Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe!
Let’s get to your first question this week.
First question this week comes from April.
Hi, April!
April says...
Hi, Alisha! Where can I use “literally” and “basically”? I think native English speakers use these a lot. Thank you.
Great question! Yeah, “literally” and “basically,” let’s start with “literally.”
So, the actual meaning of “literally” means as written or exactly as described. A lot of American English speakers tend to use literally too much and actually, they use it in the incorrect way.
For example, you might hear it in a sentence like:
“I’m so hungry, I’m literally dying.”
So, in text, this expression means the person is physically dying. They are passing away because they are so hungry. Now, that’s not true. That’s not literally true, but the person uses literally as an emphasis word to try to express the extreme feeling they’re experiencing. So you might hear it used in some ways like this. People tend to use it in this way as an emphasis word, but it doesn’t mean that this use of literally is correct. It’s not actually correct.
A correct use of “literally” might be something like:
“I’m so sorry I missed your call. I literally just walked in the door and I put my phone down. I’m so sorry about that!”
So, you’re expressing something that actually really and truly just happened. So this is the correct use of “literally.” So, even though we all know that this is the correct use of “literally,” please be on the lookout, please be aware, lots of native speakers use it just as an emphasis word, without thinking about it.
Okay. Now, let’s talk about “basically,” basically.
“Basically” means in essence. So, it refers to the most basic of something. So, when we want to speak kind of generally or we want to talk about, like the core idea of something, we’ll use “basically.”
For example, in an office meeting, where you’re explaining something that you want someone else to do, you might say, “Basically, we just need your help doing data entry for this project.” So that gives the other person a kind of general idea.
Again, you might hear native speakers using this in a kind of flexible way when they sort of mean “generally,” but they’re using “basically” instead. So, we use it in most cases to refer to the core idea of something.
One use that might be a little bit confusing is when you hear this used as a one-word response to something.
So, someone might use this in response to a question like:
“So you were out all weekend partying?”
And the other person might say:
“Basically.”
Which means yes, essentially, or, in other words, that’s the core of what I was doing for the week. So this is another use of “basically” that also has that feel of kind of general knowledge or general information. So I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for an interesting question.
All right, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Vishal Deswal.
Hi, Vishal!
Vishal says…
What is the difference between “reason” and “cause” and where do I use it?
Nice question! So, let’s start with “reason.”
The reason for something, you can think of as the “why” for something. It answers the question, “Why?” “What is the reason?” could be understood as “Why?”
So, instead of saying:
“What’s the reason for this mess in my house?”
You could say:
“Why is there a mess in this house?”
Think about “reason,” the reason for something as answering the question, “Why?”
“Cause,” on the other hand, refers to something that brought about another situation. So, there are some cases, yes, where “reason” and “cause” could be used, maybe, in the same way, but “cause” refers to something that made another action happen or another condition happen.
So, for example:
“The cause of the accident was a technical error.”
This could, I suppose, be written as:
“The reason for the accident was a technical error.”
While that’s correct and we can generally understand it, using the word “cause” shows that it brought about some other condition or some kind of effect, yeah. So, if you say, “The cause of the accident was a technical error,” it shows a better connection between some effect in the future or some effect in the present. “Reason” doesn’t have this.
So, you can kind of try to separate those two a little bit with thinking of a “reason” as the answer to the question “Why?” and a “cause” as having some connection to another effect or another condition. So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay, let’s go to your next question. Next question comes from Joana.
Hi, Joana!
Joana says…
When do we use the words “cash” and “money”?
Great question, yeah. “Cash” can be used in a couple of different ways. We tend to use “cash” when we want to talk about physical money in general everyday conversation. Like if you need to get some money from an ATM, you might say, let me get some cash from an ATM. We tend to use “cash” to talk about coins and bills, the physical money.
You might also hear people use “cash” to talk more casually about money, like, “Oh no, I’m out of cash this month. I need to work really hard for next month” or something like that.
“Cash” tends to be used as kind of a rougher, more casual, cool way of saying money. “Money” tends to sound a little bit more polite or more formal. We typically don’t use “cash” in business situations, for example, unless maybe you know the other person very well or maybe there’s some kind of special arrangement where you speak very casually.
So, “money” refers to the same thing as “cash,” yes, but we tend to not use it as much in everyday conversation. You might hear it in, like contracts, discussions of contracts, discussions of agreements, more polite or official kinds of things.
So, you might say, for example:
“Please transfer the money by tomorrow.”
If you say, “Please transfer the cash by tomorrow,” it sounds a little bit rougher, like you’re doing something that might be kind of suspicious, perhaps.
So, it depends a little bit on the person, it depends a little bit on the situation. They refer to the same thing, but a general guide, a general rule is that “money” is used for slightly more official or polite situations and “cash” is used for more unofficial or everyday or rough conversation. So, thanks for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Rachel.
Hi, Rachel!
Rachel says...
Hi, Alisha! I frequently hear the phrase “let alone,” but I don't exactly understand when I can use it. For example, “I wouldn't speak to him, let alone trust him.”
Nice question! Yeah, “I wouldn’t speak to him, let alone trust him.” “Let alone” shows that there’s this other level of thing that you would not do. So, for example, in this situation, if we think of it as two levels, I wouldn’t speak to him, so that’s one thing, the speaker is saying, I will not do this, like in a future situation, if I had the opportunity, I would not do this. I wouldn’t speak to him. And then, they introduce this other level of something. In this case, “trust,” so trust is another like higher level of something. And they’re saying, this is also impossible. So, it’s like saying this thing, at this lower level is something I will not do or in this case, I wouldn’t do. And so therefore, this other thing is also completely impossible. We use “let alone” to talk about that.
For example, in another situation, you could say:
“He doesn’t exercise at all, let alone eat healthy.”
So that’s saying, again, two levels of things. There’s one thing this person doesn’t do and therefore, this other thing is also completely impossible or completely out of the question. “Let alone” expresses that. So, keep this in mind when you find “let alone” in your reading. The speaker or the writer is expressing that one thing is not possible or maybe not good or not favorable and therefore, this other thing is also even more impossible or even more out of the question, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the interesting question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Emma.
Hi, Emma!
Emma says...
Hi, Alisha! I’m wondering which tense I should use when making reported speech sentences.
For example:
1. I promised my son that I would buy his favorite Legos for his birthday.
2. I promised my son that I will buy his favorite Legos for his birthday.
I heard that in reported speech, we have to match verb tense in a sentence. In this case, even though his birthday is next month, should I use “would” instead of “will” even though it hasn't happened yet? Thanks!
Yeah, great question! The correct answer here is “would.”
“I promised my son that I would buy him his favorite Legos set for his birthday.”
The reason is because this is still an untrue situation, right? Yes, we use “will” to talk about our future plans, but in this case, when you’re reporting speech, we don’t use “will” in this way, we stick with “would.” I promised my son that I would do this thing.
You can use this exact same idea with other future tense situations, like:
“I promised my friends that I would meet them for a barbecue this weekend.”
Or “I told my parents that I would be home in time for dinner.”
We do not use “will” in situations like this. If it helps you, you can think of the situation as being an unreal situation. It’s like a promise you made. It hasn’t happened yet, so that’s why we don’t use “will” here. We need to use “would” in patterns like this.
So, yes, in your example sentence, definitely use “would” and use “would” in sentences like these in the future. I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for an interesting question.
Okay. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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