of rude words but um
the expression is pissed off pissed off
so to say i’m really pissed off
it’s a casual word but it’s uh it’s
considered a rude word i would say it’s
considered a curse word in some families
so to mean i’m pissed off is like it’s
usually for
um a fairly small thing that creates a
lot of
anger so maybe if for example someone in
your team
or one of your friends makes a really
really
silly mistake or just just there’s no
reason for this mistake but it creates a
huge
problem you might say ah i’m so pissed
off at that person right now or i’m just
so
pissed off my feeling is that so it’s
typically not for a
really really serious problem i suppose
you could use it in that way
but it usually has this like a very
casual
slangy rough feeling about it so do not
use this at work
don’t use this with people that you
respect it is not a polite phrase
but you might hear it actually in tv
shows and in movies
and in other media pissed off i’m really
pissed off right now
so please be careful that’s what it
means in a sentence
sounds like the neighbor is really
pissed off
seething with rage next expression is
seething with rage seething with rage so
i included a rather formal
kind of like spooky sort of a little bit
scary expression here
so like seething it sounds like your
whole body is just
filled it’s like it’s your body is
almost moving because of how
angry you are so rage is a noun
rage means a very very high level of
anger so we talked about the word
furious near the beginning of this
lesson
furious is an adjective rage is a noun
so anger is like an aggressive unhappy
feeling
anger as a noun rage is like a few
levels
up there so seething your body is
seething with rage it’s like your body
is shaking it’s like your body is almost
moving
out of control because you are so
angry so this is a really serious issue
this is a serious level
seething with rage however this is not
an expression that’s commonly used
in speech we would use this in writing
more often than not you might hear this
in writing or perhaps
in maybe formal expressions i don’t
think i’ve ever used this expression
myself to talk about my experience or my
feelings
but perhaps i could talk about it if
maybe maybe i see a fight happen for
example
i could say whoa that guy is like those
guys were like seething with rage for
example
so i don’t know to me it sounds a little
bit too formal to
use for everyday conversations but if
you if you’re writing a story for
example or you’re reading a story
and you want to really communicate a
strong level of anger you can say
seething with rage in a sentence that
guy at the bar was seething with rage he
was scary
okay next one livid
the next word is livid livid livid is an
adjective i am livid right now so livid
means
angry but i think livid is like between
angry and furious so livid to me
has the impression of maybe like
extremely angry and maybe you’ll you’ll
shout and or like your voice the volume
of your voice will pick up like just
live it
um about something so yeah
very angry about a mistake about
something bad that happened
um so it’s i don’t think it’s quite at
the level of
furious uh maybe it’s just a little bit
below
furious but um like my boss was livid
when he saw the reports
from last month for example so like
maybe shouting
or screaming or something like that so
it’s not in my head anyway the image is
that
there’s like a high-volume reaction um
someone who is livid
maybe has a very loud voice in that case
in another sentence some guy at the
station was
livid over a ticket charge
lose one’s temper okay the next
expression
is kind of a set expression to lose
one’s temper to lose your temper
so temper is like think of temper as
your anger
control your anger control so for you to
lose your temper it means you
lose control of your anger and you begin
to shout or scream or cry maybe
to lose your temper is to lose control
of your angry
feelings so this is a very common
expression like my boss lost his temper
with the management yesterday
or my mom lost her temper when the dog
ran
into the house with dirty feet or i
don’t know i lost my temper when my
computer wouldn’t start this morning for
example
so you lose control of your anger in
another sentence
she lost her temper when her computer
crashed and her work disappeared
go off on someone the next expression is
go off on someone to go off on someone
this is a very casual expression very
casual that we use in american english
in past tense we’ll say he went off or
she went off
on someone so to go off uh the idea is
like you can maybe think of it as
go off like a bomb uh
if it helps like like a bomb could go
off like a bomb could explode
so to go off on someone is like to lose
your temper
at someone um so it’s losing your temper
at the direction or in the direction of
some person
but we use the expression on that person
so my boss
went off on me today for all of my
mistakes
over the last month i don’t know that’s
not true or like
my neighbor went off on the delivery guy
for
being three hours late um i don’t know
something that causes another person
they lose their temper
at someone or something in another
sentence
my boss went off on one of my co-workers
this afternoon
have a heated argument the last
expression is have a heated
argument have a heated argument so here
the word heated is in there heated like
hot so meaning hot like aggressive so a
high level maybe like a high temperature
argument so to have an argument and to
have a heated argument
are similar heated just sounds like it’s
there’s a little more
intensity in the argument so you can
have an argument or you can have a
discussion whatever argument sounds
stronger than discussion
heated argument therefore is perhaps the
next
level of that kind of discussion or
argument so
um the neighbors are having a heated
argument over there or
i heard my boss and the ceo having a
heated argument in the conference room
one more sentence i got into a heated
argument with one of my friends
re the first prefix is re
re r e re means again
so we see the word re in like redo
or replay or re-imagine
or recreate for example so it means to
do
the base word again so whatever you see
re in front of or not everything but
if you see re before a base word like
that it can mean
to do that thing again so in a sentence
i have to redo my homework
anti the next prefix is anti
anti or you might hear anti as well anti
or anti
both are fine um but it means against
or in opposition to or like kind of the
opposite
of something so against against anti so
we see this in like um
antifreeze or antisocial or
anti-inflammatory or antibiotics so they
all mean against
something um so like the word antifreeze
for example means like against
freezing so it’s a it’s antifreeze is a
product that prevents
a liquid from freezing for example an
antibiotic
is a medicine that we take to kill like
bad microorganisms in our body
germs in other words so we see bio in
that word so relating to like biology
antisocial refers to someone who does
not like social situations they are
against
social situations an anti-inflammatory
another type of medicine is against
inflammation so inflammation can mean
like swelling or like turning you red
for example so
anti means against something we see anti
before words which mean like
opposing or against that thing in a
sentence
my boss is anti-overtime dis
so the next prefix is dis dis so dis
essentially this means
not so we see this in words like
disrespect or disapprove
or disconnect or like disagree for
example
so these words all mean not plus the
base word so like disagree for example
means to
not agree or disconnect means to not
connect so something is not connected to
the other thing
disrespect means to not respect
something for example so
dis means not plus that base word in a
sentence
a good editor should be disinterested
x the next prefix is x
x x means former former so
something that was once true is not true
anymore
we see this very commonly in
relationships so for example
my ex-husband ex-wife ex-girlfriend
ex-boyfriend
ex-boss so all of these mean my former
something my former boyfriend my former
girlfriend my former boss my former
roommate for example
in a sentence the x-ceo was in the news
this week
mid the next prefix is mid
mid so mid means like in the middle of
or
during something so we can see this in a
word like uh
midnight or mid-summer for example or
mid-morning so meaning in the middle of
or roughly in the middle of something
during that time period
midnight means in the middle of the
night or mid-morning it’s like in the
middle of the morning
so all of these refer to mid something
we can also use it for like an action
like
mid-meal for example or she was a
mid-presentation when the phone rang for
example so
mid means in the middle of something in
a sentence
i was mid-breakfast when i heard the
news
ill the next one is ill
ill so ill means again not or it’s like
a negative prefix
it means uh the base word but not
that base word so we see this in words
like illogical
or illegible or illegal for example so
these all mean not plus the base word so
illogical means not
logical ill legible illegible means
unable to read legible means readable
illegible means cannot read that thing
unable to read that illegal means not
legal in other words so an action that
is against the law
so ill means not in a sentence
highly illogical captain that’s a star
trek reference
the next prefix is
also means not it means not words that
fit this pattern for example
could be impossible or impeccable
or improbable or imperfect for example
so again it means
not so imperfect means not perfect
uh impossible means not possible
so im means not it means not in a
sentence
this is impossible
the next prefix is in in so again
in also means not it’s a negative prefix
that we use
there are a lot of words that start with
this in meaning not so like
inconsiderate incapable inconceivable
inappropriate so they all mean not plus
the base
word for example like the word
inappropriate means
not appropriate so behavior that is not
appropriate
in a certain situation or incapable
means
not capable someone cannot do something
they are expected to do
so in means not plus our base
meaning the opposite then of that
meaning in a sentence
he’s incapable of running the country
ear the next prefix is ear
ear so the pronunciation is ear even
though it’s
ir ear for example we see this in like
irresponsible or
irredeemable or irregular so again this
means
not something so irresponsible means not
responsible
irregular not regular irredeemable
is something that cannot be made up we
cannot redeem
that thing so ear is another negative
prefix
meaning not or no in a sentence
your behavior was irresponsible
none the next prefix is
non-non-n-o-n so n-o-n is a prefix again
it means
not or against or like i shouldn’t say
against
so none also means not something
so for example we see it in a word like
nonsense or like
non-sequential or non-sequitur
so these are words that all mean like
not
something so for example non-sense means
no
sense essentially not sense uh
non-sequitur so
sequitur the base there is like think of
the word
sequence we see that same sort of base
in sequence
as we see in non-sequitur and that
actually comes from the latin meaning
like to follow something so it
non-sequitur means like it does not
follow so a
non-sequitur means something that just
it’s not part of the conversation it’s
like a random comment
is a non-sequitur so it does not follow
non-sequitur is one so non means
not or no in a sentence this is nonsense
break fracture the first word
is break or fracture so these two
verbs are used interchangeably actually
they both refer to a broken bone or a
fractured bone so
two pieces of bone become separated or a
bone becomes
broken so fractured it comes apart
so to break a bone in present tense is i
broke a bone in past tense
fracture is a regular verb which means
the past tense is
fractured so in a sentence i broke my
wrist when i fell snowboarding
that’s true that’s true i broke my wrist
when i fell snowboarding and that
inspired today’s lesson spraying
the next word is spraying spraying to
spraying
something refers to a refers to
hurting or to injuring a ligament so
a ligament are these sort of like
fibrous things like kind of
uh they connect they’re the parts of the
body inside your body
they connect bones to muscles or bones
to
or to like organs they hold the
parts of the body together inside so
a sprain is damaged to a ligament
a sprain so we can say um for example
to sprain a part of the body a specific
part of the body
um some common examples come from sports
injuries like
he sprained his ankle playing basketball
last week
or i sprained my wrist uh
working in the garden or something i
don’t know but i think a sprain happens
when you push the like the joint or you
push that part
of the body beyond the possible
or the reasonable range of motion so my
example sentence i already said it but
he sprained his ankle at the basketball
game last week
bruce the next word is bruise bruise so
a bruise refers to
taking like a taking an impact something
that’s
not a sharp impact it’s usually like a
blunt
impact i suppose i don’t know kind of
depends but anyway
a bruise we can use it as a noun or as a
verb actually
uh to bruise something means you damage
usually like uh
this the a certain area of skin and
blood collects under the skin
creating like a black or blue or maybe
even like greenish color
purple maybe to use it as a noun we can
say that that spot
is a bruise we refer to that damaged
area as a bruise
to use it as a verb however we can say i
bruised my
arm or i bruised my leg so to bruise
something means to cause
damage but it’s like under the skin we
can see
the color change because of the damage
the blood collecting there so that’s
to bruise something in a sentence i
bruised my
arm when i ran into the door cut
the next word is cut cut so cut is done
with a
sharp object a cut a cut refers to
an injury which causes blood
to emerge usually unless it’s a very
shallow cut shallow is the opposite of
deep
so a cut is caused by a sharp object
so a knife is probably the most common
thing that comes to mind
when talking about cuts though another
very common type of cut
is is called a paper cut as a noun so
uh if you’ve ever tried to take a piece
of paper
and the pa the piece of paper has kind
of
made a small cut on your hand that’s
called a
paper cut a paper cut so it’s that kind
of
slice motion that injures the body
is a cut all right in a sentence be
careful not to cut
yourself when using a knife
wound the next word is wound
wound so a wound is just a place
of injury on the body um we have
a couple of different words we can use
to be specific
about wounds they’re like an open wound
and a closed wound i suppose you could
say but
usually people say things like don’t
touch open
wounds so an open wound is usually like
a fresh
wound so something has been recently
damaged on the body recently injured
and the wound is fresh maybe we can see
blood or maybe we can see
into the body or something that’s
considered an
open wound so a closed wound would be
perhaps
a wound which has been fixed by a doctor
or for small wounds like
maybe the body has created a new layer
over the top of the wound that’s called
a scab you
you scabs ew but that’s that’s not an
open wound then but we should still care
for it so a
wound is a place on the body that is
injured in some way a wound
um that’s used as a noun we can also use
wound as a verb
which means to hurt
something like um i wounded my arm
but wound is not so common i think in
everyday speech instead we use the verb
hurt i hurt my arm but i’ll talk more
about this later
so in a sentence don’t touch open wounds
injure the next word is injure
injure so i’ve been talking a little bit
about the word
injure to injure means to hurt a part of
the body
so to injure your arm to injure your
head to injure your neck
these mean to take damage on
that part of the body to injure
something um so it’s typically a bad
thing to
injure something the noun form of this
word is
injury injury so i have an injury
we use this word more with uh like
perhaps sports
i guess military yeah i guess so um but
for for
every day like just small i don’t know
for small
injuries i suppose like paper cuts for
example or like maybe a cooking
accident i suppose we don’t really say
injury we will say we’ll use the verb
um hurt actually again i’ll talk about
that word a little later but
injury injury is damaged taking damage
to a part of the body
in a sentence she injured her shoulder
this morning
tear the next word is tear
tear be careful this word is spelled
t-e-a-r
it looks like tear but used as a verb it
is tear
tear to talk about an injury so a tear
if you can imagine like a piece of paper
when we want to uh separate it into two
pieces we can
tear the piece of paper now imagine that
same
idea but with a muscle in the body
so a muscle tear refers to that kind of
damage
to the muscle so quite painful i think
you can imagine so
to tear a muscle uh requires yeah some
serious recovery time i imagine i have
never torn a muscle yeah that’s a good
point
the past participle form is torn
torn have you ever torn a muscle uh or
the past tense the past tense is tor i
tore my
shoulder muscle last week i don’t know
awful awful in a sentence tearing a
muscle is painful
pull pull pull so we use
pull again with muscles but this is
different from
tear so to tear a muscle refers to this
kind of
break motion so to pull a muscle means
to stretch a muscle
too much so it the muscle is like just
taken beyond
uh its limits essentially and so it kind
of causes some discomfort there’s kind
of a bad feeling in the muscle
uh in a sentence i think i pulled a
muscle ouch
dislocate dislocate dislocate so here we
see
the word locate referring to location
and dis dis which means not in other
words so
to dislocate something refers to
removing a part of the body from its
correct position
and shifting it slightly so this is
something that you hear
with joints so a joint is a
part of the body where two things come
together so
for example a shoulder we can talk about
the shoulder and dislocate together so
if we say a sentence like i think i
dislocated my shoulder
maybe the correct position of part of
the shoulder is to fit into
another bone like this but maybe
dislocating the shoulder means like it
moved this way
or i don’t know how to dislocate a
shoulder but either way the correct
position is here
the dislocated position is maybe here or
here
i don’t know so the bone is not broken
there’s no
crack there’s no break there it’s just a
shift in position
so the word we use is dislocate to
dislocate something
in a sentence he dislocated his shoulder
and
popped it back into place
hurt hurt to hurt something i’ve talked
about this verb a few times already in
this lesson
but to hurt means to injure or to wound
it’s like the very
general verb that we can use to describe
all damage to the body so hurt
generally means kind of a small injury
like
ah i hurt my finger i slammed it in the
door
or i think i hurt my arm playing tennis
last week
we usually use this for kind of minor
injuries not such
big injuries so in this case for example
if i say i hurt my wrist
it sounds a little too minor actually
this is probably a more severe injury
i would probably say yeah i i broke my
wrist i would use something very
specific
instead of hurt to refer more generally
to just small
everyday damage to the body you can say
hurt
we also use this word to refer to pain
in the body too like ow
my arm hurts ow my wrist hurts
instead of saying painful we use the
verb
hurts more often so it’s less natural to
say my wrist is so painful
instead we say my wrist hurts it
hurts is better than painful so try that
out
in a sentence i hurt myself a lot on
accident
i have an idea the first expression
is i have an idea i have an idea this is
a really
general expression you can use to
introduce a new idea
this is pretty casual but you can use it
in slightly more formal situations
as well i have an idea let’s get
thai food for lunch or i have an idea
let’s go to the beach this weekend i
have an idea
let’s take a nap in this example
sentence i have an idea
let’s start a company i’ve been thinking
the next expression is i’ve been
thinking i’ve been
thinking you can use this to say i’ve
been thinking
and then begin an idea or you can say
i’ve been thinking about
topic i’ve been thinking about topics so
i’ve been thinking about finding a new
job or
i’ve been thinking what do you want to
do for summer vacation
so you can use it in a couple of
different ways i’ve been thinking about
or i’ve been thinking
both are okay so in this sentence i’ve
been thinking about baking a cake
all day here’s a thought
the next word is here’s a thought here’s
a thought so again this is a word you
can use to introduce
an idea here is a thought in other words
here is an idea
a thought from my mind here you are
here’s a thought
so you can use this to introduce an idea
you have had
here’s a thought why don’t you get a
haircut
in this example sentence here’s a
thought why don’t you take tomorrow off
what do you think the next expression is
what do you think what do you think very
common way to ask for someone’s
opinion what do you think we connect the
words do
and you quite closely in this expression
what do you think what do you think
sounds much more natural than
what do you think so try to use what do
you think
so this is uh this is just a general way
to
ask for someone else’s opinion about
anything
really in a sentence i kind of want to
eat something spicy for lunch
what do you think you want to know what
i think
the next expression is you want to know
what i think
so this is sort of a like a challenge
almost like it’s asking the other person
do you want to know my opinion do you
want to know what i think
because i’ll tell you only if you want
to know
so you want to know what i think or you
can drop
wanna and say you know what i think so
that
you becomes ya you know what i think you
know becomes you know
so you know what i think or you want to
know what i think so it’s a little bit
of a challenge a little bit of an
introduction
before you actually share your opinion
in a sentence
you want to know what i think it’s a
terrible idea
i’ve thought about this a lot the next
expression is
i’ve thought about this a lot i’ve
thought about this a lot
in this expression we’re actually using
the present perfect tense
i’ve thought i’ve thought so that’s
i have thought about this meaning
i started thinking about this in the
past
and my thinking has continued to the
present
i’ve thought about this a lot so this
implies
this tells the listener it’s something
that has been
on your mind for a while i’ve thought
about this a lot
so your opinion is based on
all of this past thinking so something
you have been thinking about
for a long time in a sentence i’ve
thought about this a lot
and i really think you should quit the
company
i have no idea i have
no idea i have no idea means i don’t
know
but i have no idea means zero
i have no information no ideas i can’t
think
of anything absolutely nothing no idea i
have no
idea so this is typically used in
response
to a question for information like
where’s your brother
i have no idea like
what did you do with the keys i have no
idea
so some things like you just you have no
information
absolutely no information you can say i
have no idea
i don’t know please note though that the
idea part of the sentence is in the
singular form
i have no idea we’ll talk about why in
just a moment but i have no idea to
refer to having
no information about something in
another sentence
the best hotel in the city i have no
idea
i have no ideas the next expression
is i have no ideas i have no ideas
so here different from i have no idea
we’re using the plural form ideas
ideas meaning someone is asking you for
a proposal
someone is asking you like to create
something to
make something perhaps so um they’re
asking for a suggestion and if you don’t
have any suggestions nothing to propose
you can say
i have no ideas i have no idea so what
do you want to do this weekend
i have no ideas or what do you want to
eat for lunch
i have no ideas really so if you don’t
have
any ideas nothing to propose you can use
this with an
s at the end of ideas in another
sentence
something to do this weekend i have no
ideas
i don’t know the next expression is i
don’t know i don’t know
so michael and i talked about this in an
episode of english topics
many years ago but i don’t know is i
don’t know the casual contracted version
of
i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know i
don’t know
so we use this when we don’t know the
answer to something i don’t know or when
we just want to kind of like relieve
pressure or when we’re when when we’re
out of things to say
as well i don’t know so when we’re like
not feeling sure
not feeling confident as well we can use
this phrase
in a sentence why are you asking me i
don’t know
i knew it the last expression is
i knew it i knew it so here we’re using
the past
tense of no the verb to know something
meaning to understand or to comprehend
we’re using the past tense new i knew it
so we use this expression when we
guessed correctly about something or
when
something we thought was true
uh is proven to be correct so i
knew it i knew it so this is typically
said with a positive
positive voice you hear this a lot in
movies as well i think
all right in a sentence you had my keys
i knew it
let’s begin with the basic definition of
this verb the basic definition of the
verb to put
is to place something in a location
examples
put your bag over there don’t put your
feet on the sofa
let’s look at some conjugations for this
verb now present
put puts past put
past participle put progressive
pudding
let’s talk about some additional
meanings for the verb to put
the first one is to write to write
examples
put your name on this line she put her
name on the list
so when we say put in this way we refer
to writing so you’re adding some
information to
a written document or a typed document
as well so it can mean to write or like
to type
information so put your name on this
line means like write your name or
type your name on this line in the
second example sentence she put her name
on the list
it means the same thing she wrote her
name on a list or she added her name to
a list in some way
it means writing information okay let’s
go on to the second additional meaning
the second additional meaning is to use
words to express
something to use words to express
something examples
how should i put this you’re putting it
quite simply
so we can replace the word put with
express like
how should i express this in the first
example sentence but we use
put because put sounds much less formal
than express
how should i express this it sounds way
too formal way too polite
instead we say how should i put this we
use that uh
expression when we’re not quite sure how
to say
something like we’re maybe talking about
a sensitive topic and we don’t know the
correct words to use or
it’s difficult to explain you can say
how should i put this
in the second example sentence you’re
putting it quite simply
it means you’re expressing things quite
simply so maybe it’s a complex situation
but the listener
is explaining things or expressing
things maybe too simply so the speaker
in this case could say you’re putting it
quite simply
okay let’s go on to the third meaning
the third meaning is rather open and
kind of vague which is to cause to be
in a situation to cause to be in a
situation let’s look at some examples
this change puts the whole company at
risk
your terrible driving puts us all in
danger
so in these examples we see put is used
to refer
to a situation that some
group of people or some person is caused
to be in so in the first example
sentence this
change puts the whole company at risk
this change causes the whole company to
be at risk in a situation of risk
in a condition of risk we use put to
refer to that to
refer to being caused to be in the
situation
of risk the second example sentence is
the same
your terrible driving this is the reason
why the people are in danger in this
example sentence your terrible driving
puts us all in danger your terrible
driving causes us all to be in a
condition of danger it’s very clumsy
but we use the verb put to make this
quite short and easy to say
your terrible driving puts us all in
danger okay
there are so many variations so many
phrasal verbs to use with put yeah so
check a dictionary
for more these are just a few i’m going
to introduce but check a dictionary for
this
the first variation for the verb put is
put aside to put aside
so to put aside means to stop thinking
about something
to seize or to pause an activity while
you do something else
examples put aside your worries and
relax for a day
i put my phone aside and tried to focus
on my work
so in both of these example sentences we
see that one thing is kind of being
moved away
from the focus so for example in the
first example sentence
put aside your worries it means like
stop thinking about your worries like
put those to the side
in your mind like like uh don’t think
about those things for a while
so in the second example sentence i’m
talking about my phone where i’m saying
i can literally put my phone aside
put my phone to the side of the thing
i’m doing and focus
on my work i put my phone aside so we
can use this to talk about a concept in
our minds or to talk about a physical
object as well
okay let’s go on to the next variation
so the next variation is to put someone
down it means
to disrespect someone or to make fun of
someone to make them feel bad about
themselves
some examples don’t put down your
classmates it’s rude
his boss keeps putting him down in front
of his co-workers so in both of these
examples we see
situations where one person is being
disrespected by
another person so don’t put down your
classmates it’s rude so this in this
case
the listener is maybe a kid in school
who is disrespectful to his or her
classmates so a parent or a teacher
might say
don’t put down meaning don’t disrespect
your classmates don’t be mean to your
classmates don’t make fun of your
classmates
so you know be kind to them in other
words don’t put down your classmates you
could also say don’t put your classmates
down if you like that’s fine too
in the second example sentence we see a
work situation like his boss always puts
him down
in front of his co-workers means the
boss disrespects this person in front of
his co-workers so
it’s a disrespectful situation okay
but one point about this the expression
to put someone down
refers to disrespect with regard to
humans however when
talking about animals like we had to put
the cat down we had to put the dog down
it means usually due to some serious
sickness or some serious
injury or illness the owners of the pet
usually a pet or the animal decide
that the pet should have doctor assisted
death so to put down an animal means to
choose to
allow the animal to die peacefully
instead of
suffering so we used that expression i
had to put my cat
down this is a much more soft expression
than the doctor killed my cat which is
essentially what happens but it’s
because of some kind of suffering
or some kind of illness or injury the
owner wants to prevent
we use the expression to put an animal
down
in those cases we do not use this for
people we don’t say
i had to put my brother down though we
do actually have
an expression for babies which which we
use when we put babies to bed
like i’m going to put down the baby for
bed we do have that
but please be cautious of the
differences between animals and humans
with this expression to put someone down
has very different meanings okay let’s
go on to the next variation which is to
put
up with to put up with means to tolerate
something
examples i don’t want to put up with
this crazy schedule anymore
don’t put up with their bad behavior in
these examples
put up with refers to tolerating or
being able to stand something or
continuing to live with something
in the first example sentence i can’t
put up with this crazy schedule anymore
means i don’t want to live with this
crazy schedule anymore i can’t stand it
i don’t want to do it anymore
in the second example sentence don’t put
up with their bad behavior it means
don’t tolerate their bad behavior so put
up with something means like to continue
living with something
and we often see it in the negative form
as in don’t
put up with something
let’s begin with the basic definition of
this verb the basic definition
of carry is to move while holding or
supporting something examples can you
carry this bag
i always carry a pen
okay let’s look at the conjugations for
this verb present
carry carries past
carried past participle carried
progressive carrying
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb the first
additional meaning is to move a person
or an object from one place to another
example veins carry blood throughout the
body
the bust carried the children to school
so here we see objects and people
being moved from one place to another
through
or via or by something else and we use
the verb
carry to describe that in the first
example sentence
veins carry blood throughout the body
veins are the
like you can see them on your arm
usually blue colored
they’re the kind of like pipes i guess
you could say like imagine them as pipes
that carry blood
so blood travels through the body
through these veins
so we can say veins carry blood
through the body so veins are the method
through which
blood moves throughout the body so veins
are carrying
the blood we kind of can imagine in that
way they’re caring they’re responsible
for
carrying the blood so we can say that
veins are kind of responsible for
moving blood around the body we can use
the verb
carry to explain that in the second
example sentence the bus
carried the kids to school the bus is
the method of transport for the kids
so the kids are moving from one place to
another place
the bus is the method of movement so the
bus
carried the kids to school we can use
carrie to talk about this
transportation the second additional
meaning is to have a gene
or illness examples
rodents are known to carry rabies
some people carry diseases they don’t
know about
in the first example sentence we see
rodents are known to
carry rabies so rodents are like
small like rats or mice those kinds of
dirty sort of creatures
wild creatures rabies is a disease a
serious illness that like
causes you to behave strangely and your
body has really strange problems too
i won’t talk about rabies that much not
so important here but
rodents are known to carry rabies so
the um the small like the biological
parts the things that cause rabies they
carry that illness rodents are known to
carry
so it doesn’t mean carry like a backpack
really but
carry a gene or carry an illness carry a
sickness
inside the body in this case rodents are
known to carry the sickness that is
rabies
inside their bodies in the second
example sentence
some people carry diseases they don’t
know about
it means some people have diseases in
their body
but they don’t know about the disease so
you can imagine like we
carry the disease we hold it in our body
and we move around
but we don’t know about it we use the
verb carry to talk about this
let’s move on to the third meaning the
third additional meaning is to make
something a success to make something a
success
examples his leadership carried the team
through a difficult time
her performance carries the show so in
both of these examples we see that
someone carried something
so someone caused something to be
successful
because of their actions or because of
their leadership
as we see in the first example sentence
so his leadership
carried the team through a difficult
time means
the team was successful in a difficult
time because of his leadership but we
use the verb
carry to mean that so we can kind of
imagine that this one person in this
case his leadership
his leadership and his abilities to be a
good leader
in other words were kind of the thing
that carried the team so we can imagine
the whole team
is on top of this one guy’s leadership
skill so he is responsible
for making the team a success in a
difficult
time so we use carrie to explain that
in the second example sentence her
performance carried the show
it means her performance was so good it
was so
important that the show was a success
because of it so without her performance
maybe the show would not have been
successful but her performance was
really really good
her performance made the show a success
her performance
carried the show the fourth meaning of
this verb is to
reach a distance to reach a distance
this can be like sound or it can be
something
physical some examples of this
the sound of the thunder carried 20
kilometers
ash from the volcano carried into the
air
so here we’re not actually carrying
a physical object in the first example
sentence it’s
sound traveling so the sound of thunder
carried 20 kilometers it means we were
able to hear the sound of thunder 20
kilometers away from the source
so the sound carried in other words we
use carry to refer to
sound traveling a distance in the second
example sentence ash from the volcano
carried into the air it means the ash
from the volcano
moved into the air we could even say
like the ash from the volcano
carried into the next city for example
so it traveled
into the next city it traveled some
distance but we can use
carry to talk about that as well
let’s move on to some variations for
this verb so the first variation
is to get carried away to get carried
away this means to get too excited or
too
involved in something usually it has
like a positive meaning we get carried
away because we’re excited
about something but let’s look at some
examples first i got a little carried
away
baking last night he got carried away
listening to music
both of these examples are pretty
innocent in the first example sentence
we see i got a little carried away
baking last night it’s like i baked too
much last night the idea is that i was
too excited about my baking
and i baked too much or maybe i stayed
up too late
making something i got carried away with
it i did too much of it because i was so
interested in this thing in the second
example sentence he got carried away
listening to music it maybe means he
spent too much time listening to music
maybe
he forgot to do his homework or he
forgot to go to work or he was late for
work or something
because he was carried away he was so
interested in listening to music
he forgot something or he did too much
of it in other words so
this generally just means that you’re
too excited about something or too
involved in something so it can have a
positive meaning
the next variation is to carry over to
carry
over means to continue into the next
period to continue into the next period
examples
unused data will carry over into the
next month
my airline miles carried over into this
year so these two
expressions both use like points or
miles or some kind of data
in the first example sentence it’s like
a mobile phone contract
unused data will carry over into the
next month
if for example i have one gig of data
available on my mobile phone
every month but i only use 500 megabytes
i have 500 megabytes remaining that’s my
unused data that amount carries
over to the next month that means i have
one gigabyte
plus 500 megabytes of data to use in the
next month
so carry over means that amount
continues to the next period
we see the same thing in the second
example sentence my airline miles
carried over
into this year meaning my airline miles
from the previous year
carried over or continued into this year
so maybe i didn’t use those miles last
year
but they continued into this year and i
can still
use them so carrying over means
continuing something
we see it a lot in like credit card
contracts or like mileage plans or data
plans
anything with data points numbers we
might see that sort of thing
the basic definition of the verb catch
is
to gain hold of something that is
traveling through the air moving through
the air usually examples
she caught the ball catch this
let’s look at the conjugations for this
verb
present catch catches
caught past participle caught
progressive catching
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb
the first additional meaning for this
verb is to find or
see someone doing something wrong
some examples i caught you trying to
steal from the company safe
have you ever been caught eating late at
night so in both of these example
sentences we see behavior
being discovered that is wrong in some
way
in the first example sentence i caught
you trying to steal from the company
safe
someone was discovered trying to steal
from the company’s safe that was a bad
behavior so we use the verb
catch in this case past tense caught i
caught you
meaning i discovered you i saw you doing
this thing that was
bad we see the same thing in the second
example sentence but it’s phrased as a
question
have you ever been caught eating late at
night so eating late at night is kind of
considered to be unhealthy is not
typically a good behavior so we can use
the verb
catch in this case caught have you ever
been cosh a past participle form
to express this question have you ever
been caught eating late at night
let’s move on to the second additional
meaning for this verb which is
to be held or stuck to something so
examples
my jacket got caught on the door i
caught my hair on a hook
so both of these examples refer to
something on our bodies like the first
example sentence is about a jacket but
we can use it for clothing
so it’s like if your clothing gets
caught on something this is
my shirt is caught on my finger right
now i would say so it’s stuck here i
can’t move it
so i have to release it from my finger
we use cot to talk about that
my second example sentence was about my
hair like i got my hair caught on a hook
or i
caught my hair on a hook it’s somehow
stuck or attached to something else
so we use catch to talk about this of
course we can use it with other things
like
headphones for example like i always
catch my headphones on doorknobs that is
true
like the doorknobs to like or door
handles like
my headphones like will wrap around as
i’m leaving the house and like ah
i can get stuck on that that happens all
the time
so you can use it to talk about your
body parts your clothing
or just other objects too that get held
in place on accident with
catch i got something caught on
something else
the third additional meaning for this
verb is to be able to hear
something to be able to hear something
examples
i didn’t catch what you said she
couldn’t catch any of the announcements
in the noisy train station
so this means to be able to hear
something in the first example sentence
it’s a negative i didn’t catch what you
said in other words
i was not able to hear what you said i
didn’t catch what you said
or i didn’t catch that means i couldn’t
hear you in other words
in the second example sentence it’s
about a noisy train station where a
person
cannot catch the announcements can’t
hear the announcements i can’t quite
catch what the announcements are saying
so that means it’s difficult to hear or
it’s difficult to understand the
announcements because it’s a noisy
environment
so catch can mean be able to hear
something
okay the fourth additional meaning for
this verb is to start
burning like to start a fire
specifically
examples his house caught fire late last
night
the curtains caught fire because they
were too close to a candle
so to catch fire means to start fire to
start something burning to catch fire is
the moment that a flame appears
somewhere
so catching fire is not um like kind of
the smoldering
coals not like the glowing coals in
something
but it’s actual flame so to start a
fire it’s like that moment of wow like
there’s suddenly heat
and there’s suddenly you know like a
candle for example the candle we can
light a candle on fire
though i should say we tend to use the
expression
catches fire or something caught fire
because of an accident so we don’t say
like
um i went camping and the wood
caught on fire we use caught on fire for
like something that was maybe not
on purpose so in my two example
sentences the first one
his house caught on fire late last night
he wasn’t planning
for his house to go up in flames but it
happened
in the second example sentence it’s
curtains too close to a candle so
there’s kind of this nuance of an
accident a bad accident
if you don’t want to imply an accident
if you want to show that something was
on purpose you can use the verb
light past tense lit like i lit a fire
with a lighter
or let’s light a fire in the barbecue
for example
so to light a fire is on purpose for
something to
catch fire sounds like oh it was maybe
an accident or not on purpose
let’s move on to some variations for
this verb now
the first variation is to catch
someone’s eye to catch someone’s eye
this means to attract
attention usually for a positive reason
examples that sail caught my eye
an advertisement for a wine party caught
his eye
so this is kind of a strange expression
when you think about it like to catch
someone’s eyes like
kind of gross like you imagine like
someone’s eyeball catching an eyeball
but
actually it just means drawing the
attention of the eye so in the first
example sentence
it’s about a sale the sale caught my eye
so meaning i saw an advertisement for a
sale
my eye was attracted to the
advertisement for that
the second example sentence is the same
an advertisement for a wine party caught
his eye so there’s some wine party
tasting wines whatever
for whatever reason it attracts his eyes
it attracts his vision so he looks at it
we say it caught his eye attracts
attention
usually for a positive reason so the
second variation is to catch up with to
catch up with so this is an expression
that means to talk about
life since the last time you met some
examples
i caught up with a friend from
elementary school let’s catch up again
soon
so catching up with someone refers to
talking with another person
or talking with other people about the
recent events in your life
so from the last time you saw someone
what have you done so if you haven’t
seen someone since elementary school
as in the first example sentence you
talk about all the things that you have
done
since elementary school so maybe that’s
a long time for some of you
or if it’s somebody that you have seen
recently you could try using the second
example sentence let’s
catch up again soon meaning maybe after
a few weeks or a month or so
you want to meet that person again and
find out what they did
so this is a nice expression that’s like
you want to know what the other person
is doing or what they have
done since the last time you saw them
let’s catch up
the basic definition of this verb is to
put something in a specified location
examples i placed my cup on the desk
she placed her earrings next to the bed
let’s look at the conjugations for this
verb
present place places
past placed past participle
placed progressive placing
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb
so let’s look at the first additional
meaning of this it’s
to make to make this is commonly used as
to make an order or to make a bet
let’s look at some examples of this
place your
bets she placed an order for 50 plates
of fried rice
so here we see place being used to mean
make the first example sentence place
your bets that’s an example of a
sentence you’ll hear at a casino
so dealers card dealers inside casinos
will often begin a card game
by saying place your bets to the people
who are playing which means
make your bet or decide on an amount of
money
you want to play for this game they use
the verb place
place your bets maybe you’ll hear make
your bet but i think place your bet
is probably the most common expression
used in the second example we see
placed an order she placed an order you
can substitute make here you can say she
made an order for
but to place an order this is just a
different way to say it to me
place an order sounds a little more
polite
than make an order like you could use
both on the phone i suppose like i’d
like to make an order for i’d like to
place an order for
both would be okay to me place sounds
maybe a little bit more polite but
it means to make something to make an
order or in the first example to make
a bet the second additional meaning is
to recognize to recognize
this meaning as you’ll see in the
example sentences
is often in the negative form
let’s look at some examples i feel like
i’ve seen that guy somewhere before
but i just can’t place him i can’t place
this quote
who said it so here we see place being
used to mean like recognize or we can’t
quite understand the origin of that
person or that thing
in the first example sentence we see i
just can’t place him we’re talking about
someone’s face
so if you know someone’s face but maybe
you can’t remember the name or
in this case you don’t remember where
you met that person or your connection
to that person
you can say i just can’t place him
meaning
i don’t know why i know this person but
i
recognize his face so here we see the
negative this is commonly used in the
negative i can’t
place him in the second example sentence
i can’t
place this quote means i don’t know
where this
quote originated from or i don’t know
where this quote
came from so maybe it’s a famous person
who said the quote
but i just can’t remember who that is i
can’t like recognize i can’t
uh recall where this information came
from
i can’t place this quote so this means
to recognize in these cases
okay the third additional meaning is to
put
in a certain condition or state
examples the court placed him under
arrest
she was placed on a strict contract so
in both of these example sentences we
see
some condition being set in the first
example we see
placed under arrest placed under arrest
means
the person involved was put in the
condition
of arrest placed under arrest
in the second example sentence she was
placed on a strict contract
it means she was put into a condition of
a strict contract
so we use placed to refer to that so to
place
can mean to put someone or something
into a state
or into a condition the fourth
additional meaning is to find someone a
location to live
or work examples we haven’t placed the
young man yet
they’re placing the family next week so
in these example sentences
someone is looking for a spot to live or
a spot to work
for another person there are two groups
or two parties involved here
in the first example sentence we haven’t
placed the young man yet
it means the speaker or the group
involved with the speaker
is looking for a location for the young
man in the situation to live
or work so what is the situation this
does seem kind of strange perhaps but
in some countries maybe it’s similar in
your country there may be kind of like
protection services
especially for children and for families
who
have had like legal trouble or trouble
with
like dangerous people in their lives and
they need to be
relocated to a new city or to a new
workplace so there are services for
families like that for individuals like
that
that’s a situation where we might use
this word we also might see this
in like schools for example if you are
looking for a location
looking for a classroom looking for a
dorm or something
for a student so one person is
responsible for finding a place for
finding a location
for another person we can use place to
talk about that
in the second example sentence they’re
placing the family next week it means
they’re completing the placing process
so that means they have found a place
they have found a location for a family
and are going to take the family
to that location next week so to place
is to find a location for someone
let’s move on to some variations for
this verb the first variation
is to find one’s place to find one’s
place
this means to determine how to fit in
socially okay examples of this
i think i finally found my place she’s
having trouble
finding her place at school so here
we’re seeing examples that involve
someone finding their social position so
to find one’s place
means to find a nice position a position
that’s
appropriate for them in their society or
within their life
in the first example i think i finally
found my place we see past
tense found my place which means i’ve
discovered this position
is best for me in the second example
sentence she’s having trouble finding
her place
at school it means she’s having trouble
positioning herself within the society
that is her school like she has her
school life and she hasn’t
quite discovered yet the best uh
location for her the best way to fit in
with the people around her so this
refers to your societal position in your
small or big society
the next variation is to know one’s
place to no one’s place
this refers to understanding your status
in society
and it’s typically used to refer to
people who are
below others as well like we typically
don’t use this to talk about people who
are above us
we might use it to talk about ourselves
in reference to
being below someone or someone from a
higher position might talk about the
people below them
oftentimes with a kind of disrespect
let’s look at some examples
he made sure his workers always knew
their place
i know my place that restaurant is way
too nice for me to visit
so here we see examples of people
behaving or being expected to behave
in accordance with their social status
in the first one
he made sure his workers always knew
their place
the nuance here is that he is like some
kind of boss or like
authority figure and the others the
workers which we see
workers indicates they’re below him they
know their place
so in other words they know that their
role they know that their status in
society is
lower and he wants to make sure they
know that so this has a bit of an
air of disrespect about it in the second
example sentence it’s a person talking
about himself or herself
i know my place that restaurant is too
nice for me
meaning i know that i am societally of a
level below
the level required to visit that
restaurant so in other words i shouldn’t
go there it’s too nice it’s too
expensive it’s too fancy for me
i know my place is below that restroom
so
interesting very interesting
listen to the dialogue what do you do
i’m an artist listen to it again
what do you do i’m an artist
first of all you need to learn how to
say what do you do
what do you do listen to it again
what do you do
what do you do
now how do you answer this question
this is the pattern you’ll need i’m a
i’m in your occupation
i’m a and your occupation
for example i’m an artist i’m
an artist
i’m an artist
here are a few more professions you can
use with the same pattern
police officer police officer
police officer
teacher teacher
teacher doctor
doctor doctor
engineer engineer
engineer
now listen to some examples
what do you do i’m a teacher
what do you do i’m a doctor
what do you do i am an engineer
okay now it’s your turn do you remember
how to say
what do you do
what do you do
imagine you’re a doctor do you remember
how to say doctor
doctor doctor
say i’m a doctor
i’m a doctor now answer the questions
saying that you are a doctor
what do you do
i’m a doctor
now imagine you’re a teacher do you
remember how to say teacher
teacher teacher
say i’m a teacher
i’m a teacher now answer the question
saying that you are a teacher
what do you do
i’m a teacher
now imagine you’re an engineer do you
remember how to say
engineer
engineer engineer
say i’m an engineer
i am an engineer now
answer the question saying that you are
an engineer
what do you do
i am an engineer
first question this week comes from
sithi
hi sithi sithi 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 want to
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 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
um 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 going to 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 going to go or i’m going to 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 gonna go to
the
is how i’m gonna 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
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
comes from juniodide
raza junaidraza 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 gonna 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
this is the difference in terms of
meaning between the two
so i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay let’s move on to your
next
question next question comes from tom hi
tom
tom says is it correct to say my
favorite song of all times
or do you have to use the form all time
yeah nice point we always say all time
we do not use
all times let’s look at a few more
examples
the greatest of all time my all-time
favorite food the most popular songs of
all time
so you’ll notice in these examples there
are actually two patterns that we can
use
the something of all time pattern and
the
all hyphen time plus adjective pattern
both are correct you can use both in
whatever situation you choose
they have the same meaning and the same
feel just note that these positions and
patterns are slightly different
also note that we always use the
singular time
there we’re not using times so please
make sure it’s always
all time greatest of all time and so on
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 mifta
hi again mifta
bifta says hi alicia i’ve heard the
idiom play
russian roulette how do we use it thanks
okay
nice one this is a very dark idiom that
refers to a
very very dangerous game so the origin
of this idiom is a game an actual game
called russian roulette so in the game
of russian roulette
one type of gun that’s called a revolver
is removed of all of the bullets except
for one
so one bullet remains in the revolver’s
chamber so this is the part of the gun
where the bullets are kept the bullets
are held
so one bullet is 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 feeling
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