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Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe!
Okay, let’s get to your first question this week.
The first question this week comes from Bryan Acuña.
Hi, Bryan!
Bryan says…
“Hi Alisha, I’ve noticed some expressions that use as + adverb + as, for example, as soon as. Can you tell me about the adverbs that I can use this with? And explain all about it?”
Sure, okay. First, let’s look at a couple of basic ways that you can use this pattern. So, we’ll talk about “as soon as” a little bit later because it’s a little bit different. But we can use “as + adverb + as” or “as + adjective + as” to show that something is equal to something else.
For example:
“Sara sings as beautifully as Kim.”
“Jeff is as tall as Dave.”
So, these examples mean that person A and person B are equal in terms of something. In the first example sentence, Sara and Kim sing equally beautifully. In the second example sentence, Jeff and Dave have equal heights. So, “as + adjective” or “as + adverb + as” refers to two things that are equal in some way. So, that’s one way of using this.
“As soon as,” your example, is a bit different from this. We use “as soon as” to mean one action will be done or one action will occur immediately after another action.
For example:
“Well leave as soon as you finish your drink.”
So that means that one action, “leaving,” will happen immediately after the other action, finishing a drink. So, “well leave as soon as you finish your drink” means we’ll leave immediately after or just after you finish your drink. So this is kind of different. We’re not using it to make a comparison or to say that something is equal to something else. This is kind of a set expression which means immediately following something else.
Another expression that uses this “as + (something) + as” pattern is “as long as,” as long as. So, “as long as” means “only if.”
For example:
“I can go to the party as long as I finish my homework.”
So, another way to say this is “I can go to the party only if I finish my homework,” meaning, if I do not finish my homework, I cannot go to the party.” So, “as long as” is another way to do that.
Another pattern is with “few” and with “little” and we use these when we want to emphasize small quantities of things. We use “as few as” or “as little as.”
For example:
“As few as 60 people attended the seminar.”
“As few as half of the students passed the class.”
And, “As few as 6 students attended the class.”
So, this means that like 6 or 60 or whatever the number is, was like a small amount compared to maybe what was expected. So we use “as few as” or “as little as” to express that. Keep in mind that this doesn’t really matter regarding uncountable or countable nouns. We use these with both.
On the other hand, when you want to talk about large amounts of things, you can use “as many as” to do that.
So for example:
“As many as 1,000 people volunteered for the event!”
Or, “As many as 60 students entered to win the contest!”
So that kind of emphasizes that a large amount or perhaps more of something than expected happened or occurred.
“As much as” is another expression that follows this “as (something) as” pattern, but “as much as” has some different uses than “as many as.” We can use “as much as” to refer to something that is equal as I talked about at the very beginning to this answer as in, “She earns as much as he does” or “She drinks as much wine as he does” so that refers to equal amounts of something.
We can also use it to talk about, like activities we enjoy or activities we feel something for. For example, “He likes cooking as much as he likes watching movies.” So that expresses equality.
There’s also one kind of strange use of “as much as” which is in examples like…
“As much as I like the new guy at the office, I don’t think he’s going to stay at the company long.”
Or “As much as I want to go to that new restaurant, I don’t have a budget for it this week.”
So this use of “as much as” means like “despite” or “even though.” So like, “Despite how much I like that new guy” or “Even though I really like that new guy,” I can’t see him at the company for very long or something like that. So, we use “as much as” usually at the beginning of a clause to mean “despite” or “even though.”
So this is a quick introduction to some very common “as (something) as” patterns, some of which use adverbs, but I hope that this helps answer your question. Thanks very much!
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Ammar.
Hi, Ammar!
Ammar says…
“Hi, Alisha. Is there any difference between these: day by day and by the day; minute by minute and by the minute; hour by hour and by the hour?”
Yes, there are some differences. First, let’s look at one group of these. Let’s look at “day by day,” “hour by hour,” and “minute by minute.” We use these expressions to mean that something happens gradually. Something maybe, changes gradually. A condition or a state changes gradually over a period of time.
So for example:
“Day by day, she worked on her project until it was finished.”
Or “Minute by minute, she grew hungrier and hungrier.”
“Hour by hour, he got more and more worried.”
So each of these expressions shows how much time passed like what was the length of time of that activity. In the first example sentence, “day by day,” it means that she worked on her project over a period of days. In the second example sentence, over several minutes, she grew hungrier and hungrier. In the third example sentence, over a period of hours, he got more and more worried. So we use this pattern to show, like the gradual progression of something or gradual change in something.
We can use the second pattern you introduced, these “by the day” or “by the hour” or “by the minute” to do it, but we need to change the sentences slightly.
For example:
“Her project progressed by the day.”
“She grew hungrier by the minute.”
“He became more and more worried by the hour.”
So, when you’re using this “by the day” or “by the minute” or “by the hour” pattern, you need to make sure that the subject of your sentence is the thing that is changing. So, in some cases, the thing that is changing might be separate from, like the person who is doing the activity. This is especially the case for the first example sentence. When using that “day by day” pattern, I said, “Day by day, she worked on her project until it was finished,” that’s fine. But when I’m using this “by the day” pattern, I need to make the thing that is changing, the subject of my sentence. So in this case, “Her project progressed by the day.” So that means her project, the thing that is changing, progressed, so that means it moved forward by the day. So this pattern, personally, I don’t use this one so much. I think I might use the first style a little bit more commonly.
The final point for my answer to this question is about the second group of expressions. We can use this when we’re talking about prices for goods or for services. So, let’s imagine that we are renting an office space. To rent the office space by the day, it’s $70. To rent the office space by the minute, it’s $.20 cents. And to rent the office space by the hour, it’s $10.
So we use “by the minute” or “by the hour” or “by the day” or maybe “by the week” perhaps, in some cases, to talk about prices for time periods of things. So, you may see this if, again, you’re like renting a space or you need to buy some goods or a service or something and the available prices are in units of time. So this is another case where you might see this.
So, I hope that this answer helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Van Anh.
Hi, Van Anh!
Van Anh says…
“I’m very confused about the conversion of adverbs of time in reported speech. For example, the rules say today needs to be turned into that day, tomorrow becomes the next day, and yesterday becomes the day before. Why is that? Also, why do people who are learning English as a second language need to learn about reported speech and direct and indirect speech but native speakers don’t?”
Mmm, first question, I wouldn’t say that these are rules. There’s not a rule about using “tomorrow” or “yesterday” or “the next day” or whatever. What’s important when you’re reporting a speech is to consider the relationship between your conversation to the present point in time.
So, for example, if you and I had a conversation before I started recording this video about, like some plan we have for two days in the future and then I want to report that to our mutual friend the next day, so tomorrow, now, I would say…
“Hey, I talked to Van yesterday.”
Or “Van told me about this yesterday.”
Or “I want to talk to you about tomorrow’s plan.”
“I talked to Van about it yesterday.”
So what’s important is the relationship between that conversation, the conversation where you’re reporting something and the actual conversation that you’re referring to. So that relationship is what’s important. So I wouldn’t say like, “the next day.” I would say “tomorrow” because it’s quite natural. It is natural to use “the next day” if it’s like something that was in the past or it’s not easy to use “tomorrow” or “yesterday.”
So, if we think about a different example like if I want to talk about a meeting that happened two weeks ago, then I would probably use “that day” or “the next day.”
So, for example, I could say…
“On that day, my manager said my project was a great success! The next day, I received a promotion.”
So in that case, “on that day” refers to the day of the meeting. So maybe, I don’t need to be specific. Then, the “next day” refers to the day following the meeting. I cannot use “tomorrow” in that case because “tomorrow” is referencing only the day after the present. So, “tomorrow” has a very specific use. The “next day” refers to the next day in the story, so we can’t use “tomorrow” or “yesterday” loosely. We can use “the next day” or “the day before” or “the day prior” to talk about, like past events or even future events as well too. But “tomorrow,” “today,” and “yesterday” are very, like constrained, so it’s kind of strict, our use of those. We need to use those when referring to the present point in time.
So please keep this in mind, so don’t worry about, like following a specific rule for reporting speech in this way. Think about your relationship to the conversation you’re having now and the conversation about which you are reporting. That’s what’s important here.
So this will get easier with time and with practice, and if it’s helpful, you might take a look at a calendar while you try to think about how to report speech, and it might kind of help you visualize how to explain things in the best way.
Regarding your second question, native speakers do learn about reporting speech and reporting like indirect and direct speech. We just learn it naturally as speakers of any language do. So, this is something for everybody to learn and then everybody uses these.
I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the questions!
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Khalil.
Hi, Khalil!
Khalil says…
“Hi Alisha, how do I get better at pronouncing P &B in words like probably, responsible, purple, back, pack, bath, path and so on?”
Well, you already know that these letters or these sounds are challenging for you, so the next step really is to practice. I would say when you practice pronunciation too, if it’s something that you can’t quite get the hang of, like you feel like you’re trying really hard, but you can’t quite make the sound, try practicing a bit in front of a mirror and look at the way a native speaker says those sounds. So google or find on YouTube a video of someone saying these sounds. So, it’s not just listening, but you want to actually see someone making these sounds and try to make your mouth make the same motions as the native speaker.
So, this might feel a little bit uncomfortable at first, like when I teach pronunciation lessons with my students, they feel, like a little uncomfortable or they laugh because we have to use, like sounds in English that they don’t use in their native language and it feels strange to them.
So, if it feels strange, that’s okay, like try to push yourself to make a new sound. So, for example, when you’re making a P sound, /p/, you need to really, like pull your lips in, mmm, to make that /p/ sound. So you can’t make a P sound with a B sound mouth position, so it’s going to sound like /b/. You need to make a /p/ gesture, sort of, or a /p/ motion with your mouth. So, try practicing in front of a mirror and see if you can make your mouth motions match the motions of a native speaker.
And if you have trouble pronouncing the whole word like “probably” in one go, try breaking it down into syllables. So “prob...ab...ly” and then try to connect the syllables together, so “ably” or “probab,” something like that. So break the words down until you feel comfortable that you’re pronouncing them correctly.
So, I hope that this helps and good luck with your pronunciation studies. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Phoenix.
Hi, Phoenix!
Phoenix says…
“Hi Alisha, I’m Phoenix from Vietnam. Could you explain the difference between bar, pub, beerclub, and beer garden? Thanks a million.”
Okay, sure. A “bar” is a place where alcoholic drinks are served. Bars can be casual. They can be very luxurious. Perhaps, they have a few snacks, but usually, snacks are like maybe nuts or maybe like dried fruit or something like that. So, a bar is a place primarily, usually for alcoholic drinks.
A “pub” is a bit more of a casual place. A pub has kind of a neighborhood feel. It’s usually not like a luxurious place. The, probably, most popular drink in a pub is beer and you can get food at a pub. It’s usually not super healthy. It’s usually like fried foods or like meat or maybe stews, that kind of thing. So, it’s often this very, like hearty kind of home-style cooking at pubs.
A “beerclub,” a beerclub is not something that we have at least in the US. That’s not a word that we really use in English. That’s not a word that we use in English at all, together. A “beer club,” separately, that could refer to a group of people that gets together to drink beer or maybe they have some kind of membership system where they exchange beer, I don’t know. So, it could be a beer club, people who enjoy beer together.
We do have the word “beer bar” which refers to a certain type of bar that serves just specialty beer, so that is a word, a beer bar. You might also hear the word beer pub which is like a more casual beer bar.
Finally, a “beer garden” is a place outside, usually like a festival or some other kind of event where people can drink beer outside. So, it’s just like, kind of like what it sounds. You can usually drink beer in, like a grassy area outside, so that’s called a beer garden.
I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
Thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week. Bye-bye!

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