How to Explain a Problem in English - Basic English Phrases

awesome okay so it is live on YouTube we know and Facebook hopefully is joining us this time too we will see so sorry we had a small technical difficulty today we had to restart our systems but I think we're ok now so I'm so sorry about that our team is working to make sure everybody can watch today's lesson so it looks like YouTube is back hi again YouTube yes I do I see I see you guys on YouTube sorry about that we had a small technical problem but we are back we had a small problem getting our Facebook stream up yeah Facebook you're here great sorry Facebook sorry about that we had a technical problem but we restarted and now we are back live so thank you very much for your patience sorry sorry about that if you're just joining and you missed the first part today's live stream now that everybody is here is about explaining problems and mistakes so sorry about that technical issue but we haven't fixed so it's great that we got it fixed and everybody can join fantastic so great - book sorry to keep you waiting thanks very much for joining us I guess I see all of you but we're a little late so I'm gonna jump into today's lesson and don't forget this thing this is our special thing for today that I really want to tell you usually I tell you a little later in the lesson but this is our special deal for today only I think this 55% off deal for 24 months of our premium subscription so check this out and I'll tell you again about it later but yes sorry again about that technical problem we are back so today kind of a I guess summary of today's lesson I'm going to talk about vocabulary words you can use to express mistakes I'm also going to talk about a useful sentence pattern that you can describe our use when you don't know something and finally I'm going to talk about some grammar points that I think are useful for this topic so if you have not already sent a message in the chat hi Anderson on Facebook I'm doing well hi everybody on YouTube again please don't forget to like the video and share I just shared the video too but let's get started sorry about that a bit of a delay let's begin over here with vocabulary words all right so these are vocabulary words we use for mistakes for mistakes and for problems usually when we use these we're using these in the past tense so let's take a look these first two are to make a mistake and to make an error so they both use the verb make to make a mistake to make an error what is the difference between a mistake and an error we use mistake most commonly in everyday speech so something a person did so like earlier maybe like I'm I wrote the wrong letter or I did something small like an everyday like life small thing I would say I made a mistake so we use past tense here I made a mistake when you use the word error it's often for like machines so you could say like my printer had an error or like this other person in my organization made an error so we use this for like machines and for like business situations maybe for contracts as well to make an error to make an error okay the next one I want to introduce this one I've had a couple questions about this word the word is oops oops the pronunciation oops is used for small mistakes so like if I drop my pen or if I maybe accident like I drew on my skirt earlier on accident you can say oops for a small mistake something that's a really small thing you didn't on like accident so by accident means you did not plan to do that so you can say oops for those very small mistakes oops I have here as well I'm not going to talk about all of these words but this is a category I have here curse curse words or swear words curse words or swear words so these are words I can't say on this channel but they're the rude words that you hear on TV and movies that you maybe hear in everyday life so we use those words when we make mistakes so they sound much stronger than so oops is very mild it's very mild like little kids use oops adults use oops as well but when you want to express something in a stronger way you can use a curse word or a swear word if you like not everybody chooses to use these and they tend to sound quite rough if you do use them they sound quite strong and maybe a bit aggressive so I will leave it to you to Google some curse words or swear words just be careful in how you use them we do not use curse words or swear words in business or polite situations definitely not we use them only in like rough or very casual situations with close friends so please be careful in choosing your use of swear words even if you use it positively like even if you mean something positively you want to communicate a positive meaning with a swear word it still sounds extremely rough like quite rude so please be careful with those okay yes I am back indeed we had a technical problem at the beginning of the lesson it is fixed okay let's go on to these next three here the next three are very common ways casual ways to express a mistake so the first one is to screw up to screw up to screw up this has nothing to do with like the emotion of like screwing something into like piece of wood so to screw up means to make a mistake it's a casual expression we use it in the past tense this screw takes an IDI ending screwed up I screwed up he screwed up we screwed up it sounds like you made a mistake but this is much more casual than to make a mistake I screwed up I screwed up that's creative primer my report or I screwed up making that presentation another very common one is the expression to blow it to blow it where it is the situation in past tense blow becomes blue so she blew it he blew it we used this for a huge mistake so something like for example a really big opportunity like maybe a job interview if someone really makes a huge mistake in a job interview they could say I blew it or she blew it or to be specific like she blew the job interview he blew the presentation so using this verb or this phrasal verb really communicates a huge huge mistake all right final one here is to mess up to mess up so to mess up it sounds a little less severe than to blow it so this verb takes a regular IDI ending I messed up he messed up this usually means like a small mistake like you wrote the wrong word on a report or maybe you sent the wrong file to someone you can say oh I messed up sorry about that it sounds quite casual so you can kind of choose this one to blow it is for really big mistakes to screw up is kind of medium level mistakes and to mess up is lower level mistakes here okay junior hey junior junior says Alicia is blunder kind of like a mistake yeah blunder is like a mistake but it's like a mistake you make because you don't know something like because you ignorant of something you make this mistake so it you you look a little like maybe not smart so it's kind of an embarrassing mistake is a blunder that's a blunder so like maybe I don't know if I fell down on this live stream or something like that I don't know that's not really a blunder that's just weird I don't know that's not a mistake that would just be embarrassing I think so a mistake is kind of like related to your activities you know something that you are in control of okay let's go on to this last group here of vocabulary words it's very small can we zoom in I'm very sorry I ran out of space that looks nice so here I want to talk about these expressions so these are all you'll see these are all for making mistakes these are all mistake related expressions mistake related oh sorry these however are for when you don't know something and you need to explain that so that's that's a kind of problem yeah when you don't know something I'm gonna talk about this later so we can use this pattern I have no idea I have no idea or I have no clue so we can use both clue and idea here so here you'll notice idea and clue these are used in the singular form here I have no idea means I totally don't know I don't know at all I have no idea so we use this in the singular form please note that not ideas not clues I have no idea this means I don't know 100% I don't know this is a very casual phrase the second one here is I'm stumped I'm stumped I looked up the history of this word it has a long history that's kind of uncertain but stumped for those of you who know the stuff here in the root at root that's funny the stump is like the base of a tree so when people would cut down in the US when people cut down trees to make roads or like for fields or pastures the stump the base of the tree would remain so if you can't imagine I am NOT an artist I mean if you can't imagine like a stump is this part of a tree that's this stump the bottom part of a tree so when people were making roads are like fields or things the base part of the tree the stump was left and that created problems for people like they couldn't like finish making the road because the stumps were there it was like being blocked so today we use this expression I'm stumped to mean I'm blocked like I can't think of anything like I'm mentally blocked so this expression means like I'm confused or I don't know how to go on or I don't know how to solve this problem I'm stumped you'll hear this a lot okay final one here is he's or she's clueless he's or she's clueless let's break this down so clue this clue this is the same clue we saw in this expression and I have no clue yeah clue lists so here less you can think of less as acting like a suffix here so this means having no clue so she has no clue he has no clue but we say clue less so not having a clue so less means not having this thing okay to the person who just sent a long question in YouTube please check the YouTube channel so today's lesson is about a very different topic okay ah good so I'm gonna take one more quick break and then I want to go on to this middle part in today's lesson this kind of key pattern for explaining things you don't know so if you missed it earlier this is our special thing for 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the video on Facebook okay let's continue on to the part that I think is the most interesting part of today's lesson this part okay we're going to talk about some grammar exciting okay so this I've labeled when you don't know something so I want to help you explain specifically what you don't know so this part I don't know this one is easy to say yeah like I don't know I don't know the answer maybe or just I don't know what you want me to do maybe we know a few basic patterns here I want to talk about how to explain specifically what you don't know so that someone can help you fix this problem so first I've included here at the end of this I don't know expression the basic WH questions I don't know who I don't know what where when why how so I want to take a look first at these three at the top here so these three sentences follow a really special pattern let's read them first the first one is I don't know who has the office key this is just an example I don't know what the password is I don't know where my bag is so sorry I'm is labeled this it's this one in this one sorry and let's look at this one too I don't know when she's gonna get here so sorry I want to look at these three here first so these three sentences they all explain a problem something we don't know and we're using different WH questions to explain that then you'll notice this part of the sentence you can kind of see like the key words to make a question what the password is or where my bag is or when she's gonna get here but maybe you can see the word order in these types of like parts of sentences is swapped yeah so when we make a direct question like for example what the password is that sounds really weird I know usually you would say what is the password right or here like where is my bag not where my bag is that sounds weird I know but when you're using the be verb like right here here we have is in this case is is she is when you're using the be verb in these kinds of patterns like inside another sentence or inside another question you need to change the order of your be verb so the be verb is coming after your noun so we would say what is the password here though my be verb comes after my noun so this is kind of a special grammar and word order point that we use sorry we use only in patterns like these so oh no I've just erased it so I don't know what the password is it comes at the end of the sentence I don't know where my bag is this is correct here so think about this when you're making these types of questions in sentences that do not use B verbs though we don't have to worry about this rule so this first sentence is a great example I don't know who has the office key I don't know who has the office key does not use a beaver so this part of the sentence who has the office key this is a regular direct question so no change is necessary so if there's no beaver in your question don't worry about it so that's a part 1 of this part here too I will try to check your questions as well nice one I'm not on Facebook says I don't know who has the answer nice one good okay um let's move on then to a couple other points yeah a nice one alka said I don't know who is there good good good ok um so that actually yeah that one works I don't know who's there ok let's move on then to these next to these next to here because these are also special these are I don't know why and I don't know how so first I don't know why I have to fill out this form three times I don't know why I have to fill out this form three times and I don't know how to use this software I don't know how to use this software so these two relate to this point right here so I've written a couple notes at the bottom here the first one is about using B where we swap the word order to swap means you reverse the word order here though we do not use do so in these like yes/no questions do you have do you need we do not use do or did does or didn't in these in these types of statements so in a question or in a statement like this I don't know why I have to fill out this form three times if we look at this part again from after my question word so if I wanted to make a direct question I would say why do I have to fill out this form three times that's my direct question why do I have to fill out this form but we do not use do so remove do why I have to fill out this form three times this is correct inside this larger sentence so we've removed do here okay then this last one shows us actually there are a couple different ways we could say this sentence so we could say for example looking again here how do I use this software how do I use this software we could make this sentence I don't know how I use this software we could say that or we can replace it as I did here with two with two so there are two different ways we could express this here so just do not use do in these sentence patterns do or any variation and swap be here all right final point about this when you use these kinds of patterns and you see like it is at the end of the sentence we can't use a contraction at the end of a sentence so I don't know where my bags we can't say that we cannot say a contraction at the end of this sentence please use is for sure here so this is actually kind of a really interesting point I think so if you want to know more about this kind of grammar please check out where can you see this if you want to know more about this you can search for what are called embedded questions embedded questions so this will tell you some more about this grammar point and the rules with this grammar point and a lot more examples today I'm focusing on a problem I don't know statements this is super interesting I think all right um Wow we only have two minutes left do I get to go a little longer because we had technical problems no I know I know I know given your hard time sorry okay let's uh let's go on to the last part I will let's see you guys had some nice example sentences like I don't know how to use that machine okay or I don't know where my mobile is nice he didn't know how to ask her out nice other example I don't know why English is so difficult but Alisha makes it easier yay thanks links on Facebook cool um nice nice thanks for your examples okay I'm gonna continue to the last point of today's lesson then which is just some useful patterns that I wanted to review so the first one is using the word enough especially in negative sentences so we can use it before an adjective the first sentence here is I don't have enough time or I'm sorry to support now I don't have enough time so this expresses I need more time I need more time we can also use it after an adjective this bag isn't big enough so please note the positioning of enough changes depending on the grammar of your sentence so when you're using this noun I don't have enough time or I don't have enough food for example you can use it up before the noun with an adjective follow the adjective with enough okay second using too much or too many this point I've noticed a few people in the comment section of videos they'll use too but they mean so so too has a negative feel to means like excess of something more than we need so for example we bought a 2 many drinks more drinks than we need you'll also hear this word right here is way W a why this is an emphasis for it a casual emphasis word we bought way too many drinks so too many sounds negative it's like more than necessary okay second example here I ate too much cheese so what's the rule for using too many and too much too many is used when we're talking about a countable noun too many drinks too much is used for an uncountable noun in this case cheese I ate too much cheese is that a problem I feel like for some people it could be maybe for lactose intelligible very specific okay so that's too much and too many a quick review of that grammar point last point for today and then we'll wrap up is this this is a good one to use at work for situations where your expectations have not been met so you thought there was a plan the plan did not happen or the plan has not happened yet so for example my package hasn't arrived yet it hasn't arrived yet so here we're using the perfect tense yeah or our clients haven't called our clients haven't called so here you'll notice I'm using haven't or hasn't depending on my subject and I'm finishing my sentence maybe with yet so yet shows we have an expectation for that action I used it here my package hasn't arrived yet but I expect it's going to come in this sentence our clients haven't called the expectation is much lower like oh maybe there's a chance the clients aren't going to call so we can use this to talk about a problem something hasn't arrived or we haven't received in Meishan yet okay so a couple of quick and useful patterns for explaining problems here all right but I have to finish so we'll finish there for today sorry about those technical problems at the beginning we really appreciate your patience so I'll wrap up there if you missed it earlier today's special deal this is only for today is the 55% off deal on English class 101.com you can get a 24 month premium or Premium Plus subscription so if you're thinking about it and you want a long-term plan please check the link below the video on YouTube and above the video on Facebook that's the special and if you want to check every day's a special deal please check YouTube or Facebook definitely okay yes if you're having trouble seeing you can make the video bigger I would highly recommend making the video bigger I know there's a lot on the page so I'll end today's lesson but thank you for all of your example sentences and your comments if you have other questions please send your comments into the chat I do check the chat after every live lesson so if you have a question please let me know in the comments it's super super helpful if you missed this lesson don't worry it's being recorded you can find it on our YouTube or our Facebook pages and next week again we will be back next week uh it's gonna be what December 12 I feel like what's today yeah I think December oh no that's December 12 hour time December 11 what is it the one is next week Wednesday December 11th I think I don't know something like that anyway next week Wednesday 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time we're going to talk about improving English writing so last week I talked about sequence words like first next then and so on we're gonna review that a little bit and I'm going to talk about some things that you can do to kind of make your writing a little bit better and some things to look out for so please join us next week for a writing focused episode that's next week Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time so please join us on youtube or on Facebook but we have to finish now so please check out this special deal for today and of course thank you so much for liking and sharing the video we really appreciate it and thank you for your comments thanks very much for joining us this week well I guess that's everything from us all right have a good day have a good night good weekend and we'll see you again

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Id: FLf-RBc1K3A

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 05 2018