Do You Have 120 Minutes? You Can Speak Like a Native English Speaker

want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com hi everybody my name is alicia welcome back to top words today we're going to talk about 10 ways to stop translating in your head let's get started identify objects around you in english the first way to stop translating in your head is to identify the objects around you in your target language so if you're studying english that means you look at the objects around the room look at the things in your life don't think of them in your native language first think of them in your target language first so if i look around the room i see a computer i shouldn't think my native language word i should think my target language word so start with the items and the situations in your everyday life if i say computer in english maybe i should say computa in japanese i should say not i don't know water in english i should say omizu in japanese so start associating the words in your target language with your everyday life now so if you're studying english that means start getting familiar with the things in your everyday life in english repeat phrases you hear native speakers use tip number two is to repeat the phrases that you hear native speakers use so if you're watching this channel for example or you're watching a tv show or a movie listen for the way that native speakers make those phrases if you hear a phrase you have never heard before or you hear an interesting combination of words try to repeat them yourself don't just listen try to say them yourself if you're in a public space and it's difficult for you to do that fine practice in a place where you feel more comfortable maybe if you have some private space to practice just repeat them get your mouth used to saying the words the way that the speakers the native speakers do so if you never actually say words if you're only taking in if you're only listening and you're not actually producing the language it's it's kind of hard to to practice and to to really hone your pronunciation to improve your pronunciation so when you listen to native speakers try to repeat after them so for example if you're studying english you can try to repeat after this video you can repeat after the things i'm saying because maybe i'm using an expression or i'm using a certain uh series of vocabulary words together the way a native speaker would and it's maybe a good idea to try to practice the ways that native speakers put their words together so try to repeat after native speakers especially when you're looking at media and you can do this when you're reading books too you can try to read out read out loud interesting lines of books that you find or something that maybe is difficult for you very nice practice tip make a situation where you can't escape into your native language make a situation where you can't escape into your native language essentially means immerse yourself of course going to that country or going to a place where you can speak only that language is very difficult for some of you totally understand but if in your life you can create a situation in your library in your room in your house somewhere for just an hour or i don't know maybe a day i don't know what your schedule is like but if you can create a situation or create an environment where you have no choice but to use that language and you cannot escape meaning you cannot go back to using your native language as a crutch you can't use the native language at all it forces you to use the language that you're studying so of course if you are lucky enough to live in the country or to live in a place where people speak the language you're studying great but you have to go out and interact with people you have to put yourself in a place where you have no choice but to speak it's very hard and it's very scary and it's very embarrassing at first but if you take time to find places and to make environments that are comfortable for you where you feel comfortable making mistakes and asking questions it's very valuable for your learning process this is actually something that i did totally i totally did this my japanese wasn't very good for a long time but then i started making friends who could not speak english actually i just did this through finding hobbies there was a hobby that i had i joined a group i joined actually a school to where i could learn how to do that hobby and everything was taught only in japanese and the people in my class only spoke japanese mostly and then maybe we would go out for drinks and food late at night or on the weekends and everybody spoke only japanese and if i couldn't communicate even simply in japanese i had no hope of keeping that friendship together so it forced me to study it forced me to think about the words they were using and to try to learn those words those patterns as well as how to produce them naturally myself so i was learning the vocabulary words the people around me were using and learning how to apply them on my own that was only possible because i had no escape in those situations so try to do that even if you can do it yourself in your house it's super helpful i think watch tv and movies in your target language without subtitles tip number four is to watch tv and movies in your target language without subtitles without subtitles so i think that watching uh with subtitles can be very beneficial um so if i'm watching something or if you want to watch something with subtitles on great but i sometimes find that i can in my case i i think too much about reading the subtitles and i forget to listen so maybe if you've seen a movie in your target language a few times with the subtitles on try turning the subtitles off and think about the like characters body language the words they're using um you can always look that up later look up the you know the words you don't know in a dictionary but try to do it where you're focusing completely on the way that people are using their words try not to use the subtitles so um kind of play around with it a little bit if there's a word that's difficult for you to hear you can actually turn on the subtitles in like the in the native uh language of the movie as well that's something that i've done like if uh like if i wanted to study japanese it's very useful when the actual words spoken in japanese appear on the screen sometimes it's easier for me to catch a word if i see it visually and i hear it at the same time so another way to kind of explore how you can use tv and movies is to actually turn on the closed captions like the the um the words on the screen in the native language of the movie so uh so this is sort of two points in one so one watch movies without subtitles meaning subtitles in your native language and hint two is to watch movies um with closed captioning on but the closed captioning is in your target language not in your native language so you can try those two things with tv and with movies don't bring a dictionary to your lesson tip number five is don't bring a dictionary to your lesson okay so give me a second here so i understand the dictionaries especially electronic dictionaries we have them on our phones now are very very convenient of course it's important to use them and it's a they're a great resource to have however one thing that really bothers me and that i think is detrimental it's not helpful for students is when students are in a lesson and they're practicing conversation and they reach a point in the conversation where they don't know the word they want to use they know it in their native language and they don't know how to say it in their target language they pull out their dictionary they say to this the person listening to them their practice partner in their lesson where they have a limited period of time just a moment and then they look it up on their phone it takes a few seconds the flow of the conversation stops and then they say a word and it's like whoa no that's not you don't have that ability you don't have the ability to do that in a conversation with a native speaker most people like if you go to a bank and try to open a bank account are you really going to pull out your dictionary and sit there and try to communicate you know just a moment just a moment as you look up each word you don't know no or if you do that's not a real conversation so instead try using a different strategy by that i mean if you find a word you don't know in conversation explain the word to your conversation partner maybe they know the word if you're speaking with a native speaker this is a chance for them to teach you a word i find that when people take the time to teach me a word i remember the word much better than just looking it up on my dictionary so try to resist maybe you can bring a dictionary to your lesson but don't use it or try not to use it in your conversation practice it's just it destroys the flow of a conversation so instead practice the skill of describing the vocabulary word you want to use and learn how to ask the meaning of a word or learn how to ask for a vocabulary word from your partner so you can use an expression like ah what's the word that means blah blah blah or um you know it's this thing that does this and this and this so this is an opportunity for you to describe characteristics of something or find a different way you can use your body language you can use whatever you have a lot of tools but try not to use a dictionary in a conversation because it's not realistic train responses to common questions number six is a quick one i think number six hint number six i have is just to train responses to common questions train responses to common questions so for example a very common question in english is hey how are you you should know how to answer this question just have a default response hey how are you i'm good if it takes you a long time to answer the question hey how are you you need to practice i think that's a pretty good uh a pretty good indicator so for example sometimes i ask students a question like that they they haven't quite gotten the idea of how to respond just yet they they're not so quick at responding i say hey how are you and they say yes and then they think and they go i'm i'm good that's a very common question so think about just a default response that you can spit out that you can quickly say if it's how was your weekend or hey what's up or what do you want to do for dinner tonight think about like just a handful meaning just a few responses to those questions and train them quickly just how are you i'm good how are you i'm okay how are you not bad there's three so it's just training responses to those questions there's no reason to be surprised by a question like how are you like that's a very common question so for those common questions train responses to that we've got a bunch of videos especially beginner level videos for some example responses you can do so don't get stuck with these little questions just train a few responses practice a few responses till they feel natural to you it'll save you time and it'll help the person asking the question too to move forward in the conversation study with materials that don't provide a translation the next tip is to study with materials that don't provide a translation so by this i mean if you're using worksheets and or some kind of textbook or whatever and it has your target language the language you're studying and it has your native language next to it while this can be useful i feel that if you can studying your materials only in your target language and then simplified explanations for more detailed points also in your target language can be a little bit better so i don't want to say like you should only study things in your target language and nothing from your native language because of course like it can be helpful sometimes to look up a word or to understand a grammar point in your native language but where possible if you can find something that provides simplified explanations in your target language it can be really really helpful because again you're thinking you're learning to think on like a simpler on a more basic level about the language you're studying in the language that you're studying so this can be really really good so finding some materials to use where there's no translation maybe you can practice of course with with books and with written materials but also with like video materials as well so there are a variety of different ways that you can um find materials in your target language um like in video and tv so some things to think about there are the level of vocabulary words people are using in the media content you're watching um who the media content is intended for children young adults adults uh the speed at which the speaker is talking so like i have the ability to change the level of difficulty of videos based on the rate of speech the vocabulary words that i use and how many like idioms and things i use so i could make a video very difficult we could make a very like a very difficult video series by leveling up our vocabulary use or by speaking very quickly or as you might see in like our english and three minutes series we can also use very simple vocabulary and speak at a low rate of speech so maybe right now this is a very intermediate level video so please think about that so not just for written materials but also for your audio and visual materials think about who your audience is the level of the material and so on it can be really fun uh and it can be helpful to think about your your target language in your target language all right we're almost done study phrases in addition to single vocabulary the next tip is study phrases in addition to single vocabulary words so yes of course vocabulary is important but i find it personally very very useful to look at how a vocabulary word is used in a phrase because sometimes using it in a phrase helps you understand the nuance of that vocabulary word really really well so if i like a word like crazy for example in english depending on the situation where the word crazy is used it could mean something different it could mean like a person who's mentally confused or mixed up it could also mean something really good it could mean something really bad so if we look only at the word crazy it's quite difficult to understand really the meaning of the word but if you look at the way the word is used in a phrase you can get a lot more information so take a look at the way people use words in phrases not just as single vocabulary words you can learn a lot more that way i think do your daily activities in english where possible the next tip is to do your daily activities in your target language so if you're studying english that means try to do some daily activities in english if possible so this can be very very boring stuff but just think about it when you're doing the activity so like right now i'm filming a video for englishclass101.com or i'm going to work i'm cooking breakfast i'm doing the laundry what do i have to do tomorrow so try thinking about your everyday life in english if you're studying english try thinking about your everyday activities the people that you meet what are you doing so this is a way to help you practice your verbs so if you don't know if you're i don't know you're doing something at work and you're like oh my gosh how do i explain the what's the verb for you know a picture like i want to blah blah a picture what's the word you can check a dictionary at that point and go ah it's draw i i need to use the verb draw for draw a picture so you can find these little gaps in your everyday life these little gaps in your knowledge if you think about your everyday activities in your target language if you don't think about it in your target language you might not realize you have vocabulary gaps or phrase gaps here and there so this is a really good and kind of funny actually way to study use a learner's dictionary for new words the last tip is to use a learner's dictionary for new words so in english there are learners dictionaries available in english so my favorite my personal favorite is merriam-webster merriam-webster is a fantastic dictionary resource they're so interesting and they have tons of like historical information i really do just sit and like read things on the dictionary page lately it's true but um of course there's a definition there's a meaning for words there are example sentences for words but merriam-webster also has what's called a learner's dictionary if you find a word that you don't recognize you can check it in a dictionary in a learner's dictionary and it gives you a simplified a simple explanation in simple english of that word so instead of checking it in your native language you can check it in your target language so again this helps you to understand the word um that you are that you're focused on but you understand it from the language you're studying not from your native language so using a learner's dictionary can be really really useful as well all right so those are 10 tips those are 10 tips to help you stop translating in your head i know it's very difficult but it's it takes time and it takes practice and i hope that these are a few strategies that can help you as you study any language of course this is an english language channel an english language learning channel but i think these tips are pretty good for learning just about any language really so i hope those are useful for you if you have tried these strategies or if you have any other comments or other tips please let us know in the comment section below this video if you liked this video please make sure to hit the thumbs up share this video and subscribe to our channel too check us out at englishclass101.com for more good stuff as well thanks very much for watching this episode of top words and i will see you again soon bye hi everyone i'm bridget and welcome to today's lesson today's topic is 10 ways to say hello in english good morning good morning is the first thing you say to someone when you see them in the morning good morning sir would you like a cup of coffee good morning could i please get some orange juice good morning i'm still tired from the night before hello hello is the most common greeting you'll hear that and hi hello is a polite nice way to greet someone when you see them hello everyone says it you cannot go wrong saying hello hello can be used at any time of the day no matter whether it's morning or at night or at 4am when you see someone you can say hello and it will still be appropriate long time no c long time no c it's not necessarily grammatically correct but it's a saying that we have hey long time no see what it means is that you haven't seen that person in a long time so it literally means long time no see long time no see is something you say to someone when you haven't seen them in a while hey john long time no see how are the wife and kids how have you been hey how have you been i haven't seen you in a long time how have you been is asking someone how they're doing and how they've been for the past however long if you haven't seen them in a while you might say hey long time no see how have you been how have you been that's past tense it implies that you haven't seen them in a while and you want to hear about how they are and how they've been for all of that time that you haven't seen them hey long time no see how have you been how are you how are you means how are you doing how are you feeling how is everything it's a standard thing that you might say to anyone even if you've seen them the day before you might see them today and say hey how are you how's it going hey how's it going how is it going is a more informal way to say how are you so how are you and how's it going they mean the same thing it's asking how you are doing how you are feeling is everything okay with you what's up what's up is another way of saying hey how's it going but this one is even more informal so you might say this to friends hey what's up and they'll say nothing just living my life you know day in and day out hey what's up hey what's up good afternoon good afternoon how are you would you like some lunch good afternoon is a polite way to greet someone in the afternoon so if you run into your boss you might say good afternoon it's very nice it's polite not a lot of people say it to their friends but it's it's a polite way to greet someone good evening good evening is a nice way to greet someone in the evening time you can only use this phrase in the evening because it's wishing someone a good evening it's saying hello at a certain time of day good evening would you like some dinner good evening have you eaten yet all of my examples involve food it seems it's nice to meet you it's nice to meet you this is something that's very common to say the first time that you meet someone you might shake their hand and say hi it's nice to meet you my name is bridget my name is it's telling that person that you are happy to be meeting them it's a pleasure to meet them hi it's nice to meet you that brings us to the end of this lesson 10 ways to say hello if you guys liked the video please don't forget to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you have any questions or comments leave them below and don't forget to go to englishclass101.com for more english okay everybody shift information has been posted for the month it looks like we'll visit 25 cities in 30 days do we normally visit 25 different cities in one month yes sometimes we visit even more where's our first stop charlotte hey i have friends in charlotte it would be nice to see them good evening in room dining this is alex how may i be of service hello i would like to order some food of course ma'am just to confirm this is mrs rossen in room 417 yes it is excellent may i take your order yes i would like a turkey sandwich on a parmesan bagel and what to drink a diet coke will there be anything else yes i would also like a wake-up call for seven my major is education how about you i'm an english major cool i like english oh and what's oksana's major she's also an english major that's nice you can help each other study yep in fact i need to meet her now so we can study together okay it was nice talking with you you too see you later see ya good evening ma'am may i have your first and last names melissa west thank you ma'am i have found your reservation here's the registration information does everything look correct to you yes it seems to be correct excellent now i will just need a photo id for legal purposes will my passport do that would be just fine ma'am checkout is between noon and two o'clock you may request an extension of up to five hours free of charge what if i need more time then a late charge of five percent will be added to your bill hey vicky did you forget our study date at 10 this morning i'm sorry naomi at 10 i was talking with my professor and couldn't get away i'm sorry i should have called that's okay so how did the meeting go with the professor it went fine he gave me an extension on my paper and i can still take the midterm how was your study group yesterday well we were studying together during lunch when i noticed an old friend of mine from high school in the same cafe my concentration quickly switched from class to catching up with my friend so i didn't get much done you've taken that class before right yeah last semester i was always asking questions in that class because it was so difficult well i was hoping that you could lend me a hand with my paper i can't think of anything else to write sure no problem that is if you can help me study for our history test sounds like a deal want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com hi everyone i'm christine from englishclass101.com in this video we'll be talking about how to curse like an english native speaker piss a slang term for urine for example don't piss your pants you can say this when you're really scared or anxious for example if you're about to go on stage to make a speech or perform someone can say don't piss your pants you can do it pissed off to be really angry when i'm angry i can say hey i'm really pissed off at you right now why did you do that for loser used to describe an uncool person in high school my friends and i would use this a lot and we would say hey loser how's it going idiot used to insult people by saying they're not intelligent of all the mean things that you can say this is on the lighter side but people still use it shoot this is used to show disappointment or frustration without using a stronger curse word shoot i spilled my coffee shut up you can use this when you want them to be quiet or there's something surprising that you just heard you can say shut up no way ticked off to be really angry you can say this with pissed off so this is actually an older term not many people use this as much anymore because most people actually just use pissed off fool this is similar to saying someone is like a clown you can say you're acting like a fool right now jerk this is a light insult used to describe someone who is mean for example if there's someone bullying another person that person is being a jerk wimp this means someone who isn't strong there is a movie out right now called diary of a wimpy kid have you seen it have you not i haven't yet so how was it if you have any more questions please leave a comment below see you next time hey everyone i'm paris from englishclass101.com in this video we're talking about how to ask and give directions let's start to the left to the left the first phrase is where is the where is the for example you can ask where is the bank this can be used to ask for a general location or detailed directions don't be surprised if you only receive basic information for example next to the grocery store the next phrase is i need to go to the i need to go to the for example you can say i need to go to the police station the word need is used but this is used for non-emergencies as well how do i get to the how do i get to the for example you can say how do i get to the museum this question can be used to ask for step by step directions instead of a general location is the near here is the near here for example you can say is the library near here if you're unfamiliar with an area you can ask to get this information about a specific place where you want to go is the bathroom near here excuse me do you know where the is excuse me do you know where the is for example you can say excuse me do you know where the park is only youth excuse me when you're starting a conversation with a stranger another common phrase is is the far from here is the far from here for example you can say is the post office far from here this is an indirect way to ask for directions people will tell you how far the place is and probably tell you the best way to get there walking taking a bus driving uber now let's take a look at expressions to give directions turn left turn left for example you can say turn left after two blocks this gives you information about how far you should go before you make any changes in this case you should go left to the left to the left turn right turn right for example you can say turn right at the third traffic light this also gives you information about how far you should go before taking another action in this case you should go right go straight go straight this simply tells you to go in one direction it also implies that if you keep going straight that you will eventually find what you're looking for go past go past for example you can say go past the church a landmark is just an easily noticeable place for example a movie theater restaurant at the corner of at the corner of for example you can say it's at the corner of this means that a place is located at the corner where two streets meet in front of in front of for example you can say the bus station is in front of the supermarket we use front to refer to the main entrance of a building it can also mean visible from the front and doesn't necessarily mean it's directly in front of something behind behind for example you can say the parking lot is behind the movie theater we use behind to say that something is at the rear of a building the front of a building is its main entrance so which side it's facing the street is really not important next two next two for example you can say the restaurant is next to the park this is an example of using a non-specific location to give general directions next two can be anywhere beside in front of or around a place mcdonald's is next to my house between between for example you can say the store is between the coffee shop and the pet store between is used with two other places when using between the main place will always be in the middle of the two other places okay that's all for this lesson which phrase do you like the most leave us a comment and let us know and i'll see you next time guys bye hey guys i'm paris from englishclass101.com in this video we'll be talking about making complaints in english so let's get started the first complaint is i'm starving i'm starving this is an exaggeration you can use when you're hungry i am always starving even right now the next complaint is it's noisy it's noisy this kind of complaint is one that you would make to a friend telling the staff of a restaurant won't help since they can't tell people to be quiet i hate when it's noisy in restaurants save that for another time then we have it's hot it's hot this can be used to talk about the weather or the temperature of a room you can add a request like can you turn on the air conditioner i am never hot so i like that the next complaint is it's cold it's cold this can be used to talk about the weather or the temperature of a room you can add a request like can you turn on the heater i always make this request because it's always too cold everywhere everywhere it's too expensive it's too expensive even if you have enough money to buy something it may be more money than you want to spend it would probably be considered rude to say this to someone who works at a store but i always think okay i'm in gucci it's way too expensive another common complaint is i'm tired i'm tired use this complaint to imply that you want to sit down relax go home take a break when i babysit my five-year-old cousin i leave thinking i'm tired the next complaint is i gained weight i gained weight this is a self-criticism that implies that you want to lose weight many people say i got so fat i'm always broke i'm always broke use this to complain about never having enough money i am always broke because i always want more money the next complaint is my job is boring my job is boring this is a really common complaint used by people who don't think their jobs are very exciting usually it means that you want to find a different more fun job it's all right teachers your job isn't boring that person stinks that person stinks you can use stings to talk about a literal physical smell or a general insult meaning that you don't like how someone smells i hate when people smell on the bus not good not okay the next complaint is there's too much traffic there's too much traffic this is a common complaint among people who commute to work by car certain roads are especially bad during rush hour which is the time in the morning or night most people are going home or to work if i left at it was 7 p.m i would be here in 10 minutes but because it's daytime in la it took me 30 minutes to get here and i drive really really fast and it still took me 30 minutes the next complaint is the wi-fi here is too slow the wi-fi here is too slow this is just a general complaint you may have about the internet speed if you're at a cafe or somewhere with wi-fi you can request that they reset their wi-fi to improve the speed if you're having a party and you're having friends over and your wi-fi is too slow you might as well end that party now no wi-fi no party my boss is annoying my boss is annoying annoying can be used to mean that someone does things that you don't like or they ask you to do things that you don't like either way an annoying boss is a bad experience i am very familiar with this hey paris grab me coffee hey paris check my emails my boss is annoying but tell him i said that the pay is too low the pay is too low you can use this to complain about how much you make or to reject a job offer because it doesn't pay enough i'm a surgeon the pay is too low i don't like it i don't like it this is a very general complaint that can be used for almost anything what do i like [Laughter] posting a thousand selfies on instagram i don't like it um okay that's it for this lesson which complaint do you like more leave us a comment and let me know and we'll see you next time bye you just got a text message from your hotel's pickup service what does the first number refer to what does the first number refer to the number in the text message refers to the customer code you are at a train station where you've just bought an express ticket which train car row and seat number are you in so which train car row and seat number are you in the ticket says that you're in train car number one in the eighth row in seat c you are at a train station where you're attempting to buy an express ticket from a ticket machine which option should you choose to buy an express ticket which option should you choose to buy an express ticket the option on the bottom left is for an express ticket you are on a platform at a train station where you're waiting for your train suddenly a message appears on the display what does the message on the display mean what does the message on the display mean the display reads the next train will not stop you are at a train station where you're reading the train schedule for an express ticket that you've just bought on which days are there no express trains running on which days are there no express trains running there are no express trains running on public holidays and the third sunday of every month want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com you are on a platform at a train station where you're waiting for your train suddenly a message appears on the display what does the message on the display mean what does the message on the display mean the display reads the next train will not stop you are at a train station where you're looking for the best exit to catch a taxi which exit should you take to get to the taxi stop which exit should you take to get to the taxi stop you should take the east exit in order to get to the taxi stop hi everybody my name is alicia and today i am joined again in the studio by michael hello and today we're going to be talking about things that were cool in the 90s so things that were interesting or things that maybe we were interested in in the 90s i'm guessing that we're going to have some very different opinions based on our experiences at the 90s so let's get right into it michael your first item please um okay boy bands so i remember boy bands were very very popular when i was a kid in the 90s i had three older brothers who would punch me and tell me boy bands are for girls don't like boy bands so that was my experience with them and they became kind of uncool i feel like after the 90s and then they never were uncool in like korea and like a lot of asian countries they still had like a strong boy band kind of uh scene or whatever bands now is that really what they're called no i don't know i just mean i think i feel like boy there are boy bands that are now becoming boys to men maybe this so i mean now they came now it came back like what is the uh what's the british one now it's kind of cool again oh one direction one direction yeah so i think it's come back it's full circle didn't they just break up i'm gonna go with something that i loved in the 90s this is probably way too specific uh probably but it's this show called doug that was on nickelodeon and there weren't a whole lot of episodes of doug it was i don't know like 20 or 30 i feel like not even that many did you ever see this show yeah that's very nostalgic for me i don't 20 30 episodes i feel i feel like i had i'd seen them all so i i i know that i saw them all because it would come back it would come on one day after school and i'd be like i've seen this episode but the whole the whole idea with doug is doug was like this just this plain kid and he had an older sister he went to school he had a dog get a best friend and he would just encounter these everyday life scenarios that would be kind of troubling or he wouldn't know how to deal with them but like he was kind of a role model i feel like he was kind of being like a good kid or sometimes he would get into trouble but then you know eventually he would solve the problem or he'd find a way out of it so but i really loved that show i really loved nickelodeon in general um during the 90s and yeah did you watch that channel yeah of course i loved nickelodeon um i think it was more like fox stuff like that but i guess i'll segue into another one of mine you're talking about wholesome so something that's my childhood i was raised on tv it was sitcoms yeah so i think this has kind of died down again like the boy bands where it people think it's cheesy now it's all reality tv shows that kind of stuff but that's that is my childhood right there is you know full house and these kinds of shows step by step where there's a moral at the end of the story and so everyone there's always kind of like the the protagonist is always like maybe he's unsure but by the end they know the right thing to do and they play like the violin kind of sad not quite sad but like heartwarming music and then they're like well and then they give a speech and as a kid you know you don't really like think about it but that gets into your like man deep because of full house if you lie i've learned this it's deep in my subconscious if you lie and then you keep lying it snowballs and it gets worse and worse and worse so it's best to just right away tell the truth that was a really common theme in most sitcoms i think like they're just trying to teach kids don't lie it's bad you're right you're right sitcoms are huge and by the way sitcoms um is um is a portmanteau portmanteau meaning two words put together of situation and comedy so situation and comedy equals sitcom in this case okay nice nice um i'm gonna go to my next one um let's see i think probably every little girl in the 90s in america anyway knew what this was i don't know if you knew um it's this brand called lisa frank um lisa frank are you aware of lisa frank are you aware of lisa frank no okay she knows she knows lisa frank is so lisa frank is um just bright it was always like brightly colored school supplies uh like pinks and purples and blues and it would always have unicorns and dolphins and mystical creatures it was just bright and everybody all the girls loved it i loved it i had lisa frank just whatever i could get my hands on it'd be pencils or erasers or just pinks and rainbows and hearts and stuff like that so i think every every girl who grew up in the 90s knows what lisa frank is ah okay so talking about style and whatnot grunge grunge is something that i that hits close to home for me and i think that came out of the 90s is i mean everybody knows around the world i think most people know nirvana yeah kurt cobain yeah and this is something that i guess was brought to the world from seattle and it was a music genre and it was kind of it's like rock but sometimes slower almost emo kind of like sad usually undertones but anyways the style that came with it was the opposite of like the 80s and early 90s of really bright colors you know it was the opposite you just wear holy jeans you don't really shower that much you don't shave and like plaid and just really like dreary colors so that was really popular i at least i remember in like the early 90s like mid-90s yeah and it's as soon as i saw that card grunge i was like oh nirvana that was that's the first thing that comes to mind when i hear about when i hear grunge i didn't get into the grunge scene though i was i was busy with boy bands but like grunge for me was never really i was aware i was aware of nirvana but i did not i was not of the nirvana mod okay i'm gonna go to a style point then too because you've read up a style point i'll put up bring up maybe um a female style point scrunchies uh still popular perhaps among some people what is a scrunchie a scrunchie let's see i don't have um so there's regular rubber bands that you can use to tie back long hair he's making an ocean with his hands yes it's a very descriptive very descriptive michael thank you so no i'm the prop and then you go like this there's like the but i bet i bet there's an awesome video team somewhere in the somewhere that can put like a scrunchie like right here anyway um yeah scrunchy it's just it's just a a piece of elastic with some kind of colorful cloth wrapped around it and it but when not in use you would go and it would scrunch i think i think this is why we call it a scrunchie but then when you pulled on it you could expand it a bit and wrap your hair up in it and then when you were finished doing that it would kind of close around it i had a couple nintendo anything any game related stuff i remember game boys anything handheld um except when i was a kid it wasn't like this fancy 3d high you know highly like vibrant colors it was like black and white and like you'd play it in the car and you had to squint and it hurts your head you know if you're playing too much you're getting like carsick and you're like you can barely see mario are you talking about game boy game boy are any like there was handheld too there was like atari and stuff like that and like sega sega was pretty good that would light up i was thinking about nes when you said nintendo i imagined my nes the one that like when it wasn't working correctly you could just pull the cassette out and put it back in so you put the cartridge in here right and sometimes if it was really stubborn and it didn't work you would blow into this part and you try and it really doesn't make a difference but you would take turns like me and my brothers would be like no you want to be the one to get it to work so you take turns no no let me let me let me and just by luck it would work and you're like cc no this is super nostalgic i love nintendo i have a game too pogs did you have pogs yeah okay pogs are either are simultaneously the most brilliant game and the stupidest game ever invented they're just discs of cardboard about this size uh and on one side there's a picture and on the other side there's just nothing and then you had a thing called a slammer which was essentially just a heavy pog that you would use and you had to flip you had to use the slammer to flip those plain cardboard ones what i don't even know it was that stupid and forgettable of a game but it was like crazy when i was about i don't know like second or third grade or something everybody had pogs like we had pog gym days at my school i remember that america we're really obese let's go into the gym and sit there and smash cardboard and like i was telling i was telling her before we started this like one day like my mom wanted me to get a haircut and i was just being stubborn and i wasn't having it i was in the mall i was like i want to get a haircut she's like i'll buy you pogs and she did it was like this giant tube of pogs and i was just so thrilled and i agreed to get my hair cut well that was a lot of things that was that were exciting and or popular and or we were into in the 90s what were you into in the 90s what was popular in your country i really have no idea what was popular around the world at that time maybe some of these things are similar please let us know in the comments i'm very interested to find out we read these by the way um any thoughts any other any closing thoughts about the 90s you're not going to sing a song for us oh that's copyright we can't do that just like blur that all out no that was that was very accurate so i'm sure we can use that very accurate i mean totally wrong clearly we're very good at talking about the 90s okay but uh we hope that you are too we hope that you learned something exciting about the 90s um that's all for us today thanks very much for watching and we will see you again soon bye hi everybody my name is alicia and i'm joined again in the studio by michael hello and today we're going to be talking about english conversation strategies so let's get right into it let's start with michael what is your first strategy for keeping an english conversation going this is very important don't say i'm fine thank you and you you hear this all the time from second language english learners or non-native speakers you learn this it's one of the first things you learn in an english class it's easy it's good it's basic it's foundation okay that's fine but as soon as you can switch it up because to me when i meet a foreigner and they come up and if they say hey how are you say oh i'm fine you know i'm good whatever how about you and they say i'm fine thank you and you and it's just it's almost robotic because i've said it so many times and when i hear that i think ah their english isn't that good and inside i'm just gonna be really polite and say hello and talk slowly and try to get out of there as quick as i can so really impress the foreigner in my opinion i think the best way to do it is say something you know use a big word or just like a slang word something like that when i hear that i go wow man i want to know what this person thinks i want to get their point of view and i'm really excited and then i've had great conversations because of that um yeah that's a really really good one and actually i think on this youtube channel actually from a couple years ago there's a video all about better answers to the question how are you then i'm fine thank you and you or if someone says hey how are you i'm good you are fine you never i'm fine thank you and you never but try to actually use you know a phrase that a native speaker would use and then that's a clue to the native speaker that oh maybe this person is ready for a conversation beyond you know basic english so that's a really good point i like that i didn't think of things not to do i only thought of things to do so okay cool um let's see let's go to my first one um so um this strategy in general is just ask the other person a question i think and i'm guilty of this too when i'm learning another language i tend to only get input like somebody else is always asking me the questions and then i forget myself to ask the other person a question so one question that i like to ask or you know a variation any kind of wh question is good like a who question what where um something like this if you've been paying attention you can use any way to transition in your conversation this was in a previous video you can ask something like anyway up to anything fun this weekend this is a pretty casual conversational question that you can ask just about anybody whether you've just met them or whether you've known them for a while but just just get in the habit of asking other people the question don't wait for someone else to ask you the question um so that that's one strategy that i try to use to keep things going yeah me too i agree and i'm gonna say same zs because actually two of my questions were exactly what you said agree 100 this is kind of cheating these should be one but so always ask questions so you know again you forget it's really easy i'm really guilty of this english non-english whatever i'm i'm guilty of this um and the other thing is ask deep open-ended questions so if you ask a yes or no question so again like alicia was saying it just dead ends you can't just say you know do you like cheese yes or no right so you want to say what do you think about cheese what is your favorite kind and kind of open it up to something else and let it let it just kind of snowball right right yeah i think i think that that's that's really a key like i have another variation on which i guess i'll just continue on to because it kind of relates to what you're talking about like he's saying always ask questions always ask deep open-ended questions so like you may you just said don't ask a yes or no question because yes or no ends with the yes or the no so one of the things that i'll do is use a pattern similar to this like hey did you see or hey did you hear about blah blah blah so you can use this little blah blah blah as your you can ask about the news you can ask about something funny you saw on the internet you can ask about um you know some something that you heard from another friend of yours whatever it's just a way to check in with the other person and say oh did you also experience this thing that i experienced let's talk about that so that might be another question that you can use with people i like that one i really like that one because you've got to stay within people's comfort zone so maybe you ask and maybe they don't want to right so a good thing is did you hear about it that's up to them maybe they don't want to talk about it they can say oh yeah i heard about that and you can kind of feel uh the the atmosphere and and realize maybe i shouldn't talk about this change the subject or they get passionate and they start talking about it and there you go and just let it go um yeah absolutely one thing again i'm guilty of is is you do gotta keep keep returning it right don't let it don't just say oh yeah and what i think about that bring it back ask them what about you um that's a common thing i forget about yeah yeah yeah okay um good i have one more this one um use when you see fits don't i guess just okay i'll just introduce it compliment the other person or compliment the other person this can be a nice strategy just to show that you're enjoying the other person's company um it can be as simple as oh i like your shirt today or oh that's a nice dress you're wearing today or oh did you get a new haircut that looks good on you something like that so this is a nice a nice way to make the other person maybe want to spend more time with you i think yeah i agree 100 um two things one i think it's a good conversation starter sometimes um if you've got to be careful with a stranger it can be creepy it can be a little uncomfortable what you're complimenting right but if it's something like if they have a t-shirt and it's a band that you both like that's a great conversation starter and you feel wow we're connected you know um number two the second thing i was thinking about is that keep it honest i love i love a sincere compliment it really means a lot more and it really does butter them up kind of get them open to having more conversations deeper that kind of thing um but one of the things people do which which i don't like is let's say they say hey nice shirt and then the person out of habit will say oh you too i like your shirt too just my opinion i don't think this feels really natural doesn't really feel sincere so i would i would save it make a mental note and go hmm i need to return the favor i need to give them a compliment but wait until you notice something you really do like and say hey actually i love blah blah yeah i think that's a great point like when you you can sense whether someone is being sincere or not what is your next strategy for continuing an english conversation well don't be afraid to open up i like this one i think this is good a lot of people will be kind of shy they won't open up too much again within within your comfort zone but i like this one because people return the favor because if you're just having small talk and you say you know the weather's nice today blah blah you can only go so far so don't be afraid to say something personal again trust your judgment don't be a creeper don't go we don't want to hear certain things about your life don't don't be a creep don't be a creep don't be weird don't be strange and like what you're saying about opening up open up is just a phrase that means share something about yourself um so it can be as simple as what you did last weekend or what you're going to do this weekend or a project that you have coming up it doesn't mean that you have to spill all of your life's secrets to the other person but just showing that you're willing to share something more personal about yourself can help ingratiate yourself or can help you know make the other person help the other person understand you a little bit better that's a good tip i like that tip that's hard to do though it's hard it's a little bit scary i think to share parts of yourself but it's good it's a good way to meet people and make friends all right i think that's all is that all that you have yeah that's all i got okay all right well those are some interesting uh strategies to keep an english conversation going so give them a try if you're ever at a loss for words and don't know what to say you can try one of these strategies and hopefully it will help you out please let us know if you have any other strategies or anything else that you would like to use or you tried to use when you are having trouble keeping a conversation going uh leave us a comment and let us know what it is we will see you again next time do you have anything else you'd like to add that's about it all right so thanks very much for joining us and take care bye-bye top 10 language learning strategies let's begin befriending or dating someone who speaks english watching movies or listening to music in english read english newspapers or magazines record your voice and compare your pronunciation with native english speakers download dialogue tracks and listen to english conversations repeat the phrases that you hear out loud again and again review all the lessons on to englishclass101.com them completely read lines slowly at first then re-read and increase your speed set small and measurable learning goals with your personal deadlines try harder lessons to challenge yourself and improve faster hi everybody welcome back to top words my name is alicia and today we're going to talk about 10 ways to express fear and surprise let's get started yeah you scared me the first expression is you scared me you scared me so too scare is the verb here and we're using the past tense you scared me so you caused me to be frightened you scared me we use this when we feel surprised or scared so your friend suddenly jumps out from but you scared me i thought i thought you tipped over a liquid onto the camera so you scared me it's like yeah oh my gosh you frightened me in other words you caused me to be afraid in a sentence ah you scared me you scared the out of me the next expression is you scared the something out of me you scared the blah blah blah out of me in the blah blah blah here in the space we can use a lot of different words some of them are really really rude words you might have heard a few of these on like tv shows or in english speaking movies um so in this lesson i'm going to introduce like some kind of not so rude words um you can use you scared like the bejesus out of me you scared the heck out of me you scared the hell out of me so it's a more extreme version of you scared me so you scared that something out of me it like the image is i was so frightened that something came out of my body and it's usually like a negative or like a rude word we use to emphasize how frightened we were you scared the hell out of you oh my gosh so that's kind of a common expression so in a sentence jeez you scared the hell out of me that really freaks me out the next expression is that really freaks me out that really freaks me out so to freak someone out or like to freak out is like to cause a strong emotion that's kind of a negative nervous emotion or that's just if you feel like you're kind of overflowing with either like a nervousness or like excitement to freak out has a couple of different meanings but when you say that really freaks me out it's kind of a negative like sort of scared emotion so in a sentence ugh cockroaches really freak me out so you feel like uncomfortable it's kind of like this gross like creepy crawly feeling about it it's like ah that freaks me out so that's one use ah that really freaks me out i'm freaking out right now the next expression is i'm freaking out or i'm freaking out right now so in the last expression we saw that really freaks me out in this expression we say i'm freaking out in the progressive tense i'm freaking out which means like i'm super super super excited or i'm like super like i have so much energy about something so freaking out sounds kind of like um a nervous activity but we can use it for like exciting things as well i can say like oh my gosh i forgot my car keys i'm freaking out right now how am i going to get home we can use it to express like nervousness or anxiety but we can also say something exciting like you got tickets to beyonce i'm freaking out right now like we use it in a very positive way sometimes as well so you can kind of choose depending on your emotion are you afraid or are you excited surprised both are okay that really creeped me out the next expression is that really creeped me out that really creeped me out so creepy is a word we've talked about in a previous episode of top words on the horror movie episode of top words uh so something that is creepy causes nervous feelings or like we can't relax it's kind of unsettling or strange so something that causes those feelings in us we can describe with a phrase that creeped me out that caused creepy feelings in me that thing creeped me out so like bugs creep me out for example more than creep me out i just hate bugs so in another sentence yeah i saw the ring it really creeped me out so something that causes uneasy feelings in you i was so sketched out the next expression is i was so sketched out i was so sketched out so here we are using the word sketch or sketched which doesn't actually mean rough drawing here this is sort of a slang phrase that has become commonly used throughout different types of english to be sketched out by something means to have like nervous feelings that something is kind of dangerous so creepy is just sort of unsettling like difficult to relax sketchy is like is about a person usually or like a situation that seems it could be dangerous there could be something dangerous actually it's not just that it's kind of scary but there's maybe some danger there so sketchy sketchy like we don't know what's going to happen next in a sentence then i think a car was following me today i was so sketched out holy the next expression is holy something holy something so we can say holy cow or holy other rude words you can check some tv and movies for other words you can finish this sentence with holy something so we use this as just an exclamation so when we're surprised or when we're afraid or when we're excited we can say holy cow or like holy i'm not going to say other words that people use cause this is a family channel but uh holy something can mean anything depending on the situation and the sort of tone of voice that you use with this word uh holy cow is a pretty common expression but for surprise usually i would say the kind of rude expressions are more commonly used for fear oh my god the next expression is oh my god oh my god so depending on your intonation you can kind of change the meaning of this word you can express your surprise with oh my god or you can express like fear like oh my god so depending on the way you say this word you can kind of change the meaning but you can use this in a lot of different expressions i'm sure you've heard this expression before oh my god also oh my gosh dude if you don't like to use the word god in an example sentence oh my god there's a bee in the car what okay the next expression looks kind of funny on screen it's just what what so we can use this as a very casual form of surprise what so when someone surprises you usually a friend a good friend and you're just stunned like you're so surprised and shocked but you don't feel like excited you're just like whoa it's difficult for you to kind of say anything or do anything some people react with what like that kind of long a sound so it's usually used for surprise actually or something new that you just oh my gosh i can't react to this it's just what that's all just that's a simple reaction so you might hear this as well for surprise generally in an example a surprise party what you got me good the last expression is you got me good you got me good this is an expression you can use when your friend or someone else you know plays a joke on you so your friend tries to trick you or your friend tries to scare you or whatever tries to get a reaction from you usually by scaring you or surprising you if the trick or the joke was effective you can say ah you got me good you got me good this is kind of like a ah okay i admit like you got me you defeated me in other words you made me afraid or you surprised me so you can say you got me good you got me good so that's the meaning of this expression ah nice job in other words you got me good in a sentence ha you got me good those are 10 ways to express fear and surprise if there's another expression you like to use please be sure to let us know in the comments for sure if you liked the video please make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other good study resources thanks very much for watching this episode of top words and i will see you again soon bye bye hi everybody welcome back to top words my name is alicia and in this episode we're going to talk about 10 words and expressions for talking about thoughts and ideas so let's get started i have an idea the first expression is i have an idea i have an idea this is a really general expression you can use to introduce a new idea this is pretty casual but you can use it in slightly more formal situations as well i have an idea let's get thai food for lunch or i have an idea let's go to the beach this weekend i have an idea let's take a nap in this example sentence i have an idea let's start a company i've been thinking the next expression is i've been thinking i've been thinking you can use this to say i've been thinking and then begin an idea or you can say i've been thinking about topic i've been thinking about topics so i've been thinking about finding a new job or i've been thinking what do you want to do for summer vacation so you can use it in a couple of different ways i've been thinking about or i've been thinking both are okay so in this sentence i've been thinking about baking a cake all day here's a thought the next word is here's a thought here's a thought so again this is a word you can use to introduce an idea here is a thought in other words here is an idea a thought from my mind here you are here's a thought so you can use this to introduce an idea you have had here's a thought why don't you get a haircut in this example sentence here's a thought why don't you take tomorrow off what do you think the next expression is what do you think what do you think very common way to ask for someone's opinion what do you think we connect the words do and you quite closely in this expression what do you think what do you think sounds much more natural than what do you think so try to use what do you think so this is uh this is just a general way to ask for someone else's opinion about anything really in a sentence i kind of want to eat something spicy for lunch what do you think you want to know what i think the next expression is you want to know what i think so this is sort of a like a challenge almost like it's asking the other person do you want to know my opinion do you want to know what i think because i'll tell you only if you want to know so you want to know what i think or you can drop wanna and say you know what i think so that you becomes ya you know what i think you know becomes you know so you know what i think or you want to know what i think so it's a little bit of a challenge a little bit of an introduction before you actually share your opinion in a sentence you want to know what i think it's a terrible idea i've thought about this a lot the next expression is i've thought about this a lot i've thought about this a lot in this expression we're actually using the present perfect tense i've thought i've thought so that's i have thought about this meaning i started thinking about this in the past and my thinking has continued to the present i've thought about this a lot so this implies this tells the listener it's something that has been on your mind for a while i've thought about this a lot so your opinion is based on all of this past thinking so something you have been thinking about for a long time in a sentence i've thought about this a lot and i really think you should quit the company i have no idea i have no idea i have no idea means i don't know but i have no idea means zero i have no information no ideas i can't think of anything absolutely nothing no idea i have no idea so this is typically used in response to a question for information like where's your brother i have no idea i'm like what did you do with the keys i have no idea so some things like you just you have no information absolutely no information you can say i have no idea i don't know please note though that the idea part of the sentence is in the singular form i have no idea we'll talk about why in just a moment but i have no idea to refer to having no information about something in another sentence the best hotel in the city i have no idea i have no ideas the next expression is i have no ideas i have no ideas so here different from i have no idea we're using the plural form ideas ideas meaning someone is asking you for a proposal someone is asking you like to create something to make something perhaps so they're asking for a suggestion and if you don't have any suggestions nothing to propose you can say i have no ideas i have no idea so what do you want to do this weekend i have no ideas or what do you want to eat for lunch i have no ideas really so if you don't have any ideas nothing to propose you can use this with an s at the end of ideas in another sentence something to do this weekend i have no ideas i don't know the next expression is i don't know i don't know so michael and i talked about this in an episode of english topics many years ago but i don't know is i don't know the casual contracted version of i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know so we use this when we don't know the answer to something i don't know or when we just want to kind of like relieve pressure or when we're when when we're out of things to say as well i don't know so when we're like not feeling sure or not feeling confident as well we can use this phrase in a sentence why are you asking me i don't know i knew it the last expression is i knew it i knew it so here we're using the past tense of no the verb to know something meaning to understand or to comprehend we're using the past tense new i knew it so we used this expression when we guessed correctly about something or when something we thought was true is proven to be correct so i knew it i knew it so this is typically said with a positive positive voice you hear this a lot in movies as well i think all right in a sentence you had my keys i knew it so those are ten words and expressions that you can use for talking about your thoughts and ideas so i hope that's helpful if you like you can try to make an expression with one of these in the comments section below the video let us know if you have any other ideas as well if you like the video please make sure 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 good resources thanks very much for watching this episode of top words and i will see you again soon bye-bye hi everybody my name is alicia and today i'm going to talk about the correct use of the word only let's take a look at a few examples and see how moving the word only around in a sentence can change the meaning of the sentence all right let's begin first i want to define the word only and how i'm going to use it for this lesson the word only for this lesson we're going to look at it as an adverb so an adverb which means a single case or a single instance of something so there's nothing uh different nothing more nothing less there's just this one thing this one case of something but i want to focus for this lesson on the importance of the position of only in a sentence so one key to keep in mind when you use the word only and this is a point for native speakers and for non-native speakers we need to place the word only as close as possible to the word or to the phrase that it modifies and by modifies i mean only is connected to that phrase only is changing that phrase in some way and when i say places at place it as close as possible to that word i mean before that word it needs to come before the word it's changing before the word it's modifying so i want to show um a few examples of how to do this but i'm going to move the word only around in the same sentence so let's take a look i'll show you what i mean let's take a look at this this sentence uh the base sentence here is sarah saw michael at the park a simple sentence so there are two people involved one action in this case the past tense saw and then a location at the park but i'm going to use the word only here in a few different positions to show how much it can change the meaning of the sentence depending on where we place it so the first example here i have is only sarah saw michael at the park here the word only comes before sarah so that means that these two words are connected only is modifying sarah in this case this sentence therefore means that sarah perhaps in a group of people or with somebody else sarah was the only person the single person who saw michael at the park maybe there were other people in the group she was with but she was the single person the only person who saw michael so only sarah saw michael at the park that's the meaning with the placement of only before sarah here let's look at the next sentence sarah only saw michael at the park so here only is coming before the word saw so in this case it's modifying this verb saw this sentence therefore means that sarah the only thing sarah did her only action was to see she only saw michael at the park meaning no other actions happened sarah did not wave to michael sarah did not greet michael sarah did not throw something at michael uh whatever there was no other action the only action the single action the sole action was that she saw michael sarah only saw michael at the part so the placement before the verb gives us this meaning let's look at one more example sarah saw only michael at the park here only comes before michael in this case so the connection the modification is happening here sarah saw only michael at the park means she did not see any other people at the park so this could mean that there were no other people at the park or that maybe she just she just didn't see anybody at the park so this sentence is a little bit tricky it's a little hard to understand exactly what the writer wants to say but it could mean that there were perhaps no people at the park no other people at the park that sarah saw so she went to the park she saw only michael there was only one person a single person it was michael that sarah saw so placing only before in this case michael gives us this meaning all right one more sentence sarah saw michael only at the park so here the word only is coming before this phrase at the park this location in this case meaning that there was a single place where sarah saw michael so sarah did not see michael at the supermarket she did not see him at the store she did not see him at school she saw him only at the park so there's a single location where she saw michael so these four sentences show us how much the meaning of a sentence can change depending on our placement of the of the word only so it's important to keep in mind another thing that i've done throughout this lesson a little bit is i've emphasized with my voice the word that only is modifying but i want to make one more point here in speech when actually speaking we can stress words for emphasis and for clarity to make it very clear which word in the sentence we want to emphasize which word we want only to modify so for example i can say only sarah saw michael at the park or sarah only saw michael at the park so with your voice you have the ability to emphasize certain words and certain phrases in the sentences however in in writing it's not possible to do this so correct placement of the word only is quite important so i wanted to give you a few examples and it's just something to think about the next time you use the word only so make sure that you're placing the word only as close as possible to the word that it modifies so just something to keep in mind all right so that's it for this lesson if you have any questions or comments please feel free to let us know in the comment section below this video if you like the video give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other resources thanks very much for watching this lesson and i'll see you again soon bye-bye hi everybody my name is alicia today i'm going to talk about how to use the word almost i'm going to show a few different example sentences and give you a couple pointers some things to watch out for when you're using this word so first let's look at the meaning of the word almost so almost is an adverb it's a word that means nearly or not quite or not completely it can also mean similar to something but not exactly like something so i've got a lot of example sentences here that i hope to uh talk about to kind of explain the use of almost before i do that though i want to mention this point over here almost comes before the word it modifies so modifies means like almost is attached you can think of it as being attached to another word and almost changes the meaning of that word so um using almost before another word or before another phrase adds this meaning of nearly or not quite or not completely to that word or to that phrase so let's begin with that and look at a few examples i almost forgot my homework so here almost comes before the verb forgot in this case meaning i nearly forgot my homework so the word almost like i said almost should come before the word it modifies so here it's modifying the word forgot so i nearly forgot my homework i was very close to forgetting my homework another example he almost always calls on his way home so here it comes before the work it comes before the word always in this case almost always meaning maybe like 95 percent of the time or 90 percent of the time so not always but nearly very nearly always calls on his way home is the meaning of this sentence okay let's look at another one maybe an opposite meaning here they almost never leave the house so here we we've got never as the word that almost is modifying so almost never means you can think of it in terms of a percentage for example like five percent of the time they leave the house very very close to zero but not quite zero so almost never not quite never but very near to never the next one you're almost finished you're almost finished so here almost is modifying the word finished so in other words you're nearly finished in this case maybe you're nearly finished with your job for the day or you're nearly finished with your homework for example you're almost finished is the meaning here let's look at the next sentence then so the next sentence is we're almost home we're almost home in this case almost is modifying the word home home in this case means uh at your place of residence so to be in a status and a status of being at your at your place yet you're dwelling at your residence so to be almost home means nearly at your house in other words so we can modify in this way similar to this negative i used up here with never we've got there's almost nothing left in the refrigerator so again almost nothing in this case so very nearly no things very nearly maybe nothing to eat or no food in the refrigerator so this sentence means there's something in the refrigerator a few things maybe but almost nothing so very little of something okay the next sentence shows another point that i want to make about the placement of the word almost i mentioned in these initial example sentences that the word almost comes before the word it modifies as we've seen so far however when you're using the verb to be and the variations of it like was and were for example almost comes after that verb so let's look at an example of that here we have here here i have uh he was almost fired from his job so here is my 2b verb in this case using was he was almost fired from his job so here almost follows the verb to be this is a slight change i'll show you one more example sentence later so again let's go back to this first pattern almost no one came to her party so here almost begins the sentence it's modifying the word no one almost no one came to her party so meaning very few people came to her party lastly let's look at one more to be example here i was almost late for the movie so again here's our to be verb i was and almost follows that to be verb i was almost late for the movie okay so these are quite a few examples of how we can use almost i want to talk a little bit about some other ways to use almost we use almost with time and quantity expressions so in these cases we use the word almost before the time or before the quantity let's look at some examples for example we've been waiting almost two hours so here two hours is a length of time we use almost before that so nearly two hours not quite two hours but nearly two hours the next example i've lived here for almost five years so that doesn't mean five years exactly but very nearly five years same thing here he said they were almost i'm sorry he said there were almost 5 000 people so almost 5 000 not quite maybe like 4 900 for example very nearly 5 000. again the recipe made almost 200 cookies so again not quite is the meaning here so all of these kind of um we use this when it maybe it's easier to round up to use like the next easily recognizable number like it might sound strange in the last example to say the recipe made 498 cookies it sounds very very specific and it also sounds like maybe the speaker counted each individual cookie so sometimes that's really not reasonable or it might just sound a little bit strange so um or also it's just sometimes not possible to count exactly how many people or how many of something we're in a situation but using almost we can make a guess sometimes so this is quite a useful thing for time and quantity expressions okay so as we've seen so far in this lesson we can use always with words like always and never i used it over here for example heat almost always and they almost never so just keep in mind that these have very very different meanings kind of opposite meanings so i almost always means very nearly always and almost never means very nearly never but not quite same thing with um all or nothing or no so i used an example here there's almost nothing for example so here it means very close to zero if i used almost all like almost all the people were happy it means very nearly everybody as well so you can kind of see a pattern here and the same one is we can see here at the end everyone and no one it's like extreme so um like 100 versus zero percent of something so all or nothing everyone or no one we can use almost to show that we are very near to these levels but not quite at these levels the last thing i want to mention in this lesson is a word of caution just be careful about where you place almost in a sentence because it can really affect the meaning of the sentence so here let's look at two very similar sentences one he almost told his boss all the secrets and two he told his boss almost all the secrets these are very different sentences but they seem very similar here i've used almost before the verb told so almost is modifying the word told here he almost told his boss all the secrets meaning he very nearly told his boss all the secrets but he did not he did not so here almost modifies this verb told meaning the action itself he almost did this action but he did not do the action in this sentence however he told his boss almost all the secrets almost because of its positioning is modifying the word all he told his boss almost all the secrets meaning he told his boss very nearly everything all of the secrets so maybe like 95 90 to 95 percent of the secrets he told his boss so the action happened he did tell his boss but he didn't tell everything in this case so please keep this in mind your placement the place in the sentence where you use the word almost can create very very different meanings so remember this point here almost should come before the word it modifies so when you're writing and when you're speaking you should think carefully about this also remember when you're using the verb to be almost should come after that verb finally when you're speaking as i am right now we do have the ability to use our voices we can emphasize key words we can stress them with our voices to make it clear which word we want to emphasize however we can't really do that in writing so it's really important to consider to think about where we place the word almost when we're writing so i hope that this lesson was useful for you if you have any questions or any comments please feel free to let us know in the comment section below this video if you liked the video give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and check us out at englishclass101.com thanks very much for watching this lesson and i will see you again soon bye-bye hi everybody my name is alicia today i'm going to talk about the difference between which and that which and that are both relative pronouns but a lot of people confuse the two so let's talk about how to use them okay first a quick overview which first we use which in what are called non-restrictive relative clauses we use that on the other hand in restrictive relative clauses so before we continue let's talk about the difference between non-restrictive clauses and restrictive clauses the difference here a non-restrictive clause first of all where we use which is a clause that does not have information essential to understanding the noun it is connected to i'll show you some examples in just a minute a restrictive clause however is a clause that has information essential to our understanding of that noun so we need the information in the restrictive clause to completely understand the noun or the noun phrase it is attached to a non-restrictive clause is sort of extra information we don't need the information to understand the noun or the noun phrase it just provides some more information so let's take a look at a few examples of this the first example i have is rather extreme but it's just to show the differences between these two first the school that i parked my car next to is dangerous so here my noun is school here i've got the relative pronoun that i have the school that i parked my car next to is dangerous i've used that here because my clause is a restrictive clause i need this information the school that i parked my car next to is dangerous if i remove this the school is dangerous the sentence is correct however the meaning changes uh the key here is that i parked my car there so i want to explain that specifically the school that i parked my car next to this school in particular is dangerous so that shows us that it's a restrictive clause we have to use that in this sentence because the information is essential to our understanding in this sentence however the school which has a tennis court is dangerous i've used which so which is a non-restrictive is used in non-restrictive clauses this shows us it is extra information the school has a tennis court do i need to know this information no it's just extra information if i remove this clause the school is dangerous the root sentence the basic sentence stays the same this is just extra information it doesn't necessarily tell us uh essential information about the situation so we use which to show that it's a non-restrictive relative clause as i said this is a rather extreme example so let's take a look at something that's a little bit more uh complex okay let's look at the next two sentences first the car which i bought last year is already having trouble and the car that i bought last year is already having trouble these are very similar sounding sentences however our choice of which or that as well as the commas which i'll talk about later have changed the meaning so there are a couple key differences here one by seeing that in the first sentence that we're using a non-restrictive clause here with which we see the car which i bought last year this shows us that this is extra information about the car here however we see that this is essential information the car that i bought last year is already having trouble so the speaker could be saying here with this sentence the second sentence the card that i bought last year specifically a car that the speaker purchased the previous year this sentence means therefore the speaker might have other cars the speaker is specifically meaning this specific car that they he or she bought last year in this sentence with the non-restrictive clause we don't have the same nuance the car which i bought last year is just extra information in this sentence so here the car that i bought last year this is indicating a specific car this one with the non-restrictive claws it's just giving us extra information so the speaker may or may not have another car we don't know so that's all i want to say about that okay but a question that many people have is how do you know whether it's a restrictive or a non-restrictive clause so this is a quick tip a quick hint uh for native speakers and non-native speakers actually is it restrictive non-restrictive how do i know to do that remove the clause just take the clause out of the sentence is the meaning of the sentence the same is the sentence still grammatically correct is it okay if yes if the sentence is okay the meaning is the same it's a non-restrictive clause if no if the meaning changes if you lose some key information it is a restrictive clause so this is a quick hint if you're not sure whether to use which or whether to use that try this test this quick test just take it out and see if the meaning changes the last thing i want to talk about here is the use of commas so you'll notice i used commas throughout this lesson and also when i was reading they kind of create a natural pause around this extra information but when do you use them we should use commas around non-restrictive clauses so you can see i used them here and here in the example sentences we use commas around non-restrictive clauses only again this lesson comma which is being recorded comma is about which and that so when you're reading it creates a natural pause so the reader knows there's going to be like extra information there the reader can understand through use of these commas however do not use commas around restrictive clauses for example the lesson that i just taught was about how to use which and that this is a restrictive clause so i mean specifically this lesson that i just taught was about how to use which and that i should not include commas here because i'm not including any extra information all of the information is essential it's the same with all of the other example sentences i used in this lesson there are no commas included because all of the information is essential the reader needs to understand everything in one piece you can think of it that way okay so that's an overview of the differences between which and that restrictive clauses as well and a couple of comma tips too so i hope that this was a useful lesson for you if you have any questions of course please feel free to let us know in the comments if you liked the video give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and check us out for more good stuff at englishclass101.com thanks very much for watching and i will see you again soon bye bye ten ways to report speech let's go say the first word is say say as a verb say is a very neutral word you can use to report someone's speech to explain something someone said in the past so for example he said the barbecue was cancelled just a simple neutral report tell the next verb is tell tell is used when one person is giving information to another to tell someone something they did not know before don't say tell me your phone number that's weird but like can you tell me where the station is can you tell me where to buy a hamburger can you tell me where to pick up my new car like so giving someone information they don't know or or on the other hand explaining something one way to another person so don't tell me what i can't do is a very good lost reference if you've ever watched lost so tell another example sentence my boss told me i was doing a good job speak the next one is speak speak so we use speak when we're talking about uh language ability like i speak english i speak japanese we can use speak in the past tense to report something but it usually sounds a little more formal so like i spoke to my boss about or i spoke to my parents about or i spoke to my boyfriend or girlfriend about blah blah blah that using speak instead of talked makes it sound a little bit more formal so you can use speak but it's going to sound polite in a sentence my colleague spoke with me about an upcoming project was like okay the next one the next two actually are very very casual expressions so when you're speaking with friends and you're kind of talking about a quick maybe somewhat emotional conversation you will hear native speakers especially americans perhaps this is unique somewhat to americans use the phrase was like i was like he was like she was like this is a very casual way to report speech and you'll hear it often very very quickly together so someone will say i was like what and then she was like no and then i was like yeah that's the kind of pattern you'll hear it in very very quick ways to report speech but the subject changes i was like he was like she was like we were like this is a way to share what happens quickly instead of i said he said she said which might sound a little too formal we can use i was like he was like to do that instead so this is a really fun one and if you can use this uh naturally i think that it'll really help you sound more natural too so in a sentence and then he was like i love that movie was all the next one is also a similar to was like we have the expression was all so was all don't worry about all all does not have the meaning of the whole of something or a complete something instead was all this set phrase is used to report speech usually this one is used when there's some kind of emotional uh emotional aspect to your conversation or it's a little dramatic or maybe a little exciting we use it the same way as was like in that very very quick style of speaking and then he was like and i was all and she was like and i was all we use those together but i was all has a little more emphasis i feel i tend to use it when my when i want to express a stronger emotion and i was all no way or and i was all what so you can use it for those very like surprised emotions or maybe angry emotions was like and was all are both used in very casual situations so in a sentence and i was all oh my god me too talk the next word is talk so talk similar to uh say is a fairly neutral verb when reporting speech you'll use it in a situation where someone is giving new information to you but maybe it's a two-way conversation so for example we talked about blah blah blah for a topic or my boss talked to me about blah blah blah so maybe new information is being exchanged but the conversation is two way there are multiple participants with tell it's like the nuance is sort of one person is reporting information giving information with talked it's there's an exchange happening there so keep in mind when you use the word talk you will say either i i talked to or i talked with someone and then you'll usually have a topic so i talked to my friend about blah blah blah i talked to my friend about my new apartment i talked to my boss about a raise i talked to my boss no i talked to my dog about what dogs do so there's some kind of there's some kind of exchange happening there you'll need to use to or with when you're referring to the person or entity you're talking to and you'll use about to refer to the subject so you can use this one um yeah when you're when you want to discuss exchanges of information so in a sentence she talked to me about my family mention let's go to the next one the next one is mention mention is used when like something is just there's just one small point in a conversation like just a little side note or maybe it's not the focus of a conversation but just something someone says quickly or there's just a little thing that you hear oh you mentioned something about blah blah blah or you mentioned that a new project like it's it's maybe not the focus of the conversation but something that you heard a little bit about that's that's when we use the verb mention we can also use it in a statement like please uh mention any skills you have on a resume so the nuance is sort of like a like just a little bit of information is when we use mention so in a sentence our manager mentioned upcoming changes at the company to go on and on okay the next expression is to go on and on so to go on and on means just to talk for a very long time so maybe you have a co-worker or a friend or a family member that just talks and does not stop talking we say to go on and on that's the expression we use so in a sentence the speaker at the seminar was going on and on about the topic if you really want to emphasize it you can say what's going on and on and on and on and on and that really emphasizes that the person continues to speak so if you know somebody um who does that a lot you can use this expression to talk about them according to the next expression here is according to according to is used actually in the news or like to officially report something so according to sources or according to the police according to the government official according to my teacher according to my mother these are like direct reports of information and they're direct reports of information from a specific source so according to the newspaper my f neighborhood has 50 000 amazing ramen shops that's not true but if i want to instead of just saying my neighborhood has 50 000 amazing ramen shops i'm giving a source for that so according to my newspaper this is this is where i got the information so this is important to use in news and newspapers and any kind of official documentation you will see and hear according to in these cases ah in a sentence according to a witness at the scene the suspect escaped report great so um the next one is report so reports similar to according to we use report in more official situations so to officially share information like to report to the police to report to your teacher to report to your boss sometimes it means to submit documentation like to to give someone a written report sometimes it's to share information officially just just with your voice to report news or to report an update so when you want to give and give official information we'll use the verb report so in a sentence sources in the area report that the accident was not serious thank goodness all right top 10 must-know phrases for the restaurant let's get started a table for three please a table for three please you tell them the number of people that you are total so that the host can bring you to an appropriate table a table for two please a table for five please could i please see a menu could i please see a menu usually menus are given to you as soon as you sit down at your table but if that's not the case and you need to ask this is a polite way to do it could i please see a menu i'd like to try this dish i'd like to try this dish when looking at a menu hopefully you'll find something you want to eat i'd like to try this dish could you leave out the onions could you leave out the onions if there's an ingredient in the dish that you're ordering that you don't want you can always ask the waiter if it could be prepared without that ingredient so for example i might say could i get the burger but with no cheese could you pass the salt could you pass the salt when you're at a restaurant especially if you're at a big table with a lot of people you might not always be able to reach things so you would ask could you pass me the salt could you pass me the ketchup could you pass me another napkin waiter waiter a waiter is someone who takes your order and brings you food in america and in many other western countries it's more polite to call a waiter to your table by simply saying excuse me or if you see another waiter walking by but it's not your waiter you can always say excuse me if you see our waiter could you please let them know to come to our table is there any dairy in this dish is there any dairy in this dish this is something you would say if you have a dairy allergy a dairy intolerance or you just don't like dairy you're asking the waiter about the ingredients in a particular dish i do this all the time is there any cheese in this no okay and if there is an ingredient that you don't want for example onions you could say are there any onions in this and the waiter might say yes and if you don't want it you could always request could you leave out the onions could you prepare it without the onions please can we get separate chex can we get separate chex this is actually something that's very common especially in america if you might go out with a group of friends or even if you're on a date sometimes you might want to get separate checks pay for your own things that way you can all pay separately just for what you yourself ordered and you won't have to worry about owing each other money or calculating off a big huge bill are there any specials today are there any specials today a special at a restaurant is a dish that isn't usually on the menu it's something that's special but it's a special that the chef is offering that day or that week or that month so sometimes if you don't see what the specials are you'd ask your waiter excuse me are there any specials today could we have the bill please could we have the bill please this is how you request that the check or the bill comes to your table can we get the check please could we get the bill please you're asking this to your waiter who will then bring you the check and you can pay 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

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Id: qVv6nJ8eTFk

Length: 118min 36sec (7116 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021