How to Sound Like a Native Speaker and Impress English Speakers

want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com whenever i'm ready all right hi everybody welcome back to top words my name is alicia and today we're going to be talking about 10 words for connecting thoughts these are going to be 10 words that you can use to transition between ideas very useful in both speech and in writing let's go also also also is a word that you can use to add information i went to the store this morning also i went and got coffee that's true however however however is used to contrast or to contrast depending on your pronunciation to differentiate to show a difference between two pieces of information a good pattern would be a however b so for example i love tonkotsu ramen however it is very high in calories so i don't eat it often also true on the other hand on the other hand on the other hand is i feel used more commonly in speech than it is in writing um again it's used to present like two sides to a story or two sides to some information so for example i'm thinking about visiting taiwan sometime this year but on the other hand i'm also thinking about visiting thailand still so it might be common to use still with the word like but or a word like even though so you're saying even though there's some other factor like like i'm really really tired this week or even though i have a lot of homework to do i still want to go out with my friends or i still want to see a movie this weekend so there's this other there's this thing that's maybe makes this other action difficult to do or tough to do or whatever but even though there's this you still have this over here so maybe the two are kind of used as a pair i still want to go out later even though i'm tired then then yes a very useful word we use then when telling stories a lot um so for example if i could tell a story about my morning today when i got up i brushed my teeth and then i cooked breakfast then i did a little bit of work then i took a shower then i did some cooking blah blah blah you'll often hear and then as well and then i and then we and then you and so on so then is is really really useful for sequencing so a useful word i think besides besides so it's commonly used in a pattern like besides that meaning other than something else i went out with my friends this weekend but besides that i didn't really do much so another way to say that sentence is i went out with my friends this weekend but other than that other than that activity i didn't do very much okay meanwhile meanwhile or you might hear the similar expression in the meantime it means while you're doing action a at the same times maybe somewhere else action b is happening this is used while telling stories a lot so for example i was working at my office all week last week meanwhile my co-workers across town were having a party without me so these two things are happening at the same time but maybe separate from one another meanwhile likewise okay likewise i don't really use this word personally myself at all it's often used after an introduction similar to the pleasure is all mine in a formal situation so maybe somebody says you know hey it was really great to see you last weekend thanks very much for coming to my barbecue you can say yeah likewise it was really good to see you in your family so likewise means i have the same feeling or i have the same idea it's kind of a friendly phrase but personally i don't really use that to transition between thoughts um i would just use and i suppose but no that's how i would use it instead instead so so instead it's used like instead of i want to a instead of be can be used to express your plans or what you want to do i want to have chinese food instead of italian food tonight so you're presenting two alternatives essentially so instead of means in place of or as a substitute for so i should have drank a lot of water this morning but instead i drank a lot of coffee that's true uh i wanted to have dinner with my friends this weekend instead i had dinner at home in addition in addition this is a really good word for more formal situations i like to use in addition in writing i don't really use in addition in speaking unless i'm trying to be very formal for some reason similar to additionally as well so you make point a and point b and then when you want to make one more point that's related to point a and point b you can say in addition point c so you're like building an argument and in addition can be used to kind of finish that argument off a little bit our new marketing plan worked really well last month we noticed increased sales in product a in addition uh we've gained a lot of new customers something like that so just you're you're quickly presenting a series of ideas that are related to one another you can use in addition to finish it off all right so that's the end of 10 words for connecting thoughts i hope you get to use a lot of these try to mix it up it's good to use a variety of different words thanks very much for watching this episode and we will see you again next time for more fun stuff bye [Music] whenever i'm ready all right welcome back to weekly words i'm alicia and this week we're going to talk about commonly mispronounced mispronounced wow this week we're going to talk about commonly mispronounced words words that are often pronounced incorrectly this is funny i enjoy mispronouncing this first word the first word is hyperbole hyperbole um it's not hyperbole though it does sound very funny to say that hyperbole just means to exaggerate something um or to make to blow something up make it really extreme my friend uses a lot of hyperbole when she talks about her life stories i really don't think some of those things happen to her hyperbole not hyperbole next antarctic not ah oh i see antarctic is the correct pronunciation of this word some people say and and tart antarctic really oh i guess when you're saying this word quickly you might leave out that first sea in the antarctic so don't say that don't do that say antarctic the the very very cold region the arctic is the north cold region on the planet earth the south is the ant arctic there's sort of like almost a hiccup in the word they're antarctic oh uh in a sentence i'm thinking about taking a cruise to the antarctic what do you think i need a penguin suit etc not etc oh yeah okay i've heard i hear this ek x thing a lot etc is just used at the end of a list to imply that you mean other things so the list is not exclusive to the things that you've listed other things can also be included in it so in a sample sentence types of fruits are apples oranges peaches etc there are others as well so don't say etc that's not correct etc it's good the next word is jewelry what not mones the next word is jewelry jewelry i think i'm probably guilty of this mispronunciation i can't say that word mispronunciation where the word kind of gets a little bit smushed together uh and we say jewelry instead we miss that that second e sound in there it should be jew ellery uh in a sample sentence maybe you would say i'm shopping for some jewelry for my mother for her birthday jewelry we're too lazy prescription not prescription okay a prescription is something that a doctor gives you when you're sick and you require medicine the doctor will write you a prescription some people might say prescription wow okay i didn't even notice and i was doing it while i was telling you guys not to do it that's embarrassing prescription a doctor writes you a prescription not a prescription uh when you go to the doctor's office the doctor might say here is your prescription end all right well we've learned that i apparently can't pronounce some words the way that they're meant to be pronounced so please work on your pronunciation i will work on my pronunciation too thank you for joining us on weekly words this week i will see you next time bye bye welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we're going to talk about commonly quoted movie lines ooh i hope i know these i'll be back a lot of people like to try and do an arnold schwarzenegger impression this comes from the movie terminator where arnold schwarzenegger plays a robot from the future and it's really awesome you can use this with your friends you can use this in in common everyday situations where you have to leave some place but you want to tell people in a kind of a funny way that you plan on coming back you can say i'll be back inconceivable say this with a lisp inconceivable if you have seen the movie the princess bride inconceivable so to conceive of something something you can think about um putting that in uh at the beginning of the word means can't con are not able to conceive of something you can't even think about it you can't believe it in other words this is one word that means i can't believe it or this is just ridiculous so you can use this anytime you're just shocked by something you just can't believe that something is happening you can say inconceivable this is a very good one a recent one from the movie anchorman will ferrell says this he says i immediately regret this decision i immediately regret this decision it's a very long phrase but it means you've just made a choice and you very quickly immediately realized this was a bad decision i should not have done this you can say i immediately regret this decision but with kind of like a flat tone to it it's a little bit funny okay next is a very famous quote from the movie forrest gump tom hanks was in this movie his character famously says mama always said life was like a box of chocolates the next line is you never know what you're gonna get so this refers to picking a piece of chocolate out of a box of chocolates uh maybe you've seen kind of the fancy ones that have a number of different styles of chocolate in them when you bite into it oftentimes you don't know what's on the inside so the character is saying that life is like that too you might try to do a few different things but you never know what's going to happen until you actually try to do it so this is an interesting phrase to use maybe if your friend is having trouble in their life in some way you can maybe try to console them or cheer them up by saying mama always said life was like a box of chocolates the next quote comes from the movie apollo 13 a very famous space movie the quote is houston we have a problem houston refers to the control center nasa's control center and the astronaut is famously quoted as saying we have a problem anytime you run across a problem at work or with your friends with your family whatever you can say houston we have a problem meaning you're just trying to alert the other people around you that something is wrong you need help with something perhaps so it's usually not a very serious problem though i should say that so don't use it for like a medical emergency use it for something you know like oh i'm out of eggs houston we have a problem you know if you're cooking something very very light-hearted is good and that's the end of some famous movie quotes so try to use a few of these if you like they're kind of fun and if you use them with the right timing they can be very very funny and people will generally appreciate that you use such interesting references in your conversation uh thanks very much for joining us this week and we'll see you again next time bye here's looking at you kid what does that even mean though a classic goodbye line kind of welcome back to weekly words i'm alicia and this week we are going to do words with strange plural forms this is good practice i bet let's start yeah antenna the plural form of antenna is antennae i think i would say antennae antennae i think i probably actually just say antennas an antenna on an old tv set for example would be it would kind of look like this we'd call it bunny ears where you had to adjust the bunny ears you had to just adjust the antennae to make the signal on your tv come in more clearly bugs they have antennae from their heads the next word is millennium the plural is millennia a millennium is a period of a thousand years a thousand years is a millennium a series of thousands of years would be called millennia you might say many millennia have passed since the earth was formed cactus is the next word a cactus is a plant uh these are the arms of the cactus i couldn't make the trunk of the cactus wow you can put a picture on the screen instead of my amazing cactus the plural of cactus is cacti or cactuses i think i'm more inclined to say cacti so when you go to the desert you might say keep an eye out for cacti if you step on one it could really hurt you the next one is an interesting one i don't think i've ever used this word in the singular like if you have a swimming pool or if you've seen a pond or whatever it's that green sort of scummy stuff that accumulates on top of it or on the sides of your pool if you haven't cleaned it in a while algae bacterias and things that like to live in the water there's a singular form and i'm just i'm looking at it for the first time i don't know how alga to use the plural then you would say i need to clean my pool there's a lot of algae in it yeah next is ox ox uh the plural of ox is oxen these animals used to be used for farming i don't know that they are very much anymore i don't have much personal experience with farming um but they're they look like really really big cows with huge horns huge horns yeah okay next is the end uh plural words that have weird plural forms so please keep them in mind when you are trying to use them in conversation and use the correct form of the plural thank you for joining us again this week for weekly words next time we will see you for more weekly words that was weird we'll see you again next week for more fun information take care bye oh no all right welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we are going to talk about commonly used onomatopoeia this is going to be a fun one we talked briefly about an onomatopoeia zoom in a previous episode of weekly words we're going to talk some more about some more talk some more about some more we're going to talk about more today the first word is beep oh beep beep is any kind of electronic sound or a car sound and was also in a popular american cartoon wiley coyote and the roadrunner the roadrunner would commonly say meat meat a car sound will usually make a beep or a honk sound for electronics however the beep becomes a little bit more robotic we'll often see like beep beep beep beep beep so in a sentence let's say you have a computer problem you tell your friend the computer won't stop beeping at me what do i do next is the sound jingle jingle is any kind of light ringing sound this word gets used a lot uh in holiday seasons particularly christmas thanksgiving new year's any jingling sound is um very commonly assigned to bells like the song jingle bells for example is a perfect example of this jingle is just the sound that a bell makes in a sentence let's see you might say she has a small bell attached to her phone so she jingles everywhere she walks it's really irritating okay the next word is thump a thump is for something to hit heavily to give an example the people who live in the apartment above me often thump on the floor it sounds like maybe they're dropping something heavy or they're stepping very heavily all right next is splash anything that falls into liquid lands in liquid makes a splash it's that sort of sound that comes from water or any other liquid really we refer to that as a splash sound there is also a popular tom hanks mermaid movie called splash this has nothing to do with that about him falling in love with a mermaid i made a big splash when i jumped into the swimming pool this summer that has kind of a double meaning oh mysterious next is blurt it means to say something quickly i blurted out the news as soon as i heard it like i blurted out the secret i couldn't hold it any longer it means you just say something without thinking to blurt the first part of the word what that blur sound it sounds like something is just kind of sort of slips out on accident and then the harsh blurt the t at the end is like a kind of a final like oh my gosh i've just said something i've slipped and then i've said something oh no i didn't think about that all right that's the end of that one so i hope you learned a few new onomatopias that you can try out next time thanks for joining us for weekly words and i will see you again next time bye-bye want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com hi hey and welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we're going to talk about interjections this is going to be fun let's start the first word is ba b-a-h maybe you're upset about something or you're tired of dealing with something people will often throw up their hands like this when they say they'll go ba and walk away bo humbug is a very very well-known use of this interjection is from uh the story a christmas carol one of the characters says bah humbug at all these things that upset him all right the next interjection is aha is used whenever you feel surprised about something or when you have a good idea about something for example sitting at work actually maybe you shouldn't do this at work because your co-workers will think you're crazy if you're feeling really excited about your idea you can go like this with your finger and go aha i have an idea for my presentation next week okay the next one is meh this one i think has only become popular in the last i don't know it started being used i think it started more on the internet and now it has come to be used in everyday life that is just when you're you're not very excited about something um maybe you went to a party your friend asks you how it was and you're like yeah i went it was pretty meh we use it like an adjective actually or you can just use it as a one word interjection meh meh meh okay the next word is oh oh is a very very useful one you can use o in a number of situations when you're surprised when you're thinking of something when you want to have kind of a soft introduction to whatever you're saying i think i tend to use it as a question or when i'm feeling surprised so when my friend tells me something like oh hey i have this great news i'll say oh just by itself as a question to get somebody's attention i might say oh did you see that new movie last week a sentence starter for me anyway okay the next word is hmm we use when we're thinking about something when we need a minute to consider our thoughts it can be used at the beginning of a sentence or just while you're thinking on its own hmm what might be a good example sentence for hmm and end those are all interjections those are all interjections try to use them if you use these correctly in your speech throughout your speech it'll help you to sound a lot more natural and a lot more smooth in your speaking ability so give them a try thanks again for joining us this week and i will see you next time for more weekly words bye begin hi everybody welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we're going to look at some common english idioms let's begin the first word or phrase rather is about to about to means you're going to start something you're going to begin doing something for example i'm about to start explaining this idiom to you hey hey okay the next word or phrase idiom the next idiom is by the way the word here they've used is incidentally it's a way to transition to another topic that's related to what you're talking about for example this week i'm going to a party by the way did you hear about the party happening next week so they're somewhat related okay uh the next idiom is in a way in a way this is kind of in a way it was a good thing that the burrito shop was closed because otherwise i would have eaten way too much and you can use this to show that there are maybe two sides to a situation maybe some things are negative maybe some things are positive next is on the other hand i hear this a lot on the other hand is a way of just saying however or to share two different sides to a story for example i think my co-worker is really irritating on the other hand at parties he's really funny so you can show two maybe different sides to a point with this phrase next is a matter of fact as a matter of fact as an idiom this is a long way to just say actually or really it's a little bit more formal sounding so you might use it in a business meeting for example everybody at the business meeting might feel a little bit unsure about the previous month's sales and you can begin your presentation by saying something like i know everybody was a little bit unsure about last week's or last month's sales performance but as a matter of fact things improved and that's the end those are some common idioms that you might hear in english give them a try they're pretty useful and you might hear a lot of them in conversation thanks very much for joining us this week and we'll see you again next time for more information bye hi welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we're going to talk about ways to say hi this should be fun let's get started first is yo this one is a little bit casual in case you couldn't tell used for close friends maybe family members if you have kind of a silly relationship with them just quick short easy to do in a sentence yo how's it going howdy howdy uh traditionally associated with cowboy culture i suppose you should play a banjo maybe or you've just gotten off a horse i don't know i use howdy from time to time howdy howdy howdy howdy that's my banjo yeah in a sentence you might say howdy folks welcome to the barbecue place next is hey hey is good friendly phrase you can usually use hey with a wave and smile look happy if you don't people might think that you're down in the dumps people might think you're not in a very good mood in a sentence hey uh i heard you got engaged last week congratulations something like that it's usually kind of a cheery happy expression all right next is what's up uh what's up is the long form of sup this does not literally mean what is above you right now if you want to be funny you can say the ceiling or the sky but that joke gets old really fast and chances are the person you're talking to has already heard it before it just means what are you up to what is going on with you in a sentence what's up did you have a good weekend typical response to what's up is not much find out some more responses in english in three minutes we did an episode on this nothing much how about you that's pretty good pretty good pretty good pretty good [Laughter] i don't know what i'm doing the next one is long time no see you can use this when you haven't seen the other person for a long time you're at a party or an event or whatever any time it's been a long break you can decide how long long is not the day before or the week before maybe a few weeks or a month whatever is unusual for you and this other person when you see them you can say hey long time no see how have you been uh that's the end so those are a few different ways to say hi in a few different situations i hope that you have a chance to try them out the next time you meet someone or you greet someone thanks very much for joining us this week and we'll see you again soon bye instead of saying sup i like to say soup soup hi everybody welcome back to top words my name is alicia and today we're going to be talking about 10 different phrases that you can use to respond to the question how are you so let's go i'm great the first phrase is i'm great if someone says how are you you can say i'm great try to say i'm great with a kind of an upbeat voice so something like how are you i'm great i'm feeling bad i'm feeling bad if you say i'm feeling bad the other person is probably if they're a friend of yours or a co-worker going to ask you why what happened so if you want to use i'm feeling bad make sure you have an explanation ready anyway somebody says how are you and you go i'm feeling bad maybe i went out for drinks last night with my co-workers oops i'm okay i'm okay i feel like this is one of those intonation practice ones i'm okay with that ah i'm okay it's like sort of upward intonation you're like cool but if someone says how are you and you're like i'm okay they're like oh no what happened so you can use your intonation with i'm okay to make it a good thing or another good thing but either way it's not like a very super serious response thank you for asking yeah i imagine this would be in a more formal situation like if my friend said to me how are you and i was like thank you for asking they'd be like what i would say i'm fine or i'm doing well i'm doing great plus thank you for asking so how are you i'm doing very well thank you um oh that's how i would use it and you the next one is and you like the least natural response to how are you is i'm fine thank you and you like just get out of put it just take it out of your head nobody says that i always say how about you that's a much more natural thing how are you how are you how are you can be a response again after you have given your answer to the question how are you i'm great how are you how are you i'm good how are you i'm great how are you i'm okay how are you how have you been recently how have you been recently this is only useful if you haven't seen the other person for a while i'm not bad i'm not bad i'm not bad how are you i'm not bad i'm not bad things could be worse i would probably do this i'm sleepy the next expression is i'm sleepy it's like so specific if someone said how are you i would probably say i'm okay but i'm a little sleepy i don't know that i would just say i'm sleepy unless it's a really good friend of mine it's a person close to you you can say i'm so tired i'm i would say i'm super tired or i'm really tired and i feel like that's a little bit more natural than just i'm sleepy i'm good one that i use a lot if someone says how are you i say i'm good that's just probably my go-to response yeah i'm good i'm good maybe i'll repeat it while smiling i'm good i'm good yeah thanks for asking great how are you that is the end those are 10 phrases that you can use to respond to the question how are you if there's one takeaway from this and from other things that we've done over the last few years in this channel just get rid of that i'm fine thank you and you and pick one of these that we've talked about today um of course if there's another expression that you use for a response to how are you i'd be very interested to learn about that but uh in general you're pretty safe if you stick with these i think so thanks very much for watching this episode of top words and we will see you again soon bye that means we're going to the movie theater right all right uh hi everybody my name is alicia welcome back to top words today we're going to be talking about must-know expressions for agreeing and disagreeing very useful so let's go exactly exactly when you agree 100 with something someone else has said you can say exactly for example ramen is one of the best foods in the world exactly i don't agree i don't agree you have a different opinion from the other person they tell you i think that soccer is the best sport you can say i don't agree but be prepared to provide your own opinion after this i think soccer's the best sport i don't agree i think that football is oh that could cause some problems soccer football americans say football when we mean american football but the rest of the world says football when they mean soccer maybe maybe is when you don't know when you can't make a decision or when you're not sure about something okay so someone tosses you an opinion someone says their their idea to you i think it's gonna rain tomorrow you can say yeah maybe you don't know for sure yes or no but it's possible it's a good sort of in-between expression but if you use maybe all the time it's going to sound really strange and it's going to sound like you can't make a decision so use maybe very sparingly don't use it so often maybe is very commonly used as a soft nose it's up to you to figure that out among the people that you're talking to though do you want to stay over my house this weekend and maybe i couldn't agree with you more you are in complete agreement with the other person and really want to communicate that to them you think that what they have just said is really really correct super correct yes you are completely on board with that idea you can say i couldn't agree with you more i couldn't the negative form i could not agree with you more meaning it's not possible that i could agree more with what you're saying next week it's really important that we have a barbecue because summer is ending and then your friend can say i couldn't agree more that's a fantastic idea i'll buy steak i think we're going to have to agree to disagree agree to disagree this is a kind of it seems like a simple phrase agree to disagree so you're agreeing with the other person you agree that we have a different opinion agree to disagree i would use this expression at the end of a discussion so person a and person b have different opinions and they've been discussing those opinions for a long time and person a is not changing his or her opinion person b is not changing his or her opinion so you can say at the end of the conversation okay we have to agree to disagree let's just accept our different opinions and move on in the conversation you have a point there this is not necessarily an agreement or disagreement phrase it's a small agreement within a larger discussion so maybe you've been discussing a topic for a long time and you've disagreed with the other person until this this time this person says something and you agree with that ah you have a point there so there's one thing that this person has said that you can agree with you can say you have a point there i think that's correct or i agree with that point that's exactly how i feel that's exactly how i feel meaning my feeling is the same as your feeling or my opinion is the same as your opinion that's exactly how i feel maybe you can use this if someone describes your feeling very accurately for example you can say i feel like the company is really heading in a nice new direction you can say yeah that's exactly how i feel i really like the new boss i don't think so i don't think so it's soft it's not so direct it's not a hard i disagree but just i don't think so of course you can use it to discuss opinions but you can also use it when you're making plans are you going to that party this weekend and i don't think so it's not a disagreement but it can be used as a negation phrase a negative response to something when used as an opinion i think chinese is the hardest language to learn you can say i don't think so i think that arabic is the hardest language to learn yes you're right yes you're right means you're correct yes i agree with you i think that's the right information i think that's the correct opinion just a very clear agreement phrase you're right it also has the nuance of being correct so maybe there was there was a possibility the other person could be incorrect did you know that pepperoni pizza is the most delicious pizza in the world yes you're right you can change it to that's right for that opinion you can use your to talk specifically about the person itself but that's right yes that's right that information is correct i guess so i guess so it's so it's an agreement but it's sort of a flaky agreement i guess so it's like you don't really want to make a decision uh but you don't feel strongly in one like in agreement or disagreement you can say i guess so it's usually said with this tone of voice i guess so you know we don't really say i guess so generally it's like you can't quite make a decision or you don't want to make a decision you can say i guess so hey we're going to go for chinese food for dinner tonight do you want to come yeah i guess so you don't feel strongly either way i guess so i'm afraid i disagree it's a rather polite expression that you can use in a business situation for example i'm afraid here doesn't mean i'm actually scared or i'm really frightened but just it's a softener that's used at the beginning of sentences to introduce a negative opinion so i'm afraid i disagree or i'm afraid i can't agree with you for example i think that you need to adopt a new policy for your company i'm afraid i disagree it's a soft disagreement that sounds a bit more formal than some of the other phrases we've talked about so far absolutely absolutely means 100 percent yes exactly precisely definitely it's a quick and clear and can be polite as well as casual word that means you agree with the other person hey do you want to go to the beach this weekend yeah absolutely absolutely oh that's the end so those are some phrases that you can use to agree and disagree with other people there are a lot of them so and you can kind of mix and match them as you see fit so give them a try thanks very much for watching this episode of top words and we'll see you again soon bye playa's beach [Music] 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 and today i'm joined again in the studio by michael hello hi michael thanks for joining us again today today we're going to be looking at a few tips for learning another language so each of us have prepared a few things that we think are really useful when learning another language both of us have studied another language to some degree uh so we're going to talk about things that were useful for us and which might be useful for you as you practice your english skills so let's begin do you want to start sure go for it um i would say absorb media this is something that actually when i meet someone and they sound like a native english speaker and i go you know where are you from are you from australia america no no i'm from blah blah blah what you mean you're not a native english speaker and every single time they tell me i said you know how did you learn please i'm an english teacher i want to know i want to help people blah blah blah and every single time they tell me oh i just love blah blah culture so usually i love american culture i love justin bieber and lady gaga blah blah blah and so all day every day they're reading they're watching movies they're sitting on youtube and just absorbing it and it doesn't feel like you're studying but you are um and so then you're more likely to study so it's like a fun way to study um it's it's helped me i've changed everything on my ipod so even when i'm lazy i have no choice but to listen to the language i'm learning yeah i think that's a really good tip i had the same thing essentially mine was just phrased slightly different i said find something that interests you in your target language so if english is your target language whatever it might be if it's music if it's movies if it's comic books i don't know if it's if you're interested in some dating someone who speaks your target language whatever it is find something to motivate you something that's going to make you want to study and make you want to learn that language so that you have that you know that that drive to do it i totally agree with you yeah i think it's a great tip okay cool so we had one thing that was the same i guess i'll share another one of mine if that's okay um my next one is one that i try to do myself but i know that i i miss i mess up every once in a while um practice every day even if it's just a few minutes uh whether you can spare an hour or two hours or just i myself study while i'm you know commuting to work on on the subway uh just find something that you can do every single day so that you don't lose you know lose your place in your studies just whether it's vocabulary or picking a new grammar point to be looking at or just you know finding a new phrase on tv that you thought was interesting just being an active learner every single day really really contributes i think to your abilities to speak and to understand another language it's just practice every single day something i think this is a really useful piece of advice for anything i think a lot of people you get overwhelmed and you know you think man i want to be here whether it's exercising or playing the piano or whatever and you just want to finish you know a year's worth of time in one day and so you study really hard you know you procrastinate and then one day you do you cram as much as you can you get burnt out and then you don't do it for weeks months and that's not the way humans work we're creatures of habit any of the best the greatest whether they speak a language like you is as wonderfully as you do or whatever or play piano or whatever every single time you ask them and it's brick by brick by brick so i i agree 100 and i also don't follow this advice all the time it's tough i think the key is to not give up so for me honestly my my languages aren't i'm not as confident but as far as exercise you know you'll get lazy and you'll pig out and you go down yeah but you can't just give up and just let it go down right just remember the big picture that you are making progress even if there's some some some decline so if you get busy with work whatever get back on it keep practicing yeah english get back on englishclass101.com [Laughter] what is your next tip um so my next tip is uh also related to practice every day is practice fearlessly so this means you know it's easy to learn some basic phrases in english hello i'm fine thank you and you and you sound like a robot and you feel comfortable comfortable in your little like comfort zone but you don't expand you got to be willing to make mistakes and i think it's the same as with dancing if you're afraid you look stupid if you're you're reserved and you're off on to the side of the club and you're just kind of moving like one shoulder in your little comfort bubble it looks really stupid it looks way more stupid than if you were actually going all out and just having fun with it yeah i think it's the same thing with language don't just stick to your little comfort of hello i'm fine thank you and you and sound like a robot yeah you got to have some fun with it try to use those big words that maybe you mess up that's okay that's how you learn just like a kid um so let's see your other one my tip my last tip then uh is kind of general i guess i've just chosen immersion um this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go to the country you know where they speak the language that you're studying but just find a way to even if it's just for a short period of time every day or once a week or whatever it is if there's some some way that you can immerse yourself in the language that you're studying for a period of time and only study you know spanish or only study english in your case uh for for a period of time every day or every week every month whatever it is on a regular basis so you get used to just hearing that and just experiencing that i think is really really helpful i think yeah i agree um i think that's no no that's not the other one um i thought i thought i wrote it down um yeah i agree one of the things that uh most people don't realize is that now it's the 21st century everyone's connected so a lot of people just assume that if you move to the country you're going to pick up the language because immersion is is one of the best most you know time and time again proved way proved ways to learn a language but that's not always the case like i have a lot of friends in different countries who don't learn it at all they're married to a local but they just it's easy to just sit on facebook and talk to your old friends and never actually you know practice and put it out there so um if you can't make it out to another country don't worry about it because even if you do sometimes you know it's that mindset it's actually doing it yeah yeah i agree i agree good okay what's your last tip my last tip is take grammar with a grain of salt so of course grammar is essential for learning a language absolutely there's no doubt about it you should definitely focus on that but what i've found is that when you're learning from a non-native english speaker they feel safe teaching grammar because their set rules they can teach even if their pronunciation isn't correct or any of that and you know you you you can just get into that rut but the reality of most languages is we break those rules all the time so don't worry too much if you're if your grammar's a little off or you're having trouble learning it just just kind of go with it and just try to repeat what you hear yeah i don't know about you though no i think that's an interesting point though because i think that like you say i think grammar is a really safe place for a lot of people because like you say there are there are rules it's clear that i can see that you know if i put a noun and a verb like this then i'm going to make a sentence that says this and i understand that it's really easy to understand but i think that's something that a lot of learners and myself i'm guilty of this too is that there's a limit to how much grammar that you can learn like once you learn the grammar you're you've you've learned the grammar like it's possible i think to master the grammar of any language but it's the vocabulary that continues to change every year there are new words and every single language that get developed people are making up new words every day especially in english so experiment you know once you find that you know you've learned you've learned the grammar move on you know keep keep exploring new vocabulary find new and interesting things to do with the tools that you've given yourself so don't be afraid to experiment with your vocabulary too if you find something that you might like to try to make a verb out of like google for example give it a try see if it works if the other people around you are confused maybe it didn't work if the other people around you laugh or you know continue with the conversation hey maybe you just made a new word you never know so give it a try uh thanks very much for joining us for our english tips on this lesson we will see you again next time bye is it recording hi there welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and today we're going to talk about commonly looked up words these are words that are the most commonly uh searched for on merriam-webster online which is a popular english dictionary so let's get started the first word is pretentious pretentious is a word that means you're trying to impress other people or someone who tries to impress other people by making themselves seem more exciting or more important or cooler than they really are in a sentence you might say my co-worker is so pretentious he's always exaggerating his stories to make himself sound important don't be pretentious the next word is ubiquitous ubiquitous just means something that you see everywhere smartphones smartphones smartphones that's ours still laughing about smartphones it's a fern that's really smart you can tell when you need extra oxygen in a sentence uh you might say smartphones are ubiquitous everybody has one now and i have one too albeit uh albeit just means although in a sentence she was making progress albeit rather slowly the next word is ambiguous ambiguous just means something that's the meaning is not really very clear to you maybe if you're reading the newspaper for example and a sentence is written kind of strangely you might say hmm the meaning of this is rather ambiguous all right love really baby don't hurt me love is just that intense feeling where you really really like somebody else could be your family member it could be a partner a romantic partner whatever it could be a food you really like as well just anytime you have that really deep strong emotion you can use the word love for example i love pizza it's my favorite food okay and that's the end of commonly searched for words in the dictionary i hope you learned a few new things give them a try and we'll see you again next time for more weekly words bye [Music] this doesn't sound natural to me roll and roll and rolling okay hi welcome back to weekly words i'm alicia and today we're going to talk about phrases that aren't cool anymore woohoo i probably say a whole lot of these phrases so i'm about to embarrass myself the first phrase is sweet oh sweet's not cool anymore sweet means cool sweet means something that's good you might say oh man that skateboard trick you just did was sweet groovy i still say groovy um groovy means cool groovy means good um it was used in the 70s when you know funky groovy music was popular uh in a sentence like oh hey um those are some groovy moves on the dance floor i don't know if we can use that going steady going steady is kind of an old-fashioned phrase as well going steady just means you're dating someone who is dating someone else like me and trisha are going steady it just means you're dating you're a couple not oh this is this word is actually what the entire holiday of april fool's day is based around that's a lie particularly i would say for junior high school students this phrase is um very popular they might say something like hey um steve thinks you're cute not so in other words it's often used as an insult duh is used when someone says something really stupid or something really obvious so if you say something like oh hey it's raining the other person who can also maybe look out the window you're both sitting in front of might say duh because you've just indicated something very very obvious you can also use duh to make fun of yourself when you do or say something really stupid as soon as you realize this you can go ah duh yeah i'm learning today but i'm not cool that's the end oh okay well those are some phrases that are no longer cool i hope you learned something about things that are no longer cool but you can still use these words just you know don't expect to sound really interesting or hip to the lingo if you use these words okay thanks for joining us and i will see you again next time bye bye hi everybody welcome back to english topics my name is alicia and i'm here today again with michael hello and today we're going to be talking about questions that we have been asked so let's begin what is the first question that you would like to discuss today michael i would like to discuss what's the main difference between british and american english so for me i'd like to get this out of the way um canadians and americans sound pretty much the same it's hard for us to tell the difference uh even even native english speakers there's a couple telltale signs you know they'll say some things but it's usually regional so i guess north americans and then like uk english um and again there's a lot of different um accents and dialects you know it all depends but for me the easiest way is americans enunciate every word we're very loud and we open our mouths a lot hello how are you where are you from teacher water we enunciate every sound so um for me a dead giveaway is that that r that end r right it's tough uh i listen for vowel sounds and try to guess based on that so your question is about uh british english and american english there's also australian english there's scottish english there's irish english there's so many different english-speaking dialects and honestly sometimes it's hard for us to understand we're both from relatively the same part of america so we have the same speaking style our accents are the same um but to go through all of the different dialects to try and approximate the to try them to try and say them badly to would probably just be a waste of time but you're on the internet look it up okay i guess we'll go to the next one um let's see my questions let's see i'm going to start with a grammar question that i get a lot uh a grammar question that i come across students ask me this question the present tense versus the progressive tense uh what is the difference when should i use present tense versus progressive tense so by this i mean of verbs the present tense uh is used for uh facts things which are always true things which are part of your regular schedule the progressive tense has a few different meanings to it a few different uses to it but one of the meanings or one of the uses is to express something which is temporary which is not part of your regular schedule or another uses to describe a trend to use a very common mistake as an example if i ask the question where do you work a lot of times the response i get from my students is i am working in america um depending on on on the situation that sentence could be correct but if you're talking about the place where you work always every day you go to that job it could be the location of your office it could be the country or the city where you work if it's a part of your regular schedule you want to explain a fact that is true about your life you should use the present tense not the progressive tense so um the correct version of that sentence should be i work in america that's part of my regular schedule if however you're only in america for the week for example you can use the progressive tense but it's more natural to say for example this week i'm working in america that's a much much more natural sentence to use how do i pronounce the th sound so you know depending on who i'm teaching english to they'll have problems with different pronunciation sounds but for me i think one that's that's common with a lot of different cultures is the th sound and um i think again this goes back to like the different ways of speaking and how americans we enunciate every word and we push our the way we speak to the very tip of our mouth uh that's the th sound so most people are capable of of making the th sound but they're just a little shy and it just doesn't seem natural it's almost as if you can bite the tip of your tongue off when you say the sound right uh and then just another thing to note is that th can have a hard or a soft or voiced or unvoiced sound so the is hard or voiced you hum the the and then with like think it's a soft or unvoiced you don't hum you don't vibrate you just say think but it's still the tongue goes touches your teeth think that um this is another grammar point that i get questions about from time to time it is the present perfect tense versus the simple past tense um the question is when do i use them so present perfect tense uh let's see an example of present perfect tense would be i have been to paris uh simple past tense would be uh i went to paris what is the difference we use the present perfect tense to talk about a life experience or something which occurred in the past but which still affects the present so in this case in my paris example sentence it's something that happened in the past but when exactly when is not important we just want to say i have had the life experience of going to paris simple past however is used to refer to a specific point in time in the past so for example i went to paris last summer it's important that you know i went last summer if the time point when you went to paris is not important use the present perfect tense um so this is really useful for talking about your travel experiences for talking about your study experiences foods you have and have not eaten um so keep just try to keep in mind when when you should use these two uh they're very commonly used together like for example you might use the present perfect tense to introduce a question have you ever been to paris and the follow-up answer oh yes i have been to paris using the present perfect tense again but then a common pattern is to follow that answer up with a simple past question when did you go so you can see it changes from present perfect tense to simple past tense so a larger life experience to a more simple life experience um so they're used together but just be careful try to be aware of am i talking about an overall life experience or a very specific life experience this is one that many of my students struggle with this is more cultural why do americans wear shoes inside the house on the bed etc um i feel like this depends and this is starting to change i take my shoes off in most houses but i guess it's more so for comfort whereas i feel like on the east side of the world it's more of like a cleanliness kind of a thing and if you do still wear your shoes it's pretty taboo whereas in the states i feel like most people from my experience anecdotal evidence just personal experience most places you take off your shoes but if they have a party they let people wear shoes inside the house they don't care and a lot of my friends will see american movies and they see somebody a main character wearing their shoes on the bed on the couch something like that um again from my experience it's not that big of a deal but typically you wouldn't do that for me the the the rule of thumb like the the unsaid rule is that you can put your shoes up but you don't let your shoes um touch the couch you kind of you hang off right so you can if you want to lay on the couch without taking your shoes off you let your feet hang off um because yeah of course they're going to get dirty but yeah it's just not as emphasized as much in our culture i don't know the last question i have is can i ask a question the answer is yes the answer is yes and in probably 95 percent of cases the answer to the question can i ask a question is yes um okay why did i choose this question my students sometimes will put their hands up in my lesson and say can i ask a question like one this is your english class yes please ask questions um but two also this is a discussion i've been having with a few people recently just about the mindset that i think is really important when speaking english we have experience teaching in asia where maybe there's a different approach to conversations i don't know if this is the same cultural approach to conversations that people from other countries have but um don't wait for permission to speak don't wait to jump into a conversation just go for it um don't wait for someone to say oh would you like to speak now because that's never going to happen so don't be shy get your tongue out and say things and don't worry if it sounds rude or too polite or whatever um yeah i couldn't agree more yeah yeah just it's a shift in mindset if you when you when you start speaking that second language like you said if you just change your mind just a little bit just make a small shift in your mindset maybe you'll see ah that's what it takes just let go a little bit of of your home language and see what happens great so those are some questions that we have been asked about teaching about english about culture if you have any other questions by the way please make sure to leave them in a comment for us or if there's something that you've always wondered about or if there's something that you've encountered recently that confused you whatever leave it in a comment for us and maybe we'll talk about it in the future thanks very much for watching this episode of english topics please make sure to subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and we will see you again next time bye welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we're going to talk about commonly misspelled words i'm excited about this because i like catching misspellings believe to believe something just means to accept something as true or not true in the negative believe is commonly misspelled do they spell it the live well believe is commonly misspelled don't do that so if you're having trouble remembering the correct way to spell the word believe consider that the word lie is in the middle of the word which is kind of counter-intuitive if you've been paying attention to the weekly word series uh if you're trying to persuade a friend to do something you might say please believe me this is going to be the best party ever you have to come okay the next is a lot this is commonly misspelled because people like to put the uh and the lot together it's actually two separate words ah and lot a lot just means a large number of something or a large amount of something many of something in a sentence you might say something like i have a lot of hobbies i like skiing snowboarding and white water rafting so just spell them separately don't put it all together oh the next there there and there students of english tend to be better about spelling these words than native speakers of english and i find that very interesting the first there t-h-e-r-e refers to a place as in he lives over there the book is over there somewhere other than where you are right now the second form t-h-e-i-r is the possessive form of they as in that's their house that's their dog something that belongs to some other group of people and the last form t-h-e-y apostrophe r-e they are refers to equality about another group of people as in they are the students they are the teachers it's the contracted form of they are onward the next word is grateful grateful the meaning of grateful grateful just means that you're appreciative of something in a sentence you might say oh i feel so grateful my teacher took time after class to explain this concept to me uh grateful is commonly misspelled because this g-r-a-t-e sounds just like the word great g-r-e-a-t but actually that great good meaning is uh not the correct spelling for this word we use great instead this spelling of grade is also used as a verb as integrate things in the kitchen um i don't know if that has any relation to this or not probably not it's g-r-a-t-e next is receive receive to receive something as a verb means um to be given something or to get something receive can be kind of tricky because of the i and the e a place where the i before e except after c rule applies um it's not a 100 true rule um but typically after the letter c if the letters e and i need to follow it after the letter c i is typically not the first letter to come usually it's e that's the first letter so it should be c e i v e receive rather than recive or something like that uh in a sample sentence you might say uh i received a gift from my friend on my birthday i was really happy about that the next word is end all right end is not very commonly misspelled uh but thank you for joining us for this episode of weekly words please watch your spelling with these words as it can be very important to get them right thanks again and i will see you next week bye bye want to speak real english from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at englishclass101.com welcome back to weekly words i'm alicia and this week we are going to do words with strange plural forms this is good practice i bet let's start yeah antenna the plural form of antenna is antennae i think i would say antennae antennae i think i probably actually just say antennas an antenna on an old uh tv set for example would be it would kind of look like this we'd call it bunny ears where you had to adjust the bunny ears you had to just adjust the antennae to make the signal on your tv come in more clearly bugs they have antennae from their heads the next word is millennium the plural is millennia a millennium is a period of a thousand years a thousand years is a millennium a series of thousands of years would be called millennia you might say many millennia have passed since the earth was formed cactus is the next word a cactus is a plant uh these are the arms of the cactus i couldn't make the trunk of the cactus wow you can put a picture on the screen instead of my amazing cactus the plural of cactus is cacti or cactuses i think i'm more inclined to say cacti so when you go to the desert you might say keep an eye out for cacti if you step on one it could really hurt you the next one is an interesting one i don't think i've ever used this word in the singular like if you have a swimming pool or if you've seen a pond or whatever it's that green sort of scummy stuff that accumulates on top of it or on the sides of your pool if you haven't cleaned it in a while algae bacterias and things that like to live in the water there's a singular form and i'm just i'm looking at it for the first time i don't know how alga to use the plural then you would say i need to clean my pool there's a lot of algae in it yeah next is ox ox uh the plural of ox is oxen these animals used to be used for farming i don't know that they are very much anymore i don't have much personal experience with farming but they're they look like really really big cows with huge horns huge horns yeah okay next is the end uh plural words that have weird plural forms so please keep them in mind when you are trying to use them in conversation and use the correct form of the plural thank you for joining us again this week for weekly words next time we will see you for more weekly words that was weird we'll see you again next week for more fun information take care bye welcome back to weekly words my name is alicia and this week we are going to look at commonly misinterpreted phrases the first phrase is i couldn't care less people will often say i could care less but that doesn't really mean the same thing as i couldn't care less short for i could not care less it is not possible for me to care any less about this situation so it's just emphasizing that whatever is going on it doesn't bother you in a sentence my coworkers project wasn't successful and i couldn't care less oh jerk all right next is nip it in the bud many people say nip it in the butt it should be nip it in the bud bud in this case might refer to a flower before it blossoms that small shape before the flower actually opens up we call that a bud so to nip something would mean to to take something quickly like biting taking motion to nip something in the bud would mean to stop something before it becomes something else stopping something negative from happening knitting a sweater because i was knitting a sweater earlier there's a section of the sweater where the thread the yarn has started to unravel and you think to yourself oh my gosh i need to nip this in a butt nip this in the bud so you decide to fix it right away instead of letting the sweater just slowly unravel as you work on it next is one and the same not one in the same i'm probably guilty of this one actually one and the same just refers to something that is maybe has two names um but both of those names refer to the same thing or the same person my teacher and my father are one in the same person maybe you know if your dad is your teacher in school you could use this expression on tenterhooks on tenterhooks is the next expression this isn't a phrase that i'm familiar with i don't use this one but it seems that some people use the phrase on tenderhooks i'm not really sure what tenderhooks are this expression is used when people are looking forward to learning the outcome of something or kind of maybe there is anticipation they're anticipating something maybe you would use this when you're watching a movie perhaps like i was on tenterhooks to learn about the end of the story something like that maybe next moot point not mute point but moot point something that is irrelevant something that there's just no point in talking about it it is mooch there's no meaning a mood point a moo point that's funny i don't know ah let's ask the internets hey siri oh no okay you're looking for a guy to fill a position and you find a guy and he's a great programmer and he's fantastic but it's a moot point because he's a convict onward wow that was a long one and that's the last one okay that's the end of commonly misinterpreted phrases be careful when you use these phrases and make sure to get them right thank you very much for joining us this week we'll see you again next time for more bye you're excited about something anxious or like looking forward to something the origins of this phrase are unclear hi everybody my name is alicia and today i'm joined again in the studio by michael hello and today we're going to be talking about bad habits in english so these are some things that we've heard before or mistakes that native speakers and non-native speakers of english make and that drive us crazy so let us begin you start what's your first thing um this doesn't bug me too much until someone points it out about me and then it drives me nuts um ah yeah okay once you tell someone that they say um or like too much then every time they say it they notice it and it's really hard to get a thought out because these are filler words that you almost always use or i always use maybe americans always use but it's yeah it's really tough not to use the word like or um i think when you're just speaking casually right yeah right well yeah i mean like right now why would you have to make it the first word why did you have to make it the first one actually we talked about that we have a video i think from probably like a year ago one of the english weekly words videos where uh the word like was one of the words that americans overuse uh i don't know where that information came from but um that was see oh my god now i'm suddenly aware of it why oh this whole thing i'm gonna be thinking about how often i say liking them okay let's see i'm gonna go to one that i think all of us talked about and all of us were aware of before we even turned the camera on but um this is a this one is written this is a written problem that drives me nuts and there are so many variations on this with other words but this is the big one your y-o-u-r this is a do not equal sign y-o-u apostrophe r-e so this one your while you are uh is a possessive word this is your shirt your bag your whatever y o u apostrophe r e is a contracted form of u r interestingly enough though i will say that i rarely see non-native speakers of english make this mistake most of the time it's native speakers who make this mistake come on guys really i just it just drives me nuts yeah that one only drives me nuts that one bugs me too because it's it's really simple i mean there's another one that still kind of bugs me but i'm more forgiving is it's and it's because they're both its and one of them has an apostrophe and in both cases it seems reasonable because you can use an apostrophe for possessive or for a contraction so both seem reasonable and you just have to do like you know a pneumonic device figure it out there's rules i'm sure there's a you know english language english class 101 episode on it you know no apostrophe is the one that's the possessive the apostrophe s is the one that's stored for it has or it is right but it makes sense it's kind of tough for some people to remember um you or you're in your that that really upsets me yeah just because it's so easy it's simple that and uh there we talked about this earlier before this there there and there the possessive t-h-e-i-r for that's their house that's their dog t-h-e-r-e it's over there and t-h-e-y apostrophe r-e they are there are three different there there there's sound the same but they have different meanings and they should be spelled differently too so come on native speakers gets together okay all right next one for you what's your next one ah along the same lines of being uh just like correct could of so i think the problem with a lot of these words is so it's supposed to be could have but when you're speaking the language any language you you make it quicker and quicker and you kind of slur the words together so like for example grandma or grandma you like native speakers you don't really say the d you said grandma grandma and so as a kid i thought that's how you spelled it and i remember spelling g-r-a-m-m-a someone told me no that's not it so it could have it makes sense why people would say could of but it doesn't it's not proper and you shouldn't get in the habit of doing it i think most of these things you can be forgiving when they're kids but it's best to to nip it in the bud because you know it just becomes a bad habit yeah and i mean with could have there is a correct contracted spelled version it's just could of apostrophe v e could've i mean i would argue that it's more casual and it's perhaps not the most correct um thing to write i would i probably would just write could have i probably wouldn't use the contracted form so much use of contractions will make you sound more casual if you want to write a formal letter you should i i feel you should not use contractions if you're writing an academic paper as well don't use contractions spell it out spell the whole thing out you'll sound much more formal and more at least in my mind more educated all right uh great this topic is getting me all like fancy okay let's see i'm gonna go to okay another another pronunciation issue that i feel like almost is cool now okay let me ask you a question this pronunciation okay so i've written acts on this card but the it's ask ask let me ask okay so this lemmy which we talked about in a previous video which is short for let me i've contracted it here to the very casual lemmy but i've used lemmy here because this is this is typically said in a very very casual setting let me ask you a question but the pronunciation of ask should not be ax it's ask let me ask you a question i want to ask you something it's not ax it's ask ask yeah this one again so like lemmy lemmy is okay i think most people say lemmy i think that's okay but for some reason acts i think a lot of these just are not even close at all let me when you say it really fast it sounds like lemmy i mean right but when you say acts it's just totally wrong well it's reversing the the consonants in the word ask right it's not faster you're not making it quicker you're not slurring or making you know putting it into one little like fluid blob it's just you just switch the two uh yeah syllables similarly i hear this with the word uh asterisk as well the little star that's on like the number eight on your keyboard or whatever that this looking thing it's not an asterisk or what i don't even know it's asterisk so over pronunciation so this one is kind of the opposite direction so this whole time we've been kind of nitpicking when you use the incorrect version of a word i think overpronunciation can also be equally as damaging but instead of making you look stupid it makes you look pretentious so for example we don't say in english we don't use all of the syllables with chocolate so it's cha like when you spell it chocolate wait chocolate right and so like maybe in spanish or something like that they would still say that like chocolate or something whatever but with english we took it out and so even though you still spell all of those syllables native speakers now say chocolate chocolate or like comfortable comfortable that's how it's spelled but native english speakers we say comfortable and this is like now it's it's i think it's like unanimous so maybe when it becomes when slang becomes so popular that it's part of the new language it's the language has now evolved if you don't go with the flow even though it's incorrect i think you sound pretentious that's a great one i like that a lot all right uh i'm gonna wrap it up i have two actually i'll just i think i can do them quickly though do you have any more by the way no no okay then i'll go quickly um these are two the my last two are just a couple that my students actually struggle with um so maybe this this is something that you can work on as well um this one uh just an example sentence i want to go to there i've underlined the word to here we use the word too when we're talking about a specific city or a specific country like i want to go to new york i want to go to europe but there is not a specific location i want to go to there is is not a specific place so we you don't need to use two in this sentence i want to go there it's perfectly fine so this is a mistake that um non-native speakers it seems seem to make from time to time um perhaps okay and then another one that i've heard a lot recently is this phrase in case of and then a country so for example in case of china in case of egypt or whatever where someone is trying to explain like the political situation or a policy in that country in case of in case of but actually you don't need to use k-sub just in china in europe in japan whatever you don't need to use kasiv this pattern in case of is used for like an emergency situation or used uh to talk about alternate plans often to to do with weather so for example in case of rain the event will be canceled or in case of tornado please go to your nearest evacuation center i don't know something like that so it's used for like an emergency situation it's not used to talk about policies in the countries just use in plus the place it's much better much more natural so those are a few things that i've noticed that non-native speakers uh struggle with sometimes so perhaps they'll be helpful for you as well so thanks very much for watching if you have a bad habit that you've noticed when you're speaking english or if you've noticed a bad habit and somebody else in their english speaking or their writing or whatever please leave it in a comment and let's compare it might be interesting to see if there are any other things that people tend to struggle with thanks very much for watching this episode and we will see you again soon bye here we go here i go here i go hi everybody my name is alicia welcome back to top words today we're going to be talking about 10 phrases that make you look like a fool hopefully you never use them let's start i don't need to learn anything anymore i don't need to learn anything anymore if you say this you sound like i know all the information ever i'm done learning i'm done studying of course you need to learn of course you need to study please don't say this phrase i don't need your advice i don't need your advice i don't need your advice you sound like you don't appreciate what they're saying you sound like you don't want to hear anything from them i really think that you need to be studying more i'm concerned about your grades jeff i don't need your advice mom i know everything i know everything this is awful nobody wants to hear you say this because it's just not true are you ready for the test next week steve yeah i'm good i know everything they don't i'm not ready to learn english i'm not ready to learn english you can study anything at any time pretty much i really think that you should start studying english before your trip to america next year no i don't think i'm ready to start learning english see how stupid that sounds i'm right and you're wrong i'm right and you're wrong uh you sound awful when you say this nobody likes to hear that they've made a mistake and that you're happy about that that's what the nuance of this phrase is i'm right you're wrong don't say this phrase unless you're very very close with the other person and you know that it's okay to joke together i'm right you're wrong it's too hard don't even try it's too hard don't even try this sounds like you're giving up before you've even started doing something if you don't try you never know right hey i think i'm gonna start studying english this week because i'm going to canada next year what do you think don't even try it's way too hard oh really you think it's too hard hmm okay i guess i won't don't do that just do what i say just do what i say just do what i say parents might use this phrase a lot with their children actually but if you say this to your friends or to your colleagues you're going to sound like a really mean or difficult to work with person just do what i say we can't do that the next phrase is we can't do that this could also be changed to i can't do that again this sounds like you're giving up before you even tried to do something i can't do that you're just you're not prepared or you're not even willing to try hey stevens do you think that you could take care of this report for next week we need it for our client meeting ah no i don't think i can do that no that's that's not my job that's not my responsibility you're not very smart you're not very smart that's not a nice thing to say if someone makes a mistake and you say oh you're not very smart that's so mean it's so rude everybody makes mistakes from time to time don't tell them that they're stupid don't say you're not very smart that's hurtful and an example of what not to do i'm so so sorry about this mistake that i made in my report last week i'll fix it i promise i'll fix it and i'll send it to you right away i can't believe you made such a simple mistake you're not very smart are you everybody makes mistakes you'll never succeed you'll never succeed you'll never succeed this is a phrase that shows you're not supporting the other person and maybe you're even trying to hold them back how awful is that who would say that don't say that and i hope no one ever says this to you i'm going to join a marathon race next summer i can't wait a marathon you're never gonna succeed with that do you know how hard those are have you even started training well no but i think i can do it i just need a few months and you know i need to take care of myself and work hard no way there's no way that you can do that it's not possible oh you really think so i was so looking forward to it too thank goodness that's the end oh my gosh those were some sad phrases i hope that nobody says those phrases to you but i hope also that you don't use these phrases with other people because they're hurtful really try to be positive so thanks very much for joining us for this lesson and we will see you again soon bye i'm very insecure about my acting abilities oh there's sound coming through this i love the awkward pauses today's video is on words americans overuse i haven't seen these words yet but apparently it's going to be a series of words that we as americans i'm american um we overuse we use too often so let's start uh oh the first word is definitely definitely is definitely a word that americans overuse we use it to put emphasis at the end of a phrase to put emphasis at the end of a sentence uh as in oh that party last week was so great yeah definitely or to agree with somebody like that uh oh god literally oh just in the last few days i've seen the word literally so many times on the internet and used in just such stupid ways the word literally uh means actually or truly something this is literally the best hamburger i've ever eaten so literally meaning truly or actually would mean that in that person's entire life that is the best hamburger they've ever eaten however it gets misused a lot in sentences um like george bush was literally supporting the war in iraq or something like that taking a phrase like that literally would have to mean that you know the president former president would be you know physically supporting a war with his body onward onward hilarious hilarious is the next word i like to use the word hilarious when something is actually funny hilarious of course means something that is really funny super funny it's a step above funny maybe two steps three steps i don't know however people like to use this word in place of laughter so uh for example friends are talking and instead of just laughing the friend will say that's hilarious well if it's so hilarious just laugh oh this must be the last one because this is the worst one this word is like um i've probably said it several times already today for the for the purposes of this video the word like is used as a filler word so it's the same as something such as um or uh or hmm for example we use like as a filler word when we're trying to think of something it's not uncommon to hear the word repeated like three four five times in a row when someone is thinking they'll say oh you know that party that i went to like like uh like uh like do you know who was there it just invades your speech sometimes when you're trying to think of something and no other filler words come out but the word like does ah this wasn't the last word there is another one seriously seriously is used oh it's good for anytime you receive bad news um well not from your boss it's a really casual word um but if you hear something um like your friend lost their job and you can sympathize with them or maybe empathize with them by saying seriously oh that's too bad or oh tell me like all your problems oh my god i just use like oh god oh i hate myself is that the end it's the end all right well i hope you enjoyed learning about a few um words that americans overuse i'm sure that there are more words that americans overuse but perhaps you'll find those out on your own thanks very much for watching and we'll see you again next time bye want to speed up your language learning take your very first lesson with us you'll start speaking in minutes and master real conversations sign up for your 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Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 122,055

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

Id: xM9Qk3D35ms

Length: 85min 37sec (5137 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 31 2021