| 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 Ali Habibi. |
| Hi, Ali! |
| Ali says… |
| “Can we use “since” in present perfect tense? In one of your videos, you said that in present perfect tense, we shouldn't say the exact start time of the action, but in some English books, I've seen they used some sentences like this, “She has had the chickenpox since Tuesday.” |
| Nice question, yeah! Of course, yes, you can use “since” with present perfect tense to mark the start point of an action. Let’s really quickly review this grammar point. We use present perfect tense to talk about actions that happened at nonspecific points in time in the past, like our travel experiences or our job experiences and we can also use this grammar point to talk about something that started in the past and that continued to the present or the effects of that, started in the past and continued to the present. |
| So, we can use “since” with this grammar point. The reason that I mentioned you don’t need to use a specific point in time when you use this grammar point is because, sometimes, I feel learners create sentences, like, for example, “I have been to France when I was a child.” So, we cannot use this grammar point in the same way. We cannot say, “When I was a child, I have done this thing.” When we use a specific point in time in the past, we use simple past tense, like, “I went to France when I was a child.” That is correct. |
| In your example, yes, “since” is perfectly fine to use because “since” is used to mark the start point of an action that continues to the present or marks the start point of some action that continues to affect the present. The reason that I said we don’t use a specific point in time is because some learners use a specific one-time action along with that perfect tense grammar and that is incorrect, as in my example, “I have been to France when I was a child.” We cannot say that. Instead, we would just say, “I had been to France…” and then we could follow it up with a simple past tense statement, like, “Yeah, I went to France when I was a child.” But we cannot mix these grammar points together. |
| So, as with your question, yes, we can use “since” to mark the start point of an action or we can use “for” to mark the duration of an action. We can do this with basic perfect tense and we can also do this with perfect continuous tense too. So, yes, absolutely, you can mark the start point of those actions. |
| But the key that I wanted to point out in the other videos where I talked about this grammar point is that we don’t mix those simple past tense structures along with the perfect tense structures. So I hope that this helps you understand what I meant when I said we don’t use specific time points with perfect tense. Thanks very much for this question. |
| Okay, let’s move to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Alok Abhijeet. |
| Hello, Alok! |
| Alok says… |
| What's the difference between “affect” (with an A) and “effect” (with an E)? |
| Great question! Very common question, so let’s cover it. |
| First, “affect” and “effect,” they typically have the same pronunciation. I’m making it extra emphasized for this video. |
| “Affect” (with an A) typically, in most cases, is used as a verb. It means to cause something else to change, like, “Oh, his mean words really affected me!” or for example, “Oh my gosh, traffic is affecting the city’s pollution!” So, this use of “affect” is as a verb. |
| We use “effect” (with an E) as a noun. So, we could use the exact same situations we talked about before, like, “Oh, his mean words had a negative effect on me!” or “Oh, traffic in the city is having a negative effect on the pollution in the community.” |
| So we can use “affect” and “effect” in the same situations, but just the grammatical structures of the sentences need to change. So, in the vast majority of cases, which means in most situations in probably 80% to 90% of situations, if you follow this rule, “affect” (with an A) is the verb, “effect” (with an E) is the noun, you will be fine. |
| There are a couple of other situations where you might see these two words used slightly differently. The one that I want to focus on in this video is the word “effect” (with an E) used as a verb and this verb use of “effect” means to cause change or to bring about something. |
| So, for example: |
| “The volunteers effected change in this community.” |
| We typically see it with some kind of positive impact. So, in this example sentence, this use of “effect” means the volunteers caused change or caused positive change to happen in their community. |
| So, we could not use “affect” (with an A) because that means it changes something or like alters it in some way. This use of “effect” (with an E), as a verb, meaning to bring about something, usually positive, is not used in the same way as “affect” (with an A). But again, this is a less common use of “effect” (with an E). This is used as a verb. |
| So, when you come across this in writing and you’re not sure which use of “affect” you’re looking at, try breaking down the grammar of the sentence and see, is it used as a verb? Is it used as a noun. And of course, it is possible as well, with the person who has written the text might have mixed them up as well too. Native speakers are not immune to this. Native speakers mix this up all the time, so if you mix it up, don’t worry, but I hope that this gives you a good guideline for how to know the differences between these two words, so thanks very much for your question. I hope that helps. |
| All right, let’s move to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Késsia Moreira. |
| Hello, Késsia! |
| Késsia says… |
| Alisha, what are the meanings of “suit”? I get a little confused with this. Like yesterday, I was watching Friends and this word came up in the context of a bikini. |
| Okay. “Suit,” yeah sure! So, “suit” can be used to refer to clothing, yes. Let’s talk about that first. So, we have a suit, which we can typically associate with like professional or work environments, right? We imagine a suit is something that looks kind of nice and polished and professional. There’s maybe a white shirt, a nice white shirt and maybe a jacket on top and then on the bottom, there’s pants or maybe a skirt, whatever the person is wearing. |
| So, this is one use of the word “suit,” yes. We imagine this kind of very polished, professional look. We call that a “suit.” That specific outfit is called a suit. |
| We also use “suit” when we’re talking about our swimwear. When we talk about the things that we wear in the water, we call that a “swimsuit,” a swimsuit. So a swimsuit is a suit we use for swimming. So, it doesn’t look anything like the polished, professional business suit at all, but this is just a word that we use, a swimsuit. |
| So, there are many different types of swimsuits, many different kinds of swimsuits. In your example, you mentioned a “bikini.” So, a bikini is a type of swimsuit. So, “bikini” is two parts, usually, a women’s bikini, but perhaps there are men’s as well. So, we can understand this as one type of swimsuit. There are one-piece swimsuits or there are swimming trunks as well. There are many different styles and everybody chooses whatever they like for their swimsuit, but this type of “suit” refers to something you wear when you go swimming. So, these are the uses of “suit” that we have to refer to clothing. |
| We also have a verb use of the word “suit,” which means that something matches or goes well with something else. This can be used to talk about clothes, yes, but it can also be used to talk about hairstyle, make-ups, skincare products, whatever, something that matches something else. |
| For example: |
| “Her new hairstyle really suits her.” |
| Or you might say to your friend: |
| “Wow, that sweater looks great! That color really suits you.” |
| So, this use of “suit” means that it goes well with something else, or it matches well with something else. |
| So, we use “suit” in this way as a verb to mean that something looks nice with something else. Of course, if it’s used in the negative, it means that it doesn’t go so well with that. |
| For example: |
| “Mm, I’m not sure that dress really suits her.” |
| Or, “I’m not really sure if this position suits you.” |
| So that means I’m not really sure if this thing is a good match for you. So we can use this negatively as well. So, I hope this answers your question. These are the uses of “suit” to talk about our clothing and swimwear and the use of “suit” to refer to something that matches or goes well with something else. So, I hope this answers your question. Thanks very much for sending it along. |
| All right! That is everything that I have for this week, so thank you, as always, for sending your awesome questions. Thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again soon. Bye! |
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