May vs Might What's the Difference | Live English Lesson Writing Practice

hello good evening and welcome to tonight's English lesson with me and English here on English like a native it's quite unusual for me to be live on a Sunday but I'm very happy to be here and there's a special reason why I decided to broadcast tonight and that's because look at this we are so close to that huge milestone which is 100,000 of you amazing people here part of this community so what I'm hoping to do is to hit that big milestone by the end of today it might happen it might not but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it will now you can help me if you are watching and you're not subscribed then you can make those numbers go up and perhaps you can even share it with your friends so that your friends come along and hopefully want to join our community as well hello if everyone is joining me here hellos please feel free to say hi in the chat room what we're going to do today is learn the difference between the words may and might so they're very similar and interchangeable in most circumstances but there is a slight difference so that's what we're going to be going through today so hello to my patrons hi Ella's joining me hi do feel free to put your messages patrons in the patron box and I will also be doing some writing practice with you guys on YouTube so let's get straight into it shall we might vs. May so they are both used interchangeably they're both used to mean to ask for permission so if you're asking for permission to do something for example we might say may I be excused for a moment may I be excused for a moment this is quite a common and very polite way of asking if you can just leave for a minute perhaps you are in a meeting and your phone rings and it's a very important call which you need to take but of course it's rude to walk away from a meeting or if you're in discussion with somebody then it is rude to just turn your attention away so you might say oh may I be excused for a moment and the usual if they say yes that's fine and you go and take a call or if you need to use the bathroom but you don't want to say that you're using the bathroom you might just ask to be excused may I be excused for a moment so you're asking permission other examples that we have here are may I use your bathroom so perhaps you're at somebody's house and you need to spend a penny so you might say to them may I use your bathroom and of course they'll mostly in most circumstances they should allow you to go and use the bathroom so we can also use might in this situation if we need to ask permission then we could use might and the example sentence I've given here is might I trouble you for a pen might I trouble you for a pen this is very polite and I don't hear it that often to ask someone if you could trouble them I hope it's not too much trouble can I trouble you and using might in this situation as much as it's correct it's not common so in that circumstance you're asking to use someone's pen might I trouble you for a pen however like I said it's not common for us to use might to ask for permission it's not incorrect it's just not common so normally just think of may may I may I being and asking for permission so I want you to write a sentence for me now asking for permission to do something so using may I I want you to give me a sentence so what would you typically ask for may I may I make myself a sandwich may I trouble you for a cup of tea may I wear my black lacy dress tonight may I sit down give me a sentence and I will correct you Elva hello you said good evening good evening to you in my country we call only nice and the only nice a sweet person so if that's annoying you know that's fine thank you very much that's very sweet of you hello everyone I've got so many of you in that's wonderful hello in Morocco hello in Brazil hello in the Ukraine hello in Argentina fantastic ok alright so I've started to get some sample sentences through here oh goodness I can't pronounce your name maracas knee you said may I have a lick of your ice cream no you may not have a lick of my ice cream I don't share ice cream ice cream is all for me but that's a well-constructed sentence just make sure you start the sentence with a capital letter always a mal has said may I have my name called ok so a mal you are referring to the lesson where I gave people an English nickname if they wanted to have one and so let's have a look at your sentence you've said may I have that's good may I have my good name called so this isn't correct the ending here so you'd say may I have my English nickname may I have my English nickname oh there we go and then that was be correct may I have my English nickname and a mal if you would like an English nickname let me think a mal Amelia Amelia is a lovely a lovely English name so there you go Amelia Amelia so Andreas in my patrons rumor says may I have a seat perfect Ella Ana a bit off-topic but with all the struggles the commitment to YouTube means which vision which dream keeps you motivated oh okay so you're asking me how I keep motivated even though being a full-time youtuber is very difficult most of the time actually it's the amazing messages and I got lots of messages on Facebook and on YouTube and on Instagram lots of people telling me what a difference these these videos make and these lessons how helpful they are and that always every time I think about getting a normal job or backing away and doing something else those messages you guys are the ones who motivate me to carry on because the majority of you are so respectful and so lovely and so positive that it makes me feel like I'm really making a difference to you and so it's you you are my motivation okay so good let's carry on so very easy May should be used for asking permission although might is not incorrect so you can use Mike for permission as well so when else will we use these words let's have a look both are used to express possibility but there is a slight difference between the two so both can be used to say that there is a possibility of something happening so may expresses what is more probable and factual so if something is likely to happen and it's highly likely to happen or it's very possibly factual then we should use may so for example I might say to you you know I normally Drive to work but tomorrow I may cycle to work tomorrow I may cycle to work tomorrow so it's highly likely to happen it's very probable and it will very likely happen so I'm using may I may cycle to work tomorrow also I've just got off the phone to my mother and my mother has said we're coming to London and we'll be with you probably around 6 o'clock in which case we'd like to have dinner with you so it's probably going to happen so I will say to my boyfriend perhaps we may have dinner with my parents this weekend it will probably happen so we may have dinner with my parents this weekend now we can use might in the same way but might is more often used to express something that's less probable or that's a hypothetical situation something that's speculated so the examples are given here is we should buy a lottery ticket we might win so winning the lottery is highly unlikely of course it's possible but it's highly unlikely and so it's better to use the word might instead of May because might is for possibilities that are less likely we should buy a lottery ticket we might win and here I'm referring to someone who's who's been who's turned up to a date and the date didn't turn up so the person they were meant to have a date with didn't arrive and they waited and waited and waited and they still didn't arrive and so I say to them if you had waited for five more minutes your date might have turned up it's unlikely but they might have turned up so in a hypothetical situation if you had waited for five more minutes your date might have turned up so what I want you to do is to try and now to use the words might or may to describe a situation where something is possible you can either do it in the in the present tense or the past tense past tense you're going to talk about hypothetical situation you're going to speculate news might for something that's very probable that something is likely to happen then I want you to use may so Benjamin has used May a permission sense and said may I leave the class no you may not you have to stay of course you may if you need to but that was good [Music] daniel has said you may hit a hundred thousand subscribers during this lesson Daniel that's a good wealth structure sentence although I would say is better to use might in this situation because I think it's highly unlikely that I will hit 100,000 subscribers during this lesson given that actually I've got less subscribers now than when I started the lesson people have left me already maybe people don't like the words might and may so I would have used might in that situation okay Camille kamila has put I may visit England next year good if it's quite probable that's perfect if so Alvaro Oh everyone's commenting is jumping down Alvaro who said I was wondering if you might say good evening to me you're just an amazing teacher thank you very much and yes it's a good sentence I was wondering if you might say good evening to me and I did so there you go may may you explain us theory of probability oh I don't know about the theory of probability and may you explain us when you're using the word explain usually it needs to be followed by two could you explain to me could you explain to him could you explain to them so you need to add that word in may I shake your hand yes may I marry you so all these permission sentences are good you're using may that's good I might see you in Surbiton says Jason okay yeah good I might you might cross a hundred thousand subscribers good well done alright let's let's just jump in the patron room how are you getting on patrons okay no one's giving me a sentence there so let's carry on so the third way you can use the word might and may is to note that mite is the past tense of May so you can also use might to mean the past tense of May so here I've given some example sentences using both so I may win the tennis competition so that's present tense it could happen is possible I may win the tennis competition however let's talk about last year I might have won last year if I had trained harder I might have won last year if I had trained harder so might being the past tense of May I may ask Richard out he might have asked me if I had been more approachable I may ask Richard out that means to ask somebody on a date because you like them I may ask Richard out he might have asked me if I had been more approachable so there you go there's three different ways in which we can use the words might and may the first one being asking for permission usually it's best to just use may may I yes you may may I no you may not the second way is to express possibility I may do something but if it's less like you'd say I might do something okay and then finally using might as the past tense of May so I hope that you found that helpful and if you want to practice doing any more writing then I'll stay around for a few minutes to do that with you and yes my numbers have dropped so I may I may hit a hundred thousand subscribers tonight but it looks like it's just um going back and forth back and forth people subscribing and unsubscribing which is making me very sad but never mind so any more practice sentences that you would like me to correct let's have a look at those now weather might make meth wear there might be more making me happy I'm not quite sure what you mean with that sentence and it's not correct so I don't know how to correct it and I'm not sure of the meaning target English spoken club says ma'am might you recommend a collocation book I off the top of my head I can't I'm afraid but that's a good written sentence well done it might be raining tonight in Manchester says Doolin Hulan Doolin deulim I've not seen that name before yes it might be it most probably is so I would say May it may be raining tonight in Manchester because it's quite probable and Victor has said and that might be why I don't know about this actually I don't can't see the beginning of your sentence so I can't help you with that one Anna you have a voice of FM radio announcer an FM radio announcer is a noun so then you'd have to use ah you have the voice of or a FM radio announcer okay I might be so jealous if my girlfriend out to another man so you're missing a verb there if my girlfriend goes out to sea or if my girlfriend goes or if my girlfriend yeah if my girlfriend goes out to meet another man then you might be jealous I would expect you would be I would be jealous if I were you may I have a cup of tea says Khaled yes you may well done may I may have come late to this session haha yes you did come late to this session good sentence I might be fluent in English in a hundred years good so we know it's not possible that you'll be alive in a hundred years unless we have incredible advances in technology and people start to live a really long time so you've used the word might because it's less probable so well done good good sentence well-structured may I visit you on May says Rodrigo you're using the month of May so you're playing both words there may I visit you on May however the preposition is wrong when we're talking about months of the year we use the preposition in May I visit you in May okay nice and easy fantastic let me just see if there's any new ones come through very useful says Chris thank you very much I'm glad you find it helpful ricardo says he may leave or might leave question mark it depends it depends on the circumstance if if if it's quite likely that someone's going to leave then you'd say he may leave he may leave if it's less likely and you say he might leave I'm not sure he might stay but he might leave so remember might is less probable mary has said may I close the window please yes you may very good please make a video about Christmas I have done a few videos last year on Christmas which you'll be able to find on my videos page and hopefully you will find that helpful you might find that helpful I'm sure you will if your interest in those kinds of things I might be with you yesterday know so because so you're using past tense of May but you also have to add I might have been with you yesterday and normally you would need a kind of clause as to why I might have been with you yesterday if my car hadn't have broken down or I might have been with you yesterday had I known you were doing a live lesson okay or we've hit ninety nine thousand nine hundred and twenty oh no we've gone back again I think people are playing games with me here alright guys can you help me may I ask for your help can you click on that share button right now or can you message one of your friends who's in tres in English and tell them about this channel and see if we can get those numbers up may I ask that of you might you be so kind as to help me with these numbers if not don't worry I'm glad that you're here anyway so I'm going to do a few more and then I'm going to say goodnight because I'm going to go swimming for the evening go and do a few lengths to keep myself in shape and then I'm going to have dinner and have an early night so may you lend me your hands as Kareem very good may I have a cupcake is that right yes that is perfect Amol may you read my question or is might impossible or it is might impossible may you read my question is a good sentence and there you go I did might can be a noun as well yes that's right so to do something with all your might to have my teas like strength and energy because you can also then call someone mighty to be strong and rarr that's a word too let me see may you say something in Spanish si is that enough oh no I just lost more I lost more people are leaving me okay he might come tonight yes my my my friend might come tonight for dinner that's good and which is better might I go to the party or may I go to the party it's better if you're asking permission for something always use may may I may I do something okay also if so if you're saying if you're saying that something might not happen so if you're saying I may not go to the cinema and what you mean is it's not it it there's a possibility I won't go I'm not sure I may not go to the cinema or you'd say I might not go to the cinema in those cases it could be an big lluis so people could think that perhaps you mean I haven't got permission to go to the cinema if you use May they might think you've not been allowed I may not I may not go to the cinema my mother won't let me I may not go so in those cases when you're talking about possibly not doing something it's better to use might I might not go to the cinema I might not go swimming tonight okay so if you're talking in that respect and then use might we love you Anna thank you so much I love you guys too and a couple more may I have some advice from you very good elver very good may I join you guys for dinner good Mohammad yes you may why not may I come to have dinner with you yes there are some good sentence as well all right thank you so much for joining me let's keep those fingers crossed that we build our community up to 100,000 subscribers some point soon and that these lessons continue to help people all around the world I I wish you all the pleasant evening and I hope to see you in tomorrow where I may be live at some point but I will let you know on Facebook and Instagram so do make sure you're following me there they're all free so just find the links in the description box below okay take care lots of love from London you

Channel: English Like A Native

Views: 16,643

Keywords: Learn English, English lesson, English like a native, vocabulary, english, English speaking, british accent, british, Anna English, british english, what is the difference, english lesson, may vs might, may and might whats the differnence, difference may and might, learn may and might, how to use may english, may english, learn might english, how to use might and may, english may vs might, british english may vs might

Id: M8r54OD5880

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2017