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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you
ask me questions and i answer them maybe
first question this week comes from
manuel carlos hi manuel manuel says hi
there
when it comes to inversions in formal
english to give
emphasis i have two questions first i
talked to an american english native
speaker about it and was told these
structures are no longer used they were
used back in the 1920s
what do you think second in one of my
books it says that we can also use
once in a while and very often at the
beginning of the sentences for emphasis
the point is that these two expressions
are not listed in other books or video
classes
what are your thoughts some examples
very often does she come here
very often do they arrive late once in a
while does he wash his car
once in a while do i drink alcohol thank
you very much
interesting question inversion is still
used today though as you’ve said it’s
used more in like formal situations
or it’s used in like poetic kinds of
writing
so situations where having control
over the rhythm and the feel of a
sentence is really strongly desired
so inversion it is still used today
but a key point and this is in regard to
the second
part of your question a key point though
is
to note that when we when we make
sentences that use this inversion
pattern
we’re using negative adverbs and
negative adverbial phrases
at the beginning so perhaps this is what
you’ve seen in other textbooks and in
other videos
and this is what makes me think that
your examples or the sentences that you
provided are not
so natural this is because very often
and once in a while are not negative
adverbial expressions
so to make them negative you could say
not very often like not very often does
she
wash her car or whatever so but that’s
not really something that i feel is so
natural we wouldn’t really say that the
other example that you provided once in
a while
we could make that one negative by
adding only
like only once in a while do i drink
alcohol
so that’s something that i feel might
actually be said
only once in a while do i that sounds
like a more natural pattern
i wouldn’t i don’t really feel that the
not very often pattern
would so often be used as like in in
kind of like these
inversion type sentences so to answer
your question
uh yes they are still used in some in
certain situations
yes perhaps not so much in everyday
conversation at least not in american
english you
maybe could hear it a little bit more in
british english i suppose
um and also the focus generally is on
using
negative adverbs and negative adverbial
phrases at the beginning of those
so i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for this interesting question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
comes from nuria garayeva hello nuria
maria says hello alicia can you explain
the difference
between which and that sure i have
talked about this topic many times but
not very recently
so let’s refresh ourselves the
short answer is that the difference
between that and
which is that that is used for
restrictive clauses and which is used
for
non-restrictive clauses so what’s a
restrictive clause what’s a
non-restrictive clause
a restrictive clause is a clause in a
sentence
that gives us essential information
about a noun we
need that information about the noun in
order to understand the noun completely
a non-restrictive clause is a clause in
a sentence
that gives us extra or like bonus
information about the noun
if we don’t have that clause we can
still understand the noun
so there may be different words that are
used for restrictive or non-restrictive
like descriptive or non-descriptive
clauses but they’re talking about the
same things
so let’s take a look at an example of a
restrictive clause and a non-restrictive
clause
the phone that i bought at the apple
store works perfectly
this phone which i bought at the apple
store works
perfectly okay so these two sentences
they have
essentially the same information so why
am i
saying one is a restrictive clause and
why is one a non-restrictive clause
so in this case we understand easily i’m
talking about this phone
yes like we know in both cases it’s this
phone
but where restrictive clauses become
important
is in cases where for example we have
many phones let’s imagine the speaker
has three phones
and the speaker needs to differentiate
the speaker needs to communicate
which phone he or she is talking about
in the conversation
we can use restrictive clauses to do
that so for example
the phone that i got at the apple store
works perfectly
the phone that i bought from a
secondhand shop is really slow
the phone that i receive from my company
is a little old
so in those sentences we’re using that
because we’re giving some specific
identifying information about each phone
so in a case like that where we’re
talking about three different
objects and we need to make the
differences very clear we would use a
restrictive clause
in cases where it’s not so important
like when we clearly know i mean this
phone right here
we can use which and a non-restrictive
clause to talk about the phone
so this is the basic difference between
that
and which of course native speakers
don’t always get this correct
unfortunately
so you may see people using the two
interchangeably
but that’s actually one very common way
of differentiating the two so if you
want to know more about this topic i
made a video about this
please check out the relative clauses
which or that
video on the english class 101 youtube
channel for some more examples
and for some more explanation i hope
that that helps you thanks for the
question
okay let’s go to your next question next
question comes from
nicole hi nicole nicole says let me know
whether you can use
if i were you i will sure
you cannot use this pattern if you want
to begin
your if conditional statement with if i
were you
you need to use something in your main
clause that reflects an
unreal or an untrue situation this is
because
if i were you is unreal it’s not true
i am not you that’s not real so our main
clause needs to match our
if clause our main clause needs to
include would
or wouldn’t to match the were in
the if clause so if i were you i would
or if i were you
i wouldn’t for example if i were you i
would take a vacation
or if i were you i wouldn’t quit my job
so you cannot use
will in place of will please use would
or
wouldn’t i hope that that helps you
thanks for the question
okay let’s go to your next question next
question
comes from pandy hi pandy pandy says
authorization authentication what is the
difference
okay sure both are nouns uh
authorization
is the act of allowing someone to do
something authentication is the process
of proving that something or someone is
true
or real some examples i need management
authorization to enter the secret room
in the building
we finally got authorization to move
forward with a new product
the thief’s paperwork didn’t pass
authentication
unknown login detected user
authentication required
so the last example sentence there about
user authentication
is one that you might see online like if
someone tries to access your account or
maybe if you try to access your email
your social media account from like a
different place or something strange
happens with your account
you might be requested to do user
authentication which means proving that
you
are you which we usually do through like
checking an email address or phone
number or something similar
so authentication refers to checking to
see if something is true
authorization refers to the act or the
process of allowing
someone to do something so i hope that
that helps you
thanks very much for the question okay
on to our next question
next question comes from silas
fast hi silas silas says hi alicia how’s
it going
good uh my question is about the
structure
2b 2 in the following sentences
the queen is to visit canada you are to
wear
formal clothing to the white house
dinner you are not to leave the room
could you explain how it works yeah nice
question we use this
to be plus the infinitive form of a verb
when we’re talking about like
official rules or we’re talking about
like an official
schedule so this is not something that
we use so much in everyday conversation
in american english
it’s usually in a formal situation like
when we’re taking a test
or we’re talking about an official
schedule or we’re talking about official
rules like in an examination situation
or maybe a
like a big organization when we want to
make a negative rule too
we place not before the verb
so some more examples of this students
are not
to exit the room until the exam has
finished
guests are to leave their shoes at the
door
employees are to check in when they
begin work
so i hope that this helps you this
structure is for formal or official
rules and schedules
thanks very much for the question okay
that is everything that i have for this
week
thanks as always for sending your
questions and remember you can send them
to me at englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
this week’s lesson 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 ask alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and i answer them
maybe okay let’s get to your first
question this week first question
this week comes from aisha abdullah hi
aisha
aisha says hi alicia can you please talk
about
how and where to use apostrophes
which of these options is correct okay
so
take a look at the three examples that
are on this screen
and note the places where the
apostrophes are
in each of these so i’ll talk about this
the sentence is the two buildings doors
and windows okay sure so we can use
apostrophes to show possession
and to show the reduced forms of words
like it’s
or can’t and so on so those are the two
ways that we use apostrophes
in this explanation i’m going to focus
on using apostrophes
for possessives so actually to address
your question about which example
sentence is correct none of those
examples
are correct the correct use of an
apostrophe in this sentence would be
just an apostrophe after the s
in buildings so the two buildings
apostrophe doors and windows that’s the
only place that we need an apostrophe
this is because the doors and windows in
the sentence kind of
belong to the two buildings so the two
buildings are the subject
so we don’t need to use like an
apostrophe we don’t need to use some
kind of
a possessive marker after doors and
windows
because we’re not showing that the doors
or the windows are like the owners of
something
actually here the buildings are like the
owners so
we mark the possession with an
apostrophe to go a little bit deeper
into why this is
when we have a word that ends in s
we use an apostrophe but we do not add
another
s to the word please note though we do
not
ever use apostrophes to make nouns
plural
as a general guide then when you are
using a noun that
ends in an s simply add an apostrophe
after the s to show possession if the
noun does not end in an s
add apostrophe s to show possession so
let’s look at a couple examples
of nouns that end in s in the singular
and in the plural form
for example the dress’s color that’s
singular
and the dress’s colors plural
the car’s lights so you can see
that even though the singular form and
the plural form
have the same pronunciation by that i
mean like the dress’s color
and the dress’s colors we understand
that
one is plural because the following word
is plural so in the first example
sentence there
the dresses color so the dress ends in
s yes and we show possession with an
apostrophe after the s
and then a singular color so that shows
us it’s one color
one dress in the second example though
the dresses
colors so dresses is plural
in speech they sound the same but plural
dresses is followed by an apostrophe to
show possession
and then we follow that with colors in
the plural also
so this shows us that it’s not just one
dress and we can hear that
also in speech so it shows us it’s not
just one dress it’s two dresses or more
and we know that because more than one
color is described there
so we can generally guess these sorts of
things from context
but again this is for nouns that end in
s whether they’re plural or singular
let’s compare this then to nouns that do
not end in s
when a noun does not end in s we simply
add apostrophe s to show possession
some examples the children’s books
the team’s work our hotel’s staff
so these all end in apostrophe s because
the noun itself does not end in s so
this is the general rule
for using apostrophes to show possession
so please do remember we do not use
apostrophes
to show plural forms of words 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 amar ismail
hello amar
amar says hey alicia what does beat the
wrap mean
and how can i use it okay cool so to
beat the rap
means to escape from punishment and it’s
usually
punishment that you deserve so it’s like
you did something wrong
you should be punished but you escape
somehow
so this is an interesting expression i
found some
history some information about this
expression and this
rap means like legal punishment or like
the punishment that is official
for you and rap this meaning of rap or
this use of rap
comes from or it can come from the
expression to wrap someone’s knuckles
so the knuckles are this part of your
hand
uh so this part of your finger really
the places where like your
fingers can bend those are called your
knuckles so a
common punishment a long time ago for
school children
was to wrap kids knuckles
as a punishment for bad behavior so to
wrap something
means to hit or like strike in a strong
way like quickly
sharply so this is the verb form of
rap but because of that to rap became
associated with
punishment therefore to beat the rap
means to like conquer to overcome some
kind of punishment
so to beat the rap means to get away
with something in other words or to find
a way
to escape the punishment that’s due to
you so in an example sentence you could
say something like
i came home late and my mom was really
mad but i beat the rap by telling her
that i had to take a friend home
or he made a huge mistake at work but he
beat the rap by blaming it on computer
problems
so to beat the wrap means like to escape
somehow from punishment that you are
probably supposed to receive you’re
probably supposed to get that
you might also hear a similar expression
which is take
the rap take the rap so again rap refers
to punishment
but to take the wrap means to take the
punishment
that should be for somebody else so you
didn’t do anything wrong somebody else
did but you decide to like take their
punishment instead
so you might hear that expression used
to so another point to mention is that
this is not
such a common phrase these days you
might hear
like take the hit to mean take someone
else’s punishment
but we don’t really use this expression
so much in everyday speech at least in
american english these days but if you
encounter this in like a movie or in a
book maybe
that’s what it means so i hope that this
is helpful for you thanks very much for
the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question
is from hector hi hector hector says hi
alicia
i want to know how to refer to a person
who asks a lot of questions
i think it’s something like inquire or
curious but i’m not sure
for example in a job interview how do i
explain that i consider myself a person
who likes to ask
questions if something is not clear for
me okay yeah i think in this case maybe
the best word would be
inquisitive inquisitive so inquisitive
is an adjective
it means someone who likes to ask a lot
of questions someone who naturally asks
lots of questions about things
curious is similar yes curious sounds
like you’re naturally interested in
learning things like maybe you want to
look and see
lots of different things but it doesn’t
only mean
like wanting to ask questions
inquisitive
has this feeling of like really asking
questions and trying to learn
things so my kind of impression of an
inquisitive person
is generally positive maybe someone
who’s kind of smart
and interested in learning things it’s
pretty good
but if you ask a lot of questions
especially personal questions
you can be perceived as nosy so
nosy is another adjective which refers
to someone who likes to ask questions
yes
but they’re generally too personal it’s
too much it’s like someone who likes to
gossip about other people’s lives
so there’s kind of a fine line like a
close they’re a bit close inquisitive
and nosy so inquisitive is generally a
good
thing but you don’t want to be nosy so
in this case i would say inquisitive
however as you mentioned in your example
if you want to talk about liking to ask
lots of questions
in order to make something clear that is
not how we would use
inquisitive we use inquisitive to talk
about somebody who
naturally wants to learn about things
and asks
questions like just because they want to
learn
not because something is unclear like
it has the feeling of something that a
person does from like
internal motivation they just want to
know things
they’re not trying to like fix a mistake
or try to understand something that is
difficult for them at work so we
wouldn’t really use
inquisitive in that case instead we
would probably use an expression exactly
like the one that you presented
you would say something like i’m the
kind of person that prefers to ask lots
of questions
if something is not clear to me so
that’s a very natural response
if you want to express that you are
inquisitive like you naturally like to
ask questions you can say that too
though i’m an inquisitive person
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 alexander hi alexander
alexander says hi alicia my name is
alexander or alex and i’m from brazil
i was studying collocations and
yesterday when i was studying about
coffee i found three words that i have
never seen before
one percolated two lukewarm and three
tepid i would like to know if these
words are common in everyday speech
i’ve been in dublin for one year and
i’ve not heard them so far
thanks okay great interesting question
first let’s talk about the word
collocation so everybody can understand
what this means
a collocation is a word that is commonly
used with another word
so for example with this word coffee a
common collocation of coffee
is cup so cup and coffee often go
together because of the expression
coffee cup for example
so we can also use this as a verb to
collocate so when we want to use it as a
verb we could say
the word cup collocates with coffee
so that refers to two words or maybe
more
that are often used together studying
collocations can be really helpful
because you can see
which words are commonly used together
and it can help you to make more natural
word choices
so now that we know what collocations
are let’s take a look at these examples
the first word was
percolated in this case you have it in
the past tense verb form
so two percolate means to cause
a liquid to pass through another
substance that is not
a liquid to pass through a permeable
substance
so a permeable substance is a substance
it’s not solid
so we can pass liquid through it or like
sunlight can come through a window a
window can be permeable
so things can pass through this
substance
so like soil like dirt is a permeable
substance or coffee grounds are a
permeable
thing so permeable substances
are kind of the key point for this word
liquid passes through those
so percolate on the other hand is
actually like a very scientific word
so we don’t use it so much in everyday
speech to talk about making coffee
when we want to talk about coffee we say
i’m going to make coffee we don’t
generally say
i’m going to percolate water through the
coffee grounds it sounds very
scientific and very stiff and we don’t
generally say this
but you might encounter it if you are
reading some information
about like expensive coffee beans or if
you are learning about
a very like expensive coffee shop and
they want to share
information like the detailed process of
how they make their coffee
you might see it in that way but
generally percolate is
not so common in everyday speech so i
hope that answers that one
the second though uh and the third for
that matter were
lukewarm and tepid lukewarm and tepid
mean the same thing
so they both mean just sort of warm like
it’s kind of like room temperature or a
little bit cooler
than body temperature so lukewarm and
tepid are both used to refer to the
temperature
of coffee so most people want coffee
hot or cold lukewarm coffee is generally
not a good thing so we could say uh i
hate drinking lukewarm coffee
or this coffee is tepid so
that means that it’s not at a good
temperature it’s like this room
temperature coffee
so lukewarm and tepid are more commonly
used in speech than percolate for me
personally i tend to use lukewarm a lot
more than tepid but other people might
prefer to use tepid more
those two words are fairly commonly used
percolate is not as commonly used but
you might see it from time to time
so i hope that this helps you and good
luck with your continued studies of
collocations
okay let’s move on to our next question
next question for this week
comes from sanju hi again sanju
sanju says hi alicia how are you i’ve
been watching your videos for a long
time
my question is what is the difference
between no longer
and any longer okay nice question the
meaning of these expressions is the same
it’s totally the same we use it to refer
to something that
was true up until this point and into
the future
will not be true so the difference is
actually just in
how we make the sentence there are a
couple of changes that we need to think
about
in the structure of our sentences when
we use these so let’s take a look at two
example sentences
first we will no longer offer free lunch
for staff
we will not offer free lunch for staff
any longer
okay so in the first example sentence
you can see that
no longer comes before the verb in this
case the verb is offer
so when we want to use no longer we
typically place it before the verb in
the sentence
you may hear no longer coming at the end
of a sentence especially
in short sentences but that kind of
sounds old-fashioned so
these days we tend to use it in front of
the verb so
we will no longer offer free lunch for
staff
on the other hand when we use any longer
we need to put it at the end of the
sentence
and we put a negative we need to put not
before the verb earlier in the sentence
so
we will not offer free lunch for staff
any longer
so these are the differences in terms of
the structure
of the sentences that we need to think
about one more like additional point
if you want to use any more follow the
same pattern as any longer they mean the
same thing
so let’s take a look at one more pair of
examples
i can no longer wait or i can wait no
longer
and i can’t wait any longer
so we follow the same pattern here in
the first example which uses no longer
we put that before the verb i can no
longer
wait and i gave the example of no longer
at the end of the sentence too but this
sounds rather old-fashioned and kind of
too polite
the second one however you might notice
instead of using
not wait i’ve made can into can’t so i
can’t wait any longer
this is because it sounds more natural
so the original sentence could be i can
not wait any longer but we can combine
can and not into can’t and that sounds
much more natural so
i can’t wait any longer so they have the
same meanings yes
it’s just a difference in terms of how
you build the sentences with these words
so
thanks very much for an interesting
question and i hope that that helped you
thanks very much
okay that is everything that i have for
this week thank you as always for
sending your questions
remember to send them to me at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you liked
this week’s lesson 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 ask alicia the weekly series
where you ask me questions and i answer
them
maybe first question this week comes
from
sadaf yasmin hi sadaf sadaf says hi
alicia i have two questions
first what does ain’t mean and how do
you use it
i’ve seen this word in lyrics like ain’t
nobody who makes me feel this way
my second question what does the phrase
wide awake mean
i read it in the sentence lying here
wide awake
on my own now i couldn’t completely
understand it okay
first let’s talk about ain’t nice
question
ain’t is a really interesting word
because it can mean a lot of things
it can mean is not are not
am not have not and has not it can mean
all of those things and ain’t is also
considered a very casual kind of rough
in some cases
cool word and it really depends on the
person who uses it
so for example in the u.s the images
that we have that are associated with
the word ain’t
are like maybe country western like
musicians or maybe like cowboys
they might use the word ain’t to sound
kind of casual or rough and cool
you might also hear ain’t used in other
music like pop music or rap or r and b
again
the feeling of ain’t is kind of casual
it’s kind of rough it’s like tough maybe
sometimes as well too
so it really depends on the personality
of the person who’s using the word
ain’t is also special because we follow
the word
ain’t with a negative so as in your
example you said
ain’t nobody or another example
might be something like ain’t never done
this
thing so it feels actually very strange
for me to say that because i’m not the
type of person who would use the word
ain’t
but when we use ain’t we follow it with
a negative like ain’t
nobody so in your example ain’t nobody
who makes me feel this
way means there isn’t anybody who makes
me feel this way
so in many cases like with your example
here we
follow ain’t with a negative like ain’t
nobody or ain’t no
or ain’t nothing so this just means
isn’t or
are not whatever follows that but there
might be some cases where you don’t see
a negative after age like i ain’t having
that
or i ain’t buying that so that just
means the negative
i am not buying that or they are not
doing that
so again this really depends on the
person uh this really
depends maybe on the region as well too
so pay attention to the kinds of people
that you see and hear using this word
and maybe you can kind of understand
uh the times at which it might be
appropriate to use it
and whether or not it’s good for you to
use the word to as i mentioned i
personally don’t use this word
but this is how we use it in american
english anyway
regarding your second question about the
expression wide awake
to be wide awake means to be awake but
we use it at a time when we are usually
asleep
so for example maybe at like two in the
morning most people
are asleep usually but if you are wide
awake it’s like you’re awake
and you cannot close your eyes and go to
sleep
so it might be helpful to think of your
eyes like your eyes themselves as being
wide
open like you cannot close your eyes you
are wide
awake so you can’t go to sleep usually
we use this expression at a time
uh when we should be asleep so for
example
i woke up at 2 am i was wide awake for
hours
or when i got up to use the bathroom i
saw my dog was wide awake it was weird
so wide awake is used in this way to
talk about
being awake at kind of a strange time i
hope that this helps you
thanks for the questions okay let’s move
on to your next question
next question comes from rubo hi roubo
rubo says hi alicia what is the
difference between
scrape and scratch ah
good question generally well in many
cases they do have the same meaning
but for scrape we use scrape usually
with
non-living things and we use scrape when
we’re talking about
taking a very heavy or a very sharp
object across a surface we often use
scrape when we’re talking about trying
to remove
something that is difficult to remove
so for example oh no i scraped
my car on the gate or i scraped the
paint off the wall with a knife
so it’s like there’s some kind of heavy
or sharp object
moving across another surface oftentimes
with the intent or with the plan to
remove something
else scratch on the other hand is
something that we use
much more commonly with living things so
with people or with animals
we use scratch usually when we’re
talking about like using a
sharp part of our body like uh nails or
claws or maybe even
teeth we talk about using something
sharp
and dragging that across a surface so
for example i might say like ouch i
scratched my arm
or be careful my cat might scratch you
so scratch is typically used with humans
with living things
and scrape is usually used to talk about
like maybe machines
or other very heavy and sharp objects
being pulled or dragged across a surface
so i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question comes from
saith aldine hi saif saif says hi alicia
can you explain
why we use out and in or up
like when someone says i go up to the
door and i open it
if it were me i would say i go to the
door
and i open it what is the difference
between the two sentences
thanks yes super great question we often
use
up along with bodily motion like
physical motion related verbs
to mean we did that action up until a
point so we went
to that thing or we moved to that thing
and stopped
so verbs that we use this with commonly
are like
walk run open close
go as well so we use up after these
to mark the point at which that action
stopped you might also hear
over used with this so as in your
example
i walked up to the door and opened it or
i went up to the door and opened it
means i moved until the point
of the door and then i opened it so it
shows the point at which
an activity or an action stopped another
situation you might use that
is like talking to someone at your
office like i walked up to my boss
and asked if she had a moment another
example might be
my co-worker ran over to my desk to help
me
so using up and over in these ways
followed by
two marks the point at which some action
stopped so you can use up and over to do
this we don’t really use
down you might hear down used if you’re
talking about
traveling like i’m going down to this
city or i’m going down
to the post office you might hear that
used
but generally when we’re talking about
like these bodily these physical
activities
we’ll use up to mark the stopping point
so i hope that that helps you regarding
up
and over regarding in and out however
these follow the same rules as the
prepositions themselves follow so we
typically use these
when we’re talking about entering or
exiting a building
like or other location so for example he
walked
into the bank or they ran out of the
police station
so we can use these same verbs relating
to
bodily motions relating to movement and
when we use in and out with those
we’re talking about moving from one
location
to outside that location and the
opposite so from moving outside of a
location
to inside of the location so in and out
follows uh the prepositional rules so
i hope that this helps you thanks very
much for the question all right
that is 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
this week’s episode please don’t forget
to hit the like button give it a thumbs
up and subscribe to our channel if you
have not already
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 all right let’s get to your first
question
first question this week comes from
fabio hi fabio
fabio says hello alicia i would like to
know the meaning of the expression
every other day can i also say every
other week
every other year every other hour minute
thanks a lot
yep every other day refers to a schedule
of activities
in which you do one thing for one day
and then the next day you take it off
that you don’t do the activity the next
day the following day you do the
activity
then the next day you don’t do the
activity so it’s this one day on
one day off pattern we call this an
every other day
schedule so yes you can replace day in
this expression
with another time period so you could
say every other year
or every other hour every other minute
whatever it just means you do something
for
one unit of time so one year or one hour
or one minute
and then the following period of time
you do not do that thing
so yes you could use this to express
something like every other minute i’m
not sure what activity you need to talk
about and use every other minute to
describe it
but you could do it so every other day
is a very common way
to express this one day on one day off
pattern
i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay let’s move on to your
next
question next question comes from
clinton hi clinton
clinton says when i meet a person that
tries to speak a language with me that i
don’t understand
what should i say in english to respond
um
you can say i don’t speak that language
so you could say i don’t speak spanish
or i don’t speak dutch or i don’t speak
chinese you can just say something very
direct like that you don’t have to say
i’m sorry i suppose if you want to you
could but you don’t really have to
apologize in this situation
just be direct i don’t speak that
language you could
follow up this statement by saying
something like
do you speak english or do you speak
your native language
so if the person maybe needs help or if
you’re trying to communicate with that
person
you can try to find a solution try to
find a common language by asking
do you speak english or do you speak
spanish or whatever your native language
is
so again just to respond i don’t speak
that language
i hope that this helps you thanks for
the question okay let’s move on to
your next question next question is from
sanju hi sanju
sanju says hi alicia and team how are
you all
my question what is the difference
between dying
to and vying for and how do we use them
properly
okay we use dying to for things that we
want to do very very much so we’re like
exaggerating we’re making this
desire for something seem much stronger
than it is
we tend to use this in casual situations
for example i’m dying to watch that
movie
or we’ve been dying to go to that new
restaurant
so we’re expressing a strong desire for
something and it’s usually something
that’s kind of casual
kind of light vying for on the other
hand
is used in like competitive situations
so you might hear it in sports you might
hear it
in business you might hear it in
politics when two or more people
are trying to get the same result or the
same outcome we can express
that with vying for different from
dying to which is followed by a verb
vying for is followed by a noun
phrase so vying for noun phrase where
the noun phrase is the desired result
the desired outcome
so some examples of this might be the
two candidates were vying for the
mayor’s position
or all of the children were vying for
the teacher’s attention
so vying for something means actively
engaged in
trying to win something but that’s quite
a long expression so we say
vying for the base verb is to vi to vi
for something so this is the difference
between dying to which expresses a
strong desire for something
and vying for which also expresses a
desire to win something
but we talk about this along with the
desired
results the desired result not the
desired action so i hope that this helps
you thanks very much for the question
okay let’s move on to our next question
next question comes from
animal virg hello animal animal says
hung or hanged
snuck or sneaked yes this is a question
about the past
tense forms of verbs so the first one
hung or hanged
the verb in question here is the verb to
hang to hang so should we use hung or
should we use hanged for past tense
the answer in most cases is you should
use hung
for example he hung a picture on the
wall
or we hung our coats up in the closet
when you’re talking about this action of
putting something on a wall or putting
clothing on a hanger
please use hung the past tense hung
hanged on the other hand has a very
specific use we use
hanged when we’re talking about someone
who has been punished
with death by hanging so hanging is a
very specific type of
death penalty in which a rope is tied
around a person’s neck
and the rope is used to end the person’s
life
when we want to talk about this in past
tense we
use hanged as in the criminal was
hanged or hundreds of years ago many
people were hanged for crimes
so hanged is used in this specific case
in all other cases of the verb hang in
present tense
please use hung to refer to the past
form of the verb
so this is quite a clear distinction in
terms of meaning
please keep it in mind when you’re
speaking and when you’re writing too
regarding your other question about the
past tense form of the verb
sneak there are two forms and there are
two forms that remain today actually
initially originally this is according
to merriam-webster my favorite
dictionary
according to merriam-webster sneaked was
the original past tense
form of this verb but in the late 1800s
or so
snuck began being used so today we still
use both of them actually
snuck and sneaked some examples then
might be like
i snuck into the office late last night
or she sneaked around the neighborhood
so you can use both of them i personally
feel that i like snuck better that could
just be me
but whatever you choose please just be
consistent with it so i hope that this
helps you thanks for the question
okay let’s move on to your next question
next question comes from
anathu shaji hi enough anathu says could
you please explain the differences
between
ever since and since then sure
while they have the same meaning the
structure of the sentence
changes depending on which one you use
so let’s take a look at a couple of
example sentences
i graduated college last year since then
i’ve worked in a tech company and ever
since i graduated college
i’ve worked in a tech company so these
sentences communicate the same idea
the speaker graduated college and since
that point in time
the speaker has worked at a tech company
so we can use both
since then and ever since to describe
that the difference
is that since then tends to follow a
past
tense statement in the first example
sentence it was i graduated college
last year so we have a simple path tense
statement there
since then refers to the point in time
that was described in the previous
sentence so in this case
last year since that point in time i
referred to in the previous sentence
so this is a common position for since
then
ever since however can take a couple
different positions in the sentence
in this example i’ve placed it before
the simple past tense action
ever since i graduated college so we can
place it before the action
you may also see ever since used in the
same position as
since then so for example i graduated
college ever since i’ve worked in a tech
company
though in these cases as you might have
noticed in this example
i’ve removed i’ve omitted the specific
point in time so instead of saying
i graduated college last year ever since
i’ve worked in a tech company
you might hear some people remove that
specific point in time it’s just kind of
the speaker’s preference i suppose but
ever since can take a lot of different
positions we don’t see
since then taking these different
positions so since then again refers to
a specific point in time that
then in since then means that point in
time i just referred to so we have to
have that
we don’t have that then in ever since so
that means we don’t have to refer to a
specific point in time and that’s why it
sounds kind of natural sometimes
not to use this paired together with a
specific point in time in your past
tense statement
you might hear people say ever since
then in which case yes you must include
a point in time in the past but this is
the difference it’s the positioning of
the expression in the sentence and the
relationship of the past tense statement
to the outcome so i hope that this helps
you thanks very much for the question
okay that is everything that i have for
you this week thank you as always for
sending your great questions
remember you can send them to me at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
this lesson 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
soon bye-bye hi everybody welcome back
to ask alicia the weekly series where
you ask me questions and i answer them
baby okay let’s get to your first
question this week
first question this week comes from
henry laurent
cossaci hello henry henry says i once
heard this conversation in a tv series
hey how much are we short b 18
30 cents my question is is the
expression
how much are we short commonly used in
spoken english to describe this kind of
situation
thanks love from indonesia yes great
question
to be short means to not have enough of
something
this is a very common expression in
american english anyway
and we use this short in many different
grammatical forms
so in a question how much are we short
means how much more
or how many more of this thing do we
need
in statements you might hear i’m three
dollars short
or he’s short by about 150 dollars
or we’re short a few chairs i’ll get
some from the other room
so you’ll notice that there’s a buy
after
short in example two here and he’s short
by
about 150 dollars you can choose to
include that if the number or if the
amount
comes after the word short if the number
comes before the word
short you should not include buy so i’m
three dollars short i’m 150 dollars
short
perfect if the number follows short he’s
short
by about 150 you can include it
but you do not have to as in the third
example sentence
we’re short of few chairs so we do not
have to include buy but we can
we’re short buy a few chairs is also
totally correct
so that’s up to you we can also use
short in this way to mean
not enough as a verb as in the bartender
shorted me on my drink
which means the bartender did not pour
enough
liquid into my drink or i think the
cashier shorted me on my change which
means
i think the cashier did not give me
enough change
so you may also hear this used as a verb
in this way
so yes to answer your question again it
is a very common expression it’s very
useful
and it means to not have enough of
something and to recognize that
and to kind of make a question or a
statement
about what should have been provided or
what is still needed
so i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for the question
let’s move on to your next question next
question comes from
nilo pena flor hello nilo
nilo says hi alicia i’m confused about
the word
compromise it has several meanings can
you please explain it and use it in some
sentences
sure i talked a little bit about the
difference between
compromise and agreement in a recent
episode of ask alicia
so let’s refresh there to begin a
compromise refers to an agreement
that you reach an agreement that you
make after changing your plans a little
bit
so side a and side b have different
ideas about something
they change their ideas slightly and
make an agreement
so that agreement is called a compromise
so it’s not
quite a’s idea not quite bee’s idea but
they kind of work together
to find a solution so that’s a
compromise that’s a noun
we can use this as a verb as well to
compromise
means to make an agreement after
changing both plans a little bit
where there might be some confusion
however is in the
other ways to use compromise as a verb
we use compromise as a verb to mean to
expose
or to reveal something that’s supposed
to be hidden or to reveal something that
is supposed to be secret
so you might have heard it used in this
way in like action films like james bond
movies or like mission impossible
movies you might hear a sentence like
for example
james bond has been compromised which
means
someone realized james bond the spy
was in a location and he was supposed to
be hidden
he was supposed to be like a secret
agent like no one is supposed to know
about him
but someone learns about him someone
exposes
james bond he’s no longer safe so
compromised
in that way refers to something or in
this case someone
being exposed or revealed that was
supposed to be confidential that was
supposed to be secret
we can also use compromise as a verb in
this way
to talk about communication this can be
like phone calls
paperwork official documents and so on
in an example sentence you might hear
something like
the president’s phone call was
compromised which means for example
someone who was not supposed to listen
to the phone call
heard information private information or
maybe
information inside the call was shared
to someone who was not supposed to have
the information
so was compromised or has been
compromised as in my james bond example
sentence you can see that this
verb is commonly used in the passive
form because we don’t
always know the recipient of the
information we don’t always know
the person who exposed something or
revealed something
so there is this meaning of compromise
as i said you will very commonly see
this
in a passive sentence structure when you
talk about making an agreement with
someone you’ll probably see it
more i would say in an active sentence
structure
as a noun then it’s kind of different so
to make a compromise you’ll usually see
it
in something like that to make a
compromise as part of that expression
so i hope that this gives you a good
introduction to the different ways that
we use compromise
especially this special meaning of
revealing or exposing something that is
secret
i hope that this helps you thanks for an
interesting question okay
let’s move on to your next question next
question
comes from kunduzai
i hope i said that right hello kundazai
kundazai says hi alicia
my question is about this statement is
it grammatical to say
i don’t feel like plus verb in the ing
form
how do we use it in the correct way in
what cases can i use it
thanks for your answer yes it is
grammatical to say
i don’t feel like verb in the ing form
totally grammatical totally natural
totally correct
you could say i don’t feel like watching
a movie or
i don’t feel like going out tonight or i
don’t feel like doing that right now
so this is a very casual expression
which means
i am not in the mood for that activity
we usually use it with at this time
or right now or tonight it sounds like
something you don’t want to do
now but maybe you want to do it in the
future like i don’t feel like watching a
movie tonight
totally natural you should know however
that this is a very
casual expression we tend to use this
with very close friends or with family
members so people that we have a very
close relationship with
i would not recommend you use this at
work or in any other professional
situation
because it sounds like you have kind of
a low opinion of that activity like
i don’t feel like doing that right now
so it sounds like it’s kind of emotional
or feeling based decision so don’t use
this in professional situations but yes
you can absolutely use this expression
to talk about something you don’t want
to do
at a specific point in time usually so i
hope that this helps you
thanks for your question okay let’s move
on to our next question
next question comes from ahmed hello
ahmed ahmed said
adele said but it don’t matter why did
she say
don’t with it yeah in terms of standard
like correct
english this is grammatically incorrect
but
many singers like to use this kind of
technically
incorrect grammar to sound kind of cool
or to sound kind of rough
so yes the sentence in like standard
english
should be but it doesn’t matter
but for various reasons including like
sentence rhythm or
song rhythm in this case or also just to
sound kind of cool or rough
a singer or an artist might choose to
use on purpose
in correct grammar in this case but it
don’t matter
so if you want to sing along with the
song great you should use the same words
that adele uses
but if you’re speaking and you want to
express this idea make sure you use the
correct grammar but it doesn’t matter is
actually the correct way to say this so
i hope that this helps you
thanks for the question okay on to our
next question
next question comes from rachel hello
razel rassel
says hi alicia my question is what is
the difference between
race and ethnicity great question
for a very broad answer so for a very
general answer
you can think of race as related to
your biology so this is something that
you
cannot change your race is the stuff
that you’re born with essentially
so common things that we think about
with race relating to race or maybe the
color of a person’s skin
or the shapes of the features of their
face and so on so we
cannot change race ethnicity on the
other hand
is like your cultural identity so what
are like the traditions what are the
shared values
in your community the things that make
your community what it is
so to give an example of the difference
imagine you are
a person from india and you move to the
usa
with your family when you’re a baby so
you could say
my race is indian my ethnicity
is indian american so that’s the
difference here so your race is
something you cannot change
ethnicity may change over time for some
people
so this is a very general answer to this
question this is a very big discussion
as well too but a very interesting one
so thanks very much for this interesting
question
okay that is everything that i have for
this week thank you as always for
sending along your great questions
remember you can send them to me at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you like
this lesson please don’t forget to give
it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you have not
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 how are your english
listening skills
first you’ll see an image and hear a
question
next comes a short dialogue listen
carefully
and see if you can answer correctly
we’ll show you the answer at the end
a man and a woman are talking
when is the man painting
do you paint every day yep from 9 a.m
to 7 p.m nine to seven
ten hours every day well yeah
it’s my job
when is the man painting
a man and a woman are talking
when is the man painting do you paint
every day yep from 9am to 7pm
9-7 10 hours every day
well yeah it’s my job
did you get it right i hope you learned
something from this quiz
let us know if you have any questions
see you next time
hi everybody my name is alicia in this
lesson i’m going to talk about some
english greetings and their responses
this lesson has been prepared to present
american english greetings let’s get
started okay
i first want to begin with the most
basic and most
casual greetings that we use i’ve marked
some of these with a star
like you’ll see here that means that
when you respond
to this greeting you can use the same
word you don’t need to worry about a
special response just use the same word
that you heard
the person use when they greet you so
these two the casual
friendly hey and hi are very common we
use these with friends
co-workers colleagues it’s fine to use
at any time of day
i included yo here as well yo is very
casual
probably don’t use this one at work but
you can use this with your friends your
close friends and your family members if
you like
yo so when someone says hey just say
hey or if someone uses hi just respond
with
hi hi sounds a little more stiff than
hey
hey sounds a little more relaxed a
little more friendly
yo is really relaxed super casual
you might hear young people use yo a lot
more than
older people the next expression here is
hello hello you can use hello to greet
people that you meet
face to face that’s fine but we usually
use
hello as the standard phone greeting
it’s used when we pick up the phone
hello and you can say my name is or
hello this
is or hello alicia speaking for example
you can use hello on the phone we tend
to use it mostly
on the phone uh it can be used it is
correct
to greet someone with hello in everyday
life
face to face but it might sound a little
less friendly than
hi or another greeting i’ll talk about
later
so hello is good for the phone usually
i would recommend using hello for the
phone
okay then let’s go to these three
questions we can respond to these three
questions with the same
response let’s read their questions
first first one
how are you how are you you’ll hear
native speakers reduce
this a lot this question is not clearly
pronounced as
how are you but we’ll say
how are you how are you it sounds
much shorter how are you instead of how
are you how are you
how are you the answer good you good
you this is the standard response
another question
how’s it going how’s it going how is
it going it means your life how is it
going how’s it going
how’s it going how’s your life in other
words good
you we can use the same response my life
is going good
everything is good so going means like
happening
how is your life happening how are
things in your life
another one how are you doing how are
you doing very similar to how
are you just a slight variation we added
doing here how are you doing just like
how are you is reduced to how are you we
can make this
how ya
how you doing so you’ll notice i use
this apostrophe mark apostrophe is this
dash here
so it makes a short sound i removed the
g in doing
how you doing how you doing how you
doing sounds more casual
and is much more commonly used and how
are you doing
how are you doing again the answer good
you
so i chose good here because this is the
most common response to these questions
you can say great you can say all right
you can say
not bad all of those are fine if you
give
a negative response for example if you
say
not so good or i feel sick
or i’m really tired or i’m upset you
should be prepared
to explain that it’s like you’re
starting a conversation
this is the standard response the other
person will probably say
good and then they’ll continue to the
next part of their conversation
so these are some listening points how
are you changes to how are you
and how are you doing changes to how you
doing
a little more natural a little more
friendly too
okay let’s continue to some time of day
greetings they are good morning good
afternoon and
good evening these tend to sound a
little bit more
formal than just hay or high or
other greetings i’ll talk about later so
good morning
used in the morning very commonly used
at work when you arrive
at the office and you see your
co-workers we use
good morning to say hello first thing in
the morning
good afternoon is a little more
commonly used in workplaces or
in perhaps in like client or customer
relationship situation
so for example if i’m teaching a lesson
and i see my students in the classroom i
come to the classroom
i say good afternoon to my students
because it’s sort of
there’s a little bit of distance there
good evening as well good evening would
begin
like a formal event we could begin a
formal event with good evening
we could use it at a restaurant for
example again in a customer
client relationship you could use it
with
friends and co-workers i suppose but it
might sound a little
too polite good evening so it’s not
wrong
but it might sound a little bit formal
we would probably with friends
in the evening we would probably just
say hey or hello or how are you
that sounds a little more friendly so to
respond to these
just repeat again i’ve marked this with
a star here just repeat
if someone says good morning to you you
can say good morning
something else we do here is we remove
good so this is to make it a little bit
more casual
and we’ll remove as i did with doing
down here this apostrophe
will drop this g sound and add an
apostrophe
here it’s more difficult to do with
afternoon but
instead of saying good morning like
clearly pronouncing everything
we’ll often drop good and say warnin
so there’s no g sound there mornin i end
on the
n sound or just afternoon or
evening so it sounds much more friendly
and it’s not quite as polite
actually so if someone says this to you
like morning you can just say
morning you can use the g sound as well
it’s up to you to choose
some people ask what’s the difference
between good evening
and have a good evening the difference
is
good evening is a greeting to a way to
say hello
have a good evening is a way to say
goodbye
so when you say have a good day have a
good evening
you’re saying goodbye actually so that’s
the difference if you want to say hello
please use good evening if you want to
say goodbye use
have a good evening also please be
careful
you’ll notice good night is not here
good night is also a way to say goodbye
or especially like for children like
from parents to children
a way to say like the day is finished
just before bed so good night
is used just before we go to sleep as
well so again a good buy
so please be careful not have a good
evening or good night
these are greetings we can use good
evening is a much better greeting
it’s the correct greeting to you so
please use good evening
don’t use goodnight okay let’s continue
to the next
couple uh these are related you might
not know at first but uh what’s
up what’s up this is a question that
causes people a lot of nervousness i
think how do i respond
to this so just answer not much
not much this is the standard reply just
like
good is the standard reply here use
not much to answer what’s up what’s up
not much what’s up nothing is also okay
nothing what’s up nothing nothing
or again we’ll often drop this g sound
nothing
or nothing so that sounds more casual
so what’s up not much you nothing or not
much
the other person will probably say the
same thing
again if you choose to use something
like
oh i had a bad day or you start to
explain like a difficult situation or
you
hint that something bad happened you
should probably be prepared to talk
about that
so what’s up not much you and nothing
that’s a very typical greeting
actually okay so then this sup
this sup comes from what’s up it comes
from this
s-u-p what’s up
so this is a very casual way of saying
what’s up what’s up is casual
this is even more casual sup
so you can say not much or you can just
reply to
sup with sub
so you might use this again very close
friends sup
sup that’s it it’s like saying hello
saying what’s up
what’s new with you but just really
quick really short
sup sup okay let’s move along then to
kind of some more special use greetings
depending on the situation you might
need to say hello to someone you have
not
seen for a long time these are
expressions you can use to do that
first one i haven’t seen you in so
long or i haven’t seen you in
ages ages an age is a very long time
so ages shows a very very
long time so i have not seen you i have
not seen you
in so long another one very common
a long time no c long time no see
one more it’s been a while it’s been a
while where this
it’s is actually it has been a
while it has been a while since i last
saw you it’s been a while since i last
saw you but
we only say it’s been a while we drop
the
last part of that one more
nice to see you again or it’s nice to
see you again
nice to see you again so these all are
like
greetings we can use when we haven’t
seen the other person for a long time
so how do we answer this we can answer
all of these with the same pattern
first agree yeah it’s been a long time
so again
you can use these expressions you know
uh
yeah a long time to see or yeah it’s
been a while or i said
yeah it’s been a long time so first
agree with the person
and then ask a follow-up how are
things how are things you can use this
similarly to how are you or how is it
going
how are things means how is your life
how are things good the answer is good
how are things
good or how are things busy how are
things
all right those are all very common very
standard responses to use
others if you want to level up your
grammar a bit
how have you been how have you been
and what have you been up to so you’ll
notice here
the grammar here is very similar to
these expressions that we talked about
over here
how have you been this is like a past
perfect way of asking how are you so how
are you now how have you been
in the period since i saw you last
since the last time i saw you up until
now how have you been that’s how we can
ask about that
same thing what have you been up to
what have you been up to is like the
past perfect
question of what’s up what’s up so
you’ll see this up what is up
now what is up with what have you been
up to so in other words since i last saw
you
until now what did you do what have you
been doing
so asking about those activities in that
period
since you last met that person so this
will change depending on your activities
you can say um for example for this one
what have you been up to you can answer
with
for example nothing just work
if you have no special news what have
you been up to nothing just work
so that’s fine if you have special news
you can say
you know i got married or i moved or i
got a new job something quick
is the best way to answer this for this
one
how have you been go back to this good
you so very very simple answers are the
best
okay let’s go on to two more kind of
special youth greetings then first one
it’s great to finally meet you it’s
great to finally meet you
so you’ll see if i remove finally here
this becomes a very common greeting
it’s great to meet you it’s nice to meet
you
but if you’re meeting someone that you
admire or you really respect
or you were really excited to meet that
person like you’re a fan
they’re a famous musician or a celebrity
or an artist or
an athlete for example you’re really
excited to meet that person
you can say it’s great to finally meet
you this
shows the listener that you were really
looking forward to meeting them to
having the chance to meet with them
if someone says this to you or if you
use this with someone
a typical response is thank you
it’s nice to meet you too so they’ll
typically say something like thank you
or
that’s really nice it’s nice to meet you
too
so this is just the same as any other
first greeting first time meeting
someone it’s nice to meet you too
thanks it’s nice to meet you too another
one this one you might uh hear
actually when talking with friends and
meeting new people
especially if you’re studying or working
in another country
the expression is i’ve heard so much
about you i’ve heard so much about you
this i’ve
i’ve i have i’ve heard so much about you
and sometimes i’ve heard so much about
i’ve heard so much about you
from my colleagues or i’ve heard so much
about you from
my roommate so using from here
shows where that person got the
information so
this may or may not be included i’ve
heard so much about you
a typical response is really i hope
nothing bad
or i hope you haven’t heard anything bad
so this is kind of a
very casual way to respond i hope
nothing bad
meaning i hope you haven’t heard
anything bad
about me so this shows that
the speaker has gotten information has
gained information
about the person they’re meeting but
this is still the first time meeting
that person
so this tends to be used in situations
where
the speaker has heard positive
information
if you’ve heard negative information
about a person i don’t recommend using
this expression
this has a positive feel about it i’ve
heard so much about you
tends to sound very happy and cheerful
so you can say
really i hope nothing bad or i hope it’s
good
so that’s kind of a friendly way to
start a conversation
with someone who already has some
information about you
so this is a quick introduction to some
very common
english greetings i hope that that was
helpful for you and i hope that you got
some ideas
for responses to these greetings of
course if you have any questions or
comments or want to practice greetings
please feel free to do so in the comment
section of this video
also if you like the video please don’t
forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe
to our channel 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 lesson and i will
see you again next time bye-bye
hi everybody my name is alicia in this
lesson i’m going to talk about the
differences
between in time and on time
let’s begin let’s begin with
in time the expression in time
we use this expression to refer to
activities
with deadlines or limited time
periods for completion let’s take a look
at some examples so we can see
how to use this phrase first
he made it to the station in time
for his train so made it means like was
able to arrive he was able to arrive
to the station he made it to the station
in time for his train this use of
in time before the noun phrase
his train shows us that
he in this situation was able to arrive
at the station before the deadline
for his train so his train has a
specific
time there’s a specific time period in
which
he is able to catch a train enabled is
able to catch his
train rather so using in time
shows us that he was able to do that and
we have a positive
sentence here so he made it to his train
he was able to catch his train
let’s look at another expression or
another example of this expression
i finished work in time to watch
the soccer game i finished work in time
to watch the soccer game so here in time
comes before this verb phrase to watch
the soccer game this means i finished
work
with enough time to watch the soccer
game so the soccer game
there’s a fixed amount of time a limited
time period that i can watch the soccer
game
i finished work at a point in time
that allowed me to watch the soccer game
so i finished work and there was still
time remaining to watch the soccer game
so we use
in time to show that i was still able to
do that thing
here it’s with a verb phrase let’s
continue to the next
example sentence this one is a negative
she didn’t arrive at the examination
center in time to take the test
in time to take the test here we see
it’s another
verb phrase in time to take the test so
in time
to do this action so this is the action
here as we’ve seen
in each of these example sentences the
item the noun phrase or the verb the
activity
comes after the end time expression
so in this case in time to take the test
but remember i pointed out this is a
negative
she didn’t arrive at the examination
center
in time to take the test means
she didn’t arrive at the center with
enough
time to take the test so there was a
deadline
to take the test there was some limited
like period of time
within which she needed to arrive in
order to complete this action
however she did not arrive
in time she did not arrive within that
limited time period or before
that deadline and therefore she did not
take the test let’s continue to another
negative example of this they didn’t get
to the concert hall
in time for the show so again here
after in time we see for the show
in this case it’s a noun phrase so we
see
this is the thing that was not able to
happen
we know that it was not able to happen
because of this negative
they didn’t get get means arrive or come
to
they didn’t get to the concert hall in
time for
meaning they weren’t able to arrive
before the show began
or in the limited period that the show
was happening
they didn’t arrive in time to do that
so we use in time to show these sorts of
deadlines or that we weren’t
able to do something within the limited
time period that we have to complete
that activity
we can also use this expression in
questions
for example are you going to get to the
office
in time for your meeting here we see get
again
which means like arrive or come to are
you gonna get to the office
in time for your meeting this is a
question that’s asking are you going to
arrive at the office
with enough time to join this meeting so
that means a meeting is scheduled
there’s some plan
and the speaker is asking the listener
if the listener is going to arrive
with enough time or within this limited
time
period to participate in this activity
so we can use this in questions as well
i pointed out throughout the example
sentences too
these noun phrases and verb phrases that
we see
after in time so you’ll notice
when we use in time four we follow
four with our noun phrase so we saw
in time for his train or in time
for the show in time for your
meeting so these are all noun phrases
when we want to talk about a verb
however
like an action doing some kind of action
we use
to with our verb phrase and the verb is
in the infinitive
form so we saw here time
to watch the soccer game so here’s my
verb in the infinitive form in time to
watch the soccer game
here in time to take the test so the
infinitive form of the verb is there
so when you use in time please make sure
to think about these two points is it a
noun phrase
is it a verb phrase you’re talking about
okay so with this in mind let’s continue
to the second part of this lesson
on time on time on time
the meaning here is it refers to
activities
that happen at the appointed appointed
means scheduled
time so on time therefore
implies or we know when we hear on time
that in the past a schedule was set
so we decided on something for example
like transportations or like meeting
schedules class schedules
those kinds of timetables are very
commonly used with
on time so on time refers to something
happening at a
scheduled time in time refers to
activities with
deadlines or there’s a limited time
period to
complete it let’s look at some examples
of how we can use
on time then first
she arrived at the office on time
so here what was the action the action
was this
arrived she arrived past tense she
arrived
at the office on time this shows us
she arrived at the office at the
scheduled
time or as scheduled this is another way
to say it she arrived at the office
as scheduled she arrived at the office
at the scheduled time
let’s look at one more we finished work
on time
today so we finished work at the
scheduled
time today is another way to say this we
finished work on time
today not we finished work in time today
i’ll come back to a point like that in
just a moment but on time
shows it was scheduled another example
this one a negative
the game didn’t start on time the game
didn’t start on time shows as the game
was probably
late the game didn’t start on time the
game was supposed to or the game was
scheduled to start
at 3 pm for example but the game started
at 3 30
for example in that case we could say
the game
didn’t start on time a negative
let’s look at another negative i didn’t
turn in my homework
on time i didn’t turn in my homework on
time
so here i did not turn in my homework
but this shows on time this shows us the
action was completed it was just
late so i didn’t turn in my homework on
time at the scheduled time
in other words the homework was due at
10 o’clock i
turned in the homework at 10 30 or 11
for example
so this sentence i didn’t turn in my
homework means the action just did not
happen
i didn’t turn in my homework on time
means the action happened
late okay let’s take a look at a couple
other expressions
one he’s on time for his 3 p.m
meeting he’s on time for his 3 p.m
meeting this
is something you might hear for example
a secretary or an assistant
or just someone else reporting the
activities
of another person he’s on time
for his 3 p.m meeting this is a sentence
that means
the person here he or she they this
person
their activities throughout the day
today
have led them to be in a position
of being on time in the future now
that’s a very strange way to say this i
know
but it means that person has been doing
many things all day long
and so now they know that they have this
3 p.m
meeting but they’ve been doing all these
other things and now
they’re still okay they’re still okay to
attend this meeting at 3 p.m that’s what
this uh
implies he’s on time for a 3 p.m meeting
so this is typically something that’s
used for like busy people to describe
busy people’s schedules
he’s on time for this she’s on time for
that so
like you might hear it used for like a
president or a prime minister like
someone that has a very very hectic or
crazy schedule
you might hear people reporting about
that person’s schedule and that person’s
upcoming activities with something like
this
okay we can use this in a question as we
saw within time
for example is the conference going to
finish
on time is the conference going to
finish on time
means is the conference going to finish
as scheduled at the scheduled
time so you can see we use on time to
refer to
scheduled to like asking questions and
making statements
about scheduled things we use in time to
refer to deadlines for completion
of an action i mentioned one point
though
i think i talked about it here we
finished work on
time today i mentioned this is one
situation where i might see
some like mistakes from students we
finished work
in time today we could say this we
finished work
in time today we finished work in time
today for something else
so when you’re using in time you need to
explain
the activity the thing that you were
able to do
or not able to do when you’re using in
time
when you’re using on time you’re
referring to some
past scheduled action so you don’t
always need to
explain the specific thing that you’re
talking about so for example she arrived
at the office on time
there was some schedule or every day she
starts work at 9 00 am
for example that’s on time when you’re
talking about
in time it may be a good idea to include
it
in your sentence here as i’ve done
occasionally in conversation when the
activity is obvious native speakers will
drop that from
in time but you don’t always need to
include it with on time
it might be a good idea to include the
activity with
in time however so this is a quick
introduction to some differences between
in time and on time and some sample
sentences
of course if you have any questions or
comments or if you want to practice
making sentences
with one of these two points please feel
free to do so in the comment section of
this video
of course if you like the video please
don’t forget to give it a thumbs up
subscribe to our channel if you have not
already and check us out at english
englishclass101.com
for some other things that can help you
with your english studies
thanks very much for watching this
lesson and i will see you again soon
bye
your condition is not getting better and
you decide to go to the nearby clinic
you receive a medical report what is the
diagnosis
foreign
you receive a medical report what is the
diagnosis
the diagnosis is food poisoning caused
by contaminated food
you just bought a few items from a local
shop online
what information does the website say
about the delivery date
what information does the website say
about the delivery date
the website says that delivery dates
differ depending on the delivery method
but all
dates should be calculated from the next
working day
hi everybody welcome back to know your
verbs my name is alicia and in this
episode we’re going to talk about the
verb
push let’s get started
let’s look at the basic definition of
the verb push
the basic definition is to use force
to move something away from you usually
examples we push the car out of the
garage
he pushed his chair into the aisle
let’s look at the conjugations for this
verb present
push pushes past
pushed past participle pushed
progressive pushing
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb
the first additional meaning is to
persuade someone
with force examples my boss is pushing
me to work more hours
don’t let them push you into a bad
decision so in both of these example
sentences
we see a situation where someone is
being
persuaded to do something
so when we use push it sounds like the
person
who is the object in the situation
does not want to do the thing that’s
being discussed okay so in the first
example sentence that means someone’s
boss
is pushing for more overtime work
so the boss wants more overtime however
the person involved in the situation the
person in the situation
does not want to work more over time the
boss tries to persuade
and they’re kind of using force so we
use
push to talk about that the boss does
not physically
i hope push this person but the boss
pushes
using words trying to persuade trying to
use
strong words to convince the other
person
to do overtime in the second example
sentence
don’t let them push you into a bad
decision it’s like there’s some
outside force outside person that’s
trying to convince
the listener in this case to make a
decision
but the decision might be a bad decision
for the listener
so in other words it means don’t let
them persuade
you or don’t let them convince you to
make a choice
that’s bad for you don’t let them push
you into a bad decision
the second additional meaning for the
verb push is to
advertise something a lot to advertise
something a lot
examples we’re really pushing our pdf
cheat sheets lately
what products should we push at the
trade show little joke about our pdf
cheat sheets there uh
totally my joke they didn’t tell me to
put it in but anyway
so when i say we’ve been pushing our pdf
cheat sheets recently it means we’ve
been advertising that product a lot
we’ve been advertising our pdf cheat
sheets a lot like on our live streams
and on our website and everywhere
like on our social media it means we’re
advertising that thing a lot so that’s
the thing that we hope
people see we want people to check out
that item
the second example sentence is a
question what products do we want to
push at the trade show
meaning what’s the focus advertisement
or what are the items we really really
want people to look at and we want to
show as much as possible what products
do we want to
push at the trade show okay let’s go on
to the third additional meaning
the third additional meaning is to try
to go
beyond something let’s look at some
examples first
marathon runners push the limits of
their bodies
the engineers are really pushing the
capabilities of the software
so in these example sentences we see
there’s some kind of
limit like in the first example it’s
body
limits so marathon runners try to push
the limits of their bodies
meaning the body has some established
limit like that means the body can do
this amount so
in this case it’s marathon running so
maybe the body could run
three to four hours at a time for
example where the body can run at this
speed i don’t know
it’s a lot so marathon runners try to
push this limit means they try to go
beyond
this limit that’s the image we’re
looking at here
so marathon runners try to push the
limits of their bodies try to go
beyond the limits of their bodies the
second example sentence is the same
but we’re talking about software
capabilities
so here the capabilities of the software
are the limit so the engineers
are pushing the capabilities of the
software
so now the software can do this but
maybe the engineers are making updates
are making changes
and they’re trying to go beyond the
current limits of the software so this
is maybe a nice visual i suppose for
this meaning of the verb
push okay let’s look at the fourth one
the fourth additional meaning for the
verb push
is to approach a number to approach a
number
let’s look at some examples sales are
pushing into the millions this year
grandpa is pushing 90. so we use this
when we’re like
wanting to express usually a high number
actually
when we’re talking about low numbers we
don’t really use
push push sounds like you’re approaching
a big
milestone so in the first example
sentence
sales are pushing into the millions it’s
like we’re gonna reach this milestone of
millions of sales so that’s a really
important number
so we can use pushing into which is like
it sounds like it’s an achievement
we’re going to move into the millions of
sales but pushing
sounds like a little bit like it was
kind of a struggle
maybe and so it’s like a special
achievement to reach this point
the second example sentence is similar
but we see it with
age so grandpa is pushing 90 means he’s
almost 90 maybe he’s 89 right now or 88
perhaps
but he’s nearly at the level of 90 years
old so that might be a difficult thing
to do
to live to 90 years old it sounds like
an achievement
and so it sounds like something that
could be a struggle so we can use
pushing to refer to nearly reaching that
point
we typically use this in the progressive
form actually we don’t use this in past
tense or in present tense really um
we don’t say like he pushes or she
pushed 90 or something like that we tend
to use it
in the progressive form to mean like
this is happening
now sales are pushing into the millions
grandpa is pushing 90. like right now
he’s approaching 90. so interesting
let’s move on to some variations for
this verb the first variation for the
verb push
is to push your luck to push your luck
so this has a very long
explanation to push your luck means to
try
too hard to get more
of something you already have and then
risk losing what you already have with
you
okay so let’s look at some examples it’s
hard to see okay
first one he agreed to take out the
trash
i probably shouldn’t push my luck and
ask him to
clean the kitchen too don’t push your
luck
the department isn’t likely to make any
more budget changes
so in the first example sentence he
agreed to take out the trash so that’s
like the achievement
the speaker got that he agreed to take
out the trash
the speaker also wants this person to
clean the kitchen
but they think uh i shouldn’t push my
luck
meaning i shouldn’t try too hard to get
something
more from this person i shouldn’t try
too hard for more from this person
because he might quit and
stop doing the task he originally agreed
to do
so i want him to clean the kitchen yes
but
i’ll stop i shouldn’t try too hard
because he might
quit the second example sentence there’s
kind of a subtle thing going on there
the second example sentence says don’t
push your luck so that’s an
advice statement the department isn’t
likely to make
any more budget changes so this sentence
implies we can guess that the listener
already got some kind of budget update
or maybe a budget increase
the person speaking in this situation is
advising
don’t try to get more in other words
like don’t try to ask for another budget
change or another budget update
because if you ask you might lose the
update you
already received so don’t push your luck
means don’t try to ask for
more of the thing you might lose what
you already gained
the second variation for the verb push
is to push around to push around means
to
bully someone to have mean behavior
towards someone
that has no meaning there’s no reason
for it you just push them around
they’re smaller or they’re not as
powerful as you
and so you can actually visually see
this like
to physically push someone around or to
push someone with your words as well
examples don’t let your co-workers push
you around
you shouldn’t push people around just
because they’re different from you
so to push around means probably in most
cases
using your words to push people around i
can’t think of many cases except in like
schools
where someone would physically just push
people around
in most cases it’s with words so you’re
using
like mean words or kind of bullying
behavior
to try to make uh yourself sound better
than another person
so don’t push people around in other
words you should try to be equal with
other people
so both of these example sentences show
them
the second example sentence you
shouldn’t push people around just
because they’re different from you
means you shouldn’t bully people just
because of a difference because of the
way they look or the way they sound or
where they work or live or whatever
so you should not do that you should not
push people around in other words you
should be kind to people
so those are a few new ways i hope that
you can use the verb
push if you have any questions or
comments or if you know another way to
use the word push please feel free to
let us know in the comment section of
this video
of course if you like the video please
don’t forget to give us a thumbs up and
subscribe to the channel too if you have
not already
also come check us out at
englishclass101.com
for other good english study tools
thanks very much for watching this
episode of know your verbs and we will
see you again
soon bye-bye
this is me pushing
good fun everybody great work all right
hi everybody welcome back to know your
verbs my name is alicia and in this
episode we’re going to talk about the
verb
adopt let’s get started
okay let’s start with the basic
definition of the verb adopt
the basic definition is to legally take
another person’s child and raise the
child as one’s own
examples one of my family members was
adopted
have you ever thought about adopting a
child
now let’s take a look at the
conjugations for this verb
present adopt adopts past
adopted past participle adopted
progressive adopting
now let’s talk about some additional
meanings for this verb the first
additional meaning
is to take and use usually something
that is new
examples she adopted an upbeat
personality for the evening
maybe the company should adopt a new
strategy
so these sentences use the word adopt as
in
like finding something new or finding
something that’s
not usually used but putting that thing
to
use in that situation so this is a
rather open meaning i know
so let’s look at the first example
sentence to get a little bit more detail
in the first example sentence we see she
adopted an
upbeat personality for the evening so
adopted in this meaning means to take
something and to put it to use something
that’s new
so that means she isn’t usually
an upbeat person necessarily but for
this
evening she had this idea to have an
upbeat personality so she took on she
decided to become a more
upbeat person for the evening so that
means it’s something different
from her past behavior so for the
evening only
she decided to be upbeat she adopted an
upbeat personality for the evening
in the second sentence maybe the company
should adopt a new strategy
we see adopt being used to mean like
take on a new
strategy maybe the company should take
on some kind of
new strategy is what this sentence means
but
adopt is a quick and easy way to say
that to
take something like to take an idea in
and to put the idea to use
is like adopt to adopt an idea to adopt
a strategy in this way
let’s look at the second additional
meaning for adopt the second additional
meaning
is to accept something and implement it
examples the government has adopted a
new policy
we adopted the architect’s proposals for
our new home
so here we’re seeing adopt used very
similarly to the first additional
meaning
however it means that there’s something
that’s accepted
so like there is some outside idea like
some kind of proposal
that’s presented somewhere to somebody
some group
and then it’s accepted following the
acceptance
it’s implemented that idea is used it’s
put into effect
so there’s kind of this flow happening
with this use of
adopt so it’s not only taking on
something new
and using it like we saw in the first
additional meaning
it’s like there are a few different
steps there’s like a proposal a new idea
acceptance of that idea and then use of
that thing
in the first example sentence it’s about
the government the government has
adopted
a new policy means a new policy
was presented to the government the
government accepted the policy and the
government is now
using that new policy so there are
effects of that new policy there are all
these different stages of the new policy
so the government has adopted a new
policy
means it’s at this final stage so now
this new policy
is like in effect um so it’s been
accepted and now it’s going
to be in effect if it’s not in effect
already
in the second example sentence we
adopted the architect’s proposals for
our new home
we see the same sort of flow so there
was some idea from the architect
presented to the client
the client accepted the idea and the
architect put it into practice the
architect put it into effect
so there’s some acceptance and then
implementation of that thing so they
adopted the ideas in other words so they
took on that ideas and put them into use
into practice
the next additional meaning is to
promise to care for something to promise
to care for something
some examples our community group
adopted a park
the organization is adopting a highway
and plans regular cleaning
so in this use of adopt we’re often not
talking about
a person being adopted rather it’s a
place
like in the examples here it’s a park or
you might often hear a highway or some
other kind of community space
so to adopt that space to adopt that
location
means to care for that location in many
cases
adopting a park or adopting a highway or
something similar
means that a person or an organization
pays some money and their name becomes
attached to that location
but they are also then responsible for
caring
for that location so you might see this
on highways like i remember when i was
growing up
on the highways in california it would
say
adopt a highway program on the signs
there so
to adopt a highway means to give some
money have your name
attached to that part of the highway and
then have some responsibility for caring
for that part of the highway
so there might be some community places
that have been
adopted by people or by organizations in
the city
so there’s some kind of name recognition
yes but there’s also responsibility to
care for that
so it’s adopting like adopting a child i
suppose
but we’re adopting a place we have to
care for that place
make sure the place is nicely maintained
and
is safe and good for the community
essentially
so in addition to this you’ll also see
adopt used
to talk about pets this can be used
more to talk about adopting animals from
shelters so we don’t really use adopt
when we talk about
buying a pet from a pet store
rather adopting a pet is something that
occurs more
when an animal is in a shelter like the
animal has been
um like lost or the animal has been
abused or
um bad or negative past experience
there are a number of reasons why
animals might be in a shelter
but people who come to the shelter and
choose a pet from the shelter
we can use the verb adopt to describe
that activity of choosing a pet and
taking the pet
home in that case also to adopt a pet
means to come to a shelter and choose a
pet and take the pet home
with the promise of caring for that
pet so feeding the pet cleaning the pet
making a safe
environment for the pet too so
adopt can mean a location it can mean
for children as we talked about in the
basic definition
and we can also use adopt to talk about
pets as well pets that we
can find at shelters too okay so i hope
that you found a new way to use the verb
adopt in your everyday life uh if you
have any questions or comments or if you
want to try to make a sentence with the
verb adopt please feel free in the
comment section of this video of course
don’t forget to subscribe to the channel
if you haven’t already
give the video a thumbs up if you liked
it and check us out at
englishclass101.com for other good
english study resources
thanks very much for watching this
episode of know your verbs and we’ll see
you again soon
bye-bye hey everyone
welcome to the monthly review the
monthly show on language learning
where you discover new learning
strategies motivational tips
study tools and resources by the way
all the lessons and bonuses you’re about
to see can be downloaded for free on our
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lifetime account
okay today’s topic is five ways to make
sure you start on the right foot with
language learning
ever wondered if you’re on the right
path with your language learning or
if you’re studying the right things and
taking the right steps
well today you’ll learn how to start on
the right foot with your language
learning journey
we’ll talk about one why you must know
your reason for learning the language
two how to set fail-proof goals and
rewards
three how to match your daily routine to
your learning so that you don’t struggle
with the actual learning
- why you need anchor points for
long-term motivation
and 5. how to improve faster with
ongoing assessment
how to start off on the right foot with
your language learning journey
there are five things you as a language
learner need to address
if you want to start off on the right
foot here they are
one your reason for learning two
your goal and reward three
matching your routine to your medium
four
anchor points and five assessments
if you get these squared away in your
first month you’ll be set up to succeed
with any language
goal you set and today we’ll walk you
through each point
the first one your reason for learning
why are you learning the language
so why is thinking about your why so
important
here’s an example think back to when you
were a kid and you were trying to save
money
what was the first thing you wanted to
buy and how much did it cost
you probably still remember what it was
and how much it cost
and because you knew the specific price
you were able to save up for it
if not at the very least you made more
progress than if you just said
i want to save money with no specific
purpose in mind
and that’s the thing if you know
precisely why you’re doing something
it’s easy to tie a goal to it and there
are all kinds of reasons to learn a
language
there’s travel family friends love or
maybe you’re living in a country that
speaks it
so knowing your reason clarifies your
mission
and gives you motivation from the start
now some reasons are
stronger than others for example living
in a country that speaks the language is
a powerful reason
you need it for survival if your reason
for learning is something simpler
like i just want to watch tv in that
language it’s not exactly something you
need to survive
does it matter whether you have a strong
reason or not not necessarily
strong reasons help with motivation
initially but people with strong reasons
can and do
fail and people with weak reasons
succeed it’s all up to the individual
but the point is you need to know why
you’re doing this
and that’s enough for you to take the
first step the second point
goals and rewards once you’ve clarified
your reason
it’s time to set your goals if you want
to succeed
your goal can’t just be i want to be
fluent one day
why because this tells you nothing about
how you’ll achieve it or
when you’ll reach fluency it’s too vague
your goal needs to be small measurable
realistic
and have a deadline so you can clearly
see the steps you need to take to reach
your goal
instead of saying i want to be fluent
one day which you can’t measure
and can’t precisely determine aim for
for example
30 words or one minute of conversation
you can measure these goals if you have
a deadline like
by next month you know your time frame
and unlike a goal like i want to be
fluent
a goal like i want to be able to talk
for one minute is much more realistic
now what about rewards now that you’ve
set a goal
you need to tie rewards to your goal why
rewards
shouldn’t you work hard first and worry
about rewards later
because rewards are powerful motivators
you should be working hard
but hard work often is not fun and you
need something to push you through
when you come home after a long day of
work on a rainy day
soaking wet the last thing you want to
do is open a book and start studying
it’s so much easier to turn on netflix
or something
but having that reward reminds you if i
achieve this then i get that
so defining what’s in it for me what do
i get boosts your motivation
you have something to look forward to
and get you through times when you don’t
feel like doing work
the third point is match your routine to
the study medium
once you have your goals and rewards you
need to fit your language learning
into your current life and daily routine
how
sit down and write out your daily
schedule for every day of the week
for example wake up at 7 00 am breakfast
at 8 a.m
get on the bus at 9 00 a.m work from 9
30 a.m
lunch at 1 pm and so on do this for
every day of the week
that way you can see where you can fit
in learning for example
if you ride the bus in the morning you
can use that time to listen to our audio
lessons
why do this well language learning is a
brand new routine
if you don’t work from your existing
daily routines it may not work out
for example if you decide to wake up an
hour earlier to study
now you’re adding two new routines
waking up earlier
and learning a language at once one is
hard enough but two makes it even harder
you may not wake up on time you may not
get out of bed you may fall right back
to sleep
the point here is you should piggyback
off of your existing routines
and use a learning medium that matches
your routine
so instead of waking up earlier keep
your daily routine
but look for another way to introduce
language learning
write out your daily routine see where
you spend your time and then match your
routine to learn it
if you take walks and listen to music
swap out music for language lessons and
listen along
if you take the bus or train check out
our audio and video lessons
if you usually read in the evenings and
can focus try using a textbook
in all of these examples you’re taking
an existing routine and adding language
learning inside
the fourth point is set anchor points
anchor points are the connections you
make to a language that boosts your
motivation and keep you attached or
anchored
to your goal so you don’t slip away so
what’s an example of an anchor point
for example if you have friends or
relatives that speak the language
and if you’re around them and you’re
exposed to the language you’re more
likely to learn
same thing with watching tv shows in the
target language you’re exposed to it
more
so your interest in learning naturally
goes up also
investing in a textbook or learning
program signing up for classes or for a
proficiency test
all of these are anchor points that
connect you back to the language
why do you need anchor points oftentimes
your initial reason for learning the
language
isn’t as motivating as it used to be
maybe you were motivated in month one
but not in month five that’s why people
with strong reasons
might fail so an anchor point gives you
another reason to keep going and boost
your motivation
and also often times the reason we start
isn’t the same as the reason we continue
anchor points are not something you need
to worry about in your first month of
learning
but adding them in the second month and
afterward will help you keep going
can you think of any anchor points you
can add leave a comment
finally the fifth point is you need
assessment
now that you have goals rewards routine
and anchor points
it’s not enough to learn a language
alone in a vacuum you need
feedback and course correction from a
native speaker
with our learning program you can learn
with your very own teacher
you can also leave comments on lessons
and get answers from the others
or you can find a tutor of your own
someone that will assess your progress
and correct you as needed
so let’s recap there are five things you
as a language learner need to address if
you want to start off on the right foot
one clarify your reason for learning
two set goals and rewards three
match your routine with your study
medium
four set anchor points and five get
ongoing assessment
so thank you for watching this episode
of monthly review
next time we’ll talk about how to deal
with missed language goals and failure
if you enjoyed these tips hit the like
button
share the video with anyone who’s trying
to learn a language and subscribe to our
channel
we release new videos every week and if
you’re ready to finally learn language
the fast fun and easy way and start
speaking from your
very first lesson get our complete
learning program
sign up for your free lifetime account
right now click the link in the
description
see you next time bye
want to cut your language studying time
in half in this video you’ll discover
how learning a language using pdf
lessons
is convenient efficient and can help you
cut your studying time
nearly in half many people give up on
their dream of learning a second
language because traditional classroom
instruction is too much of a hassle
between getting to class studying on
someone else’s schedule
and just the sheer expense of the book’s
intuition traditional learning can be
tough
many people simply give up online
classes are an
option but sometimes limited data plans
can derail the dream of learning a new
language
fortunately there is a solution learning
language using pdf lesson notes
let’s take a closer look at how studying
language lessons in pdf format
can help you reach your dream in about
half the time of normal video or audio
lessons
first print all lessons and pdf tools
and take them with you anywhere
sometimes a tiny smartphone screen just
isn’t adequate
especially when you’re trying to learn
something new the great thing about pdf
lessons is that they can be quickly
printed
and taken anywhere after you download
them in fact
printing out lessons in pdf format can
actually save you
time when compared to going through the
material on a smartphone with a small
screen
even with the extra printing time second
they’re a great study tool to boost
retention
and mastery studying video or audio
lessons online is a great way to learn a
language
because students can play and rewind
sections as many times as needed until
the lesson is mastered
but when you review the same lessons
again in pdf format
an incredible thing happens your
retention dramatically improves
thanks to time-space repetition seeing
the information again
in written format helps reinforce the
information in your mind
and improves both retention and recall
the benefits of learning a language
using pdf lessons
quickly add up to significant time
savings for you your data plan
and your dream of learning a new
language third
all lessons in pdf format include
in-depth instructor notes
we have thousands of hd video and audio
lessons
and each one includes a pdf version with
a line-by-line transcript so you can
read along with the lesson as it appears
online
in addition to the line-by-line
transcript all lessons include in-depth
instructor notes with more information
sample sentences explanations and
translations
the additional information and notes
help you learn faster
and with greater mastery than using the
video or audio lessons alone
and when paired with language learning
video games
video and audio lessons or other study
aids
our pdf lessons help you reach your
dream of learning a new language faster
and
easier than many traditional classroom
settings
fourth you can download the world’s
largest online collection of lessons by
real instructors planning on going on
vacation
and don’t know if you’ll have reliable
internet service if you’re learning
through pdf lessons it’s not a problem
once you download lessons in pdf format
to your smartphone
pc or favorite media device they are
yours to use and keep forever
once downloaded you can either print out
or access your lessons in pdf format
regardless of internet access
when you consistently learn through pdf
lessons the time savings and benefits
quickly compound
from quicker access to faster learning
pdf lessons can potentially reduce
total study time required to learn a
concept our pdf lessons include
instructor notes and supplemental
resources that help you learn faster and
with less effort
so if you’re ready to finally learn a
new language the fast
fun and easy way sign up for your free
lifetime account by clicking on the link
in the description
signing up takes less than 30 seconds
and you’ll start speaking from your very
first
lesson if you enjoyed these tips hit the
like button
share the video with anyone who’s trying
to learn a new language and subscribe to
our channel
we release new videos every week i’ll
see you next time bye
are you afraid of making mistakes in
your target language
afraid you’ll never ever be able to have
a conversation or give a presentation
or maybe you’re afraid of something else
in this video we’ll cover four fears
related to language learning and how to
overcome them
the first one is i’m afraid i’m not good
enough to speak
i freeze do you feel like you’re not
good enough to speak yet
a lot of people can relate to this one
probably all language learners have felt
this at some point
it’s a pretty common fear here are some
tips to overcome it
first speak from day one the best way to
get good at speaking is to practice
speaking
if you’re holding yourself back because
you think you’re not good enough you’re
making a mistake
that’s exactly why you’re not improving
you need to open your mouth and start
talking
second if you’re not sure what to say to
start speaking
consider practicing with existing
dialogues in our lessons
you get scripts for introducing yourself
making small talk ordering food
expressing opinions and
much more if you’re looking for some
things to use for speaking practice
the lessons will give you the exact
lines and conversations
our third tip learn with your own
teacher with our premium plus plan
with premium plus you get an actual
native speaker teacher to tell you what
to say
and how to say it you can actually learn
to speak with the help of a real native
teacher
fear number two is i’m afraid i’ll never
be fluent
this is a common fear for beginner
learners once you start improving and
seeing progress
this goes away when you’re just starting
out with a new language fluency can feel
like an impossible goal there are so
many new things to learn and so many
methods you can use
it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all
the options but you can’t let yourself
fall into that trap
the longer you keep at it the better
your language skills will become
and slowly you’ll stop worrying about
fluency
what’s important is that you put in time
and continue working on moving forward
so how do you overcome worries about
never becoming fluent
how do you motivate yourself to continue
first
set small specific goals instead of just
saying i want to become fluent
how do you know when you become fluent
fluency is hard to determine
instead of creating a vague hard to
understand goal for yourself
focus on working towards smaller goals
for example set goals like being able to
introduce yourself
or having a five-minute conversation
something you can measure
so you’ll know when you’ve reached it
fluency can be difficult to measure
if you set goals that you can measure
you can track your progress
this helps keep your motivation up over
time
the third fear is i’m afraid i’m not
actually learning or making progress
if you’re afraid you’re not making
progress there are a few things you can
do right now
first of all review a lot of people hear
a new phrase once
and think they’ll remember it but that
usually doesn’t happen
so when they forget what they’ve learned
they get worried that they’re not
learning
or that the lessons don’t work but the
truth is you have to review again and
again to truly master something
second use the dashboard to track your
progress
if numbers and data are helpful for you
as you track your learning
check out our dashboard it tracks your
progress and gives you dynamic reports
third try a harder lesson on the site
you might not understand it all at first
and that’s okay
you’ll be able to after some study all
lessons come with line-by-line
translations and our teachers explain
every single word break down these
harder lessons
if you have to work a little more slowly
it’s okay when you finish the lesson you
can be sure of your progress
because you’ll be able to understand
something you didn’t understand a few
minutes earlier
fourth learn one-on-one with a teacher
with our premium plus plan
they will personally review your writing
and your speaking and will fix your
mistakes
getting regular feedback from a native
speaker is a great way to know if you’re
making progress
it’s such a great feeling to hear a
native speaker tell you wow you’re
getting good
the fourth fear is i’m afraid of not
understanding anything i hear this is
very common
you hear advanced grammar and vocabulary
and it goes completely over your head
you have no idea what you’ve just heard
here are some tips for working on this
issue
if you’re taking an advanced lesson read
along with the script reading along with
our line-by-line dialogue is the best
way to improve your understanding of
advanced conversations
if you’re in a real life situation the
solution is quite simple
learn useful phrases like excuse me can
you say it again slower
or can you say it in simpler words or
even just
i don’t understand there’s nothing wrong
with saying that you didn’t understand
something or asking for help
these are some common fears for most
language learners and we hope these tips
help you
is there anything else that you’re
afraid of when it comes to learning
another language
let us know in the comments and maybe we
can share some suggestions for how to
overcome them
for the tools we’ve talked about in this
video and much more
check out our complete language learning
program sign up for your free lifetime
account by clicking on the link in the
description
get tons of resources to have you
speaking in your target language
and if you enjoyed these tips hit the
like button
share the video with anyone who’s trying
to learn a new language and subscribe to
our channel
we release new videos every week i’ll
see you next time
bye are you struggling to reach your
language learning goals
or losing motivation for learning in
this video we’re going to talk about how
to reach your goals
how to enjoy the process and the
importance of rewarding yourself
part one how to reach your language
goals
it’s pretty exciting when you reach a
goal you know your hard work is paid off
and you can see your results
but how do you set goals to ensure you
can reach them and get that feeling of
satisfaction
the best way to see real results and
achieve your language learning goals is
to set small
measurable goals many people make the
mistake of setting big
vague goals like i want to be fluent or
i want to speak a new language then they
download an app
or get a textbook and they try to reach
their goal but they quickly give up
because the goal they’ve set for
themselves is too
overwhelming this is why it’s important
to set small
measurable monthly or weekly goals from
the beginning of your studies
reaching your goals helps you develop
confidence in yourself and your ability
to get things done
for example you might make it a goal to
be able to have a one minute
conversation by the end of your first
month of studies
and have a two-minute conversation by
the end of month two
maybe after six months you aim to have a
10-minute conversation with someone
specific measurable goals like these
help you track your progress and prevent
you from getting overwhelmed
by creating small goals like these you
set yourself up for success
when you reach one of your goals even if
it’s a small one you feel a sense of
accomplishment
this helps you enjoy the learning
process which is the next topic we’re
going to focus on
part two how to enjoy the language
learning process
if you’re always focused on goals and
results though how do you enjoy the
process of learning a language
okay so let’s say that in addition to
larger goals you’ve made small realistic
goals like learning 100 words in a month
that’s three to four words per day goals
like these are very easy to accomplish
and when you complete them it feels good
this is one of the enjoyable parts of
learning a language
so imagine accomplishing small goals all
throughout your week
it’s a great way to keep your motivation
up and enjoy the process of learning
smaller goals can help you stay on track
and keep your confidence up
when we feel like we’re not making
progress we can get frustrated and lose
motivation
think about days when you’re super busy
at work or at school
some days you might be so busy you don’t
complete any tasks
when nothing seems to move forward we
can lose confidence in ourselves and
feel like quitting
this is why giving yourself some small
easy to accomplish goals can be
extremely helpful
you can approach your studies with
confidence because you know that you’re
working towards your next goal
and that you can actually achieve it
here’s something you can try if you feel
like your progress has slowed down
go back and review something you studied
a few weeks or a few months earlier
try to remember how difficult it was at
first looking over past materials can
help us understand how much we’ve grown
the same thing is true for conversations
when you start learning a language
you’ll learn things like how to
introduce yourself
ask basic questions and talk about the
weather after a few months of study
though
you’ll learn how to talk about your
hobbies your neighborhood or your
personality
it’s sometimes hard to remember just how
much progress we’ve made
but look back on your work from time to
time all those hours you put in are
reflected in your current abilities
it’s exciting when you realize how far
you’ve come of course
some people might also reflect on
mistakes they made especially if these
mistakes led to miscommunications with
native speakers
while these memories can be embarrassing
they can still be useful for your
studies
try to shift your mindset towards
mistakes making an embarrassing mistake
can be helpful in the long run
because we remember the experience
vividly and we want to avoid repeating
it
if the mistake wasn’t so embarrassing
maybe you can laugh about it and use
that memory to ensure you make the right
decision in the future
lastly we want to remind everyone of the
most enjoyable part of the language
learning process
the new friends connections and
experiences you gain through the
language
you can use the language you’re studying
as a tool to create friendships to meet
new people and to travel
if you ever get to a point where
learning isn’t fun or interesting
anymore
take a moment and consider why are you
getting overwhelmed
falling behind on your goals if your
schedule has changed or your goals have
changed that’s fine
adjust your study plan and your study
goals to make the learning process work
for you
revise your approach and make sure
you’re enjoying learning
part three the importance of rewards
if you haven’t gotten into the practice
of rewarding yourself for reaching a
goal
now is a great time to start a reward
can be a powerful way to motivate
yourself to complete a goal
if your reward is travel or event
related it can also act as a finite
deadline
this can push you to focus even more you
can decide to reward yourself with
something you buy with an experience or
maybe just with some time to relax
choose a reward that will work best for
you
positive reinforcement can be very
helpful in the learning process
it’s one thing to hit a goal and feel
good about it but if you have a reward
too it seals the deal
it helps you keep the cycle going and
will help you keep learning
so today we covered goal setting how to
enjoy the process of learning
and the importance of rewards make sure
you set small measurable goals in
addition to your larger goals
find ways to enjoy the process of
studying and make sure to reward
yourself for your achievements
learning a language should be fun and
satisfying
for some more resources to help you
reach your goals check out our complete
language learning program
sign up for your free lifetime account
by clicking on the link in the
description
get tons of resources to have you
speaking in your target language
and if you enjoyed these tips hit the
like button share the video with anyone
who’s trying to learn a new language and
subscribe to our
channel we release new videos every week
i’ll see you next time
bye want to speak and understand more of
your target language
if so of course you’ll need to know more
words and phrases than you do now in
this video we’ll cover
five ways to master new words and
phrases fast
number one use our free vocabulary list
this is a free library of vocabulary and
phrase lessons for
all kinds of situations you can learn
words and phrases for current events
holidays like halloween and thanksgiving
and useful topics
like the top 10 ways to say hello
conversational phrases
and more you’ll learn phrases that you
won’t
find in textbooks if you want to learn
extra fast use the slideshow tool
just tap or click on view slideshow then
sit back and review the words and
phrases
find the vocabulary list in the
vocabulary drop down menu on the site
these vocabulary lists are free for all
users
number two take the audio and video
lessons
one of the best ways to learn new words
is by hearing and using them in
conversations
this is because it gives you the
opportunity to understand how the words
are actually used
in every lesson dialogue you’ll likely
come across some words you don’t know
but don’t worry because our teachers
translate everything
when you hear the conversation again at
the end of the lesson you’ll be familiar
with the words you didn’t know at first
number three learn with our 2000 most
common words list
a quick question how many words do you
think you need for conversational
fluency
3000 5000 it’s actually not as many as
you think
language experts say you need about 1
500 words to reach conversational
fluency
with our 2000 most common words list
you’ll get access to key vocabulary
words you need to boost your
conversation skills
the words are broken down into simple
categories such as adjectives
nouns verbs food drinks numbers months
and so on
so you can go category by category and
focus on what you’re most interested in
first
with this tip we’re not talking about
paper flash cards
we’re talking about the smart flash
cards that you can find in our premium
study tools
this is an automatic system
individualized for each member based on
their study needs
first you’ll use the cards to check your
knowledge then
according to your answers the cards will
be sorted according to which words you
need more practice with
words that you struggle with will be
shown to you more and more
you’ll see words that you know well less
often this system helps you study more
efficiently
it displays the words you need to work
on and knows when you should refresh
your knowledge
this helps make sure you don’t forget
vocabulary
in every study session these cards will
help you refresh your memory on the
words you learned last time
and introduce new words number five
use the words after you learn a new word
using it right away is crucial to
remembering it
so when you’re done with a lesson or a
vocab list here’s something you can do
leave a comment make up a sample
sentence and post it in the comment
section
write it down in a notebook or shadow
the word with a lessons dialogue
our language learning program is full of
tools that can help you speak more
just pick one and get started if you
want to unlock
all of these study tools check out our
complete language learning program
sign up for your free lifetime account
by clicking on the link in the
description
get tons of resources to have you
speaking in your target language
and if you enjoyed these tips hit the
like button
share the video with anyone who’s trying
to learn a new language and subscribe to
our channel
we release new videos every week i’ll
see you next time bye
great work here’s a reward speed up your
language learning with our pdf lessons
get all of our best pdf cheat sheets and
ebooks for free
just click the link in the description