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. |
First question this week comes from Itsmemart. |
Hello, Itsmemart! |
Itsmemart says… |
“When do we use the preposition ‘to’ in a sentence? In these examples, why do we use ‘to’? ‘She is now engaged to her longtime boyfriend’ and ‘I gave birth to two healthy boys.’” |
Okay. This is a big question and a big answer. |
There are lots of reasons that we use “to” in sentences. |
Let’s talk about a few. |
First, we use “to” to describe movement. |
So, for example: |
“I went to France.” |
Or, “He went to the office.” |
We use “to” before the destination, the place that we are travelling to. So, we use “to” to talk about movement. |
We also use “to” in time expressions, like… |
“She worked from 9 to 5.” |
It means “until” in these cases. |
Or, “She jogged from 3 to 4.” |
So we can use it to express time in this way. |
We also use “to” when we’re using the infinitive form of a verb in a sentence. So, for a reminder, the infinitive form of a verb is the base form, like the dictionary form, the kind that you find in a dictionary, so that’s “to + (the verb).” There are many cases, there are many different grammar patterns, many different structures in which we use the infinitive form. |
So a few examples of these are: |
“We’re going to buy lunch.” |
And, “He called to say hello.” |
In other cases though, the rules kind of disappear a bit, they fade away. It’s not so easy to apply a simple rule. This is because these uses of “to,” like the ones that you shared in your example sentences are actually from idioms or they’re parts of phrasal verbs. These rules don’t apply, however, when we look at “to” in phrasal verbs and in idioms. So, you have to remember these kind of like separate vocabulary words. You have to memorize them, the same way that you would, vocabulary words. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear-cut rule for when to use “to” in cases like these. |
So, for example, in your first example sentence: |
“She got engaged to her longtime boyfriend.” |
The “to” in that sense is part of the “get engaged to” expression. That’s an idiom, “to get engaged to (someone).” That’s a set phrase. |
In the second example sentence: |
“She gave birth to two healthy boys.” |
“To” in that sentence is part of the expression, “give birth to.” |
So, there are lots of set expressions, phrasal verbs and idioms that use “to” and you just have to memorize them like vocabulary words. They’re like, kind of independent expressions, independent phrases that you need to think about. |
So, this is a quick introduction to a few uses of “to” and, also, just consider that sometimes, there’s not really a specific rule for the reason why “to” is used in an expression. It’s just the vocabulary word or it’s just the idiom. |
So, a good way perhaps to practice this is read. I would suggest reading, and over time, naturally, you’ll start to kind of get a feel for the expressions that use “to” and the expressions that use “by” or “at” or “in” or “on” and so on. Similar issues exist with other prepositions, for sure. So, I would suggest reading as much as possible to help you identify the most natural choice of preposition. You can read novels, you can read news articles, you can read social media posts, whatever. Make sure you’re reading a lot and then you’ll kind of, over time, as I said, get a feel for what should be the preposition to use. |
So, I hope that this helps you. I hope this was a good introduction to a few cases in which it is kind of rule-based use of “to,” but also, just to give you a heads up, give you some information about these expressions that use “to” as kind of a set expression. So, thanks very much for the question. |
All right. Let’s move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Vinay. |
Hi, Vinay! |
Vinay says… |
“How do we talk about simultaneous events in present continuous tense?” |
Okay. To talk about two or more events happening right now, so two or more things that are happening in the present moment, you can try a pattern like one of these: |
“I’m listening to music and working at the same time.” |
“Are you cooking and cleaning right now?” |
“He’s watching me while operating the camera.” |
So, a reminder, these patterns are used for two actions that are happening right now at the same time. If you want to talk about actions that happen regularly like habits, you need to use simple present tense. We don’t use that -ING form for regular actions. We can only use these patterns for actions that are happening now, so please keep this in mind, but I hope that this helps you describe simultaneous actions in the present. Thanks very much for the question. |
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Neli. |
Hi, Neli! |
Neli says… |
“Hi, Alisha! What is the meaning of ‘educated guesses’? Thank you!” |
Yeah, sure! Great question! An “educated guess” is a guess that we make after doing research or after getting some information about the topic. So, we can compare this to just a “guess.” So, a “guess” is just something that we come up with. We have an idea about something we share. We make a guess about something. |
An “educated guess” sounds like something we actually thought about. We tried to find information to make our guess more accurate. So, for example, if I ask you, “Who do you think will be the next President of the United States?” and you have no idea, but you want to guess, you could say a famous person like Beyonce or something. So, that’s probably not a good strategy, making a guess like that, though President Beyonce does sound pretty awesome. |
So, making an “educated guess,” on the other hand, would require you to do some research. Who are the candidates? What is their position on various issues? Are they popular or not? So, after doing that kind of research and then sharing a guess, like choosing one of the candidates, that would be an example of making an “educated guess.” |
So, this is the difference between an “educated guess” and just a “guess.” Keep in mind that lots of people like to pretend to make an educated guess when they’re really just guessing, so keep this in mind too. I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question. |
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Lynn. |
Hi, Lynn! |
Lynn says… |
“Hi, Alisha! I know we use ‘a’ when it is followed by a consonant sound and use ‘an’ when it is followed by a vowel sound. But I heard we pronounce “a” as /ei/ or /a/ depending on the consonant or vowel sound condition as well. I just put these rules together and I’m confused now. What’s the difference? For example, ‘He is an or /ei/, /a/ European person’ or ‘This is /ei/ or /a/ one-way street.” Thank you so much.” |
Ah, sure! Okay. First, let’s review the /a/ or /ei/ and /an/ rules. We use the indefinite article /ei/ or /a/ before a word that begins with a consonant sound. We use “an” before a word that begins with a vowel sound. So, a key difference here is sound. Be careful, this has nothing to do with spelling. So, for example, “an hour,” we use “an” there because “hour” begins with a vowel sound. It starts with an “h,” yes, in spelling, but the sound is a vowel sound, “hour.” So, this is the rule for using /a/ or /ei/ and “an.” |
To answer your question, however, there actually isn’t a rule for when native speakers use the /ei/ or /a/ pronunciation. It’s completely up to the speaker, so don’t worry about what you’ve studied. You don’t have to change anything there. |
So, just keep in mind that native speakers will use /ei/ pronunciation for emphasis, sometimes. So, we do this when we want to emphasize that, like there’s a key difference in some situations. |
So, here is an example, let’s imagine you were looking for your phone and I find one here. And, I say, “Hey, I found this phone!” You might reply and you might say, “You found a phone, you didn’t phone my phone.” |
So, the reason that a natve speaker would choose to use the /ei/ pronunciation there is to emphasize that I just found this phone, in particular. I found a phone, yes. It belongs to the category “phone,” but it’s not the speaker’s phone. So the speaker is making a contrast. They want to, like clearly show the difference between “a phone”and “my phone.” This desired thing and this thing you found are different. So that’s the reason that they would use this /ei/ emphasis, so that pronunciation has emphasis in that situation. |
Let’s try one more example. Imagine we’re coworkers in this situation and I’m looking for a file, an important file, and you offered to help me. You find a file that you think is correct and you show it to me and I go, “Ugh, yeah, you found a file, but it’s not the file.” |
So, in that case, I’m contrasting, I’m showing a difference, I’m emphasizing a difference between this file you found and “the file” that I’m looking for. In this case, I’m using “the file” to mean the file that we both know about, this file that we both are looking for right now. I’m using the /ei/ pronunciation to draw attention to kind of point out that this thing and this thing are different. |
So, when I saw /ei/ pronunciation might be used for emphasis, this is what I mean. So, in sum, you can either /ei/ or /a/. It really doesn’t matter, it’s up to you, but you might hear native speakers using that /ei/ pronunciation for the article when they’re trying to emphasize a key difference between this thing and another thing, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question! |
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Godson Ernst Pierre-Louis. |
Hello, Godson Ernst! |
Godson Ernst says… |
“I often hear two different pronunciations of the word ‘neither’ and today, I’d like to know which one is right for me, please. Thank you!” |
Uh-huh, the answer is both, both! /Nee-ther/ and /neye-ther/ are both totally acceptable pronunciations. There’s actually a famous George Gershwin song, if you’re familiar with George Gershwin. He wrote Rhapsody in Blue. He had some musicals. Anyway, he and his brother, Ira, did some, like cool musical stuff, but there is a very famous example in their work that references this issue. So they have “(n)ee-ther" and "(n)eye-ther" as good examples or like /puh-tei-tow/ and /po-tah-to/, both acceptable or /tuh-mei-tow/ and /to-mah-to/. |
So, there are different pronunciations for a few words and you might know some more, but they are both fine. They are both acceptable. You can use /nee-ther/ or /neye-ther/. I would say, personally, that probably in today’s American English, we use /nee-ther/ and for the other words that I mentioned, /tuh-mei-tow/ and /puh-tei-tow/, those are the more common pronunciations, but you can still use the other pronunciations, if you like. So, that would be my personal recommendation, but you can use both, they’re both fine, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question! |
Okay. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your questions. 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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