SUPER USEFUL PHRASES | Expressing Ability vs Inability

hello and welcome to today's lesson this is it's going to be a vocabulary lesson and I want to talk to you about some useful phrases if you want to talk about your abilities and that well maybe you're good at doing something or perhaps your inability some things that maybe you need to work on and you need to practice a little more so hello thank you guys for joining me hello uh Vicky Gustav rafella takayo good to see you let's uh let's move into the first part and again just kind of introducing and talking a little bit about the topic so there are many many different ways that you can say you're either good at something or you're not good at it this is just these are a couple of examples like he is good at teaching English or he sucks at teaching English these are two common ways to express ability or inability the one thing that I want you to keep in mind as we go through and talk about these phrases and I would like you to participate and give me some examples write them in the chat or write to write them in the comments is keeping in mind some of the things like grammar are we talking about an adjective or like good or a verb like to suck at something is it followed by a preposition which preposition are you going to use if the preposition changes does that change the meaning and also small things like well is this a phrase that's going to come at the beginning of a statement or even at the end so these are the things that I'd like to talk to you a little bit about as we go through some of these different phrases so again welcome to today's lesson um we're gonna talk about ability and inability but before we do that I want to make one quick little announcement and that is just letting you know if you would like to join my speaking course check out the link down in the description this is a course for intermediate to Advanced speakers it's all about helping you speak confidently speak clearly speak naturally we do we we have different topics each week we learn vocabulary related to the topic and again even phrases like uh like these phrases today this is some of the stuff we go over learning how to use them practice using them and of course you can use the code speak20 to get 20 off uh the course so let me I'm going to throw that in the chat right there but yeah check out the link Down Below in the description if you're interested in joining so with all of these lessons as you may or may not know I like to to make them more of a quiz lesson it's more interactive that way so all I want you to do is to complete the sentence and we're starting out with phrases to talk about your ability to do something things that you're good at so just keep that in mind so as far as helping you determine which phrase uh we're talking about so the first one she has a um for negotiating I've given you the meaning but because we're talking about being good at something your ability to do something of course they're they're all going to be very similar but this is a skill or natural ability to do something easily and and well so what could you say I've I've kind of highlighted the phrase in general and given you the first letter excellent so you guys are rocking this first one vb7k2 excellent so yes you guys are right she has a knack for negotiating I'm going to give you some examples but right now also if in the chat in the comments tell me practice using these phrases tell me something that you have a knack for a skill or natural ability you do it easily you do it well so here are some examples that um I'm giving you you have a knack for something if I see some good sentences I'll read those out so you could talk about like the first one I have a knack for falling asleep quickly something that you can do easily or if I were commenting on about somebody else's abilities and say oh he has a knack for telling stories he's just naturally good at doing this and then the last one there's one little slight change that I wanted to make you aware of uh she has The Knack of being at the wrong place at the wrong time so you'll notice two things instead of anak and using that article I'm using the definite article the and following it with the preposition of I think more often than not more commonly you're going to hear the phrase used a knack for something however and I was trying to find like if it wasn't like a solid rule because you can follow Knack with the preposition of and often when I was looking at example sentences it comes after the definite article thus so it's like you're talking about a specific thing The Knack of something happening so keep that in mind a knack for something or the neck of I wanted to to point that out but I think more often than not you're going to use a knack for something um so let's see so he said I have a knack for singing in foreign languages excellent I have a knack for cooking good um my partner had a knack for presentation or giving presentations perfect excellent uh the next one let's keep moving on and it might again I I hope that some of these phrases are new for you and as I shown you at the beginning many people will just say oh I'm good at this he's good at this she's good at that uh but these are again building getting a little variety mixing it up a little bit so he is extremely um at coding once again we have this word followed by the preposition at and when you think about that phrase you're referring to well skilled and experienced and I do think a key word in here is experienced that you have experience doing this thing and you could say well they are very um at this thing and again the word starts with a P I haven't seen it just yet but I'll give you a moment and then I'll tell you the answer and this is a phrase that again you're not going to to use it all the time or probably hear it all the time but like I said it's just getting a little bit of that variety uh building your vocabulary that's what it's all about so the word that we're looking for he is extremely proficient you're proficient at coding and that's why I said I think a key word is experience like you have some experience you're proficient at doing this thing all right now I see some good answer excellent Rafaela Julia um promise nice excellent so yeah we're talking about being proficient at something now with this one let me give you some examples and again feel free write some example sentences in the chat in the comments the idea is just to practice using them in context so the one thing which you can see right here is that proficient you may follow it with different prepositions you could be proficient at something proficient in something or proficient with something and I've given you some examples right here trying to let you know well when you would use which preposition so the the first one I'm proficient at setting up a tent okay this is something that yes I have experience with I love camping so I could say oh I'm yeah I'm pretty proficient at setting up a tent and and that's referring to specific things okay the before in the example proficient at coding it's a specific thing the next sentence she is proficient in two languages so proficient in something is often used with subjects uh you might hear somebody oh I'm you know proficient in well you might be proficient in English or proficient in math and you're referring more to a subject if you want to say you're proficient with something he's proficient with knives uh and I forgot to put a full stop at the end there I apologize but in that case we're talking about tools that you may use and you're proficient with this tool in this case somebody is proficient with knives so again this is why prepositions can cause some confusion you could be proficient at proficient in proficient with once again in my opinion I would say that probably proficient at is used more often because you're talking about a specific thing that you are skilled at doing or that you have experience with this thing so somebody says I'm proficient with computers perfect nice uh my I'm proficient at math excellent he is proficient at cooking a plethora of foods my dad is proficient at gardening excellent so again it's all about getting that practice that's what well interactive English is all about especially these lessons right here so the next one she is at problem solving this word starts with an A and again the blanks those are missing letters so I'm telling you right now that this word has one two three four five letters she is at problem solving I would even say again this phrase is more advanced it's probably less commonly used than proficient at but still something you may hear from time to time and again I try to give you some of this more advanced vocabulary hoping that maybe you'll you'll learn something new and it refers to having a natural ability to do something that needs skill so you're talking about something where skill is needed and you have this this ability starts with an A does anybody any any ideas uh which word I'm talking about which adjective and yes excellent the answer is adept so I want to one answer in there perfect she she is adept at problem solving and she has this a skill that's a skill that people need and you have this natural ability you are Adept at this once again once again please write some sentences practice using this phrase in case it's new I see all these answers now I don't know if it's because of the delay or just like oh yeah Adept uh people writing it down perfect so the way that I wanted to present this a little differently instead of me just sharing some sentences with you uh to really show you how it's used in context I just put this in quotes went to news and took some screenshots of some news headlines using this phrase to once again just to show you that yeah you you may come across this if you're reading a book or reading a news article so the first one it says Montreal companies are Adept at meeting employee needs and in this case they're they're doing a good job they have this ability to meet the employee needs uh this is February Creature Feature it says Foxes are surprisingly Adept at and I'll tell you what the rest of the article title was they didn't write it down right there but it was saying that foxes are surprisingly Adept at living among uh human beings so basically where where our environment where people build homes and apartments and they live that foxes are Adept uh surprisingly Adept at living among us and basically with us and close by uh and yes that's something that they're able to do and then that final example I believe this is somebody who plays Cricket they're talking about an athlete Barat Adept at making a challenging task look easy so once again this is a phrase that you're talking about your ability to do something to do it well you are Adept at uh this thing so the let's let's keep moving on um right here again this one I think is a a common one my oh I didn't see sentences I'm not to Adept at writing on the chat okay that's fair fair enough um but it keep keep writing some of these sentences practice using them that's that's that's what I like to see like sorry I didn't get to too many sentences there but I want to look at this one because there are other phrases I need to get through my friend is a um at riding a horse or you could say it riding horses either one and this is to have an inherent or instinctive ability uh in something we're talking about this activity my friend is a um at riding a horse and I see some quick answers with this one so great job I think this is a phrase that's more commonly used so you've probably heard this watching a TV show movie perhaps you even use it yourself um Helena Mina uh nice we're talking about a natural if you are a natural at something then it's almost like you're you're born with disability you just instinctively know how to do something and you could say you are a natural at this thing here are some examples and there's one thing that I want to point out at the bottom so once again you're going to follow this with the the preposition at you are a natural at something maybe a noun or you're a natural at doing something I'm trying to highlight there here's he's a natural um at playing chess so you could say he's a natural at playing using that gerund playing chess or just say he's a natural at chess either one is perfectly okay the next sentence that I wanted to say is that if if you're not going to use the preposition it is common just to say somebody is a natural but in that case typically you would talk about that something beforehand and we already know what the topic is like oh I've never seen someone play um so well at chess he's a natural and you're making that statement you don't have to follow it every time with that preposition with this one I think it's common to say that somebody is a natural another way of using this phrase would be would be to use the adjective Natural Born she's a natural born swimmer so Natural Born you would find this phrase before the noun and you would say somebody is a Natural Born something so the different ways that you can use this word and phrase which I think is useful it's helpful to understand some people writing some sentences I'm a natural at helping people okay good I'm a natural at learning English glad to hear that Wally uh she's a natural at acting on stage nice rafella he wants to be a natural at swimming nice then let me see I have I think one more with these abilities and then we'll talk about inability so this is well you see that hyphen in there they are um in the art of deception we're talking about knowing a lot of something and I think this does have to do it's a key word knowledge so I've there are two words I've given you the first letter of each word and once again each of those blanks that is a letter what do you think they are in the art of deception they know a lot about this thing and I hopefully that I'm giving you the first letter of both of those words it makes it a little easier to try to think of the phrase and with this one we are going to follow it with the preposition in you are in something good job um Gabriel Julia Mina promisec sorry if I mispronounce names we're talking about the phrase well versed you're well versed in something you know a lot about this thing and it does make me think a well-versed you have knowledge so it's not necessarily like talking about like a physical ability but knowledge and information nice uh Vicky Gustav Lawley Rafaela perfect so I'm not going to be I'm not going to read these I know it's small really the point that I wanted to make with this was just highlighting one of the dictionaries that I like to use Cambridge in order to get you know meanings I think they give simple explanations but if you were to scroll down uh not just look at the meaning often they give these examples using the word and they're really citing it from other online articles and what I've done I've just highlighted where they have used the word the only thing I would say is if you're I think reading these sentences it does give you a better idea of like the context and how people use it the grammatical structure which is all very important sometimes I feel like the sentences they provide because it is a news article it may seem a little bit more formal but this is a useful resource not just learning the meaning but then trying to look at some sentences and get a feel for how these phrases are used is also very very important so now we're going to switch gears and we just talked about ways phrases that you can use to express your ability that you're saying you're you're good at something now I want to talk about your well inability if there is something that you well it's you need to work on this thing and you need more maybe you need more practice but you're expressing that and you're talking about either yourself or maybe you're saying like well this other person maybe needs to work on this thing they're not very good um let's look at some of those phrases so the first one and I think I've given you a lot of words so hope maybe this will make this part a little bit easier public speaking is not my um there's two words missing both of them begin with an S and this is a phrase that I really like if you're talking about well a particular skill or ability that a person does not have or in this case not necessarily that they don't have it but they just need more practice they need to work on this thing in order to improve uh perhaps that's a little strong saying that you just don't have uh this ability and I know some of you who have taken my my speak up course we've I think we've talked about this phrase before excellent takayao um rafella Julia Gabrielle we're telling the phrase is strong suit and if you say that something is not your strong suit it's just you're just letting somebody know that okay this is the thing I'm not the best at this thing you could use this in the affirmative but I I put this under the category of an inability because often I think people will use this phrase in the negative and they're talking about something that they're not good at doing and you could say well it's not really my strong suit so just because I have it here uh talking about inability you could hear people use this in the affirmative and say wow this is you know this is really your strong suit like you're really good at this but often I think people will use this phrase um talking about something they're not good at I've given you some examples here all related to learning English just to to follow up and the one other thing I point out is this notice where it is it's often it's going to come uh really at the end of a statement so talking about English like somebody said well English grammar is not my strong suit and it's just something they need to work on and improve or phrasal verbs are not my strong suit I I've I feel like a lot of people will tell me this again they can be very confusing they have multiple meanings and you can say well yeah phrasal verbs they're not my strong suit or making small talk in English is not my strong suit so you're referring to this skill that you just need more practice you need to work on it you need to get better you could say it's not my strong suit strong point I would say point is not really often used if you wanted to to refer to in this sentence like you wouldn't really uh put point at the end there um typically I think point would be like an argument if somebody's like well that's not a very strong point like I'm not a strong argument or Reason these idioms are not my strong suit calculus is not my strong suit geometry is definitely not my strong suit um lodging a complaint is not uh my strong suit uh all right excellent you guys those are some great examples thank you for for sharing some sentences let's let's keep sharing some more now well let me just read the sentence and then I'll talk about it American football is not my um I've only given you one letter at the beginning there are three words that are missing and the that first word that's missing it's the begins with the letter c now I will say what I wanted to mention about this because in general we're talking about ability and inability this is not this phrase is not necessarily related to your inability to do something it's more closely associated with your talking about likes and dislikes so in this case something that you just don't really care for that you don't like I wanted to let you know that at the beginning and I think I've probably just given away much of it there seeing all these answers so when something is not like the type of thing that you like uh yes Lolly Rafaela Victor Takaya Ashraf Oleg um we're talking about you know it's not your cup of tea and I'm sure American football is very popular in the United States uh which is where I am from and I really enjoy it but I know for other people who are not from the US they would say yeah it's not really my cup of tea it's not the thing that I enjoy or like the most so keep in mind this is not really associated with the ability or inability but more likes and dislikes something you just don't really care for so here are some examples uh and and these are actually personal examples I was trying to think of other things I was like why not write some things that are just not my cup of tea so I would say that horror movies yeah they're just not my cup of tea not thing the types of movies that I like to watch the most early morning flights are not my cup of tea I'm not a morning person I don't like getting up early going to the airport checking in going through all that it's definitely not my cup of tea and Loud bars and restaurants are not my cup of tea I think at one point maybe they were and maybe I feel like I'm I'm getting older or something it just it's just today it's not my cup of tea um yeah if it's just too loud you can't talk you can't have a conversation not my cup of tea uh we have some sentences summer uh is not my cup of tea because most of the time sweltering hot yeah uh cooking is not my cup of tea watching TV is honestly not my cup of tea swimming's not my cup of tea great excellent and I hope I imagine you guys are sharing your your personal feelings about this and I think that's the easiest way to to practice think about well what how do you feel what is something that's not your cup of tea or in this case using this other phrase in which case we are talking about uh an inability you can see the meaning right there a small problem or weakness in a person what would you say math has always been my um two words the first one begins with an A and the next one begins with an h and you may be looking at this and you see that capital A that is not a mistake that is that's just part of the phrase it is a um it's a capital capital letter so that's not a mistake uh and again I don't know how you may hear this from time to time um the fact that everybody's kind of throwing those answers in there makes me think okay maybe people have heard this before but it is referring to a weakness if you want to say that yeah you're not really um good at this thing so excellent yeah Lolly Leonel um Ashraf we're talking about the phrase Arena Achilles heel and I will point out that you may find achilles at the end there with an apostrophe like because it would be uh you know incense possessive you may find it without it I just I wrote it without it but in general this is a phrase that you're probably going to use more in spoken English and you're probably not going to find yourself writing it that often but you may or may not find it with an apostrophe at the end of the word so I'm sure obviously we all have weaknesses and you can if you want to tell me um what what is your Achilles heel and write it in the chat or write it in the comments and just practice using the phrase in context it says yes thinking about Brad Pitt in the movie Troy he played the role of Achilles so just to to give you some context as to where this phrase comes from Achilles um well-known uh well I don't want to say well known but in the the mythology I I think what happened is that Achilles was in the river sticks maybe I'm gonna get this wrong I apologize was put in the river sticks and then basically was thought to be kind of invincible um except for uh his heel that was the one weakness that he had and eventually I think as The Story Goes he was killed by an arrow that hit his heel and you feel free to correct me if that is an inaccurate interpretation but again it comes from the the story and say something is your Achilles heel and you would find this typically at the end of a statement and um these uh these are true examples for me writing legibly is my Achilles heel if you were to see my handwriting not good not very legible uh I'm also not very good at drawing so I could say yeah drawing is my Achilles heel if I had to do this thing uh it is certainly one of uh my weaknesses and I would also say yeah cooking is my Achilles heel so those are just some examples uh coding has always been my Achilles heel when I was at school physics uh was my Achilles heel math was my Achilles heel yeah I think you use it a lot um with a subject everyone has an Achilles heel absolutely we all have weaknesses um my Achilles heel is cleaning the house nice so again you could say that well this is uh my weakness this is not my strong suit this is just another way to Express that and say well this is you know it's my Achilles heel this is my weakness here's another one and I'm kind of curious uh if you guys uh are gonna get this when it comes to dancing I have three missing words and I've given you the first letter of each word maybe I'm giving it away I don't know but this is an informal way of yeah just saying that you are not good at doing this thing and really we're in this context we're talking about inactivity because the meaning is like you're moving in a very awkward way so when it comes to dancing I have what what would you say how would you complete that phrase it's very informal it's casual you may use this in just uh a gen a conversation if you're talking about uh well in this case not being very good at dancing so the answer all right now Lolly Julia nice two left feet so this is a way of expressing think of what it really means if somebody has actually you know two left feet they're not going to be very coordinated when it comes to dancing or moving and you could say you have two left feet I will say more often this phrase is used when talking about dancing but you could use it when referring to any activity in which somebody is really they they really need to use their feet and you could say they have two left feet if you want to say they're not good so here I just give two different examples um because you could say two left feet or two left hands once again giving you my opinion I think it's more common that you you may come across people saying two left feet but if you want to say somebody's not you know there's an activity you need to use your hands you could say oh they have two left hands so the first example he's not very coordinated I think he has two left feet when it comes to playing soccer right and again soccer you need to be coordinated um and if you're not then yeah maybe you'd have two left feet or using the other one two left hands she's unable to catch so when it comes to juggling she has two left hands this is an activity you're using your hands um and you could say that someone has two left hands so it really depends on that the activity that you're talking about two left feet two left hands I would say it's more common to say two left feet and often and people are going to be referring to to dancing um if I were trying my hand at skiing I would surely have two left feet it's a good example skiing you you need to you got to use your feet um so with these lessons my goal is hopefully hopefully um you learn something new today I want to just put a little review slide up here I appreciate you guys again practicing using these phrases in context I added that one down there like to say I used those in the last two examples when it comes to so you could even use that phrase fill in an adjective like to be the best when it comes to this topic or to be terrible when it comes to this activity so that's another phrase that you could use when talking about ability or inability and there are others as well it's not just these but I wanted to highlight some of these and again it's all about building vocabulary getting a little bit of language variety which again is something else we try to do throughout my speaking course check out that description if you're interested in joining and if you did learn something new please hit that like button because I know let me see if I can do a little review I'm I'm pretty sure that that many of you have a knack for learning languages and you are probably fairly proficient in English and I know that some of you may think well you know building vocabulary it's not my strong suit but again as you keep doing it and learning it and not just learning the meaning but learning how these words are used I am confident that you know at the end of the day you will be well versed in these different phrases and you would then go on to tell somebody well look you know English is is definitely my cup of tea using it in the positive and maybe you then talk about something else that you're not good at and then you could say well this is my Achilles heel it's my weakness so if you enjoy the lesson again please hit that like button you can check out the link down in the description if you would like to join my speaking course or learn more about it thank you very much for joining me today Lolly Takaya Vicky Gustav um good to see you Arena Sid uh Sam gidi Theory thanks so much trying to throw out some shout outs Rafaela I will see you in the next speaking course excellent um yeah that's that's about uh that's about all I got I hope you guys uh have a wonderful day and of course I will see you soon for another lesson so long

Channel: Interactive English

Views: 136,615

Keywords: interactive english, learn english, learn english online, learn english vocabulary, vocabulary, english vocabulary, build vocabulary, learn collocations in english, english vocabulary lesson, english vocabulary quiz, how to build vocabulary, advanced vocabulary, advanced english vocabulary, vocabulary quiz, american english, useful english phrases, learn english phrases, common english phrases, advanced phrases in english, talk about skills in english

Id: 5FcYMrQyTCI

Length: 36min 29sec (2189 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023