| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. |
| First question comes from Isik Alexander. Hi again, Isik. Isik says, "Hi, Alisha. What's the difference between 'by chance,' 'by accident,' and 'accidentally'?" "By chance" tends to be used in more positive situations. You can think of it as a happy accident. When you have a happy accident, you can use "by chance." "I was out shopping and I ran into a co-worker by chance." "By accident" is probably the least used of these three that you've introduced. "By accident," you might also hear "on accident." We use this for negative coincidences, things that are not so good. "I sent my boss the wrong files on accident." The last one that you introduced, "accidentally," is the most common one that we use for negative situation, negative coincidences. "I accidentally deleted my portfolio." With this pronunciation, I'm saying it really clearly, "ac/ci/den/ta/lly," "ac/ci/den/ta/lly." But in fast speech, we say "ac/ci/dent/ly," "ac/ci/dent/ly." "I accidentally deleted my portfolio." I hope that that helps you. Thanks very much for the question. Let's move on to your next question. |
| The next question comes from Jahanvi. Hi, Jahanvi. Jahanvi says, "What is the difference between 'in spite' and 'despite'?" The two have the same meaning. "In spite" and "despite" just have to be slightly changed to fit into a sentence. Let's look at two examples. "In spite of her sensitive stomach, my friend ate ice cream every day." "Despite her sensitive stomach, my friend ate ice cream every day." When we make a sentence with "in spite," we say "in spite of" a noun phrase. When we use "despite," we say "despite" followed by a noun phrase. |
| I want to connect this question to a similar question that we got for this week. This is from mouaad guitoun. Hi, mouaad. mouaad said, "I want to ask about the differences between 'despite,' 'although,' 'though,' and 'in spite of.'" We talked about "despite" and "in spite of." We tend to use "although" a little more often at the beginning of a sentence. "Although." It's like a formal "but," and "though" might be more at the middle part of a sentence. A though B. That's how we might use these two. I hope that that answers both of your questions. I hope that that helps you. I'll try to make a whiteboard video about this topic as well. Thanks very much for sending these questions. Let's move along to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Satish. Hi, Satish. Satish says, "Hi, Alisha, how are you?" I'm good. "When I listen to English, I am translating it to my country's language in my mind. How can I stop that? Was using present continuous tense in the above sentence correct?" One, your present continuous tense, no, it is not correct. I'll come back to that a little bit later. For now, though, your question about translating to your language in your head. I've talked about this a couple of times here and there in other videos so I'll just review again by sharing the things that helped me to stop translating in my head. One thing that really helped me was making an environment, making a place where I could not escape into my native language. In my case, that meant I found a hobby group, something that I wanted to learn how to do. I found that in my target language. I found that in Japanese. I would go to that once a week. There was no option for me to do that in English. The teacher didn't speak English. The other students didn't really speak English. I had no choice but to learn. It was hard at first. Over time, I learned the vocabulary words. I met people and I got to chat a little bit with people. Then, I also just built my listening skills as well. That was really helpful for me. Following that, then, I would often go out with people from that group. I would make friends there and then maybe we'd go out for drinks, we'd go to get something to eat together. That was another situation where I could not escape into English. I had to use Japanese. I had no choice. If I didn't do that, I couldn't talk to anybody. That was really helpful for me. This leads to my second tip for stopping this translation problem, which is try not to rely on your dictionary. I know that we all now have a phone and there's a dictionary in here. We can check when we don't know a word. My problem with this, with using this too much, is that it stops the flow of conversation. When you're talking with someone and you don't know exactly the word you want to use, instead of just reaching for your dictionary, try to think of a different way to explain the thing that you're trying to say. You want to say "Turn on the light," you can't think of “turn on,” so what are some other ways that you could explain that motion? How do I say the light is not bright and then the light becomes bright? What's this action like? Think of the tools that you have in your head to explain the idea. Then, your friend can teach you the word. Use that as an opportunity to, one, use the words that you already know; and, two, get a new word using those tools. Three, it's just a really great communication tool. Even sometimes, in our native language, we forget a word or we don't know the right word to use. Just think about using the tools that you already have. |
| The other thing that I would recommend and that I recommended a lot on this channel is consuming media. That means TV and movies, books, comics, whatever. Trying to use the language as much as possible in your day-to-day life, like listening to it and reading it, because you're absorbing the natural ways that people use that language. Textbook language and real world language are different, so you need to make sure you have a chance to experience that real world language. Media is great. Of course, you can check out the stuff we have on our channel and our website, but you can just watch movies, watch TV shows, find podcasts as well. There are lots of different ways to check out media. Basically, just try to get your brain used to listening to and experiencing the language so that you don't have to really work at translating every single sentence in your head. Then, over time and with practice, you'll eventually stop translating. One day, you'll just be able to do it and you probably won't realize it. That's what happened to me, actually. One day, I was like "Oh, I don't have to translate anymore." It just was done. I hope that that helps you. Those are a few tips for translating in your head. |
| Your other question was about your use of present continuous tense your first sentence. You said, "When I listen to English, I am translating it to my country's language." We would not use the present continuous tense here because you're talking about a regular action that you do. This is a regular thing that you do. We use the present continuous tense for temporary actions. In this case, you should say, "I translate it in my head." Use the present tense there. Thanks very much for those questions. I hope that it helps you. Let's move on to our next question. |
| Next question comes from Erick. Hi, Erick. Erick says, "Hi. What does 'get wild' mean? In this phrase, for example, 'He's getting wild with the letters.'" To get wild means to be crazy, to go crazy, to do something surprising or shocking. I'm not sure exactly about your example sentence situation, "to get wild with the letters." I'm not sure what that is, but it means to become crazy, to do something crazily. |
| Maybe graffiti? |
| Graffiti? To get wild with the letters, like drawing the letters? Could be. Maybe he has a stack of letters in his room and he's just throwing them all over the place. I don't know. If I could get wild with the lesson and just start running around the studio, he would be like "She's getting wild with the lesson." Tear down the green screen. To get wild with the lesson. We're done. I hope that that helps you understand the expression "get wild." Thanks very much for the question. Let's move along to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Jhoey. Hi, Jhoey. Jhoey says, "What's the difference between 'envy' and 'jealous?'" "Envy" is a noun and a verb. For example, "I envy you," or "Envy is dangerous." Jealous is an adjective. "You got the best seats in the theatre. I'm so jealous." "You got a long vacation. I'm super jealous." I hope that that helps you. Thanks for the question. |
| That's everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your questions. Remember, you can send them to me in EnglishClass101.com/ask-Alisha. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha. I will see you again next week. Bye-bye! |
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