Your Monthly Dose of English - Best of October 2020

access your free language gifts right now before they expire here's what you're getting this month first the asking for directions conversation cheat sheet can you give directions in your target language if not then this beginner conversation cheat sheet is for you you'll learn all the questions and phrases for asking and giving directions so download it for free right now second the listening comprehension course for beginners how are your listening skills take this beginner video course to sharpen them up third can you talk about drinks in your target language learn how to say coffee beer tea wine and much more with this quick vocab bonus fourth how do you say autumn in your target language don't know access this one minute lesson to learn all the autumn related words and phrases if you want to learn these words fast use the free audio slideshow tool inside the lesson fifth the 45 must-know gym words words like cardio bench press abs deadlifts and leg day don't skip this lesson you'll master all the must-know gym words with this next vocabulary lesson 6. free audiobooks unlock our huge library of language learning audiobooks save them to any device and listen and learn they're yours to keep forever and finally the deal of the month if you want to finally master the language with lessons by real teachers and our complete language learning program get forty percent off premium or premium plus with the epic sale to get your gifts and language learning resources click the link in the lesson description below download them right now before they expire hi everybody my name is alicia in this lesson i'm going to talk about some differences between the words almost and barely let's get started i want to start this lesson with the word almost for this lesson i want to mention both almost and barely are adverbs so they have the same grammatical function but they have kind of opposite we can think of them as kind of having the opposite meaning so let's start by talking about almost and the meaning of almost almost can mean very nearly but not exactly it can mean not entirely or not completely so i think this is best to explain with some example sentences i'm going to share some example sentences that use almost in a couple different ways let's look at this first sentence i almost missed my flight i almost missed my flight so to miss a flight means you can't catch the flight like you're not in time for the flight i almost missed my flight so we know almost means very nearly or not entirely or not completely so if we think about it which of these fits nicely into this sentence i feel very nearly is a great one to substitute i very nearly missed my flight i nearly missed my flight means i caught my flight so i was very very close i very nearly did not catch my flight is another way to say this but we say i almost missed so that means this action came very close to happening but it did not happen let's look at another example then she almost fell off her bicycle or she almost fell off of her bicycle it's also okay so here the verb is fell off fell off past tense of fall off so that means she was riding a bicycle or in this case fall off fell off refers to riding in this case a bicycle and like losing balance so falling to the side becoming separated from the bicycle so she almost fell off her bicycle here we can use the same idea let's substitute very nearly for almost here she very nearly fell off her bicycle this means she did not fall off her bicycle but she almost or she very nearly did it was very very close to happening so maybe she lost her balance on the bicycle but she fixed it she was able to continue riding her bicycle so something that very nearly happened was this this is the thing that very nearly happened but it did not exactly happen she almost fell off so this thing did not happen in other words okay let's move on to a different way of using almost this next sentence almost everyone got a raise so here we can think of this with very nearly that works well here or maybe not entirely that's another good one or not completely like all of these can fit well in this sentence to substitute almost everyone very nearly everyone got a raise so that means not everyone but very close to everyone so if there are 100 people in your company maybe that means 95 people got a raise so very close to everyone very close to all people got a raise so not everyone not everything so not entirely everyone not completely everyone but very nearly everyone gotta raise all right now let's look at maybe the most challenging example sentence here uh let's read it first we almost didn't make it to the conference we almost didn't make it to the conference so in this sentence if we if we remove the word almost here we didn't make it to the conference it means we were not able to get to the conference we couldn't make it in time for the conference however if we include almost that means we very nearly didn't make it to the conference that shows we were able to it was maybe difficult but we were able to actually make it to the conference okay let's move along to one more a common one perhaps you almost forgot your wallet you almost forgot your wallet again you very nearly forgot your wallet so we can compare the same thing we did in this sentence removing almost you forgot your wallet means the wallet was left behind like you don't have your wallet however you almost forgot your wallet is imagine someone is running out the door to go to work and their roommate or their spouse shouts this you almost forgot your wallet here you very nearly left the house without your wallet here it is so this expression almost this word shows things that were very close to happening but they did not happen so we see that a lot when we have almost in front of a verb like in these example sentences here where we have it in front of a group of people for example it shows us not entirely as the meaning okay so let's compare this to barely now i mentioned almost in barely are kind of like opposites a little bit so again barely is an adverb barely means only just it can mean scarcely hardly it can also mean nothing to spare i'll show some examples of this so we can think about barely like almost not something so let's compare some example sentences here first one i barely made my flight connection i barely made my flight connection so here we see barely before our verb made so to make a flight to make a flight or to make a flight connection in this case means to be on time to be able to go through the airport and catch your flight in time so i barely made my flight connection we can substitute these words again as we did with almost i only just made my flight connection so i made my flight connection with nothing to spare or no time to spare so this barely shows us something was really difficult but i did it so this did happen i barely made my flight connection the next example sentence she barely fit into the truck so imagine fit into like imagine someone is moving to a new house a truck is full of boxes and all kinds of objects from someone's house so the truck is really really full she might say or someone might say she barely fit into like her body barely fit into the truck because it was so full so barely again we can substitute with only just she barely or she only just fit into the truck means she was able to fit into the truck she did it it was possible okay let's look at another one he was barely able to get tickets to the concert he was barely able to get tickets to the concert again he was only just able to get tickets to the concert so that means maybe it was difficult to do this there were maybe just a few tickets left and he purchased the tickets in time like before they were all sold out so he was barely able that means this was possible he achieved this thing okay let's look now at the next example barely anyone came to the conference so this one is going to be a little bit different we can't substitute only just in this case in this case in a sample sentence like this let's substitute hardly for this one hardly anyone came to the conference that means almost no people came to the conference so barely anyone shows us the turnout or the number of participants was very very low for the conference so this does not mean only just it means very few or hardly all right let's move along to the last one we barely had enough time to finish our project we barely had enough time this is a common expression we barely had enough time to do something so this shows us again we barely had enough time shows us that there was nothing to spare so when we use it with an expression like time it tends to be associated it tends to relate to this nothing to spare idea meaning no time to spare no time to waste everything must be used efficiently so we barely had enough time to finish our project means we finished the project but it was really really close so we almost didn't have enough time to finish the project so i've done this a couple times throughout the lesson but actually there are some cases where we can kind of swap we can kind of exchange these two words and make like the opposite version of a sentence so the first example sentence is a great example i almost missed my flight and i barely made my flight or i barely made my flight connection these mean the same thing they're just different ways of saying it you'll notice with the verb almost i almost missed this is kind of a negative nuance i almost didn't catch my flight it almost didn't happen here it's a more positive sounding verb i barely made my flight it was very close to not happening but i did it so when you use barely you can think of this like i said kind of like the opposite of almost these are actions when we use it with verbs that were very close to not happening but it did happen over here a reminder almost is used for things that were very close to happening but did not happen there's another example i want to show you here um from this one barely anyone came to the conference i've used this here barely anyone came to the conference with this negative remember we use like some and any with negatives and positives here i've used barely anyone came to the conference over here i used almost everyone in this one so you'll notice that when we're using this kind of positive expression almost everyone will use something like this everyone or everybody however this one will use anyone with or anybody barely anybody it's a more negative expression so we don't use barely everybody or barely everyone please use barely anyone here okay so this is a quick introduction i think to a few different ways that you can use barely and almost and the basic differences between these two if you have any questions or comments or want to practice making some sentences with this information please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video hi everybody my name is alicia in this lesson i'm going to talk about some phrasal verbs that use the word bring this is a list of verbs that i think is good for maybe intermediate or maybe upper intermediate to getting to advanced students the aim of this lesson is to help you level up your use of the verb bring this is not a complete list but i've chosen a few that i feel are common and that i hope can help you kind of improve how you use this verb so let's get started let's look at the first phrasal verb the first phrasal verb is the expression bring forward to bring forward has a couple of different meanings first we can use bring forward to mean to introduce an idea so you might hear this used to talk about concepts like in meetings or in presentations when someone wants to bring something forward it's used to talk about introducing an idea for something we also use bring forward to talk about carrying something from the back to the front of a room this is an expression that's used again like in presentations for example if i'm presenting at the front of a room and i have something prepared at the back of a room i might ask someone to bring that item forward so you might hear this for example in like legal situations if you like to watch like police shows for example a lawyer who has prepared something might ask for that item to be brought forward someone to bring that thing forward to the front of the room let's look at another example we brought forward an idea for a new product this means we introduced an idea for a new product so this might be in a meeting situation so there are these two kinds of uses for the expression bring forward to bring something forward okay let's take a look at the next phrasal verb the next phrasal verb is bring home to bring home to bring something home or to bring home means to carry something back to one's home so we use this for shopping and we also use this in sports actually we use it to talk about like trophies in sports if you win a championship or you win some contest we say they're going to bring it home or i'm going to bring it home where it is like the trophy or the prize from the contest so you'll hear this about shopping or just items in general you want to carry home an example of this can you please bring some milk home very simple request so bring some milk home in this case so you can put the item between bring and home to use this expression okay let's go along to the next phrasal verb the next phrasal verb is bring to light to bring to light to bring something to light means to cause something to become clear to cause something to become clear so it's like you can imagine you are bringing a light onto something and then because of that light you can now see everything very clearly that might be a helpful way to remember the meaning of this one let's look at an example his lies were brought to light when important evidence was discovered so this is a fairly typical example of how we use bring to light so here what became clear his lies his lies were brought to light so that means his lies became clear or the fact that he lied became clear at this point in time when important evidence was discovered so another way to say this is when important evidence was discovered or when we found some important information we realized or it became clear he lied multiple times in the past so this is a common example so what became clear and why or at what point in time okay let's continue to the next expression the next expression is bring to mind to bring to mind this means to cause to remember to cause to remember or to cause to think of something as well to bring something to mind let's look at an example this song brings to mind i'm sorry this song brings my high school dance to mind my high school dance so here this song it brings and then this is the actual phrase my high school dance so this song causes me to remember my high school dance this song makes me remember my high school dance or it brings it to my mind brings it into my mind so this is an expression we use for memories a lot okay let's go on to the next one which is bring up the rear bring up the rear this means to be last to be at the end of something we use this a lot for contests especially like sports um a marathon for example or a horse race for example where there's a clear lineup of people participating or animals participating the person or whoever or whatever animal is at the last the final position we say that that person or that participant whatever is bringing up the rear they are last their final an example an injured athlete is bringing up the rear in the marathon so in this case it's a sporting event a marathon and in this case we're using the progressive an injured athlete is bringing up the rear so we might use this sentence when we're watching a marathon on tv for example so this is happening now an injured athlete is last in the marathon essentially so saying he or she is last sounds quite direct but bringing up the rear it sounds kind of more like that person is still continuing like they're still working they're still making efforts but they are in the last position the final position so here this is in the progressive tense an injured athlete is bringing up the rear all right let's continue to the next one the next expression is to bring something about to bring something about means to cause something to happen to cause something to occur so we use this when we're talking about cause and effect situations let's look at a very common example pollution has brought about climate change so in other words pollution has caused climate change to happen has caused climate change to occur so this shows a cause and this shows an effect has brought about shows us this relationship so pollution caused climate change though using brought about i think kind of shows that over time um it resulted in something it's a little bit more like time sensitive i think so to bring something about will help you show causes and effects especially over over a period of time that could be like months or years in this case years over a long period of time so to bring something about okay let's continue to the next expression the next expression is bring something back to bring something back there are two common uses for this they are first to cause someone to remember something i'll show you an example of this and to return an item to a store to return an item to a store it's like i want to bring this back or i need to bring this back to a store with this meaning you might also here to take something back i need to take this shirt back to the store so that's an example sentence i need to bring this shirt back to the store to look at the first meaning though about causing someone to remember something these cookies bring me back to childhood so this means the cookies here the cookies have some like nostalgia factor the cookies are something the speaker enjoyed in his or her childhood so these cookies may be smelling or eating or making these cookies causes the speaker to remember the experience of his or her childhood these cookies bring me back to childhood so i feel like i'm in my childhood again that's the feeling of this expression brings me back to something is a common way to use this phrasal verb okay let's continue to the next expression next is bring somebody down to bring somebody down this means to cause someone to lose confidence it has a negative meaning so an example of this don't bring your classmates down you could kind of imagine this as being like don't bully your classmates or don't be mean don't be unkind to your classmates don't bring your classmates down another thing that you might hear is don't let someone get you down like don't let your boss get you down or don't let your grades get you down so don't let something cause you to lose confidence that's another common way that we use this expression so to bring someone down is this loss of confidence okay let's move along to the next expression the last expression actually to bring something up please be careful this is different from to bring someone up to bring someone up like bringing up someone's children that means to raise i think some of you probably know that one to bring someone up to bring something up however is quite different to bring something up means to introduce or to mention a topic often an unpleasant one so it's typically used for something we don't really want to talk about or it's kind of an uncomfortable topic or it's difficult to talk about for some reason but someone mentions it in a conversation an example management brought up our project delay in the meeting so here management a managing team or a managing person brought up so mentioned our project delay our project delay so this is the topic for discussion and this is probably something the speaker feels nervous about or is uncomfortable about we know that because this use brought up that sounds like it's kind of uncomfortable we tend to use this for uncomfortable topics so in this case a project delay there's some like delay there's some reason a project has not finished and the speaker probably does not want to talk about it so they feel nervous that might be why you could use brought up or to bring something up okay so these are a few phrasal verbs that use bring there are others there are lots of others so if you want to know more about how to use bring in phrasal verbs like these i recommend checking out a dictionary hi everybody my name is alicia welcome back to know your verbs in this episode we're going to talk about the verb nurse let's get started okay so let's start with the basic definition of the verb nurse the basic definition of the verb nurse is to care for someone or something it means to care a lot or to give a lot of attention and care to someone examples her family nursed her to health he nursed his wife during her illness okay let's look at the conjugations of this verb present nurse nurses past nursed past participle nursed progressive nursing alright now let's move on to some additional meanings for this verb the first additional meaning is to provide or take breast milk as for babies okay let's begin with a couple examples the baby is nursing well how long are you planning to nurse the baby so in these situations the example sentences are relating to either a baby drinking breast milk or to a mother giving breast milk to a baby in the first example sentence the baby is nursing well it means the baby is eating or the baby is drinking well and that refers to breast milk specifically so not anything else but nursing refers specifically to having mother's milk in the second example sentence a question how long are you going to nurse the baby it means how long are you going to provide breast milk for the baby so this is probably a question for mothers or i suppose it could be fathers also asking about the baby's care but nurse in this way when talking about newborn children refers to milk either giving or taking if you're talking about the baby okay let's move on to the second additional meaning for this verb the second additional meaning is to use something carefully to avoid pain or to avoid injury examples he's been nursing his hand all day she's nursing her left foot isn't she so we see nursing used in the progressive tense in the ing form in both of these in the first example sentence about nursing his hand that means he's using his hand very carefully maybe because it's painful to use the hand regularly so for example if a person breaks their wrist which i've done it might be painful to move the hand properly so to avoid pain people might nurse that that wrist or might nurse the broken bone or might nurse their injury meaning that they're very careful like they move it slowly for example or they don't move it very much or they don't apply much weight to it we see the same thing in the second example sentence she's nursing her left foot isn't she that shows that perhaps she's not applying much weight she's not stepping or standing a lot on her left foot or she's being very careful about her left foot so nursing shows that they're taking some extra kind of care with an injured or painful part of the body so this is an additional meaning of the word nurse the third additional meaning is to consume over a long period sometimes an unusually long period examples you're really nursing that beer she nursed her tea by the window all right so we commonly see this with drinks actually so drinks if you take a very long time to consume the drink to drink the drink someone might say you're nursing your drink it just means you're taking an unusually long time to drink it if for example as in the first sentence you're really nursing that beer it's like your friends or whoever you're drinking with they expect you to drink the beer more quickly than you're drinking it now so maybe you've had the same beer for an hour or two hours maybe but your friends have had two drinks for example so that means maybe you're taking an unusually long time in the second example sentence she nursed her tea by the window it's like she's just taking a long time to enjoy her tea for example maybe she's holding it and not drinking it quickly just means she's taking her time to consume the drink so nurse can have this meaning of taking a long time to like drink or eat or consume something but commonly used with drinks so the verb nurse doesn't actually have any particular phrasal verbs or idioms that are used along with it but i hope that you were able to find a few new meanings from the additional meaning section of this video so if you have any questions or comments or if you would like to try to make a sentence using the verb nurse please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video hi everybody welcome back to know your verbs my name is alicia and in this episode we're going to talk about the verb order let's begin let's start with the basic definition of the verb order the basic definition is to request something to request food at a restaurant or cafe to request items from a catalog or from the internet for example to order okay some examples i ordered a pizza did you order new office supplies all right now let's look at the conjugations of this verb present order orders past ordered past participle ordered progressive ordering now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb the first additional meaning is to command to command so to command means to ask someone but very very strongly could be a military situation could be a school situation your parents could be really strict with you let's look at some examples okay the general ordered everyone to clean we were ordered to return to our homes so in both of these example situations someone or some entity some group some organization is commanding someone else to do something in the first example sentence the general ordered everyone to clean it means the general in this situation commanded so strongly asked everyone in the situation to clean so this could be like a military situation everyone in the group has to clean the cafeteria for example so it's a strong command a strong order another important point about the idea of a command is that if you don't listen if you don't do the thing you're ordered to do if you don't do the thing you are requested to do there might be a bad outcome a bad results bad consequences so you should probably do that thing so the general ordered everyone to clean if you don't clean you could get in trouble the second example sentence was we were ordered to return to our homes here we're using the passive voice we were ordered by whom we don't know we don't know who gave the order but we were ordered to return to our homes so again this is a command if we do not return to our homes there might be some bad result some bad outcome so we should do that so ordered means command in these cases okay let's go on to the second additional meaning for this verb the second additional meaning for this verb is to arrange or to organize something examples i ordered everything according to color the files are alphabetically ordered so in the first example sentence i ordered everything according to color means i arranged or i organized everything for example clothes or maybe pens or supplies according to color which means probably things of the same color are grouped together or are organized are arranged together so but i used the verb ordered i ordered everything according to color means i arranged or i prepared everything according to color we just use ordered instead here the second example sentence uses a very common expression alphabetically ordered alphabetically ordered means according to the letters of the alphabet the material is arranged so this could be for example a list of names or a list of books or a list of movies but they are alphabetically ordered meaning the top of the list begins with a or the letter closest to a maybe b and then the bottom of the list is z so everything follows the order so the sequence of letters in the alphabet everything is alphabetically ordered alphabetically arranged okay so now let's talk about some variations on this verb the first variation is the expression out of order out of order so out of order means broken or suspended from use we cannot use that thing it's somehow not safe to use or it's not working not functioning correctly examples the vending machine is out of order the company printer is out of order so both of these mean that the machine in the subject of the sentence is broken or there's some other reason why we cannot use that thing so the company printer is out of order maybe it's broken maybe it's missing a piece maybe there's no ink maybe there's some other problem related to it out of order is kind of a vague open reason it can mean a few different things but in general it just means this thing cannot be used right now it is out of order the second variation is a pair actually of phrasal verbs which can mean the same thing it is order in and order out depending on who you talk to these can actually mean the same thing but it's just personal preference order in and order out just to mean uh getting takeout or delivery food so you might hear say oh i'll just read the example sentences do you want to order in tonight let's order out for lunch so you might hear diff i don't know depending on the person people might choose order in or order out i know i definitely say order in when i mean delivery because it sounds like i order something i request something as in the basic definition of the verb and the food comes into my house that's my logical thinking order out is also used but it means like to get take out or to get delivery in other words not to cook but not to go sit down at a restaurant either there's some kind of delivery or pickup happening to order in or to order out just depends on the situation let's talk about one more variation the variation is to order around to order someone around so to order someone around means to command them unnecessarily so it's like you ask someone to do small tasks lots and lots and lots of things you could do them yourself but you make the other person you force the other person to do these small things for you it's like just because you want some power over that person it's typically not a good thing to order someone around i'm tired of my boss ordering me around he kept being ordered around by his friends so in the first example sentence i'm tired of my boss ordering me around it means the speaker's boss asks them to do lots of small things that really aren't that necessary or they're time consuming very tedious so like lots of small details to take care of so the speaker is frustrated the speaker is unhappy that the boss figure is asking so much and maybe for no reason so they use the expression order around i'm tired of my boss ordering me around in the second example sentence he kept being ordered around by his friends ordered around here refers to the behavior his friends are are using so we've included friends in quotation marks there because uh the idea is that friends true friends do not unnecessarily you know ask people to do things for them like true friends aren't going to force tasks on their other friends that's not very nice so to order a friend around is probably pretty rude or it's like there's like a power thing a power situation happening there so to be ordered around by your friends is probably not a good thing and not a good sign okay so that's one more variation so i hope that you got a few new ways of using the verb order and you learned a few variations that include this verb so if you have any questions or comments or if you want to try to use this word in a sentence please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video hi everybody welcome back to know your verbs my name is alicia and in this episode we're going to talk about the verb pat so let's get started let's start with the basic definition of this verb the basic definition of the verb pat is to lightly touch to show affection usually so it's this motion to lightly touch something usually to show affection or like that you're happy or there's something good that happened so this is to pat basic definition examples the little boy patted the dog's head she patted her mother on the shoulder let's look at the conjugations for this verb present pat pats past padded past participle padded progressive padding now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb the first additional meaning for the verb pat is to smooth something with light touches so the idea is that there's some kind of wrinkled fabric or there's some kind of wrinkled material it's bumpy or rough not smooth and we use this motion somehow to make it smooth so examples pat the dough into a rectangle she's patting out the wrinkles in the cloth so both of these example sentences refer to this kind of light touching motion to create a smooth surface or to create like a smooth shape so in the first example sentence it's about patting the dough to become a rectangle shape so that means the dough originally is like a ball shape perhaps and we use this motion a padding motion to create a rectangle from that dough in the second example sentence it's about a wrinkled fabric or a wrinkled cloth of some kind so kind of bumpy it's not smooth we use this motion again to create a smoother fabric so the fabric eventually becomes a smooth surface okay let's move on to the second additional meaning for this verb the second additional meaning is to hit gently with a tool so it's not a hard strike it's not a really really rough motion it's something very very gentle like maybe for a fragile item or something kind of soft so examples we padded the dirt in the flower bed with our shovels pat the drum during this song so in both of these examples we see there's some kind of tool used along with something else so in the first example sentence it's we pat the flower bed with our shovels so maybe after planting flowers in soil in dirt we pat the ground around those like to smooth the ground around it so we use a shovel this is the tool in this case to pat the soil or to pat the flower bed the place where the flowers are resting we use this motion with the tool the shovel in the second example sentence there's a mallet or some kind of hammer-like object we use to lightly hit a drum during a song we can use pat to describe that so pat the drum during this song i would probably imagine in most cases we say like beat the drum or like strike the dru i don't know okay so now let's talk about some variations for this verb the first variation for this verb is to pat down to pat down so we use the expression pat down here because this sort of thing happens usually from the top of the body like starting with the shoulders maybe and it makes this padding motion across the body checking for items under the clothing and then it moves down the body this padding motion moves down the body of course i suppose in some cases maybe it starts at the feet and moves up but we still use the expression to pat down to pat down to check for things under people's clothing examples i hate getting pat down at the airport excuse me we need to pat you down the second variation is to pat someone on the back to pat someone on the back this means to tell someone they did a good job so this can actually mean physically patting someone on the back it can mean actually touching someone on the back and saying good job well done or it can just mean using your words to express your appreciation to express approval you could say like a pat on the back you could actually say that or just good job nice work great something like that so this could be physical or this could just be with words examples my boss gave me a pat on the back for all my hard work the last few weeks pat yourself on the back great work so that second example sentence pat yourself on the back great work refers to another person telling the listener you did a great job you should be happy for yourself like you should be proud of yourself so pat yourself on the back you should be happy with yourself pat yourself on the back so those are a few different ways that you can use the verb pat i hope that you found something new from this lesson of course if you have any questions or comments or want to practice making a sentence please feel free to do so in the comments section of this video 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 noha hi again noha noha says hello alicia i have a question what's the difference between pick up and pick out um it depends on the situation let's start by talking about pick out so pick out has two meanings the first meaning of pick out is to choose or to select you can kind of imagine that pick out is like saying to choose or select something from a group or to choose one thing out of many items so it's like you're removing something from a group or from multiple items so for example please pick out a sweater or would you please pick out your favorite color so this means to choose or to select something the perhaps less common meaning of pick out is to try to play something like to play music using just your ear or using just like your memory of a song so this means you don't have music to read but you're just trying to find the correct notes on an instrument using your mind that's it so for example he slowly picked out the song on his guitar or i can't quite pick out this song so that kind of refers to playing music but just using your mind to do it to try to guess the notes of something so let's compare this then to pick up to pick up has quite a few different meanings the first one i want to talk about is choosing something that's on the floor or finding something that's on the floor and moving it from the floor to a higher location or putting it in its proper place so we use this word a lot when we're cleaning so for example pick up your sweater or i picked up a fork from my bathroom floor so we associate this word with cleaning a lot we find something on the floor usually that does not belong there and we put it in the correct place we use this also when we're talking about answering the phone so we can say to answer the phone which means like to do this motion with the phone when someone calls we also use pickup for example please pick up the phone or i usually pick up the phone after two rings so we use pickup to talk about this so the opposite in this case would be to put down we do not say to pick down but to put down so these are the two kind of similar meanings of pickup that refer to moving something from a lower place to like a higher place in the case of the phone to this position but pickup can also be used to talk about people so when we need to collect someone from a location usually a meeting location we can use pickup to describe that we usually use it at like a bus stop or train station or the airport or something and we go to collect a person usually with a car or some other kind of transportation so for example i need to pick up my mom at the airport or please pick me up at 3 p.m that means please like collect me from a location so i need to go somewhere i need your help to do that so to pick someone up refers to that interestingly this can also be used with people to talk about trying to ask someone on a date so like to pick up a guy or to pick up a girl means trying to ask someone on a date we can use it in this way too for example some guy tried to pick me up at a bar or do you think we can pick up some girls tonight so you might hear it in this way but this does not mean like collecting them it means like asking them on a date or trying to find like romantic partners or something so the last expression or the last use of pickup that i want to talk about is the expression or the use that means to improve or to increase something so we use this when we're talking maybe like about data or we're talking about a mood so for example the mood in the office picked up after i brought donuts or the bus's speed picked up as it entered the highway so it's referring to something increasing or going up in some way we can also use pickup in this way so these are the differences between pick out and pick up i hope that it was helpful for you all right let's move on to your next question thanks very much for this one the next question for this week is from luna hi luna luna says hello i'm a girl from iraq and i have an online lesson in the diphthong lesson the teacher said the spelling i e is pronounced as i for example die lie and pie but in the fanims lesson we learned it can be pronounced e for example in words spelled with something i e something e y or words ending in eek if i e is pronounced as i and e then how do i know which pronunciation to choose yeah great question super good question so in the examples that you've given like die and lie and pie where the last letters are i and e these are these short three letter words you'll always pronounce it with that i sound this is true if you are conjugating one of these words if it's a noun uh into the plural form or if you're conjugating it into uh like the simple present form with like die for example die becomes dies so there's no change to the pronunciation if you add an s is my point here so die dies lie lies pie pies and so on for words that are a bit longer though and where ie is in the middle of the word it can be a little bit more challenging but memorizing a couple of common patterns can be really helpful so for example if you see consonant plus ie plus consonant e it's going to have that e sound to it so for example like peace or nice so a couple of other words that follow a similar rule like the spelling is not exactly the same but they follow something similar are words like priest or fierce so they're not like perfect guides for the spelling example rule that i just gave but they have kind of the same sound to them or kind of the same number of syllables for very long words a helpful guide might be to think of the i e s ending of a word as having the e sound so for example remedies berries treaties these all end in ies and they all take that e pronunciation so if a word ends in ied though it's probably going to take the i pronunciation so for example classified specified or satisfied so this is not a perfect rule but it can help in a lot of cases in kind of these in between words that are maybe like four five six letters or so it's probably best just to try to practice and memorize those and with enough time and enough repetition you'll kind of get the idea for which words take the e sound and which words take the i sound but i hope these couple of spelling guides help you a little bit so thanks very much for this interesting question and good luck with your continued pronunciation studies okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from sithi hello sippy cythi says hi alicia how do we correctly use the verbs save buy and pay in common expressions for example we save money but we buy some time or we pay attention sure these are idioms so a couple more examples that use save are expressions like save your breath and save the day so to save your breath is an expression we use which means like you don't need to talk or it's a waste of your time to talk so for example i want to hold a meeting with management and someone might respond save your breath they don't listen to us anyway so that means you don't need to talk or it's a waste of your time the expression to save the day means to rescue someone you help someone in need so for example my graphic designer saved the day when he caught my mistakes so those are a couple common expressions with save with the verb buy we have an episode of know your verbs on the channel which looks at some of these expressions with bi a couple of common idioms are to buy time and to buy silence i talked about that in this episode to buy silence means to give someone money not to talk so this is kind of an illegal thing usually to buy silence you might also hear the expression to buy into something which means to believe something usually that is not true so for more details you can check out the know your verbs episode about the verb vi if you want to know more about the verb pay you can also have a look at the know your verbs episode of this a couple of examples a couple of idioms are to pay through the nose and to pay top dollar for something they both mean to pay a lot of money for something the expression to pay through the nose sounds like you pay like a ridiculous or a crazy amount of money for something so if you want to know a little bit more about these verbs i recommend checking out the know your verbs series and these episodes have a lot of example sentences you can check out so i hope that that helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from maya from mongolia hi maya maya says what is the difference between consumption and usage yeah nice question we use consumption to talk about things that go away as we use them so this comes from the verb to consume so we use consume like to eat things so for things that go away as we use them we can use the word consumption so this can be like food or electricity natural resources money so consumption refers to things going away getting smaller so for example electricity consumption is down in our city this year or vegetable consumption is part of a healthy diet so that refers to things that decrease as we use them usage on the other hand can be applied to things that don't go away as we use them so this means like facilities or services and in some cases we can use usage and consumption interchangeably like when we're talking about electricity for example that's one case where you might hear either be used but it refers to something that doesn't really go away so this would mean like an object for example so for example bicycle usage is limited to residents of the building only or alcohol usage is increasing among college students so when you're talking about something that doesn't really go away it's always going to be there we'll use usage in my last example that's a good example of one that you could substitute usage for consumption like alcohol consumption is increasing among college students so that is something that goes away over time but you might hear some of these things but you might hear sometimes these words used interchangeably if you're looking at something that doesn't go away it's probably a good choice to use usage if you're looking at something that does go away you should probably use consumption that's kind of a good guideline for these two words so i hope that this helps you thanks for an interesting question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from murugane says which one is right england beat new zealand or england beats new zealand if your answer is england beat new zealand why well it depends it depends on what you want to say both could be correct england beat new zealand could be a past tense statement a simple past tense statement so if we imagine we're talking about sports and we want to use the verb beat which means someone did better or had better performance than someone else or a team had better performance than someone else we can use beat in past tense beat to describe that so beat does not change from present tense to past tense like the past tense form and the present tense or the infinitive form are the same so england beat new zealand means england had better performance than new zealand in the match the sentence england beats new zealand or rather the phrase england beats new zealand could be part of an if sentence for example like if england beats new zealand who will england play in the finals so it could be part of an if clause we use beats there because the subject is england so england it like the country or the team beats new zealand so we use an s in that case another case where you might hear it is like when you're listening to a sports announcer sometimes when announcers are like really excited about the game they'll use present tense to make it sound like you're experiencing the game right now if you use past tense it kind of sounds like a report so like if something super exciting happens right at the end of the game the announcer might say something like england beats new zealand and they might use present tense like it sounds like it's happening now so that's one situation another situation where you might hear beats used instead of past tense beat so in sum again it depends on the situation both could be correct it depends on what you want to say i hope that this helps you 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 boon kyong hi boon kyung bung kyung says how do we know when to use shall or will when asking questions okay so very simply shall is used to make suggestions we put shall at the beginning of our question when we want to make a suggestion and to make something sound kind of formal we don't really use shao in everyday english so some examples shall i drop the mic shall we leave or shall we get going or shall i make you a birthday cake okay so shall is used to make these formal suggestions shall i or shall we or shall he and so on there's some kind of suggestion there like shall he make you a cocktail or shall we give you a birthday party or something like that so you can replace i with we or he or she in those sentences so you're making suggestions but again they sound really formal we don't say these in everyday speech at least in american english it sounds too polite will on the other hand is used at the beginning of questions when we want to make requests so again shall is used for suggestions will is used to make requests like will you stop doing that or will you get me a coffee and so on so we're using will to make requests will comes at the beginning of the sentence when we want to make a request for something shall can come at the beginning of a sentence when you're kind of asking if it's okay to do something as well so this is the basic difference between using shall at the beginning of a sentence or the beginning of a question and using will at the beginning of a question suggestion or offer and request making some kind of request so please keep this in mind i hope that this helps you thanks for the question okay let's move on to your next question next question comes from move in hi i'll move in al-mubin says hi alicia what is the difference between continue and go on okay so continue is followed with a noun phrase so that's the thing that's going to move forward so go on can be used to mean please continue speaking but when you say when someone is saying something interesting in a conversation and they stop the sentence or they stop speaking but you want them to continue you can say go on you can say continue as well it sounds like a command but you might hear people say go on as well so in contrast to the word continue we cannot follow go on with a simple noun phrase we can't say like go on your discussion or go on your presentation we cannot do that we use go on to talk about going to the next thing in a series like the next item in a presentation or the next topic in a discussion like i'm going to go on to the next slide now or i'm going to go on to the next question so we use go on to to express that we can use continue in this way and just as with go on we need to connect continue with two to the next item so i want to continue to the next topic or i want to continue to the next slide in my presentation so we can use both of these to talk about moving to the next item in a series of some kind but we can only use continue with a noun phrase and we can use go on alone to mean please continue in a conversation so i've noticed in the comments actually a lot of people will write like they enjoyed a lesson or something like that and then it'll say go on and it has that feeling of like go on like please i know the feeling is like please continue to express that a little bit more naturally like if you see something you like on the internet like you should be a little more specific like if you say go on or continue generally what native speakers will say is i hope you make more videos or please make more videos like this or please make more podcasts or please make more content like this so being a little bit more specific with your comments at least when you're writing online sounds a little bit more natural than just saying go on or continue so i hope that this helps you understand the differences between continue and go on thanks very much for the question okay on to our next question next question comes from luis your name is in all caps luis hi luis luis says what is the difference between the words sleep and asleep in sentences ah to answer this question just use your grammar knowledge and your knowledge of how to use a dictionary as a tool sleep can be used as a noun and as a verb asleep is an adjective so that means these words take different positions in sentences for example he's sleeping in that sentence sleeping is used in the progressive tense he is sleeping it's a verb you could also express the same idea with he's asleep he is asleep so he is adjective asleep so they have the same meaning he's sleeping he is asleep so asleep means in the state of sleeping so asleep is just a way to say it differently so you could say that you could also use sleep as a noun as in he went to sleep on the sofa or i didn't get enough sleep last night so the differences here are in how we use the words in the sentence like the sentence position and we also need to think especially with the verb about conjugating the verb changing the verb to match what we want to say in the sentence asleep we use as an adjective so there are lots of different ways we can express a similar idea you know not being awake but we just need to think about the type of word by that i mean verb noun adjective we need to think about that as we build the sentence we can say it negatively too like you're not asleep i can see you i tried to call him but he was asleep don't sleep on this chance that's something else we mean which means don't miss this chance oh that's another good expression yeah don't i'm gonna sleep on it means i'm going to go to sleep and then wake up in the morning and then have a decision so after you're presented with a big decision you can say i'm gonna sleep on it which means please give me one night to think about this so i'm going to go to sleep wake up make my decision so give me a night to sleep on it so sleepyhead sleepyhead is a word we use in the states usually for little kids like to mean like oh that's you're a child you're a small person who is sleepy that means you're ready for bed so sleepy is another word that we haven't really talked about here yet but sleepy is also an adjective i'm sleepy so that means it takes the same position in a sentence as asleep but sleepy means i'm tired i'm ready to go to sleep i'm ready for sleep so again that takes the same position as asleep in a sentence but it means something different just a different adjective okay so i hope that that helps you understand the differences between sleep and asleep in sentences thanks for the question 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 manjira hi manjira manjira says hi alicia your lessons are very useful i have a question about ever and never i'm a bit confused about using them for example i never seen and i ever seen i'm unable to understand properly okay yeah let's review this point so first of all never means not ever you can think of it as like the negative of ever so we cannot use ever alone to talk about life experience we can however use never alone to talk about life experience for example if you want to talk about the mona lisa you could say i have never seen the mona lisa you cannot say however i have ever seen the mona lisa we cannot do that we can say i have seen the mona lisa so please keep in mind when we use never and ever we typically put it together with present perfect expression so i have never for example i have never seen the mona lisa or i have seen the mona lisa so we cannot use ever alone in cases where we use ever plus the verb we use it in questions and we use it in full sentence responses to things for example have you ever seen the mona lisa or the mona lisa is the most famous painting i have ever seen in situations like these we can use have ever followed by the verb but we cannot use ever like i have ever seen we cannot use that to express life experience life experience that we have we can use i have never seen though so i hope that this helps you this is a very very quick introduction to these points i would recommend if you want to review this please take a look at this video on the channel i made a lesson about using never and ever and i hope that it can answer your questions so please have a look at that thanks very much for this question all right let's move on to your next question next question comes from hiro hi hiro hiro says hi alicia i take many pictures especially portrait and nature pictures so i have a question what's the difference between photograph and photography how should i use these words great question yeah photograph first of all photograph is a countable noun so we can count photographs images pictures we can say one photograph two photographs three photographs a photograph is the individual image photography then refers to the entire activity the process of taking pictures editing pictures all of those things together as a hobby or as an activity that is called photography so you can say i'm interested in photography and i take lots of photographs so keep in mind photography is the activity photograph is the result here so one point that i want to make though is that we don't really use the word photograph so much in everyday conversation unless we're talking to somebody who shares our hobby or they're also in that field typically instead we say picture instead of photograph so instead of i like taking photographs you could say i like taking pictures i would not use image so much image is a much more general word we use image to talk about like things that you see on the internet you know so it can be a picture but maybe it's a painting so an image of a painting image is a more general word photograph refers specifically to something that's captured by a camera but we use picture as well to talk about that more commonly in everyday conversation so in sum photography activity photograph one picture 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 uvani amanda hi uvani uvani says hi alicia if you can would you please explain to me how we can use take out take off take over and overtake with examples sure okay let's begin with take out to take out to take something out means to remove something from an indoor location and take it to an outdoor location so a very common use of this is take out the garbage please take out the garbage so to take something out of one location and put it outside that location to take something out you might also hear take out used to mean like uh to kill someone or like to injure someone especially in like action movies or maybe in like sports like oh no that soccer player took out our goalie so that means that soccer player injured our goalie so the person in charge of keeping the goal or we need to take out this person in an action movie might mean we need to kill this person or we need to remove this person from the situation so that's probably a less common one in everyday everyday english we use take out to mean remove from a building usually your next one was take off to take off has a couple different meanings as well to take off can mean remove like with clothing like i need to take off my sweater or please take off your shoes before you come in the house so to take off means to remove something as with clothing or maybe it's just covering something else like take the blanket off the computer so it means to remove something usually clothes or other covering takeoff can also be used to talk about aircraft so when a plane goes from land to flying this process is called take off as a noun but when we want to describe it using a verb we can say the plane is going to take off to take off means to leave the ground as with a plane so take off has these two meanings so the next item on your list was take over to take over means to gain control of something so you might hear this in stories you might also hear this in business like company a took over company b in past tense that means company a gained control of company b to take over something or maybe my work is taking over my life means my work is gaining control of my life so to take over means to gain control finally the expression overtake so overtake means to pass someone or something else especially in like a competition or in a race so for example i was overtaken in the race by another runner so that means somebody else passed me in a race so that was a passive form or you could use something like we need to overtake the competition next year so that means we need to pass the competition in the year ahead so to overtake is not quite a phrasal verb to overtake is one word on its own but it does use take in there yes so i hope that this helps you thanks very much for the question hi everyone i'm gabriella how are your english listening skills in this video you'll have a chance to test them out with a quiz 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 are you ready a teacher is talking to some students what will the students bring with them the next day tomorrow we're going to a museum bring a pen and notebook and something to drink we'll have lunch in the restaurant at the museum so you don't need to bring a sandwich what about an umbrella it might be raining so please bring one okay what will the students bring with them the next day a teacher is talking to some students what will the students bring with them the next day tomorrow we're going to a museum bring a pen and notebook and something to drink we'll have lunch in the restaurant at the museum so you don't need to bring a sandwich what about an umbrella it might be raining so please bring one okay a man and a woman are talking when are they going to get a massage [Music] my friend just opened a new massage place a massage place i wanna go do you have time on saturday i'm busy saturday what about sunday they're closed on sunday how about friday okay when are they going to get a massage a man and a woman are talking when are they going to get a massage my friend just opened a new massage place a massage place i wanna go do you have time on saturday i'm busy saturday what about sunday they're closed on sunday how about friday okay a woman is talking with a store employee which floor is the woman going to [Music] excuse me where are the women's clothes on the third fourth and fifth floors which floor has coats the fourth floor the elevator is right over there the fourth floor okay thank you which floor is the woman going to a woman is talking with a store employee which floor is the woman going to excuse me where are the women's clothes on the third fourth and fifth floors which floor has coats the fourth floor the elevator is right over there the fourth floor okay thank you hey everyone welcome to the monthly review the monthly show on language learning [Music] 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 the secret to speaking more of your target language if you're like most language learners then above all you want to speak and understand more of your target language right well keep watching you'll learn how to prepare ahead of time to speak more how to put this tactic to use with our learning program and how to get free cheat sheets that'll get you speaking more the secret to speaking more of your target language if you're like most language learners then above all you want to speak and understand more of your target language but how do you speak more when you're just starting out when you can't yet create sentences off the top of your head here are some tips let's jump into part one how to prepare ahead of time to speak more so what's the secret to speaking more of your target language it's something called preparation and believe it or not you've likely used it if you've ever had to give a speech or a presentation so what do we mean by preparation imagine that you have to go open a bank account in the language that you're learning how would you do it you can go in there grunt and use body language or you can first come up with a list of words and phrases you need to know before you go like debit card bank account i want to open a bank account and minimum balance you may want to look up the grammar rules for how to say i want to once you know these words and phrases you translate them into your target language and you go over to the bank to open an account or let's say you're meeting a person for the first time what are some things you'd say to them things like what's your name my name is where are you from i am from and so on so you prepare a list of words and phrases all the things you'd want to say in that situation you translate them ahead of time so that you can communicate effectively that's preparation and preparation works because most conversations are predictable to a degree for example most conversations with friends start with greetings and catching up on how you've been and if you know the lines for greetings catching up and talking about your weekend then you can easily handle such a conversation the point is the more you prepare the more you learn to speak without needing a teacher so how do you prepare part two how to speak more through preparation here are some tips if you're using our learning program one take our audio and video lessons you'll find these in our lesson library and just focus on the conversational lessons lessons are just three to fifteen minutes in length and in the first minute you'll hear a practical conversation for example meeting someone new catching up with a friend or ordering in a restaurant then our teachers break down and explain every word and grammar rule so you can learn these lines and conversations ahead of time number two download the audio dialogue track this gives you just the conversation so when you finish a lesson download it for easy review then make a playlist out of all of them and play the conversations on repeat this will make them much easier to remember number three save the lesson notes the lesson notes give you the lesson in writing so you can read the lesson dialogue the grammar explanations and cultural insights for every lesson download and keep the notes for conversations you think are useful for example if you want to talk about the weather and you took a lesson on that then download the lesson notes for that lesson now if you're looking to prepare ahead of time for specific topics then do this next one number four use our free pdf conversation cheat sheets these conversation cheat sheets teach you words and phrases for all kinds of common conversation topics like weather hobbies family plans and much more you can prepare for the most common conversations with these cheat sheets if you want to access our free conversation cheat sheets leave a comment down below and we'll give you the link number five look up lesson topics in our lesson library if you want to open a bank account or eat at a certain restaurant and you don't know how to talk about these topics find a lesson about it in our lesson library number six if you're a premium plus user simply ask your teacher to point you to lessons for certain topics or even better ask them for potential lines and you can even practice speaking just record yourself send it in and your teacher will provide you feedback on what to say and how number seven do it the old school way sit down think of a topic you want to talk about make a list of all the words you think you need all the phrases you want to say or may hear in that conversation then translate those words and phrases into your target language so let's recap most conversations are predictable you can prepare ahead of time by thinking of all the words and lines you'll need for various conversations and you can prepare with one are audio and video lessons two conversation tracks three lesson notes four free pdf cheat sheets five by looking up specific topics in the lesson library six asking your premium plus teacher and seven by manually coming up with a list of the words and phrases and translating them starting easy with language learning is sometimes the best way to get into a new language but before you feel guilty about wanting to learn the easy way don't worry it's fine to start the easy way you wouldn't expect to lift 200 pounds on your first day at the gym right and language is no different start easy so you can build up to tackling greater challenges later in this video we'll explore seven easy ways to learn a language the reason it's okay to start easy is the same as the reason you should start easy in the gym you just can't expect to lift 200 pounds on day one you start with 5 pounds then you move up to 10 15 20. and language is the same way learn a few phrases today a basic conversation tomorrow in a few weeks you'll be able to speak for up to 3 minutes in your target language then you'll reach 5 then 10 then 20 minutes success comes step by step little by little so it's important to make things that are easy to do and easy to continue part of your routine if you try to study for two hours a day with nothing but a big textbook you may overwhelm yourself get discouraged and get tired you might not stick with it because it's too hard to do things that are easy to do are easy to continue so here are some resources to help you learn language the easy way number one take audio and video lessons listening to audio and watching video lessons is an easy way to consume language most of our lessons are five minutes on average so you don't have to spend too much time with the computer you can even learn on our app while you're commuting working around the house or out on a walk number two take lessons with alexa if you own an amazon echo dot or show or are planning to get one you'll want to make sure to download some apps to help you learn your target language take a look through the amazon skill store you can listen to lessons and other audio materials actively or passively whenever the time is right for you number three download the lesson dialogues and immerse yourself with every audio lesson you get a dialogue track just the lesson conversation these are just 5 to 20 seconds long when you finish a lesson download the track make a playlist of all of them then play them and immerse yourself in the language number four the word of the day this will take you a minute or less sign up for our free word of the day email lessons it'll be a small boost to your vocabulary every day number five vocab slideshows you can access vocabulary slideshows on any audio lesson or vocab list just press play and watch the slideshow that's it this is a fast and easy way to review words from a lesson you can even put the slideshow on loop to review as much as you want number six the daily dose of language app this app is for the iphone ipad and android with this bonus app you'll get daily mini lessons covering phrases grammar culture holidays slang and more every day is something new plus these lessons will take you just a minute or two to complete number seven print out our lessons as physical study material you might be wondering why you should bother to print anything if all the lesson content is already online but if you have the material sitting right in front of you it's a lot easier to just glance through and start learning with our word bank study tool you can create your own word and phrase lists and print them out reviewing takes just a few minutes you can also print out the lesson notes that come with every audio and video lesson you'll also find our extensive reading books which will help you to read faster you'll find these in the lesson library 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 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: 117,458

Rating: 4.9013767 out of 5

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: uxNDW5pvWYg

Length: 92min 31sec (5551 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020