1 Hour to Improve Your English Grammar Skills

want to master grammar so you can speak properly express yourself better and understand more in this video i'll show you how to master grammar with our lessons and learning program let's begin number one listen to the lesson conversations and explanations in every lesson you learn a conversation then our teachers break down every word and grammar rule so you're actually learning grammar rules in the context of conversations and you can easily see how they're used once you're done review the conversation again and again to remember what you've learned number two read the bonus explanations and tutorials with the lesson notes you get extra grammar explanations and examples that are not presented in the lesson after you're done with a lesson read the lesson notes for extra review you can even save them as pdfs so that you can access them anytime number three leave a comment on the lesson once you've learned a grammar point be sure to use it leave a comment in the comment section write some example sentences for practice our teachers will review your comment and give you feedback number four unlock even more grammar lessons if you want to find all of the grammar lessons available visit our lesson library under category choose grammar you'll get all of the pathways and lessons dedicated to helping you learn and master sentence patterns and grammar points 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 it 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 hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question comes from isaac alexander hi again isaac isaac says hi alicia what's the difference between by chance by accident and accidentally by chance tends to be used in more positive situations you can think of it as like a happy accident when you have a happy accident you can use by chance i was out shopping and i ran into a co-worker by chance by accident is probably the least used of these three that you've introduced so by accident you might also hear on accident we use this for negative coincidences things that are not so good i sent my boss the wrong files on accident the last one that you introduced accidentally is the most common one that we use for negative situations negative coincidences i accidentally deleted my portfolio and with this pronunciation i'm saying it really clearly accidentally accidentally but in fast speech we say accidentally accidentally i accidentally deleted my portfolio so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question let's move on to your next question next question comes from jahanvi hi jahanvi jahanvi says what is the difference between in spite and despite the two have the same meaning in spite and despite just have to be kind of slightly changed to fit into a sentence let's look at two examples in spite of her sensitive stomach my friend ate ice cream every day despite her sensitive stomach my friend ate ice cream every day so when we make a sentence with in spite we say in spite of a noun phrase when we use despite we say despite followed by a noun phrase i want to connect this question to a similar question that we got for this week this is from moad guitar hi moad moad said i want to ask about the differences between despite although though and in spite of so we talked about despite and in spite of we tend to use although a little more often at the beginning of a sentence like although it's kind of like a formal but and though might be more like at the middle part of a sentence so like a though be so that's kind of how we might use these two i hope that that answers both of your questions i hope that that helps you i'll try to make a whiteboard video about this topic as well thanks very much for sending these questions okay let's move along to your next question next question comes from satish hi satish satish says hi alisha how are you i'm good when i listen english i am translating it to my country's language in my mind how can i stop that and was using present continuous tense in the above sentence correct um so one your present continuous tense no it is not correct in that i'll come back to that a little bit later for now though your question about translating um to your language in your head i've talked about this a couple times here and there in other videos so i'll just review again by sharing the things that helped me to stop translating in my head one thing that really helped me was making an environment making a place where i could not escape into my native language so in my case that meant i found like a hobby group something that i wanted to learn how to do i found that in my target language i found that in japanese i would go to that once a week there was no option for me to do that in english the teacher didn't speak english the other students didn't really speak english like i had no choice but to learn and it was hard at first so over time i learned the vocabulary words i met people and i got to chat a little bit with people and then i also just kind of like built my listening skills as well so that was really helpful for me following that then i would often like go out with people from that group so i would make friends there and then maybe we'd go out for drinks we'd go to get something to eat together and that was another situation where i could not escape into english so i had to use japanese i had no choice if i didn't do that i couldn't talk to anybody so that was really helpful for me and this leads to my second tip for stopping this sort of translation problem um which is try not to rely on your dictionary like i know that we all now have a phone and like there's a dictionary in here we can check when we don't know a word but my problem with this with using this too much is that it stops the flow of conversation like when you're talking with someone and you don't know exactly the word you want to use instead of just reaching for your dictionary try to think of a different way to explain the thing that you're trying to say you want to say turn on the light like you can't think of turn on so what are some other ways that you could explain that motion like uh how do i say like the light is not bright and then the light becomes bright what's this what's this action like think of the tools that you have in your head to explain the idea and then your friend can teach you the word so use that as an opportunity to one use the words that you already know and then so two get a new word using those tools um three it's just a really great communication tool because even sometimes like in our native language we forget a word or we don't know the right word to use so just think about using the tools that you already have the other thing that i would recommend and that i've recommended a lot on this channel is consuming media so that means tv and movies books comics whatever trying to use the language as much as possible in your day-to-day life like listening to it and reading it um because you're kind of absorbing the natural ways that people use that language like textbook language and real world language are different so you need to make sure you have a chance to experience that real world language so media is great of course you can check out the stuff we have on our channel and our website but you can just watch movies watch tv shows find podcasts as well so there are lots of different ways to check out media but basically just try to get your brain used to listening to and experiencing the language so that you don't have to like really work at translating every single sentence in your head and then over time and with practice you'll eventually stop translating and one day you'll just be able to do it and you probably won't realize it that's what happened to me actually like i just one day i was like oh i don't have to translate anymore it just was it just was done so i hope that that helps you those are a few tips for translating in your head your other question was about your use of present continuous tense in your first sentence you said when i listen to english i am translating it to my country's language we would not use the present continuous tense here because you're talking about a regular action that you do this is a regular thing that you do we use the present continuous tense for temporary actions so in this case you should say i translate it in my head use the present tense there okay so thanks very much for those questions i hope that it helps you let's move on to our next question next question comes from eric hi eric eric says uh hi what does get wild mean in this phrase for example he's getting wild with the letters uh to get wild means to be crazy like to go crazy to do something like surprising or shocking i'm not sure exactly about your example sentence situation to get wild with the letters i'm not sure what that is but it's like it means to become crazy to do something crazily graffiti uh to get wild with the letters like drawing the letters could be maybe he has like a stack of letters in his room and he's just throwing them all over the place i don't know like if i could get wild with the lesson and just start running around the studio he would be like she's getting wild a lesson tear down the green screen to get wild with the lesson and we're done so i hope that that helps you understand the expression get wild thanks very much for the question let's move along to your next question next question comes from joey joey hi joey joey says what's the difference between envy and jealous um envy is a noun and a verb so for example i envy you or envy is dangerous jealous is an adjective like you got the best seats in the theater i'm so jealous you got a long vacation i'm super jealous all right so i hope that that helps you thanks for the question all right that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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 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 naru hi again naru naru says hi alicia what's the difference between it and that for example i do yoga every morning i do it too or i do that too we use it to replace a noun that we mentioned earlier in the conversation um so like for example i bought a new computer it's really cool or i built a new computer it was really hard so that it refers to like the process of building a computer or it refers to like the computer i bought in the first sentence so we use it to replace that thing that object that specific process when we use that however yes we are talking about something we referred to earlier in the conversation but we're using it for something that the speaker and the listener shared it's a shared experience so if you use that to talk about an experience that you did not share with your listener it's gonna sound really weird so in your example like i do yoga every morning and someone says oh i do that too it makes sense because both speakers in that situation have the experience of doing yoga in the morning if you say oh i do it too it's like it's not wrong but it does sound less natural than using that so when you have a shared experience of a situation you can use that i hope that this helps you thanks for an interesting question okay let's get on to your next question next question comes from artie hi artie artie says hi alicia how do you politely ask someone about their health condition is it common to use are you sick since sick can also mean crazy or insane uh yeah good question and actually it's totally fine to ask are you sick that's totally fine this depends on your intonation so if you say are you sick and you have this like concerned look and you have this concerned voice there's not gonna be a communication problem if you've seen a movie where a character is like are you sick like that's the situation where it's talking about the person's like mental health they're like are you crazy are you insane when they use like that shocked horrified face like are you sick do you want to fill all those donuts with mustard that's a situation where you would say are you sick and it means crazy or insane other ways you could ask would be like are you okay are you feeling okay do you have a cold that kind of thing thanks very much for the question let's go to your next question next question comes from ismail hi ismail ismail says hi alicia thanks for your support what's the difference between may and might there isn't really a difference honestly may and might are used in the same situations when you're talking about possibility in american english however might is more common than may some examples i might have forgotten my wallet i may have forgotten my wallet they're the same but may sounds a bit more formal in american english we tend to use might so this question actually connects nicely with a question from another viewer this comes from alan chan hi alan alan asked hi alicia how can i use may be and probably okay so we talked about how we use mei and might in the same way to talk about possibility so now let's talk about may and be together not maybe but may be and might and probably so let's compare these we use may and be when we want to talk about something that could possibly be something else that sounds very open so let's look at some examples hmm this may be the restaurant he recommended he may be the right person for the job so this is the pattern we can use for may be and might be so i want to continue on to probably so if we imagine may and might express this sort of like uncertainty maybe on a scale from like 0 to 100 may and might is maybe like 40 or so probably has a much higher level of certainty like 70 or 80 or so so we have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen in the future but there's a little bit of like wiggle room like we're still not 100 sure some examples i'm probably gonna sleep late tomorrow she's probably not gonna reply tonight so it probably shows the speaker has a higher level of certainty so i hope that this helps you use may and might and maybe and might be and probably and maybe also too thanks very much for these two questions great let's move on to your next question next question comes from lombardosi marco hi lombardosi lombardosi says can you explain the difference between all and whole with some examples sure let's begin by looking at some example sentences my dog ate all the cupcakes my dog ate the whole cake my roommate stole all the iphone chargers my roommate stole my whole electronics box you can see in the sentences that use all that we're looking at individual units of something in the first example sentence with the dog the dog ate all the cakes all the cupcakes so we're talking about individual units there in the second situation the roommates stole all the iphone chargers so we're looking at individual units one thing but all of those one things so when we want to emphasize the unit we use all all plus the unit you'll also notice that the units use the plural form we're using the plural form of the noun so in the dog situation it's cupcakes in the roommate situation it's iphone chargers we're using the plural form however when we're using whole we're talking about something that can be broken down into units so in the dog situation it's a cake so one cake can be like many smaller pieces of cake in the second example sentence it's about like a box of electronic equipment or like electronic related things so it's not the things inside the box it's the complete box so we imagine that this is like one complete unit one complete set of something so we use all like i said when we want to emphasize like the units the small pieces of something so like all my cupcakes or all of my iphone chargers we're emphasizing the unit there using hole to like refer to a larger thing that's composed of many smaller units really emphasizes like your level of shock or your level of surprise that that thing was affected so as you pay attention in your reading i think reading will help you to find some more examples of this just look and see like the kinds of units and the typical kinds of like um larger nouns that get this whole treatment so like foods are great examples like a whole pizza or a whole cake or a whole turkey or a whole chicken so that refers to one thing composed of many parts so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question let's go on to your next question your next question is from tian fu hi tian tien says can you explain a bit more sophisticated without context i can't be exactly sure what this means but i think that this is a comparative phrase so let's make a complete sentence to start restaurant a is a bit more sophisticated than restaurant b so a bit more means like a little more than something else a little more or a small amount more than something else sophisticated means like refined or maybe they have lots of culture lots of knowledge if you're talking about a person in this case with a restaurant maybe it's well-rounded so there's like lots of kind of experience that was used to make this restaurant like the restaurant decorator had lots of worldly experience so the menu has a lot of like different world flavors i don't know so it's something that's sophisticated it has like a high class image so if you use a bit more sophisticated it means item a is a higher level of sophistication than item b in this case a restaurant so i hope that this helps with your understanding of the phrase a bit more sophisticated okay that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video 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 so which is better pokemon or spider-man pokemon pokemon 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 karima again hi karima prima says hi lisha could you please tell me what does the expression give it a try mean give it a try is a friendly way to suggest someone try something so we use give it a try like after we show someone a process we teach someone how to do something we show them how to do something and then we say okay give it a try like now it's your turn please try this thing i showed you if you're at the golf course and you show someone how to swing a golf club you could say all right give it a try i think we do it on this channel actually we introduced like a vocabulary point or a grammar point and then ask you give it a try so it's a suggestion to try something hope that helps you thanks for the question okay next question next question comes from sanju hi sanju sanju says what is the main difference between simple past and present and past participle or perfect tense the main difference is that simple past tense is used for actions that started and finished in the past there's often a specific time point we know when the action started and when the action finished with perfect tense though we don't know when the action started or when the action finished so we use it to talk about like life experience in the past like maybe when it happened is not so important but we use it for like travel experience or job experience so that's one thing that we do with perfect tense the other thing is we use it to talk about actions that started in the past and that continued to the present especially with the continuous tense we also do this um to talk about the effects of actions that started in the past and continue to the present so like for example i saw beyonce live last week is a past tense sentence so when we want to use the perfect tense like we've seen beyonce live so many times that means we've seen beyonce in the past many times but when is not important so we use that perfect tense we've seen we have seen so another example like when i get this question i sometimes will say like i've talked about this many times i have talked about this many times is a perfect tense statement so in the past i have discussed this this is something i talked about uh at points in the past so i can use perfect tense to describe that so if you have any questions about simple past tense or present perfect tense i would recommend checking the videos that we have on the website or on the youtube channel so i talk more about how to use these two grammar points thanks for the question i hope that that helps okay next question next question comes from semi hi again sami semi says hi what's the difference uh i want you to know i want to you know i want you know from these choices only the first one is grammatically correct i want you to know so it could introduce something it could introduce an idea like i want you to know i did my best the other two things that are you presented here they're not grammatically correct maybe with some punctuation or maybe in a conversation with the right emphasis they could be part of something else i'm not sure but the other two things uh are not grammatically correct so the difference here is that your first option is correct and it can begin an idea i hope that that helps you okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from danny hi danny hi again danny danny says i'd like to know about finish has finished and is finished okay um finish can be a noun or a verb as in the first item just finish in present tense it's used like in present situations or to talk about future situations so like let's finish work or we should finish this soon so we can go to the party something like that let's finish so that's an upcoming activity let's go on to is finished when we see this is finished it's actually finished being used as an adjective so we know that because we see is there is is our verb so like he is finished she is finished class is finished so it's an adjective it's describing the situation finished there we use that to talk about something that is completed it's done so we could use a verb form like class finished at nine o'clock or we could say like at nine o'clock class is finished so that's the current state that's the current situation uh the race is finished or dinner is finished let's compare that to has finished so has finished is using the present perfect form so finished here is the past participle form of the verb finished something has finished as i talked about in one of the other questions in today's episode has finished that would be the present perfect tense meaning that something occurred in the past and the effects of that continue to the present this is an example of an effect continuing to the present we would see has finished used in like a polite situation for example like i imagine at like a hotel breakfast service if hotel breakfast ends at like nine o'clock but i'm a guest and i arrive at 9 30 and i want to eat breakfast the hotel staff might say to me sorry breakfast has finished so they could say i'm sorry breakfast is finished that's kind of direct sounding but if they say breakfast has finished we could think of it like the like ending point for breakfast was at nine o'clock but there's this effect and the effect of that is that me the guest like i can't eat breakfast now because it finished in the past so we could kind of think of it like an effect so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from sridhar reddy hi again sridhar sridhar says hi alicia which one is correct in the following sentences one not all questions can't be answered by alicia or two not all questions can be answered by alicia the first sentence i read on your site why use both not all and can't be i thought using only one of them makes a sentence meaningful yes thank you very much you've found what is called a typo a typo is a typing mistake so i checked this out on the website we will fix it you are correct this should be can so not all questions can be answered by alicia that would be the correct sentence it should not be can't so we'll fix that if you see a pattern like this not all somethings can be something so that would be the correct way to build this kind of sentence structure okay i hope that helps and thank you very much for this point uh next question comes from antonio locko hi antonio antonio says i am confused about when to use i talk with blah blah blah versus i talk to blah blah blah can you help with that by the way you're very funny thanks i talk to or i talk with yes i've spoken about this very very briefly and i think the video about speak versus talk basically there's not really a difference between two and with here when we use two though i feel that it has more of a one-way conversational feeling like if you're giving someone information if it's kind of just one person sharing a lot of information talking i might use two like go talk to your boss about this or like let's talk to my parents about this when you use with however it sounds more like you're participating in something together you're participating in a discussion together like you do things with another person so there's someone else there participating together with you so using with to me sounds a little bit more like there are other people participating other people involved like i said it's a really small point both of them are correct you won't have any communication problems if you choose to or with or if you choose to mix them hope that helps you alright that's everything that i have for you for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you have not already and check us out at englishclass101.com for a few 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 air police hey police eric is the chief of the hair please oh my god that's recorded okay um [Music] beyonce hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe your first question comes from mishan hi maison maison says hi alicia what's the difference between picture image and photo in most cases we use them the same when you use a camera you can say photo or picture take a picture or take a photo we use them the same way so image can refer yes to a picture or to a photo though it does sound more like something maybe printed or published generally speaking image is used to refer to a depiction or a representation of something else so that means it could be like a painting so this is an image of a goddess or this is an image of a person on a boat for example so image is a depiction a representation of something so that means it can be physical and it can also be in your mind like a mental picture of something we could also call that an image we have an image of something in our heads so like my image of her is ruined or i have a really good image of that person hope that helps you okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from hairline bieber hi heroline hi alicia i want to know if i speak in british english in america will americans understand me and vice versa yes they should there should be no reason why an american english speaker should not understand a british english speaker or vice versa it should not be a problem thanks very much for the question let's move on to your next question next question comes from alejandro hi alejandro alejandro says hi alicia i have a question what's the meaning of the expression much obligated and how can i use this i'm not sure about much obligated that's not really an expression we use we do have the expression much obliged much obliged which is like thank you very much for helping me and i owe you for this so if someone does something for you you can say much obliged it sounds rather formal and for some people perhaps a little bit old-fashioned actually you could use it at like the end of an email for example thanks very much for the files much obliged that sort of thing like i owe you in return so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question next question comes from fabrizio sanchez hi fabrizio fabrizio says can you explain the differences between should have could have would have and they're negative forms yes but a proper answer is much bigger than just this q and a video so here's a quick short answer should have is used to talk about things we wish we had done in the past or we wish we had not done in the past i should have studied more when i was a student i shouldn't have had so much to drink last night so we often have this kind of feeling of regret when we use should have or should not have could have refers to something that was possible in the past or impossible in the past i could have finished work at six today if my boss hadn't given me a last minute task did you see that guy in the car was that davey nah that couldn't have been davey he's at work today could not means impossible so could not have been davey in that situation means it's impossible for that to have been davey just now in the past uh would have and would not have refers to a future action in the past we are imagining ourselves as like in the past thinking about our future activities i would have gone to the concert but i had to work i wouldn't have quit my job if i were you so i'll try to make a whiteboard video about this in the future thanks very much for the question let's move on to your next question for this week next question comes from sridhar ready hi sridhar sridhar says hi alicia how do i use the word wanting in a sentence and what does it mean so we tend not to use mental state or emotional state verbs in anything other than the present tense or past tense so want is an example of this we tend not to use want in the progressive tense but in a situation like i have been wanting where we're talking about desiring something over a period of time that started in the past and continues to the present we can use wanting i've been wanting to see that movie for a long time or she's been wanting to take a vacation for a long time or like i've been wanting to eat that dessert for a long time so i hope that that helps you okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from izaldeen hi zaldeen uh izaldeen says what is the difference between where were you yesterday and where you have been yesterday uh the difference is that the second sentence is incorrect uh where were you yesterday means what was your location yesterday the second sentence could be uh where have you been or where have you been since yesterday the first one is more common where have you been this question means what was your location or what were your locations since the last time i saw you so this is a question that commonly sounds like you're accusing someone so if you expected to see someone and you did not see someone like you've been waiting for a long time for someone you can say where have you been like i was waiting for you that kind of thing we would use a question like where were you yesterday if we were expecting to see someone and they did not come as planned where were you yesterday what happened i was expecting to see you thanks very much for the question hope that helps let's move on to your next question next question comes from marcelo oliveira hi again marcelo marcello says hi alicia what is the difference between vain vein and vein yeah a dictionary is helpful for questions like these uh vein v-a-n-e is a noun that's part of a tool that's used to measure wind or liquid like the veins of a windmill for example vein v-a-i-n is an adjective that means someone who is obsessed with themselves like he's so vain she's so vain it's ridiculous vein v-e-i-n is a part of the body it's also a noun it's used to refer to the part of the body that carries blood i hope that that helps you again a dictionary is really helpful to understand the differences between words that sound and are spelled similar all right so that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your great questions remember to send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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 time 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 isaac alexander hi again isaac isaac says hi alicia what's the difference between make or cook dinner and have or eat dinner about make and cook dinner there's really not a difference unless you want to be really really specific and you're just like using a microwave or an oven to heat up food in that case it's probably more correct to say make dinner regarding your second question about have or eat dinner or any other meal for that matter they have the same meaning yes but we tend to use have more when we're making invitations like do you want to have lunch or do you want to have dinner with me we use it a bit more in those cases um we use eat more when we're talking about like our personal plans i think have just sounds a little bit softer for an invitation so i hope that this helps you understand some of the small nuances there thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from sung wan hai seung-wong song one says hi can you describe what a stereotype means um yeah so a stereotype as a noun is kind of like an unfair or kind of a negative idea about a person or a thing based on some common characteristics so some examples of stereotypes are like women love shopping or men love sports or like all indian food is spicy for example so even though it's like something that might be true in many cases it's not true in all cases so this is a stereotype i hope that that helps you okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from ronnie gontalidad gontale.hi ronnie ronnie says how do you properly use the period and the comma in a sentences along with the proper grammar use periods at the end of a sentence in the most basic form a sentence is a subject and a verb so like i walked or he slept or she swam for example we put a period at the end of a sentence i watched the new batman movie the neighbors ate all my popcorn so those are more like complex sentences we use commas then when we're connecting independent sentences with coordinating conjunctions a coordinating conjunction is like and but or for so yet like i watched the new batman movie and the neighbors ate all the popcorn so i watched the new batman movie comma and the neighbors ate all the popcorn that's when i would use a comma that's one example actually there's a video on the channel i made about how to use commas it's an introduction to using commas so i recommend you check this video out to learn more about commas so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from karima hi again karima karima says i think the verb address has different meanings could you tell me some of them one of the meanings of address is to write the mailing address on like a letter or a package like please address your envelope too or i have a package addressed to so and so address also means to deal with something or to handle an issue usually a problem something negative how do you plan to address this situation or when are you going to address this issue for example so that means deal with or handle something another meaning of address is like to give a formal speech or to talk directly to someone so like the president addressed the country in a televised speech or the ceo plans to address the employees in the morning meeting so there are three different examples of how to use address again if you want to know more about definitions i highly recommend checking a dictionary okay hope that helped you let's go on to your next question next question comes from marcelo olivier hi marcelo marcelo says uh hi alicia what do these expressions mean uh to scrape the bottom of the barrel and last resort um to scrape the bottom of the barrel means to use like only the people or the things that you have available and this means that they're typically not of good quality some examples i had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find this computer for work you put that guy on your team you're scraping the bottom of the barrel your second question about the word last resort means like your last option the last thing that you are able to do or the last thing you can possibly do you have no other options in a situation you turn to your last resort i might not have enough money to launch my business my last resort is asking my parents for a loan if this job doesn't work out his last resort is to start working at his friend's company so i hope that that helps you understand those two expressions thanks very much for the questions all right that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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'll see you again soon bye be funny be funny quick alicia be funny oh god hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question comes from sarah hi sarah sarah says what's the difference between just and adjust just can be used to refer to an action that was very recently completed i just finished my workout we just ate dinner we just turned the cameras on and we use it to talk about actions that are going to finish in the near future usually with about like i was just about to do something i was just about to go on to the next question or i was just about to go home when it started raining so these are a couple of very common uses of just adjust however is a verb to adjust means to make a change to something usually like a small change to something like to fix something or to make it match something else some examples he made me adjust my hair before i started talking or i need to adjust my jacket before i go on stage we just adjusted the cameras oh i hope that that helps you let's move on to your next question next question comes from atsushi mizuno hi atsushi atsushi says i have two questions okay first one what is the difference between the something something and this something something second how do i use it seems that and seems to uh okay first one the uh so the something something versus this something something it's kind of a big question the is used to refer to something that you mentioned earlier in the conversation so here are some examples i saw a dog i pet the dog thank you for sending me the paperwork i requested so in each of these cases the person listening or the person reading the message understands what the is so there's some like previous like conversation or there's some previous information so we know that the refers to a specific instance of that so we use this when we want to differentiate between two nouns so we use this before the noun i don't want that sandwich i want this sandwich so i'm differentiating between these two i think this coffee shop has great lattes so when i use this here it's like the other coffee shops i know maybe don't have such great lattes i want to emphasize this one we use it a lot in questions like is this drink yours so meaning from all these other drinks here is this one in particular the specific drink is this yours so your second question was about the difference between seems that and seems to uh the difference here is just seems that is followed by a noun and seems to is followed by a verb for example it seems that you made a mistake or it seems that he is out of time sugar a grandma yeah grandma it seems that you are out of sugar [Laughter] so like evil sounding like it seems you're out of sugar grandma it seems that i have enough examples for this so i'll move on to the next one seems to then is followed by a verb like this seems to have been a mistake he seems to like spicy food she seems to have a lot of hobbies so we follow seems too with a verb thanks very much for the question let's move on to your next question next question comes from aya hi aya aya says what's the difference between gorgeous adorable fabulous and beautiful um beautiful is like the most general word from this group we can use beautiful to talk about people to talk about nature to talk about music adorable is like is cute we use adorable to talk about things that are cute meaning kind of childish that can be a person like so like a little kid is adorable that's usually the tone of voice we use when we say it too oh he's adorable she's adorable we also use it for like design things that have like this kind of cute or child like appearance as well like oh that's adorable this room is adorable i love this design that's adorable so gorgeous then you can think of gorgeous as like a leveled up beautiful we use gorgeous when we talk about people we use gorgeous to talk about adults and we use it to have like this kind of feeling of glamorous or maybe it's kind of expensive or it seems high quality something is gorgeous like wow that chandelier is gorgeous or her dress is gorgeous or wow he's gorgeous that model for example so we can also use it for nature like oh my gosh the sunset was gorgeous or like that cake i ate for breakfast was gorgeous i did not eat a cake for breakfast finally fabulous is kind of a playful word it means great in general something that's great can be like fabulous and you might hear people say it with kind of a funny intonation like that's fabulous so kind of this uh silly joking playful intonation like oh my gosh your shirt is fabulous this dinner was fabulous or oh my god your new hairstyle is fabulous so just kind of pay attention to the kinds of people who use the word fabulous that you see in the media and maybe you can kind of get the idea of how and when you might use it all right so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question let's go on to your next question next question comes from vishnu hi vishnu vishnu says how to use these forms have been has been and had been correctly okay these questions refer to the present perfect tense have been and has been our present perfect tense uh grammar structures so please check this video on the channel i did a video about how to make and how to use the present perfect tense there's also some information about present perfect progressive tense regarding your question about had been when we use had been that's past perfect tense so we use that to talk about an action that was continuing in the past before another action in the past so for example i had been studying for three hours when the phone rang or she had been sleeping for six hours when it started raining something that was like a continuing action that was in the past often that was interrupted so i'll try to make a whiteboard video about past perfect tense i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's go to your next question next question comes from arseney hi arseny arseny says hi alicia what's the difference between site place and area site is used in like construction projects we use site to talk about the place where a new building is going to be made wear a hard hat on the construction site let's visit the site and make the plans place is quite a general word but it refers to like a specific location let's go to my place or this is a really nice place or i know a good place up the street finally area is like a larger region uh than place let's hang out in the downtown area later there were typhoon warnings in the coastal areas today so i hope that that helps you uh thanks very much for the question let's move on to our next question next question comes from connie hi connie connie says what's the difference between others the others and another how do i use in the correct situation yeah this is tough okay let's begin by introducing a sample situation look at this picture this is my sister this is my other sister the others are my parents now let's look at another picture so here i introduced other with my other sister in the second sentence here i said this is my sister third sentence was this is my other sister so i introduced sister in the first sentence other than refers to like the addition to something that's already known so it's kind of like there's a very close relationship between those two sentences this is my sister this is my other sister shows that there's like an addition to the thing i just said then when i say the other the other refers to like the remaining known things so if i'm looking at this picture and i know that there are four people in the picture and two people are the speaker's sisters there are two people remaining and i say the other people that means the remaining people in the picture that i don't yet know so the other people in the picture are my parents then i say let's look at another picture so another refers to an addition or something extra from outside the existing situation so i hope that this can help you see the relationships between other the other and another okay that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember please send your questions to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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 soon bye bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question comes from isaac alexander again hi isaac what's the difference between switch on and off and turn on and off which is more casual less so than casual in american english turn on and turn off is more common switch on or switch off is just less common that's all hope that helps you thanks for the question okay let's go to your next question next question comes from zakari hi zakari zakari says i hear americans pronounce the article a before a word in a sentence with the sound ae and sometimes pronounced with the sound is there a rule about that no there's no rule there is absolutely not a rule for this it's just speaker preference though i do feel personally when i'm trying to emphasize something i'll use a more it's up to personal preference it's all just a speaker's preference so i hope that that helps you no rule thanks for the question okay let's go to the next question next question comes from harris hi harris harris says hi alicia what is the difference between using yet and instead of and despite let's begin by comparing yet and despite we'll talk about instead of at the end let's begin by comparing two sentences i wanted to go to the party yet i stayed home i wanted to go to the party despite that i stayed home let's look at the first example sentence here which uses yet so yet is a conjunction here it's connecting these two ideas i wanted to go to the party and i stayed home yet gives us the meaning of even though or but so we see it's kind of like saying a which is the desire i wanted to go to the party a and b the outcome the actual result i stayed at home are connected with this yet statement so a yet be desire yet outcome let's compare this to despite so a key difference between despite and yet is that we cannot use despite as a conjunction we need to include despite with that initial desire that a point that i talked about in the yet explanation so it's like saying despite a be so it has the same meaning yes but it just has a different structure the sentence has a different structure when you make a sentence like this you can introduce a the desire then connect it to the next sentence not using a comma but with the next sentence you can say despite this or despite that where that means part a so i wanted to go to the party a despite that despite wanting to go to the party b i stayed at home so you need to connect your despite with something like this or that or the specific noun phrase you might also hear the very common expressions despite the fact that or despite wanting to blah blah blah we need to use some kind of noun phrase to introduce that point so this is a key difference between yet and despite finally let's take a look at instead of instead of refers to a substitution so you're doing something in place of something else i stayed home instead of going to the party so this means in place of going to the party i stayed at home so despite and yet have very similar uses but we need to make slightly different grammatical structures in order to use them instead of just refers to something that is being substituted for something else so i hope that that helps thanks very much for the question all right let's go on to the next question next question comes from karima hi karima hi again karima says hi alicia i want you to explain the phrase get started grammatically if it's possible when do we use get plus adjective or get plus a verb yeah okay so we can use get plus a verb when we're talking about uh beginning the process of that verb so when i start videos on this channel with the expression let's get started i'm saying let's begin the first steps of starting some examples i gotta get going that means i need to begin to leave let's get cooking that means let's start the process of cooking something you should get writing so we can't pair all verbs with this get plus verb pattern but there are quite a few that we can use to move on to your next question though get plus adjective get just means become here but become sounds very formal so we use get instead some examples i'm gonna get pretty for my date tonight the fight got ugly it's getting dark outside don't get drunk so i hope that this helps answer your question thanks very much let's move on to your next question next question comes from milan hi milan milan says hi alicia i would like to ask is there any difference between my and mine for example he is my friend and he is friend of mine okay your example sentences have the same meaning just one small correction he is a friend of mine he is a friend of mine don't forget that article that you need with your singular noun i would say though that the my pattern is more commonly used than the mind pattern i think that this comes from the fact that when we end a sentence with mine it kind of sounds like we're being greedy or possessive in your example like he's a friend of mine that's very very common that's kind of a set phrase that we use a lot but in other examples i would just go with the simple my pattern this something is my something or this is my blah blah blah i just feel that that sounds a little bit less like greedy like mine you sometimes hear kids or like even adults sometimes when they get really excited about owning something or having something they might say like this is mine so it can have kind of a negative feel about it for that reason i would recommend the my pattern instead of the mind pattern so i hope that that helps you all right so thank you very much as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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 time bye-bye some examples are gone where'd they go okay um i gotta get what hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question comes from miyuki hi miyuki yuki says i want to know about test taking tips okay i will give you five tips tip number one is to know your test on your test do you need to write do you need to read listen speak what do you need to do first make sure you know the test and know the requirements of the test number two check and see if the sections are timed check to see how much time you have for each section of your test number three is to ask yourself have you taken the test before what was good for you what was not good for you so what do you need to improve review your past tests to see what you need to work on for the next test number four if you can if it's available take a practice test practice tests can help you find your weak points and your strong points and help you if you have timed sections in your test as well number five if your test includes speaking you need to practice speaking if you don't practice you won't be able to do it at the time that you need it so if you don't have a language partner you can look for one online or you can practice with media like repeating shadowing media so those are five quick test tips i know they're very general but i hope that they can apply to lots of different tests so i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's go on to your next question next question comes from nerdan emmanet hi again nerdon nerdan says hi alicia what's the difference between blame accuse and charge all right blame accuse and charge these are three verbs that have very similar meanings let's begin with blame to blame means to assign someone responsibility for something this has a negative nuance to it some examples my parents blamed me for the broken vase the police blamed the accident on a broken traffic light to accuse someone means to suggest that someone did something bad so it's a little bit different from blame blame is like assigning responsibility to someone for like a negative effect to accuse someone of something it's like someone did something wrong maybe on purpose and you want to suggest that it was that person some examples the landlord accused him of not paying rent she accused the company of fraud let's move along then to the last one to charge to charge is a legal term this is a legal word which means you formally accuse someone of wrongdoing so we do not use charge in everyday conversation when we're saying like you did this bad thing or i think it was you charge is used in courts to charge someone with a crime means to officially and legally accuse them of a crime examples the suspect has been charged with murder she's been charged with breaking and entering so that's a quick introduction to the differences between these three verbs i hope that that helped you thanks for an interesting question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from isaac alexander hi again isaac isaac says hi alicia what's the difference between soccer and football yeah soccer is just the word that people from the u.s use to talk about what the rest of the world calls football so to my knowledge most if not all other countries use the word football to talk about the game with the black and white ball the players kick around the field we do have a football of our own we have what many people call american football which is a totally different game which involves passing and a little bit of kicking if you're speaking with an american english speaker soccer refers to the black and white ball sport football refers to that kind of egg-shaped brown leather ball sport if you're talking to maybe a british english speaker football probably means what american english speakers call soccer i hope that that helps you thanks for the question all right let's move on to your next question next question comes from ahmed magdie hi ahmed uh ahmed says hi alicia what does whiplash mean uh whiplash this is an injury whiplash is an injury that happens when the body is like jerked in a strong way like in a car accident or maybe another like transportation related accident whiplash is an injury around like the head and neck and shoulders where the body and the head move like separately if this is the body and this is the head they move separately like in a very quick like jumping like whip like motion if you know a whip it's like this indiana jones has one it's like uh so to like whiplash is the name of the injury we get from our bodies being moved in this way so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from karima hi again kurima karima says hi alicia i want to ask you what does the preposition up mean or refer to in the following sentence what exactly are you up to uh all right this up doesn't have any meaning so what are you up to or what's up this is just a set phrase up doesn't have any like directional meaning there's no movement or positioning just consider this a set phrase like what's up uh means how are you or what are you doing same thing with what exactly are you up to it means what exactly are you doing up doesn't really have a function here it's just a set phrase so don't worry too much about what exactly up means here it's sort of just it's just an expression that we use so that's everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to 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 episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye-bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question comes from leon hi leon leon says hi alicia number one i'd like to know why we have to place incarnate and galore after nouns and two how do you pronounce the s after a th or s-t sound like months and scientists would be glad if you answer okay all right so regarding your first question these are examples of what are called post-positive adjectives so these are adjectives that come after a noun in english we usually use pre-positive adjectives so those are adjectives that come before a noun however for a number of reasons there are some adjectives that we place after the noun so your examples incarnate and galore usually come after a noun so for example you might know the devil incarnate or there was food galore at the event for example these are just situations that are kind of set phrases honestly unfortunately there's not really a rule it's just one of those things that you need to remember so regarding your second question about the s sound in a word like months your tongue touches the back of your teeth and we make like a quick s sound months months so the th sound almost disappears it's sort of like when you're saying the or this or that that really quick th sound in a word like scientists however scientists is very difficult to say in rapid speech so we make it like a long s sound scientists so it just sounds like scientists thanks for the question let's go on to your next question the next question comes from karima hi karima karima says hi alicia i want to know the difference between right now and right away and when can we use both of them okay right now sounds more direct than right away right now is like a command actually so this is something that you might hear parents use like for kids so like go to your room right now is a really good example of how right now is used right away however is used in more formal situations like in business situations or work situations to show that something will be done immediately but it sounds a bit soft some examples can you please order lunch for our meeting yes right away please take care of this right away so i hope that this helps you understand when to use these two thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from liliana inez jose concepcion sorry hi liliana what is the difference between mistake and error nice question mistake tends to be used more for human actions things that we did or things that we caused humans as people our activities some examples i made a mistake with this recipe she found a mistake in the textbook error is used for machines like computers so if there's a problem with the like machine that you're using or like your printer or something you'll see an error message not a mistake message examples printer error error downloading file there are some cases where we might use error to talk about the things that humans do but for kind of a general guide this is basically the difference i hope that that helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question is from silas hi silas silas says hi alicia what does straight up mean and how can i use it in a sentence yeah straight up means like honest true genuine real it's kind of got a positive feeling about it it tends to be used a little bit more by young people i would say more by young men but anyone can use it some examples i straight up forgot my wallet he straight up passed out in the car on the way home you have to be straight up with your roommate so you can see that straight up does have a casual feel it also kind of has a friendly feel though it is talking about like an honest or a true or a real situation or an attitude so i hope that this helps you understand the use of straight up thanks very much for the question okay let's move along to your next question next question comes from ahmad sarwar hi ahmad ahmad says hi alicia what is the difference between lay lie lying and laying how do you use and pronounce these words in your daily life yeah i talked about this question in episode 21 of this series you can check that out and find some more example sentences there so to review lei uses a direct object lie does not examples lay down your bag here lie down on the sofa so in the first example sentence your bag is the direct object of the verb lay lay down your bag here in the second example sentence lie down on the sofa there's no direct object in that sentence so as i said in the previous episode what makes this difficult is that the past tense of the verb lie is lay he lay down on the sofa we lay down and went to sleep in the first example sentence he lay down on the sofa there's no direct object we don't see a direct object in the second sentence either so we know that this lay is actually the past tense of lie and not the present tense lay keep in mind however the past tense of lay is laid examples we laid our bags on the table she laid her keys on her desk each of these example sentences has a direct object so a bag and keys so if you want to know is this lay or is this lie look for a direct object that'll tell you which verb you're dealing with so your question is about the progressive forms of these verbs laying and lying so an example in the progressive tense our cat keeps laying dead animals on our front door he's lying on the sofa that's the progressive form of lie so there's no direct object there i hope that that helps you okay so that's 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 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 englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye bye want to speed up your language learning take your very first lesson with us you'll start speaking in minutes and master real conversations sign up for your free lifetime account just click the link in the description

Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 76,794

Keywords: EnglishClass101, Tutorial, english, how to, learn, English culture, English Language (Interest), learn english, vocabulary, survival phrases, important, Word (Literature Subject), words, top, compilation, ask, teacher, made easy, beginner, english lesson, best of, write, read, speak, english basics, basics, continuous play, long play, auto play, autoplay, speak english, read english, reading skills

Id: cv4biaR9Aos

Length: 72min 5sec (4325 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021