Either or Neither - How to Use Either and Neither

either or an either that's what we're talking about in this video too confusing words that guess what these even confuse native English speakers as well so don't worry you're not alone but I'm going to make the difference really easy for you and give you an easy way to remember if you should use either or neither of course I'm Jennifer from Jefferies English comm and this channel is dedicated to helping you sound like a fluent confident natural English speaker now before we go any further make sure you subscribe and hit that Bell notification so you are notified every time I post a new video now let's dive in with this lesson either or neither do you know what the difference is if you do stop right now and put it in the comments even if you don't put it in the comments what you think the difference is and then you can compare it to the end of the video and see how much you learn today I'm going to make this explanation really easy for you and by the end of the video you'll feel confident using either and neither in sentences this is definitely an area I see lots of mistakes with but not just with non-native English speakers I see this with my friends with my colleagues with native English speakers as well so don't worry too much about this but I will make it easy for you to remember now before we go any further I just want you to know that the pronunciation is flexible so you can say neither neither either either okay there's no difference I might even change them throughout the video if I do there's no difference at all I tend to use either and neither and that's generally what I hear being used in North America with that said let's talk about the difference between either and neither and let's start with either in terms of structure it's going to be either noun or noun and we use this structure when we're choosing between two options it's really important that is only two options we don't use it with three and we don't use it with four we use it with two options let's take a look at an example either Mike or John will help you so as you can see we have our structure either now or now right now in terms of meaning both of these situations are possible it's possible that Mike will help you it's possible that John will help you now it's important to know that it's only one person that will help you in the end so in the end you will have Mike or John either Mike or John will help you so let's take a moment and practice now that we know how to form a sentence using either/or so pause the video if you need think of an example remember the structure is either noun or noun and then the rest of your sentence so think about what your sentence is and then put it in the comments below now before we move on let's talk about different sentence structures using either now it's definitely possible that the nouns Mike and John in this scenario the nouns have already been identified okay and if that's the case there are some other sentence structures that you can use in fact there are three possibilities they mean exactly the same thing so let's say that our nouns have already been identified so I could say Mike and John are in the office today so we already set the context that Mike and John are our nouns right I don't mean to repeat that information so I could say Mike and John are in the office today either one will help you notice here either one okay of course either one one is Mike and one is John I don't need to repeat those nouns because I said them at the beginning part of my sentence in this case I can simply say either one will help you now remember I said there's three different traces of sentence structure I could also say either one of them will help you so notice here I'm just adding of them of course the damn is Mike and John you've got this right okay our third choice is I could say either of them will help you so what am i doing different here in this case I'm simply dropping the one right so all three of these choices mean exactly the same thing you can use them interchangeably there's no difference at all remember these three choices are used when the nouns have already been identified so now take a second take your example that you already use and change it so you identify the nouns first and then follow this structure remember you have three different choices so practice using all three and put your practice examples in the comments now let's talk about neither this thing you need to remember is that neither is negative so I think really easy to remember that is negative because neither starts with an N and negative starts with an N so you can just have that association in your brain right neither negative neither negative n and so that's an easy way to remember it so think of it as the exact same as either but we use it in the negative so instead of saying that both choices are available impossible like we did with either we're using neither to deny those two choices okay they're not available now there's one important change that we need to make and this change is definitely something that native english-speakers forget all lot okay but that change is we have to say neither noun do you know what I'm gonna say next do you put it in the comments if you do neither noun nor nor now now again I think this should be easy for you to remember because you just put an N in front of or right nor nor and negative neither negative so use that brain association I think it will be really easy for you to remember it that way neither nor okay so let's take our original example with either and put it in the negative with neither so pause the video think about that and put it in the comments what would our original example be with neither mmm put it in the comments of course it would be neither Mike nor John will help you I don't know why they won't help you but they won't because remember neither is name so we're saying those two choices are not available so you can think of it as you have two choices right John and Mike John won't help you Mike won't help you neither Mike nor John will help you now this seems three different sentence structures that we saw with either are exactly the same for neither so in that case it's really easy we just change either to neither but remember it's negative neither negative so pause the video think about what our original examples were with either and put them in the comments with neither did you get them in the comments hopefully you did so remember we need to put the context and identify our nouns so I could still say Mike and John are in the office they can still be in the office but they're just not willing to help you okay so Mike and John are in the office neither one will help you right neither one will help you what are the two other choices put them in the comments neither one of them will help you or our third choice neither of them will help you not very nice Mike and John are they okay so by now you feel really comfortable with either and neither right but let me give you one more scenario before you go because it's an important one and this is an area that I see native English speakers make mistakes with okay so let's imagine you're talking to your friend and they just randomly say I don't speak French I don't speak French okay I don't negative I don't speak French now how can we answer this you using neither hmm I don't speak French what would I say as my answer neither do i neither do i because it's negative I don't speak French so I'm matching my answer with neither because neither is negative okay neither do I now there is a casual a more casual informal way that native English speakers answer that and we simply say me neither me neither that's a little more of a casual way but I say it all the time neither do I is you know the formal way me neither I don't speak French me neither I don't speak French neither do I now I don't want to confuse you but it is possible to answer this with either but it's not that common okay but they just want you to know that as possible I don't speak French how can I answer this with either hmm do you know if you do put it in the comments bonus points if you know this one put it in the comments if I wanted to answer with either to a negative I would have to make either negative okay I would have to say I don't speak French I don't either I don't either I don't speak French I don't either in this case there's only one possible answer so that's definitely a possibility it's just not as common as saying me neither neither do i but remember negative statement you use neither to agree with that negative statement I don't like coffee neither do I now before you go just one more bonus thing okay now imagine it was a positive statement okay my friend said I speak French my answer would be me too me too so do I so do I so if it's a positive statement and you're agreeing positively we don't use either and we don't use neither okay so those don't exist in this situation they're not choices all right awesome job now you know how to use either and neither and let me tell you right now your knowledge is probably more advanced than many native English speakers so awesome job today if you found this video helpful please hit the like button share it with your friends and of course subscribe now before you go make sure you head on over to my website J for is English comm and download your free speaking guide in this guide I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently and until next time happy studying all right way to go now you know how to use either and neither woo don't stop there check out this video and don't forget about this video and make sure you subscribe and it's going 5-5 [Music] you

Channel: JForrest English

Views: 155,206

Rating: 4.9414592 out of 5

Keywords: either or neither, either, neither, difference between either and neither, when to use either, when to use neither, JForrest English

Id: 8RpFJIR9Qdg

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 11 2019