Your Monthly Dose of English - Best of November 2020

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manuel manuel says hi there when it comes to inversions in formal english to give emphasis i have two questions first i talked to an american english native speaker about it and was told these structures are no longer used they were used back in the 1920s what do you think second in one of my books it says that we can also use once in a while and very often at the beginning of the sentences for emphasis the point is that these two expressions are not listed in other books or video classes what are your thoughts some examples very often does she come here very often do they arrive late once in a while does he wash his car once in a while do i drink alcohol thank you very much interesting question inversion is still used today though as you've said it's used more in like formal situations or it's used in like poetic kinds of writing so situations where having control over the rhythm and the feel of a sentence is really strongly desired so inversion it is still used today but a key point and this is in regard to the second part of your question a key point though is to note that when we when we make sentences that use this inversion pattern we're using negative adverbs and negative adverbial phrases at the beginning so perhaps this is what you've seen in other textbooks and in other videos and this is what makes me think that your examples or the sentences that you provided are not so natural this is because very often and once in a while are not negative adverbial expressions so to make them negative you could say not very often like not very often does she wash her car or whatever so but that's not really something that i feel is so natural we wouldn't really say that the other example that you provided once in a while we could make that one negative by adding only like only once in a while do i drink alcohol so that's something that i feel might actually be said only once in a while do i that sounds like a more natural pattern i wouldn't i don't really feel that the not very often pattern would so often be used as like in in kind of like these inversion type sentences so to answer your question uh yes they are still used in some in certain situations yes perhaps not so much in everyday conversation at least not in american english you maybe could hear it a little bit more in british english i suppose um and also the focus generally is on using negative adverbs and negative adverbial phrases at the beginning of those so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for this interesting question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from nuria garayeva hello nuria maria says hello alicia can you explain the difference between which and that sure i have talked about this topic many times but not very recently so let's refresh ourselves the short answer is that the difference between that and which is that that is used for restrictive clauses and which is used for non-restrictive clauses so what's a restrictive clause what's a non-restrictive clause a restrictive clause is a clause in a sentence that gives us essential information about a noun we need that information about the noun in order to understand the noun completely a non-restrictive clause is a clause in a sentence that gives us extra or like bonus information about the noun if we don't have that clause we can still understand the noun so there may be different words that are used for restrictive or non-restrictive like descriptive or non-descriptive clauses but they're talking about the same things so let's take a look at an example of a restrictive clause and a non-restrictive clause the phone that i bought at the apple store works perfectly this phone which i bought at the apple store works perfectly okay so these two sentences they have essentially the same information so why am i saying one is a restrictive clause and why is one a non-restrictive clause so in this case we understand easily i'm talking about this phone yes like we know in both cases it's this phone but where restrictive clauses become important is in cases where for example we have many phones let's imagine the speaker has three phones and the speaker needs to differentiate the speaker needs to communicate which phone he or she is talking about in the conversation we can use restrictive clauses to do that so for example the phone that i got at the apple store works perfectly the phone that i bought from a secondhand shop is really slow the phone that i receive from my company is a little old so in those sentences we're using that because we're giving some specific identifying information about each phone so in a case like that where we're talking about three different objects and we need to make the differences very clear we would use a restrictive clause in cases where it's not so important like when we clearly know i mean this phone right here we can use which and a non-restrictive clause to talk about the phone so this is the basic difference between that and which of course native speakers don't always get this correct unfortunately so you may see people using the two interchangeably but that's actually one very common way of differentiating the two so if you want to know more about this topic i made a video about this please check out the relative clauses which or that video on the english class 101 youtube channel for some more examples and for some more explanation i hope that that helps you thanks for the question okay let's go to your next question next question comes from nicole hi nicole nicole says let me know whether you can use if i were you i will sure you cannot use this pattern if you want to begin your if conditional statement with if i were you you need to use something in your main clause that reflects an unreal or an untrue situation this is because if i were you is unreal it's not true i am not you that's not real so our main clause needs to match our if clause our main clause needs to include would or wouldn't to match the were in the if clause so if i were you i would or if i were you i wouldn't for example if i were you i would take a vacation or if i were you i wouldn't quit my job so you cannot use will in place of will please use would or wouldn't i hope that that helps you thanks for the question okay let's go to your next question next question comes from pandy hi pandy pandy says authorization authentication what is the difference okay sure both are nouns uh authorization is the act of allowing someone to do something authentication is the process of proving that something or someone is true or real some examples i need management authorization to enter the secret room in the building we finally got authorization to move forward with a new product the thief's paperwork didn't pass authentication unknown login detected user authentication required so the last example sentence there about user authentication is one that you might see online like if someone tries to access your account or maybe if you try to access your email your social media account from like a different place or something strange happens with your account you might be requested to do user authentication which means proving that you are you which we usually do through like checking an email address or phone number or something similar so authentication refers to checking to see if something is true authorization refers to the act or the process of allowing someone to do something so i hope that that helps you thanks very much for the question okay on to our next question next question comes from silas fast hi silas silas says hi alicia how's it going good uh my question is about the structure 2b 2 in the following sentences the queen is to visit canada you are to wear formal clothing to the white house dinner you are not to leave the room could you explain how it works yeah nice question we use this to be plus the infinitive form of a verb when we're talking about like official rules or we're talking about like an official schedule so this is not something that we use so much in everyday conversation in american english it's usually in a formal situation like when we're taking a test or we're talking about an official schedule or we're talking about official rules like in an examination situation or maybe a like a big organization when we want to make a negative rule too we place not before the verb so some more examples of this students are not to exit the room until the exam has finished guests are to leave their shoes at the door employees are to check in when they begin work so i hope that this helps you this structure is for formal or official rules and schedules thanks very much for the question okay that is everything that i have for this week thanks as always for sending your questions and remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like this week's lesson don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this week's episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe okay let's get to your first question this week first question this week comes from aisha abdullah hi aisha aisha says hi alicia can you please talk about how and where to use apostrophes which of these options is correct okay so take a look at the three examples that are on this screen and note the places where the apostrophes are in each of these so i'll talk about this the sentence is the two buildings doors and windows okay sure so we can use apostrophes to show possession and to show the reduced forms of words like it's or can't and so on so those are the two ways that we use apostrophes in this explanation i'm going to focus on using apostrophes for possessives so actually to address your question about which example sentence is correct none of those examples are correct the correct use of an apostrophe in this sentence would be just an apostrophe after the s in buildings so the two buildings apostrophe doors and windows that's the only place that we need an apostrophe this is because the doors and windows in the sentence kind of belong to the two buildings so the two buildings are the subject so we don't need to use like an apostrophe we don't need to use some kind of a possessive marker after doors and windows because we're not showing that the doors or the windows are like the owners of something actually here the buildings are like the owners so we mark the possession with an apostrophe to go a little bit deeper into why this is when we have a word that ends in s we use an apostrophe but we do not add another s to the word please note though we do not ever use apostrophes to make nouns plural as a general guide then when you are using a noun that ends in an s simply add an apostrophe after the s to show possession if the noun does not end in an s add apostrophe s to show possession so let's look at a couple examples of nouns that end in s in the singular and in the plural form for example the dress's color that's singular and the dress's colors plural the car's lights so you can see that even though the singular form and the plural form have the same pronunciation by that i mean like the dress's color and the dress's colors we understand that one is plural because the following word is plural so in the first example sentence there the dresses color so the dress ends in s yes and we show possession with an apostrophe after the s and then a singular color so that shows us it's one color one dress in the second example though the dresses colors so dresses is plural in speech they sound the same but plural dresses is followed by an apostrophe to show possession and then we follow that with colors in the plural also so this shows us that it's not just one dress and we can hear that also in speech so it shows us it's not just one dress it's two dresses or more and we know that because more than one color is described there so we can generally guess these sorts of things from context but again this is for nouns that end in s whether they're plural or singular let's compare this then to nouns that do not end in s when a noun does not end in s we simply add apostrophe s to show possession some examples the children's books the team's work our hotel's staff so these all end in apostrophe s because the noun itself does not end in s so this is the general rule for using apostrophes to show possession so please do remember we do not use apostrophes to show plural forms of words i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from amar ismail hello amar amar says hey alicia what does beat the wrap mean and how can i use it okay cool so to beat the rap means to escape from punishment and it's usually punishment that you deserve so it's like you did something wrong you should be punished but you escape somehow so this is an interesting expression i found some history some information about this expression and this rap means like legal punishment or like the punishment that is official for you and rap this meaning of rap or this use of rap comes from or it can come from the expression to wrap someone's knuckles so the knuckles are this part of your hand uh so this part of your finger really the places where like your fingers can bend those are called your knuckles so a common punishment a long time ago for school children was to wrap kids knuckles as a punishment for bad behavior so to wrap something means to hit or like strike in a strong way like quickly sharply so this is the verb form of rap but because of that to rap became associated with punishment therefore to beat the rap means to like conquer to overcome some kind of punishment so to beat the rap means to get away with something in other words or to find a way to escape the punishment that's due to you so in an example sentence you could say something like i came home late and my mom was really mad but i beat the rap by telling her that i had to take a friend home or he made a huge mistake at work but he beat the rap by blaming it on computer problems so to beat the wrap means like to escape somehow from punishment that you are probably supposed to receive you're probably supposed to get that you might also hear a similar expression which is take the rap take the rap so again rap refers to punishment but to take the wrap means to take the punishment that should be for somebody else so you didn't do anything wrong somebody else did but you decide to like take their punishment instead so you might hear that expression used to so another point to mention is that this is not such a common phrase these days you might hear like take the hit to mean take someone else's punishment but we don't really use this expression so much in everyday speech at least in american english these days but if you encounter this in like a movie or in a book maybe that's what it means so i hope that this is helpful for you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question is from hector hi hector hector says hi alicia i want to know how to refer to a person who asks a lot of questions i think it's something like inquire or curious but i'm not sure for example in a job interview how do i explain that i consider myself a person who likes to ask questions if something is not clear for me okay yeah i think in this case maybe the best word would be inquisitive inquisitive so inquisitive is an adjective it means someone who likes to ask a lot of questions someone who naturally asks lots of questions about things curious is similar yes curious sounds like you're naturally interested in learning things like maybe you want to look and see lots of different things but it doesn't only mean like wanting to ask questions inquisitive has this feeling of like really asking questions and trying to learn things so my kind of impression of an inquisitive person is generally positive maybe someone who's kind of smart and interested in learning things it's pretty good but if you ask a lot of questions especially personal questions you can be perceived as nosy so nosy is another adjective which refers to someone who likes to ask questions yes but they're generally too personal it's too much it's like someone who likes to gossip about other people's lives so there's kind of a fine line like a close they're a bit close inquisitive and nosy so inquisitive is generally a good thing but you don't want to be nosy so in this case i would say inquisitive however as you mentioned in your example if you want to talk about liking to ask lots of questions in order to make something clear that is not how we would use inquisitive we use inquisitive to talk about somebody who naturally wants to learn about things and asks questions like just because they want to learn not because something is unclear like it has the feeling of something that a person does from like internal motivation they just want to know things they're not trying to like fix a mistake or try to understand something that is difficult for them at work so we wouldn't really use inquisitive in that case instead we would probably use an expression exactly like the one that you presented you would say something like i'm the kind of person that prefers to ask lots of questions if something is not clear to me so that's a very natural response if you want to express that you are inquisitive like you naturally like to ask questions you can say that too though i'm an inquisitive person so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from alexander hi alexander alexander says hi alicia my name is alexander or alex and i'm from brazil i was studying collocations and yesterday when i was studying about coffee i found three words that i have never seen before one percolated two lukewarm and three tepid i would like to know if these words are common in everyday speech i've been in dublin for one year and i've not heard them so far thanks okay great interesting question first let's talk about the word collocation so everybody can understand what this means a collocation is a word that is commonly used with another word so for example with this word coffee a common collocation of coffee is cup so cup and coffee often go together because of the expression coffee cup for example so we can also use this as a verb to collocate so when we want to use it as a verb we could say the word cup collocates with coffee so that refers to two words or maybe more that are often used together studying collocations can be really helpful because you can see which words are commonly used together and it can help you to make more natural word choices so now that we know what collocations are let's take a look at these examples the first word was percolated in this case you have it in the past tense verb form so two percolate means to cause a liquid to pass through another substance that is not a liquid to pass through a permeable substance so a permeable substance is a substance it's not solid so we can pass liquid through it or like sunlight can come through a window a window can be permeable so things can pass through this substance so like soil like dirt is a permeable substance or coffee grounds are a permeable thing so permeable substances are kind of the key point for this word liquid passes through those so percolate on the other hand is actually like a very scientific word so we don't use it so much in everyday speech to talk about making coffee when we want to talk about coffee we say i'm going to make coffee we don't generally say i'm going to percolate water through the coffee grounds it sounds very scientific and very stiff and we don't generally say this but you might encounter it if you are reading some information about like expensive coffee beans or if you are learning about a very like expensive coffee shop and they want to share information like the detailed process of how they make their coffee you might see it in that way but generally percolate is not so common in everyday speech so i hope that answers that one the second though uh and the third for that matter were lukewarm and tepid lukewarm and tepid mean the same thing so they both mean just sort of warm like it's kind of like room temperature or a little bit cooler than body temperature so lukewarm and tepid are both used to refer to the temperature of coffee so most people want coffee hot or cold lukewarm coffee is generally not a good thing so we could say uh i hate drinking lukewarm coffee or this coffee is tepid so that means that it's not at a good temperature it's like this room temperature coffee so lukewarm and tepid are more commonly used in speech than percolate for me personally i tend to use lukewarm a lot more than tepid but other people might prefer to use tepid more those two words are fairly commonly used percolate is not as commonly used but you might see it from time to time so i hope that this helps you and good luck with your continued studies of collocations okay let's move on to our next question next question for this week comes from sanju hi again sanju sanju says hi alicia how are you i've been watching your videos for a long time my question is what is the difference between no longer and any longer okay nice question the meaning of these expressions is the same it's totally the same we use it to refer to something that was true up until this point and into the future will not be true so the difference is actually just in how we make the sentence there are a couple of changes that we need to think about in the structure of our sentences when we use these so let's take a look at two example sentences first we will no longer offer free lunch for staff we will not offer free lunch for staff any longer okay so in the first example sentence you can see that no longer comes before the verb in this case the verb is offer so when we want to use no longer we typically place it before the verb in the sentence you may hear no longer coming at the end of a sentence especially in short sentences but that kind of sounds old-fashioned so these days we tend to use it in front of the verb so we will no longer offer free lunch for staff on the other hand when we use any longer we need to put it at the end of the sentence and we put a negative we need to put not before the verb earlier in the sentence so we will not offer free lunch for staff any longer so these are the differences in terms of the structure of the sentences that we need to think about one more like additional point if you want to use any more follow the same pattern as any longer they mean the same thing so let's take a look at one more pair of examples i can no longer wait or i can wait no longer and i can't wait any longer so we follow the same pattern here in the first example which uses no longer we put that before the verb i can no longer wait and i gave the example of no longer at the end of the sentence too but this sounds rather old-fashioned and kind of too polite the second one however you might notice instead of using not wait i've made can into can't so i can't wait any longer this is because it sounds more natural so the original sentence could be i can not wait any longer but we can combine can and not into can't and that sounds much more natural so i can't wait any longer so they have the same meanings yes it's just a difference in terms of how you build the sentences with these words so thanks very much for an interesting question and i hope that that helped you thanks very much okay that is everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember to send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you liked this week's lesson please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this week's episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe first question this week comes from sadaf yasmin hi sadaf sadaf says hi alicia i have two questions first what does ain't mean and how do you use it i've seen this word in lyrics like ain't nobody who makes me feel this way my second question what does the phrase wide awake mean i read it in the sentence lying here wide awake on my own now i couldn't completely understand it okay first let's talk about ain't nice question ain't is a really interesting word because it can mean a lot of things it can mean is not are not am not have not and has not it can mean all of those things and ain't is also considered a very casual kind of rough in some cases cool word and it really depends on the person who uses it so for example in the u.s the images that we have that are associated with the word ain't are like maybe country western like musicians or maybe like cowboys they might use the word ain't to sound kind of casual or rough and cool you might also hear ain't used in other music like pop music or rap or r and b again the feeling of ain't is kind of casual it's kind of rough it's like tough maybe sometimes as well too so it really depends on the personality of the person who's using the word ain't is also special because we follow the word ain't with a negative so as in your example you said ain't nobody or another example might be something like ain't never done this thing so it feels actually very strange for me to say that because i'm not the type of person who would use the word ain't but when we use ain't we follow it with a negative like ain't nobody so in your example ain't nobody who makes me feel this way means there isn't anybody who makes me feel this way so in many cases like with your example here we follow ain't with a negative like ain't nobody or ain't no or ain't nothing so this just means isn't or are not whatever follows that but there might be some cases where you don't see a negative after age like i ain't having that or i ain't buying that so that just means the negative i am not buying that or they are not doing that so again this really depends on the person uh this really depends maybe on the region as well too so pay attention to the kinds of people that you see and hear using this word and maybe you can kind of understand uh the times at which it might be appropriate to use it and whether or not it's good for you to use the word to as i mentioned i personally don't use this word but this is how we use it in american english anyway regarding your second question about the expression wide awake to be wide awake means to be awake but we use it at a time when we are usually asleep so for example maybe at like two in the morning most people are asleep usually but if you are wide awake it's like you're awake and you cannot close your eyes and go to sleep so it might be helpful to think of your eyes like your eyes themselves as being wide open like you cannot close your eyes you are wide awake so you can't go to sleep usually we use this expression at a time uh when we should be asleep so for example i woke up at 2 am i was wide awake for hours or when i got up to use the bathroom i saw my dog was wide awake it was weird so wide awake is used in this way to talk about being awake at kind of a strange time i hope that this helps you thanks for the questions okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from rubo hi roubo rubo says hi alicia what is the difference between scrape and scratch ah good question generally well in many cases they do have the same meaning but for scrape we use scrape usually with non-living things and we use scrape when we're talking about taking a very heavy or a very sharp object across a surface we often use scrape when we're talking about trying to remove something that is difficult to remove so for example oh no i scraped my car on the gate or i scraped the paint off the wall with a knife so it's like there's some kind of heavy or sharp object moving across another surface oftentimes with the intent or with the plan to remove something else scratch on the other hand is something that we use much more commonly with living things so with people or with animals we use scratch usually when we're talking about like using a sharp part of our body like uh nails or claws or maybe even teeth we talk about using something sharp and dragging that across a surface so for example i might say like ouch i scratched my arm or be careful my cat might scratch you so scratch is typically used with humans with living things and scrape is usually used to talk about like maybe machines or other very heavy and sharp objects being pulled or dragged across a surface so i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from saith aldine hi saif saif says hi alicia can you explain why we use out and in or up like when someone says i go up to the door and i open it if it were me i would say i go to the door and i open it what is the difference between the two sentences thanks yes super great question we often use up along with bodily motion like physical motion related verbs to mean we did that action up until a point so we went to that thing or we moved to that thing and stopped so verbs that we use this with commonly are like walk run open close go as well so we use up after these to mark the point at which that action stopped you might also hear over used with this so as in your example i walked up to the door and opened it or i went up to the door and opened it means i moved until the point of the door and then i opened it so it shows the point at which an activity or an action stopped another situation you might use that is like talking to someone at your office like i walked up to my boss and asked if she had a moment another example might be my co-worker ran over to my desk to help me so using up and over in these ways followed by two marks the point at which some action stopped so you can use up and over to do this we don't really use down you might hear down used if you're talking about traveling like i'm going down to this city or i'm going down to the post office you might hear that used but generally when we're talking about like these bodily these physical activities we'll use up to mark the stopping point so i hope that that helps you regarding up and over regarding in and out however these follow the same rules as the prepositions themselves follow so we typically use these when we're talking about entering or exiting a building like or other location so for example he walked into the bank or they ran out of the police station so we can use these same verbs relating to bodily motions relating to movement and when we use in and out with those we're talking about moving from one location to outside that location and the opposite so from moving outside of a location to inside of the location so in and out follows uh the prepositional rules so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question all right that is everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like this week's episode please don't forget to hit the like button give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you have not already thanks very much for watching this week's episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them maybe all right let's get to your first question first question this week comes from fabio hi fabio fabio says hello alicia i would like to know the meaning of the expression every other day can i also say every other week every other year every other hour minute thanks a lot yep every other day refers to a schedule of activities in which you do one thing for one day and then the next day you take it off that you don't do the activity the next day the following day you do the activity then the next day you don't do the activity so it's this one day on one day off pattern we call this an every other day schedule so yes you can replace day in this expression with another time period so you could say every other year or every other hour every other minute whatever it just means you do something for one unit of time so one year or one hour or one minute and then the following period of time you do not do that thing so yes you could use this to express something like every other minute i'm not sure what activity you need to talk about and use every other minute to describe it but you could do it so every other day is a very common way to express this one day on one day off pattern i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from clinton hi clinton clinton says when i meet a person that tries to speak a language with me that i don't understand what should i say in english to respond um you can say i don't speak that language so you could say i don't speak spanish or i don't speak dutch or i don't speak chinese you can just say something very direct like that you don't have to say i'm sorry i suppose if you want to you could but you don't really have to apologize in this situation just be direct i don't speak that language you could follow up this statement by saying something like do you speak english or do you speak your native language so if the person maybe needs help or if you're trying to communicate with that person you can try to find a solution try to find a common language by asking do you speak english or do you speak spanish or whatever your native language is so again just to respond i don't speak that language i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question is from sanju hi sanju sanju says hi alicia and team how are you all my question what is the difference between dying to and vying for and how do we use them properly okay we use dying to for things that we want to do very very much so we're like exaggerating we're making this desire for something seem much stronger than it is we tend to use this in casual situations for example i'm dying to watch that movie or we've been dying to go to that new restaurant so we're expressing a strong desire for something and it's usually something that's kind of casual kind of light vying for on the other hand is used in like competitive situations so you might hear it in sports you might hear it in business you might hear it in politics when two or more people are trying to get the same result or the same outcome we can express that with vying for different from dying to which is followed by a verb vying for is followed by a noun phrase so vying for noun phrase where the noun phrase is the desired result the desired outcome so some examples of this might be the two candidates were vying for the mayor's position or all of the children were vying for the teacher's attention so vying for something means actively engaged in trying to win something but that's quite a long expression so we say vying for the base verb is to vi to vi for something so this is the difference between dying to which expresses a strong desire for something and vying for which also expresses a desire to win something but we talk about this along with the desired results the desired result not the desired action so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question okay let's move on to our next question next question comes from animal virg hello animal animal says hung or hanged snuck or sneaked yes this is a question about the past tense forms of verbs so the first one hung or hanged the verb in question here is the verb to hang to hang so should we use hung or should we use hanged for past tense the answer in most cases is you should use hung for example he hung a picture on the wall or we hung our coats up in the closet when you're talking about this action of putting something on a wall or putting clothing on a hanger please use hung the past tense hung hanged on the other hand has a very specific use we use hanged when we're talking about someone who has been punished with death by hanging so hanging is a very specific type of death penalty in which a rope is tied around a person's neck and the rope is used to end the person's life when we want to talk about this in past tense we use hanged as in the criminal was hanged or hundreds of years ago many people were hanged for crimes so hanged is used in this specific case in all other cases of the verb hang in present tense please use hung to refer to the past form of the verb so this is quite a clear distinction in terms of meaning please keep it in mind when you're speaking and when you're writing too regarding your other question about the past tense form of the verb sneak there are two forms and there are two forms that remain today actually initially originally this is according to merriam-webster my favorite dictionary according to merriam-webster sneaked was the original past tense form of this verb but in the late 1800s or so snuck began being used so today we still use both of them actually snuck and sneaked some examples then might be like i snuck into the office late last night or she sneaked around the neighborhood so you can use both of them i personally feel that i like snuck better that could just be me but whatever you choose please just be consistent with it so i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from anathu shaji hi enough anathu says could you please explain the differences between ever since and since then sure while they have the same meaning the structure of the sentence changes depending on which one you use so let's take a look at a couple of example sentences i graduated college last year since then i've worked in a tech company and ever since i graduated college i've worked in a tech company so these sentences communicate the same idea the speaker graduated college and since that point in time the speaker has worked at a tech company so we can use both since then and ever since to describe that the difference is that since then tends to follow a past tense statement in the first example sentence it was i graduated college last year so we have a simple path tense statement there since then refers to the point in time that was described in the previous sentence so in this case last year since that point in time i referred to in the previous sentence so this is a common position for since then ever since however can take a couple different positions in the sentence in this example i've placed it before the simple past tense action ever since i graduated college so we can place it before the action you may also see ever since used in the same position as since then so for example i graduated college ever since i've worked in a tech company though in these cases as you might have noticed in this example i've removed i've omitted the specific point in time so instead of saying i graduated college last year ever since i've worked in a tech company you might hear some people remove that specific point in time it's just kind of the speaker's preference i suppose but ever since can take a lot of different positions we don't see since then taking these different positions so since then again refers to a specific point in time that then in since then means that point in time i just referred to so we have to have that we don't have that then in ever since so that means we don't have to refer to a specific point in time and that's why it sounds kind of natural sometimes not to use this paired together with a specific point in time in your past tense statement you might hear people say ever since then in which case yes you must include a point in time in the past but this is the difference it's the positioning of the expression in the sentence and the relationship of the past tense statement to the outcome so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question okay that is everything that i have for you this week thank you as always for sending your great questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like this lesson please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this week's episode of ask alicia and i will see you again soon bye-bye hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia the weekly series where you ask me questions and i answer them baby okay let's get to your first question this week first question this week comes from henry laurent cossaci hello henry henry says i once heard this conversation in a tv series hey how much are we short b 18 30 cents my question is is the expression how much are we short commonly used in spoken english to describe this kind of situation thanks love from indonesia yes great question to be short means to not have enough of something this is a very common expression in american english anyway and we use this short in many different grammatical forms so in a question how much are we short means how much more or how many more of this thing do we need in statements you might hear i'm three dollars short or he's short by about 150 dollars or we're short a few chairs i'll get some from the other room so you'll notice that there's a buy after short in example two here and he's short by about 150 dollars you can choose to include that if the number or if the amount comes after the word short if the number comes before the word short you should not include buy so i'm three dollars short i'm 150 dollars short perfect if the number follows short he's short by about 150 you can include it but you do not have to as in the third example sentence we're short of few chairs so we do not have to include buy but we can we're short buy a few chairs is also totally correct so that's up to you we can also use short in this way to mean not enough as a verb as in the bartender shorted me on my drink which means the bartender did not pour enough liquid into my drink or i think the cashier shorted me on my change which means i think the cashier did not give me enough change so you may also hear this used as a verb in this way so yes to answer your question again it is a very common expression it's very useful and it means to not have enough of something and to recognize that and to kind of make a question or a statement about what should have been provided or what is still needed so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question let's move on to your next question next question comes from nilo pena flor hello nilo nilo says hi alicia i'm confused about the word compromise it has several meanings can you please explain it and use it in some sentences sure i talked a little bit about the difference between compromise and agreement in a recent episode of ask alicia so let's refresh there to begin a compromise refers to an agreement that you reach an agreement that you make after changing your plans a little bit so side a and side b have different ideas about something they change their ideas slightly and make an agreement so that agreement is called a compromise so it's not quite a's idea not quite bee's idea but they kind of work together to find a solution so that's a compromise that's a noun we can use this as a verb as well to compromise means to make an agreement after changing both plans a little bit where there might be some confusion however is in the other ways to use compromise as a verb we use compromise as a verb to mean to expose or to reveal something that's supposed to be hidden or to reveal something that is supposed to be secret so you might have heard it used in this way in like action films like james bond movies or like mission impossible movies you might hear a sentence like for example james bond has been compromised which means someone realized james bond the spy was in a location and he was supposed to be hidden he was supposed to be like a secret agent like no one is supposed to know about him but someone learns about him someone exposes james bond he's no longer safe so compromised in that way refers to something or in this case someone being exposed or revealed that was supposed to be confidential that was supposed to be secret we can also use compromise as a verb in this way to talk about communication this can be like phone calls paperwork official documents and so on in an example sentence you might hear something like the president's phone call was compromised which means for example someone who was not supposed to listen to the phone call heard information private information or maybe information inside the call was shared to someone who was not supposed to have the information so was compromised or has been compromised as in my james bond example sentence you can see that this verb is commonly used in the passive form because we don't always know the recipient of the information we don't always know the person who exposed something or revealed something so there is this meaning of compromise as i said you will very commonly see this in a passive sentence structure when you talk about making an agreement with someone you'll probably see it more i would say in an active sentence structure as a noun then it's kind of different so to make a compromise you'll usually see it in something like that to make a compromise as part of that expression so i hope that this gives you a good introduction to the different ways that we use compromise especially this special meaning of revealing or exposing something that is secret i hope that this helps you thanks for an interesting question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from kunduzai i hope i said that right hello kundazai kundazai says hi alicia my question is about this statement is it grammatical to say i don't feel like plus verb in the ing form how do we use it in the correct way in what cases can i use it thanks for your answer yes it is grammatical to say i don't feel like verb in the ing form totally grammatical totally natural totally correct you could say i don't feel like watching a movie or i don't feel like going out tonight or i don't feel like doing that right now so this is a very casual expression which means i am not in the mood for that activity we usually use it with at this time or right now or tonight it sounds like something you don't want to do now but maybe you want to do it in the future like i don't feel like watching a movie tonight totally natural you should know however that this is a very casual expression we tend to use this with very close friends or with family members so people that we have a very close relationship with i would not recommend you use this at work or in any other professional situation because it sounds like you have kind of a low opinion of that activity like i don't feel like doing that right now so it sounds like it's kind of emotional or feeling based decision so don't use this in professional situations but yes you can absolutely use this expression to talk about something you don't want to do at a specific point in time usually so i hope that this helps you thanks for your question okay let's move on to our next question next question comes from ahmed hello ahmed ahmed said adele said but it don't matter why did she say don't with it yeah in terms of standard like correct english this is grammatically incorrect but many singers like to use this kind of technically incorrect grammar to sound kind of cool or to sound kind of rough so yes the sentence in like standard english should be but it doesn't matter but for various reasons including like sentence rhythm or song rhythm in this case or also just to sound kind of cool or rough a singer or an artist might choose to use on purpose in correct grammar in this case but it don't matter so if you want to sing along with the song great you should use the same words that adele uses but if you're speaking and you want to express this idea make sure you use the correct grammar but it doesn't matter is actually the correct way to say this so i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay on to our next question next question comes from rachel hello razel rassel says hi alicia my question is what is the difference between race and ethnicity great question for a very broad answer so for a very general answer you can think of race as related to your biology so this is something that you cannot change your race is the stuff that you're born with essentially so common things that we think about with race relating to race or maybe the color of a person's skin or the shapes of the features of their face and so on so we cannot change race ethnicity on the other hand is like your cultural identity so what are like the traditions what are the shared values in your community the things that make your community what it is so to give an example of the difference imagine you are a person from india and you move to the usa with your family when you're a baby so you could say my race is indian my ethnicity is indian american so that's the difference here so your race is something you cannot change ethnicity may change over time for some people so this is a very general answer to this question this is a very big discussion as well too but a very interesting one so thanks very much for this interesting question okay that is everything that i have for this week thank you as always for sending along your great questions remember you can send them to me at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia of course if you like this lesson please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you have not already and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this week's episode of ask alicia and i will see you again next week bye bye how are your english listening skills first you'll see an image and hear a question next comes a short dialogue listen carefully and see if you can answer correctly we'll show you the answer at the end a man and a woman are talking when is the man painting do you paint every day yep from 9 a.m to 7 p.m nine to seven ten hours every day well yeah it's my job when is the man painting a man and a woman are talking when is the man painting do you paint every day yep from 9am to 7pm 9-7 10 hours every day well yeah it's my job did you get it right i hope you learned something from this quiz let us know if you have any questions see you next time hi everybody my name is alicia in this lesson i'm going to talk about some english greetings and their responses this lesson has been prepared to present american english greetings let's get started okay i first want to begin with the most basic and most casual greetings that we use i've marked some of these with a star like you'll see here that means that when you respond to this greeting you can use the same word you don't need to worry about a special response just use the same word that you heard the person use when they greet you so these two the casual friendly hey and hi are very common we use these with friends co-workers colleagues it's fine to use at any time of day i included yo here as well yo is very casual probably don't use this one at work but you can use this with your friends your close friends and your family members if you like yo so when someone says hey just say hey or if someone uses hi just respond with hi hi sounds a little more stiff than hey hey sounds a little more relaxed a little more friendly yo is really relaxed super casual you might hear young people use yo a lot more than older people the next expression here is hello hello you can use hello to greet people that you meet face to face that's fine but we usually use hello as the standard phone greeting it's used when we pick up the phone hello and you can say my name is or hello this is or hello alicia speaking for example you can use hello on the phone we tend to use it mostly on the phone uh it can be used it is correct to greet someone with hello in everyday life face to face but it might sound a little less friendly than hi or another greeting i'll talk about later so hello is good for the phone usually i would recommend using hello for the phone okay then let's go to these three questions we can respond to these three questions with the same response let's read their questions first first one how are you how are you you'll hear native speakers reduce this a lot this question is not clearly pronounced as how are you but we'll say how are you how are you it sounds much shorter how are you instead of how are you how are you how are you the answer good you good you this is the standard response another question how's it going how's it going how is it going it means your life how is it going how's it going how's it going how's your life in other words good you we can use the same response my life is going good everything is good so going means like happening how is your life happening how are things in your life another one how are you doing how are you doing very similar to how are you just a slight variation we added doing here how are you doing just like how are you is reduced to how are you we can make this how ya how you doing so you'll notice i use this apostrophe mark apostrophe is this dash here so it makes a short sound i removed the g in doing how you doing how you doing how you doing sounds more casual and is much more commonly used and how are you doing how are you doing again the answer good you so i chose good here because this is the most common response to these questions you can say great you can say all right you can say not bad all of those are fine if you give a negative response for example if you say not so good or i feel sick or i'm really tired or i'm upset you should be prepared to explain that it's like you're starting a conversation this is the standard response the other person will probably say good and then they'll continue to the next part of their conversation so these are some listening points how are you changes to how are you and how are you doing changes to how you doing a little more natural a little more friendly too okay let's continue to some time of day greetings they are good morning good afternoon and good evening these tend to sound a little bit more formal than just hay or high or other greetings i'll talk about later so good morning used in the morning very commonly used at work when you arrive at the office and you see your co-workers we use good morning to say hello first thing in the morning good afternoon is a little more commonly used in workplaces or in perhaps in like client or customer relationship situation so for example if i'm teaching a lesson and i see my students in the classroom i come to the classroom i say good afternoon to my students because it's sort of there's a little bit of distance there good evening as well good evening would begin like a formal event we could begin a formal event with good evening we could use it at a restaurant for example again in a customer client relationship you could use it with friends and co-workers i suppose but it might sound a little too polite good evening so it's not wrong but it might sound a little bit formal we would probably with friends in the evening we would probably just say hey or hello or how are you that sounds a little more friendly so to respond to these just repeat again i've marked this with a star here just repeat if someone says good morning to you you can say good morning something else we do here is we remove good so this is to make it a little bit more casual and we'll remove as i did with doing down here this apostrophe will drop this g sound and add an apostrophe here it's more difficult to do with afternoon but instead of saying good morning like clearly pronouncing everything we'll often drop good and say warnin so there's no g sound there mornin i end on the n sound or just afternoon or evening so it sounds much more friendly and it's not quite as polite actually so if someone says this to you like morning you can just say morning you can use the g sound as well it's up to you to choose some people ask what's the difference between good evening and have a good evening the difference is good evening is a greeting to a way to say hello have a good evening is a way to say goodbye so when you say have a good day have a good evening you're saying goodbye actually so that's the difference if you want to say hello please use good evening if you want to say goodbye use have a good evening also please be careful you'll notice good night is not here good night is also a way to say goodbye or especially like for children like from parents to children a way to say like the day is finished just before bed so good night is used just before we go to sleep as well so again a good buy so please be careful not have a good evening or good night these are greetings we can use good evening is a much better greeting it's the correct greeting to you so please use good evening don't use goodnight okay let's continue to the next couple uh these are related you might not know at first but uh what's up what's up this is a question that causes people a lot of nervousness i think how do i respond to this so just answer not much not much this is the standard reply just like good is the standard reply here use not much to answer what's up what's up not much what's up nothing is also okay nothing what's up nothing nothing or again we'll often drop this g sound nothing or nothing so that sounds more casual so what's up not much you nothing or not much the other person will probably say the same thing again if you choose to use something like oh i had a bad day or you start to explain like a difficult situation or you hint that something bad happened you should probably be prepared to talk about that so what's up not much you and nothing that's a very typical greeting actually okay so then this sup this sup comes from what's up it comes from this s-u-p what's up so this is a very casual way of saying what's up what's up is casual this is even more casual sup so you can say not much or you can just reply to sup with sub so you might use this again very close friends sup sup that's it it's like saying hello saying what's up what's new with you but just really quick really short sup sup okay let's move along then to kind of some more special use greetings depending on the situation you might need to say hello to someone you have not seen for a long time these are expressions you can use to do that first one i haven't seen you in so long or i haven't seen you in ages ages an age is a very long time so ages shows a very very long time so i have not seen you i have not seen you in so long another one very common a long time no c long time no see one more it's been a while it's been a while where this it's is actually it has been a while it has been a while since i last saw you it's been a while since i last saw you but we only say it's been a while we drop the last part of that one more nice to see you again or it's nice to see you again nice to see you again so these all are like greetings we can use when we haven't seen the other person for a long time so how do we answer this we can answer all of these with the same pattern first agree yeah it's been a long time so again you can use these expressions you know uh yeah a long time to see or yeah it's been a while or i said yeah it's been a long time so first agree with the person and then ask a follow-up how are things how are things you can use this similarly to how are you or how is it going how are things means how is your life how are things good the answer is good how are things good or how are things busy how are things all right those are all very common very standard responses to use others if you want to level up your grammar a bit how have you been how have you been and what have you been up to so you'll notice here the grammar here is very similar to these expressions that we talked about over here how have you been this is like a past perfect way of asking how are you so how are you now how have you been in the period since i saw you last since the last time i saw you up until now how have you been that's how we can ask about that same thing what have you been up to what have you been up to is like the past perfect question of what's up what's up so you'll see this up what is up now what is up with what have you been up to so in other words since i last saw you until now what did you do what have you been doing so asking about those activities in that period since you last met that person so this will change depending on your activities you can say um for example for this one what have you been up to you can answer with for example nothing just work if you have no special news what have you been up to nothing just work so that's fine if you have special news you can say you know i got married or i moved or i got a new job something quick is the best way to answer this for this one how have you been go back to this good you so very very simple answers are the best okay let's go on to two more kind of special youth greetings then first one it's great to finally meet you it's great to finally meet you so you'll see if i remove finally here this becomes a very common greeting it's great to meet you it's nice to meet you but if you're meeting someone that you admire or you really respect or you were really excited to meet that person like you're a fan they're a famous musician or a celebrity or an artist or an athlete for example you're really excited to meet that person you can say it's great to finally meet you this shows the listener that you were really looking forward to meeting them to having the chance to meet with them if someone says this to you or if you use this with someone a typical response is thank you it's nice to meet you too so they'll typically say something like thank you or that's really nice it's nice to meet you too so this is just the same as any other first greeting first time meeting someone it's nice to meet you too thanks it's nice to meet you too another one this one you might uh hear actually when talking with friends and meeting new people especially if you're studying or working in another country the expression is i've heard so much about you i've heard so much about you this i've i've i have i've heard so much about you and sometimes i've heard so much about i've heard so much about you from my colleagues or i've heard so much about you from my roommate so using from here shows where that person got the information so this may or may not be included i've heard so much about you a typical response is really i hope nothing bad or i hope you haven't heard anything bad so this is kind of a very casual way to respond i hope nothing bad meaning i hope you haven't heard anything bad about me so this shows that the speaker has gotten information has gained information about the person they're meeting but this is still the first time meeting that person so this tends to be used in situations where the speaker has heard positive information if you've heard negative information about a person i don't recommend using this expression this has a positive feel about it i've heard so much about you tends to sound very happy and cheerful so you can say really i hope nothing bad or i hope it's good so that's kind of a friendly way to start a conversation with someone who already has some information about you so this is a quick introduction to some very common english greetings i hope that that was helpful for you and i hope that you got some ideas for responses to these greetings of course if you have any questions or comments or want to practice greetings please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video also if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel and check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this lesson and i will see you again next time bye-bye hi everybody my name is alicia in this lesson i'm going to talk about the differences between in time and on time let's begin let's begin with in time the expression in time we use this expression to refer to activities with deadlines or limited time periods for completion let's take a look at some examples so we can see how to use this phrase first he made it to the station in time for his train so made it means like was able to arrive he was able to arrive to the station he made it to the station in time for his train this use of in time before the noun phrase his train shows us that he in this situation was able to arrive at the station before the deadline for his train so his train has a specific time there's a specific time period in which he is able to catch a train enabled is able to catch his train rather so using in time shows us that he was able to do that and we have a positive sentence here so he made it to his train he was able to catch his train let's look at another expression or another example of this expression i finished work in time to watch the soccer game i finished work in time to watch the soccer game so here in time comes before this verb phrase to watch the soccer game this means i finished work with enough time to watch the soccer game so the soccer game there's a fixed amount of time a limited time period that i can watch the soccer game i finished work at a point in time that allowed me to watch the soccer game so i finished work and there was still time remaining to watch the soccer game so we use in time to show that i was still able to do that thing here it's with a verb phrase let's continue to the next example sentence this one is a negative she didn't arrive at the examination center in time to take the test in time to take the test here we see it's another verb phrase in time to take the test so in time to do this action so this is the action here as we've seen in each of these example sentences the item the noun phrase or the verb the activity comes after the end time expression so in this case in time to take the test but remember i pointed out this is a negative she didn't arrive at the examination center in time to take the test means she didn't arrive at the center with enough time to take the test so there was a deadline to take the test there was some limited like period of time within which she needed to arrive in order to complete this action however she did not arrive in time she did not arrive within that limited time period or before that deadline and therefore she did not take the test let's continue to another negative example of this they didn't get to the concert hall in time for the show so again here after in time we see for the show in this case it's a noun phrase so we see this is the thing that was not able to happen we know that it was not able to happen because of this negative they didn't get get means arrive or come to they didn't get to the concert hall in time for meaning they weren't able to arrive before the show began or in the limited period that the show was happening they didn't arrive in time to do that so we use in time to show these sorts of deadlines or that we weren't able to do something within the limited time period that we have to complete that activity we can also use this expression in questions for example are you going to get to the office in time for your meeting here we see get again which means like arrive or come to are you gonna get to the office in time for your meeting this is a question that's asking are you going to arrive at the office with enough time to join this meeting so that means a meeting is scheduled there's some plan and the speaker is asking the listener if the listener is going to arrive with enough time or within this limited time period to participate in this activity so we can use this in questions as well i pointed out throughout the example sentences too these noun phrases and verb phrases that we see after in time so you'll notice when we use in time four we follow four with our noun phrase so we saw in time for his train or in time for the show in time for your meeting so these are all noun phrases when we want to talk about a verb however like an action doing some kind of action we use to with our verb phrase and the verb is in the infinitive form so we saw here time to watch the soccer game so here's my verb in the infinitive form in time to watch the soccer game here in time to take the test so the infinitive form of the verb is there so when you use in time please make sure to think about these two points is it a noun phrase is it a verb phrase you're talking about okay so with this in mind let's continue to the second part of this lesson on time on time on time the meaning here is it refers to activities that happen at the appointed appointed means scheduled time so on time therefore implies or we know when we hear on time that in the past a schedule was set so we decided on something for example like transportations or like meeting schedules class schedules those kinds of timetables are very commonly used with on time so on time refers to something happening at a scheduled time in time refers to activities with deadlines or there's a limited time period to complete it let's look at some examples of how we can use on time then first she arrived at the office on time so here what was the action the action was this arrived she arrived past tense she arrived at the office on time this shows us she arrived at the office at the scheduled time or as scheduled this is another way to say it she arrived at the office as scheduled she arrived at the office at the scheduled time let's look at one more we finished work on time today so we finished work at the scheduled time today is another way to say this we finished work on time today not we finished work in time today i'll come back to a point like that in just a moment but on time shows it was scheduled another example this one a negative the game didn't start on time the game didn't start on time shows as the game was probably late the game didn't start on time the game was supposed to or the game was scheduled to start at 3 pm for example but the game started at 3 30 for example in that case we could say the game didn't start on time a negative let's look at another negative i didn't turn in my homework on time i didn't turn in my homework on time so here i did not turn in my homework but this shows on time this shows us the action was completed it was just late so i didn't turn in my homework on time at the scheduled time in other words the homework was due at 10 o'clock i turned in the homework at 10 30 or 11 for example so this sentence i didn't turn in my homework means the action just did not happen i didn't turn in my homework on time means the action happened late okay let's take a look at a couple other expressions one he's on time for his 3 p.m meeting he's on time for his 3 p.m meeting this is something you might hear for example a secretary or an assistant or just someone else reporting the activities of another person he's on time for his 3 p.m meeting this is a sentence that means the person here he or she they this person their activities throughout the day today have led them to be in a position of being on time in the future now that's a very strange way to say this i know but it means that person has been doing many things all day long and so now they know that they have this 3 p.m meeting but they've been doing all these other things and now they're still okay they're still okay to attend this meeting at 3 p.m that's what this uh implies he's on time for a 3 p.m meeting so this is typically something that's used for like busy people to describe busy people's schedules he's on time for this she's on time for that so like you might hear it used for like a president or a prime minister like someone that has a very very hectic or crazy schedule you might hear people reporting about that person's schedule and that person's upcoming activities with something like this okay we can use this in a question as we saw within time for example is the conference going to finish on time is the conference going to finish on time means is the conference going to finish as scheduled at the scheduled time so you can see we use on time to refer to scheduled to like asking questions and making statements about scheduled things we use in time to refer to deadlines for completion of an action i mentioned one point though i think i talked about it here we finished work on time today i mentioned this is one situation where i might see some like mistakes from students we finished work in time today we could say this we finished work in time today we finished work in time today for something else so when you're using in time you need to explain the activity the thing that you were able to do or not able to do when you're using in time when you're using on time you're referring to some past scheduled action so you don't always need to explain the specific thing that you're talking about so for example she arrived at the office on time there was some schedule or every day she starts work at 9 00 am for example that's on time when you're talking about in time it may be a good idea to include it in your sentence here as i've done occasionally in conversation when the activity is obvious native speakers will drop that from in time but you don't always need to include it with on time it might be a good idea to include the activity with in time however so this is a quick introduction to some differences between in time and on time and some sample sentences of course if you have any questions or comments or if you want to practice making sentences with one of these two points please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video of course if you like the video please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you have not already and check us out at english englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your english studies thanks very much for watching this lesson and i will see you again soon bye your condition is not getting better and you decide to go to the nearby clinic you receive a medical report what is the diagnosis foreign you receive a medical report what is the diagnosis the diagnosis is food poisoning caused by contaminated food you just bought a few items from a local shop online what information does the website say about the delivery date what information does the website say about the delivery date the website says that delivery dates differ depending on the delivery method but all dates should be calculated from the next working day hi everybody welcome back to know your verbs my name is alicia and in this episode we're going to talk about the verb push let's get started let's look at the basic definition of the verb push the basic definition is to use force to move something away from you usually examples we push the car out of the garage he pushed his chair into the aisle let's look at the conjugations for this verb present push pushes past pushed past participle pushed progressive pushing now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb the first additional meaning is to persuade someone with force examples my boss is pushing me to work more hours don't let them push you into a bad decision so in both of these example sentences we see a situation where someone is being persuaded to do something so when we use push it sounds like the person who is the object in the situation does not want to do the thing that's being discussed okay so in the first example sentence that means someone's boss is pushing for more overtime work so the boss wants more overtime however the person involved in the situation the person in the situation does not want to work more over time the boss tries to persuade and they're kind of using force so we use push to talk about that the boss does not physically i hope push this person but the boss pushes using words trying to persuade trying to use strong words to convince the other person to do overtime in the second example sentence don't let them push you into a bad decision it's like there's some outside force outside person that's trying to convince the listener in this case to make a decision but the decision might be a bad decision for the listener so in other words it means don't let them persuade you or don't let them convince you to make a choice that's bad for you don't let them push you into a bad decision the second additional meaning for the verb push is to advertise something a lot to advertise something a lot examples we're really pushing our pdf cheat sheets lately what products should we push at the trade show little joke about our pdf cheat sheets there uh totally my joke they didn't tell me to put it in but anyway so when i say we've been pushing our pdf cheat sheets recently it means we've been advertising that product a lot we've been advertising our pdf cheat sheets a lot like on our live streams and on our website and everywhere like on our social media it means we're advertising that thing a lot so that's the thing that we hope people see we want people to check out that item the second example sentence is a question what products do we want to push at the trade show meaning what's the focus advertisement or what are the items we really really want people to look at and we want to show as much as possible what products do we want to push at the trade show okay let's go on to the third additional meaning the third additional meaning is to try to go beyond something let's look at some examples first marathon runners push the limits of their bodies the engineers are really pushing the capabilities of the software so in these example sentences we see there's some kind of limit like in the first example it's body limits so marathon runners try to push the limits of their bodies meaning the body has some established limit like that means the body can do this amount so in this case it's marathon running so maybe the body could run three to four hours at a time for example where the body can run at this speed i don't know it's a lot so marathon runners try to push this limit means they try to go beyond this limit that's the image we're looking at here so marathon runners try to push the limits of their bodies try to go beyond the limits of their bodies the second example sentence is the same but we're talking about software capabilities so here the capabilities of the software are the limit so the engineers are pushing the capabilities of the software so now the software can do this but maybe the engineers are making updates are making changes and they're trying to go beyond the current limits of the software so this is maybe a nice visual i suppose for this meaning of the verb push okay let's look at the fourth one the fourth additional meaning for the verb push is to approach a number to approach a number let's look at some examples sales are pushing into the millions this year grandpa is pushing 90. so we use this when we're like wanting to express usually a high number actually when we're talking about low numbers we don't really use push push sounds like you're approaching a big milestone so in the first example sentence sales are pushing into the millions it's like we're gonna reach this milestone of millions of sales so that's a really important number so we can use pushing into which is like it sounds like it's an achievement we're going to move into the millions of sales but pushing sounds like a little bit like it was kind of a struggle maybe and so it's like a special achievement to reach this point the second example sentence is similar but we see it with age so grandpa is pushing 90 means he's almost 90 maybe he's 89 right now or 88 perhaps but he's nearly at the level of 90 years old so that might be a difficult thing to do to live to 90 years old it sounds like an achievement and so it sounds like something that could be a struggle so we can use pushing to refer to nearly reaching that point we typically use this in the progressive form actually we don't use this in past tense or in present tense really um we don't say like he pushes or she pushed 90 or something like that we tend to use it in the progressive form to mean like this is happening now sales are pushing into the millions grandpa is pushing 90. like right now he's approaching 90. so interesting let's move on to some variations for this verb the first variation for the verb push is to push your luck to push your luck so this has a very long explanation to push your luck means to try too hard to get more of something you already have and then risk losing what you already have with you okay so let's look at some examples it's hard to see okay first one he agreed to take out the trash i probably shouldn't push my luck and ask him to clean the kitchen too don't push your luck the department isn't likely to make any more budget changes so in the first example sentence he agreed to take out the trash so that's like the achievement the speaker got that he agreed to take out the trash the speaker also wants this person to clean the kitchen but they think uh i shouldn't push my luck meaning i shouldn't try too hard to get something more from this person i shouldn't try too hard for more from this person because he might quit and stop doing the task he originally agreed to do so i want him to clean the kitchen yes but i'll stop i shouldn't try too hard because he might quit the second example sentence there's kind of a subtle thing going on there the second example sentence says don't push your luck so that's an advice statement the department isn't likely to make any more budget changes so this sentence implies we can guess that the listener already got some kind of budget update or maybe a budget increase the person speaking in this situation is advising don't try to get more in other words like don't try to ask for another budget change or another budget update because if you ask you might lose the update you already received so don't push your luck means don't try to ask for more of the thing you might lose what you already gained the second variation for the verb push is to push around to push around means to bully someone to have mean behavior towards someone that has no meaning there's no reason for it you just push them around they're smaller or they're not as powerful as you and so you can actually visually see this like to physically push someone around or to push someone with your words as well examples don't let your co-workers push you around you shouldn't push people around just because they're different from you so to push around means probably in most cases using your words to push people around i can't think of many cases except in like schools where someone would physically just push people around in most cases it's with words so you're using like mean words or kind of bullying behavior to try to make uh yourself sound better than another person so don't push people around in other words you should try to be equal with other people so both of these example sentences show them the second example sentence you shouldn't push people around just because they're different from you means you shouldn't bully people just because of a difference because of the way they look or the way they sound or where they work or live or whatever so you should not do that you should not push people around in other words you should be kind to people so those are a few new ways i hope that you can use the verb push if you have any questions or comments or if you know another way to use the word push please feel free to let us know in the comment section of this video of course if you like the video please don't forget to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel too if you have not already also come check us out at englishclass101.com for other good english study tools thanks very much for watching this episode of know your verbs and we will see you again soon bye-bye this is me pushing good fun everybody great work all right hi everybody welcome back to know your verbs my name is alicia and in this episode we're going to talk about the verb adopt let's get started okay let's start with the basic definition of the verb adopt the basic definition is to legally take another person's child and raise the child as one's own examples one of my family members was adopted have you ever thought about adopting a child now let's take a look at the conjugations for this verb present adopt adopts past adopted past participle adopted progressive adopting now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb the first additional meaning is to take and use usually something that is new examples she adopted an upbeat personality for the evening maybe the company should adopt a new strategy so these sentences use the word adopt as in like finding something new or finding something that's not usually used but putting that thing to use in that situation so this is a rather open meaning i know so let's look at the first example sentence to get a little bit more detail in the first example sentence we see she adopted an upbeat personality for the evening so adopted in this meaning means to take something and to put it to use something that's new so that means she isn't usually an upbeat person necessarily but for this evening she had this idea to have an upbeat personality so she took on she decided to become a more upbeat person for the evening so that means it's something different from her past behavior so for the evening only she decided to be upbeat she adopted an upbeat personality for the evening in the second sentence maybe the company should adopt a new strategy we see adopt being used to mean like take on a new strategy maybe the company should take on some kind of new strategy is what this sentence means but adopt is a quick and easy way to say that to take something like to take an idea in and to put the idea to use is like adopt to adopt an idea to adopt a strategy in this way let's look at the second additional meaning for adopt the second additional meaning is to accept something and implement it examples the government has adopted a new policy we adopted the architect's proposals for our new home so here we're seeing adopt used very similarly to the first additional meaning however it means that there's something that's accepted so like there is some outside idea like some kind of proposal that's presented somewhere to somebody some group and then it's accepted following the acceptance it's implemented that idea is used it's put into effect so there's kind of this flow happening with this use of adopt so it's not only taking on something new and using it like we saw in the first additional meaning it's like there are a few different steps there's like a proposal a new idea acceptance of that idea and then use of that thing in the first example sentence it's about the government the government has adopted a new policy means a new policy was presented to the government the government accepted the policy and the government is now using that new policy so there are effects of that new policy there are all these different stages of the new policy so the government has adopted a new policy means it's at this final stage so now this new policy is like in effect um so it's been accepted and now it's going to be in effect if it's not in effect already in the second example sentence we adopted the architect's proposals for our new home we see the same sort of flow so there was some idea from the architect presented to the client the client accepted the idea and the architect put it into practice the architect put it into effect so there's some acceptance and then implementation of that thing so they adopted the ideas in other words so they took on that ideas and put them into use into practice the next additional meaning is to promise to care for something to promise to care for something some examples our community group adopted a park the organization is adopting a highway and plans regular cleaning so in this use of adopt we're often not talking about a person being adopted rather it's a place like in the examples here it's a park or you might often hear a highway or some other kind of community space so to adopt that space to adopt that location means to care for that location in many cases adopting a park or adopting a highway or something similar means that a person or an organization pays some money and their name becomes attached to that location but they are also then responsible for caring for that location so you might see this on highways like i remember when i was growing up on the highways in california it would say adopt a highway program on the signs there so to adopt a highway means to give some money have your name attached to that part of the highway and then have some responsibility for caring for that part of the highway so there might be some community places that have been adopted by people or by organizations in the city so there's some kind of name recognition yes but there's also responsibility to care for that so it's adopting like adopting a child i suppose but we're adopting a place we have to care for that place make sure the place is nicely maintained and is safe and good for the community essentially so in addition to this you'll also see adopt used to talk about pets this can be used more to talk about adopting animals from shelters so we don't really use adopt when we talk about buying a pet from a pet store rather adopting a pet is something that occurs more when an animal is in a shelter like the animal has been um like lost or the animal has been abused or um bad or negative past experience there are a number of reasons why animals might be in a shelter but people who come to the shelter and choose a pet from the shelter we can use the verb adopt to describe that activity of choosing a pet and taking the pet home in that case also to adopt a pet means to come to a shelter and choose a pet and take the pet home with the promise of caring for that pet so feeding the pet cleaning the pet making a safe environment for the pet too so adopt can mean a location it can mean for children as we talked about in the basic definition and we can also use adopt to talk about pets as well pets that we can find at shelters too okay so i hope that you found a new way to use the verb adopt in your everyday life uh if you have any questions or comments or if you want to try to make a sentence with the verb adopt please feel free in the comment section of this video of course don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and check us out at englishclass101.com for other good english study resources thanks very much for watching this episode of know your verbs and we'll see you again soon bye-bye hey everyone welcome to the monthly review the monthly show on language learning where you discover new learning strategies motivational tips study tools and resources by the way all the lessons and bonuses you're about to see can be downloaded for free on our website so click the link in the description right now to sign up for your free lifetime account okay today's topic is five ways to make sure you start on the right foot with language learning ever wondered if you're on the right path with your language learning or if you're studying the right things and taking the right steps well today you'll learn how to start on the right foot with your language learning journey we'll talk about one why you must know your reason for learning the language two how to set fail-proof goals and rewards three how to match your daily routine to your learning so that you don't struggle with the actual learning 4. why you need anchor points for long-term motivation and 5. how to improve faster with ongoing assessment how to start off on the right foot with your language learning journey there are five things you as a language learner need to address if you want to start off on the right foot here they are one your reason for learning two your goal and reward three matching your routine to your medium four anchor points and five assessments if you get these squared away in your first month you'll be set up to succeed with any language goal you set and today we'll walk you through each point the first one your reason for learning why are you learning the language so why is thinking about your why so important here's an example think back to when you were a kid and you were trying to save money what was the first thing you wanted to buy and how much did it cost you probably still remember what it was and how much it cost and because you knew the specific price you were able to save up for it if not at the very least you made more progress than if you just said i want to save money with no specific purpose in mind and that's the thing if you know precisely why you're doing something it's easy to tie a goal to it and there are all kinds of reasons to learn a language there's travel family friends love or maybe you're living in a country that speaks it so knowing your reason clarifies your mission and gives you motivation from the start now some reasons are stronger than others for example living in a country that speaks the language is a powerful reason you need it for survival if your reason for learning is something simpler like i just want to watch tv in that language it's not exactly something you need to survive does it matter whether you have a strong reason or not not necessarily strong reasons help with motivation initially but people with strong reasons can and do fail and people with weak reasons succeed it's all up to the individual but the point is you need to know why you're doing this and that's enough for you to take the first step the second point goals and rewards once you've clarified your reason it's time to set your goals if you want to succeed your goal can't just be i want to be fluent one day why because this tells you nothing about how you'll achieve it or when you'll reach fluency it's too vague your goal needs to be small measurable realistic and have a deadline so you can clearly see the steps you need to take to reach your goal instead of saying i want to be fluent one day which you can't measure and can't precisely determine aim for for example 30 words or one minute of conversation you can measure these goals if you have a deadline like by next month you know your time frame and unlike a goal like i want to be fluent a goal like i want to be able to talk for one minute is much more realistic now what about rewards now that you've set a goal you need to tie rewards to your goal why rewards shouldn't you work hard first and worry about rewards later because rewards are powerful motivators you should be working hard but hard work often is not fun and you need something to push you through when you come home after a long day of work on a rainy day soaking wet the last thing you want to do is open a book and start studying it's so much easier to turn on netflix or something but having that reward reminds you if i achieve this then i get that so defining what's in it for me what do i get boosts your motivation you have something to look forward to and get you through times when you don't feel like doing work the third point is match your routine to the study medium once you have your goals and rewards you need to fit your language learning into your current life and daily routine how sit down and write out your daily schedule for every day of the week for example wake up at 7 00 am breakfast at 8 a.m get on the bus at 9 00 a.m work from 9 30 a.m lunch at 1 pm and so on do this for every day of the week that way you can see where you can fit in learning for example if you ride the bus in the morning you can use that time to listen to our audio lessons why do this well language learning is a brand new routine if you don't work from your existing daily routines it may not work out for example if you decide to wake up an hour earlier to study now you're adding two new routines waking up earlier and learning a language at once one is hard enough but two makes it even harder you may not wake up on time you may not get out of bed you may fall right back to sleep the point here is you should piggyback off of your existing routines and use a learning medium that matches your routine so instead of waking up earlier keep your daily routine but look for another way to introduce language learning write out your daily routine see where you spend your time and then match your routine to learn it if you take walks and listen to music swap out music for language lessons and listen along if you take the bus or train check out our audio and video lessons if you usually read in the evenings and can focus try using a textbook in all of these examples you're taking an existing routine and adding language learning inside the fourth point is set anchor points anchor points are the connections you make to a language that boosts your motivation and keep you attached or anchored to your goal so you don't slip away so what's an example of an anchor point for example if you have friends or relatives that speak the language and if you're around them and you're exposed to the language you're more likely to learn same thing with watching tv shows in the target language you're exposed to it more so your interest in learning naturally goes up also investing in a textbook or learning program signing up for classes or for a proficiency test all of these are anchor points that connect you back to the language why do you need anchor points oftentimes your initial reason for learning the language isn't as motivating as it used to be maybe you were motivated in month one but not in month five that's why people with strong reasons might fail so an anchor point gives you another reason to keep going and boost your motivation and also often times the reason we start isn't the same as the reason we continue anchor points are not something you need to worry about in your first month of learning but adding them in the second month and afterward will help you keep going can you think of any anchor points you can add leave a comment finally the fifth point is you need assessment now that you have goals rewards routine and anchor points it's not enough to learn a language alone in a vacuum you need feedback and course correction from a native speaker with our learning program you can learn with your very own teacher you can also leave comments on lessons and get answers from the others or you can find a tutor of your own someone that will assess your progress and correct you as needed so let's recap there are five things you as a language learner need to address if you want to start off on the right foot one clarify your reason for learning two set goals and rewards three match your routine with your study medium four set anchor points and five get ongoing assessment so thank you for watching this episode of monthly review next time we'll talk about how to deal with missed language goals and failure if you enjoyed these tips hit the like button share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a language and subscribe to our channel we release new videos every week and if you're ready to finally learn language the fast fun and easy way and start speaking from your very first lesson get our complete learning program sign up for your free lifetime account right now click the link in the description see you next time bye want to cut your language studying time in half in this video you'll discover how learning a language using pdf lessons is convenient efficient and can help you cut your studying time nearly in half many people give up on their dream of learning a second language because traditional classroom instruction is too much of a hassle between getting to class studying on someone else's schedule and just the sheer expense of the book's intuition traditional learning can be tough many people simply give up online classes are an option but sometimes limited data plans can derail the dream of learning a new language fortunately there is a solution learning language using pdf lesson notes let's take a closer look at how studying language lessons in pdf format can help you reach your dream in about half the time of normal video or audio lessons first print all lessons and pdf tools and take them with you anywhere sometimes a tiny smartphone screen just isn't adequate especially when you're trying to learn something new the great thing about pdf lessons is that they can be quickly printed and taken anywhere after you download them in fact printing out lessons in pdf format can actually save you time when compared to going through the material on a smartphone with a small screen even with the extra printing time second they're a great study tool to boost retention and mastery studying video or audio lessons online is a great way to learn a language because students can play and rewind sections as many times as needed until the lesson is mastered but when you review the same lessons again in pdf format an incredible thing happens your retention dramatically improves thanks to time-space repetition seeing the information again in written format helps reinforce the information in your mind and improves both retention and recall the benefits of learning a language using pdf lessons quickly add up to significant time savings for you your data plan and your dream of learning a new language third all lessons in pdf format include in-depth instructor notes we have thousands of hd video and audio lessons and each one includes a pdf version with a line-by-line transcript so you can read along with the lesson as it appears online in addition to the line-by-line transcript all lessons include in-depth instructor notes with more information sample sentences explanations and translations the additional information and notes help you learn faster and with greater mastery than using the video or audio lessons alone and when paired with language learning video games video and audio lessons or other study aids our pdf lessons help you reach your dream of learning a new language faster and easier than many traditional classroom settings fourth you can download the world's largest online collection of lessons by real instructors planning on going on vacation and don't know if you'll have reliable internet service if you're learning through pdf lessons it's not a problem once you download lessons in pdf format to your smartphone pc or favorite media device they are yours to use and keep forever once downloaded you can either print out or access your lessons in pdf format regardless of internet access when you consistently learn through pdf lessons the time savings and benefits quickly compound from quicker access to faster learning pdf lessons can potentially reduce total study time required to learn a concept our pdf lessons include instructor notes and supplemental resources that help you learn faster and with less effort so if you're ready to finally learn a new language the fast fun and easy way sign up for your free lifetime account by clicking on the link in the description signing up takes less than 30 seconds and you'll start speaking from your very first lesson if you enjoyed these tips hit the like button share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a new language and subscribe to our channel we release new videos every week i'll see you next time bye are you afraid of making mistakes in your target language afraid you'll never ever be able to have a conversation or give a presentation or maybe you're afraid of something else in this video we'll cover four fears related to language learning and how to overcome them the first one is i'm afraid i'm not good enough to speak i freeze do you feel like you're not good enough to speak yet a lot of people can relate to this one probably all language learners have felt this at some point it's a pretty common fear here are some tips to overcome it first speak from day one the best way to get good at speaking is to practice speaking if you're holding yourself back because you think you're not good enough you're making a mistake that's exactly why you're not improving you need to open your mouth and start talking second if you're not sure what to say to start speaking consider practicing with existing dialogues in our lessons you get scripts for introducing yourself making small talk ordering food expressing opinions and much more if you're looking for some things to use for speaking practice the lessons will give you the exact lines and conversations our third tip learn with your own teacher with our premium plus plan with premium plus you get an actual native speaker teacher to tell you what to say and how to say it you can actually learn to speak with the help of a real native teacher fear number two is i'm afraid i'll never be fluent this is a common fear for beginner learners once you start improving and seeing progress this goes away when you're just starting out with a new language fluency can feel like an impossible goal there are so many new things to learn and so many methods you can use it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the options but you can't let yourself fall into that trap the longer you keep at it the better your language skills will become and slowly you'll stop worrying about fluency what's important is that you put in time and continue working on moving forward so how do you overcome worries about never becoming fluent how do you motivate yourself to continue first set small specific goals instead of just saying i want to become fluent how do you know when you become fluent fluency is hard to determine instead of creating a vague hard to understand goal for yourself focus on working towards smaller goals for example set goals like being able to introduce yourself or having a five-minute conversation something you can measure so you'll know when you've reached it fluency can be difficult to measure if you set goals that you can measure you can track your progress this helps keep your motivation up over time the third fear is i'm afraid i'm not actually learning or making progress if you're afraid you're not making progress there are a few things you can do right now first of all review a lot of people hear a new phrase once and think they'll remember it but that usually doesn't happen so when they forget what they've learned they get worried that they're not learning or that the lessons don't work but the truth is you have to review again and again to truly master something second use the dashboard to track your progress if numbers and data are helpful for you as you track your learning check out our dashboard it tracks your progress and gives you dynamic reports third try a harder lesson on the site you might not understand it all at first and that's okay you'll be able to after some study all lessons come with line-by-line translations and our teachers explain every single word break down these harder lessons if you have to work a little more slowly it's okay when you finish the lesson you can be sure of your progress because you'll be able to understand something you didn't understand a few minutes earlier fourth learn one-on-one with a teacher with our premium plus plan they will personally review your writing and your speaking and will fix your mistakes getting regular feedback from a native speaker is a great way to know if you're making progress it's such a great feeling to hear a native speaker tell you wow you're getting good the fourth fear is i'm afraid of not understanding anything i hear this is very common you hear advanced grammar and vocabulary and it goes completely over your head you have no idea what you've just heard here are some tips for working on this issue if you're taking an advanced lesson read along with the script reading along with our line-by-line dialogue is the best way to improve your understanding of advanced conversations if you're in a real life situation the solution is quite simple learn useful phrases like excuse me can you say it again slower or can you say it in simpler words or even just i don't understand there's nothing wrong with saying that you didn't understand something or asking for help these are some common fears for most language learners and we hope these tips help you is there anything else that you're afraid of when it comes to learning another language let us know in the comments and maybe we can share some suggestions for how to overcome them for the tools we've talked about in this video and much more check out our complete language learning program sign up for your free lifetime account by clicking on the link in the description get tons of resources to have you speaking in your target language and if you enjoyed these tips hit the like button share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a new language and subscribe to our channel we release new videos every week i'll see you next time bye are you struggling to reach your language learning goals or losing motivation for learning in this video we're going to talk about how to reach your goals how to enjoy the process and the importance of rewarding yourself part one how to reach your language goals it's pretty exciting when you reach a goal you know your hard work is paid off and you can see your results but how do you set goals to ensure you can reach them and get that feeling of satisfaction the best way to see real results and achieve your language learning goals is to set small measurable goals many people make the mistake of setting big vague goals like i want to be fluent or i want to speak a new language then they download an app or get a textbook and they try to reach their goal but they quickly give up because the goal they've set for themselves is too overwhelming this is why it's important to set small measurable monthly or weekly goals from the beginning of your studies reaching your goals helps you develop confidence in yourself and your ability to get things done for example you might make it a goal to be able to have a one minute conversation by the end of your first month of studies and have a two-minute conversation by the end of month two maybe after six months you aim to have a 10-minute conversation with someone specific measurable goals like these help you track your progress and prevent you from getting overwhelmed by creating small goals like these you set yourself up for success when you reach one of your goals even if it's a small one you feel a sense of accomplishment this helps you enjoy the learning process which is the next topic we're going to focus on part two how to enjoy the language learning process if you're always focused on goals and results though how do you enjoy the process of learning a language okay so let's say that in addition to larger goals you've made small realistic goals like learning 100 words in a month that's three to four words per day goals like these are very easy to accomplish and when you complete them it feels good this is one of the enjoyable parts of learning a language so imagine accomplishing small goals all throughout your week it's a great way to keep your motivation up and enjoy the process of learning smaller goals can help you stay on track and keep your confidence up when we feel like we're not making progress we can get frustrated and lose motivation think about days when you're super busy at work or at school some days you might be so busy you don't complete any tasks when nothing seems to move forward we can lose confidence in ourselves and feel like quitting this is why giving yourself some small easy to accomplish goals can be extremely helpful you can approach your studies with confidence because you know that you're working towards your next goal and that you can actually achieve it here's something you can try if you feel like your progress has slowed down go back and review something you studied a few weeks or a few months earlier try to remember how difficult it was at first looking over past materials can help us understand how much we've grown the same thing is true for conversations when you start learning a language you'll learn things like how to introduce yourself ask basic questions and talk about the weather after a few months of study though you'll learn how to talk about your hobbies your neighborhood or your personality it's sometimes hard to remember just how much progress we've made but look back on your work from time to time all those hours you put in are reflected in your current abilities it's exciting when you realize how far you've come of course some people might also reflect on mistakes they made especially if these mistakes led to miscommunications with native speakers while these memories can be embarrassing they can still be useful for your studies try to shift your mindset towards mistakes making an embarrassing mistake can be helpful in the long run because we remember the experience vividly and we want to avoid repeating it if the mistake wasn't so embarrassing maybe you can laugh about it and use that memory to ensure you make the right decision in the future lastly we want to remind everyone of the most enjoyable part of the language learning process the new friends connections and experiences you gain through the language you can use the language you're studying as a tool to create friendships to meet new people and to travel if you ever get to a point where learning isn't fun or interesting anymore take a moment and consider why are you getting overwhelmed falling behind on your goals if your schedule has changed or your goals have changed that's fine adjust your study plan and your study goals to make the learning process work for you revise your approach and make sure you're enjoying learning part three the importance of rewards if you haven't gotten into the practice of rewarding yourself for reaching a goal now is a great time to start a reward can be a powerful way to motivate yourself to complete a goal if your reward is travel or event related it can also act as a finite deadline this can push you to focus even more you can decide to reward yourself with something you buy with an experience or maybe just with some time to relax choose a reward that will work best for you positive reinforcement can be very helpful in the learning process it's one thing to hit a goal and feel good about it but if you have a reward too it seals the deal it helps you keep the cycle going and will help you keep learning so today we covered goal setting how to enjoy the process of learning and the importance of rewards make sure you set small measurable goals in addition to your larger goals find ways to enjoy the process of studying and make sure to reward yourself for your achievements learning a language should be fun and satisfying for some more resources to help you reach your goals check out our complete language learning program sign up for your free lifetime account by clicking on the link in the description get tons of resources to have you speaking in your target language and if you enjoyed these tips hit the like button share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a new language and subscribe to our channel we release new videos every week i'll see you next time bye want to speak and understand more of your target language if so of course you'll need to know more words and phrases than you do now in this video we'll cover five ways to master new words and phrases fast number one use our free vocabulary list this is a free library of vocabulary and phrase lessons for all kinds of situations you can learn words and phrases for current events holidays like halloween and thanksgiving and useful topics like the top 10 ways to say hello conversational phrases and more you'll learn phrases that you won't find in textbooks if you want to learn extra fast use the slideshow tool just tap or click on view slideshow then sit back and review the words and phrases find the vocabulary list in the vocabulary drop down menu on the site these vocabulary lists are free for all users number two take the audio and video lessons one of the best ways to learn new words is by hearing and using them in conversations this is because it gives you the opportunity to understand how the words are actually used in every lesson dialogue you'll likely come across some words you don't know but don't worry because our teachers translate everything when you hear the conversation again at the end of the lesson you'll be familiar with the words you didn't know at first number three learn with our 2000 most common words list a quick question how many words do you think you need for conversational fluency 3000 5000 it's actually not as many as you think language experts say you need about 1 500 words to reach conversational fluency with our 2000 most common words list you'll get access to key vocabulary words you need to boost your conversation skills the words are broken down into simple categories such as adjectives nouns verbs food drinks numbers months and so on so you can go category by category and focus on what you're most interested in first with this tip we're not talking about paper flash cards we're talking about the smart flash cards that you can find in our premium study tools this is an automatic system individualized for each member based on their study needs first you'll use the cards to check your knowledge then according to your answers the cards will be sorted according to which words you need more practice with words that you struggle with will be shown to you more and more you'll see words that you know well less often this system helps you study more efficiently it displays the words you need to work on and knows when you should refresh your knowledge this helps make sure you don't forget vocabulary in every study session these cards will help you refresh your memory on the words you learned last time and introduce new words number five use the words after you learn a new word using it right away is crucial to remembering it so when you're done with a lesson or a vocab list here's something you can do leave a comment make up a sample sentence and post it in the comment section write it down in a notebook or shadow the word with a lessons dialogue our language learning program is full of tools that can help you speak more just pick one and get started if you want to unlock all of these study tools check out our complete language learning program sign up for your free lifetime account by clicking on the link in the description get tons of resources to have you speaking in your target language and if you enjoyed these tips hit the like button share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a new language and subscribe to our channel we release new videos every week i'll see you next time bye great work here's a reward speed up your language learning with our pdf lessons get all of our best pdf cheat sheets and ebooks for free just click the link in the description

Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 68,651

Keywords: englishclass101, learn english, english language, the United States, english alphabet, read, write, speak, school, teacher, tutorial, lessons, compilation, how to, fast, quick, easy, fastest, easiest, english pronunciation, english grammar, basics, english phrases, review, best of, monthly dose of english, comp, compilations

Id: MGXFdkylWXs

Length: 140min 50sec (8450 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 15 2020