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 Bhavna Singh.
Hi, Bhavna!
Bhavna says…
Hi, Alisha! Can you explain the difference between “supermarket,” “mall,” and “groceries”? Thanks!
Sure! Let’s start with “supermarket” and “mall.”
A supermarket is a place that sells food items. They can be fresh food items, they can be food in a box, frozen food, basically any kind of food you want to buy, you can try to find it at a supermarket. In supermarkets, you will typically also find household goods. For example, cleaning goods or things you can use when you’re cooking. You might also find pet supplies and other household items as well. So, we call this kind of store a “supermarket.”
A “mall” on the other hand, is typically a series of stores put together. A mall can be inside or outside. A mall tends to be a lot of fashion shops, like clothing shops and a lot of places to eat. You might find food places inside a mall and there might even be a supermarket inside the mall, but a mall itself is a collection of stores. So, you can imagine going to a mall to do all of your life shopping for the day. For example, maybe you need to get some new clothes, you need to pick up a few things related to your hobby and you want to stop to get some lunch as well. You can do all of that in a mall. In a supermarket, however, you’ll find just food and daily life necessities for around your house.
So, these are the differences between “supermarket” and “mall.”
“Groceries,” on the other hand, refers to the food items you buy. This can be at a supermarket or at another store, but “groceries” refers to food items, so things you buy to cook your meals or maybe things that you buy fresh as well to eat right away. We call these “groceries.”
Perhaps you might also have heard the expression “grocery store.”
“Grocery store” and “supermarket” can be used interchangeably. They refer to the same thing, a place where we buy food. So, “grocery store” and “supermarket,” it’s up to the person to choose which one they prefer to use. I tend to say supermarket or more broadly, a lot of people just say “store,” like “I’m going to the store, do you need anything?”
So, let’s take a look at some example sentences that use these words, so that we can see how we might use them differently in speech.
First, let’s look at some examples with “supermarket.”
“Hey, is there a supermarket around here? I need to buy some food.”
Or “Let’s head to the supermarket later to pick up some food for dinner.”
Next, let’s look at “mall.”
“Bye dad, I’m going to the mall with my friends today!”
“Ugh, I hate shopping at the mall, there’s so many people here!”
Finally, let’s look at some sentences that use groceries.
“Hey, can you pick up some groceries on your way home from work today.”
“I need to get some groceries from the store, do you wanna come?”
So, I hope this helps answer your question about the differences between “supermarket,” “mall,” and “groceries,” and also, “grocery store.” Thanks very much for sending it along!
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Abhinand.
Hi, Abhinand! I hope I said your name right.
Abhinand says…
What’s the difference between "could not," "did not," and "would not"? Can we use “did not” and “could not” interchangeably? For example: "I did not understand" or "I could not understand?" Also, "My car would not start this morning" or "My car did not start this morning." Which is better to use?
Nice question, yeah! First, let’s look at “could not” and “did not” and then we’ll talk about “did not” and “would not.”
So, first, with “could not,” the key is possibility. So, when we use “could not (something),” it means something was impossible. There was no possibility for something. So, in your examples, when we say “I did not understand” or “I could not understand,” there is actually a difference. Both are grammatically correct, yes. However, there are some differences in terms of nuance here.
When we say “I did not understand,” it means like at one time in the past, some explanation, we just are reporting that fact, “I did not understand this.” This happened. When we use “could not,” however, it means it was not possible for me to understand.
So, when do we use these two? Like you might say for example, “Oh sorry, I couldn’t understand you” when you’re on the phone and there is a bad connection. You might say, “Sorry, I couldn’t understand you.” Or maybe if you’re listening to a conversation in another language, perhaps, that you cannot understand.
So, when you use “could not,” it refers to something that is not possible. It was not possible for me to understand, as opposed to “I did not understand.” So this means there’s a possibility I can understand, but in this explanation or in this situation, I was not able to do that. So, if you use “I did not understand,” it shows the other person that maybe they need to explain things in a different way. It means there’s a possibility you can understand it, but that explanation didn’t work. So, “could not” indicates possibility.
Okay. So now that we know the differences between “could not” and “did not,” let’s take a look at the differences between “did not” and “would not.”
Again, both of your example sentences are correct.
“My car did not start this morning” and “My car would not start this morning.”
Both are correct.
So, what’s the difference here?
When we say, “My car did not start this morning,” it’s like a simple report of fact, again.
When we say “My car would not start this morning,” however, it sounds like we tried several times and the car was not willing to start, like the car didn’t want to start.
So, we use “would” and “would not” to talk about willingness to do something.
So, for example, when you’re talking about a person, like they said, maybe I’ll help you, you might say, “Mm, Sarah said she would help me,” right?
So, we use “would” to talk about willingness. In this case, although the car is not a person and cannot make decisions, we use the same idea here. “Would not” shows that the car was not willing to start.
Another way it might be helpful to think of this is to remember that we use “would” to talk about repeated past actions. We tend to do this with childhood actions and things that are situations in the past, like…
“Every summer I would go to the beach with my family.”
Those kinds of situations, repeated past situations.
We can also apply the same kind of idea, if it’s helpful for you, to this type of situation. So, saying, “My car wouldn’t start this morning,” sounds like I tried repeatedly, this was a repeated past action I tried to do and it did not work. So, “would not start” sounds like the car was not willing to start and I tried a few times. Saying my car did not start sounds like just a simple report of the situation or maybe I tried once or I tried a couple of times and I accepted that. So, again, this is just a difference of nuance here.
I would probably say, “My car wouldn’t start this morning” because it shows that I have some expectation for the car to start, but that didn’t happen. So, these are the differences between “could not,” “did not,” and “would not.” This is a very quick introduction, but I hope that it was helpful for you. Maybe I can make a whiteboard video about this in the future. Thanks very much for an interesting question.
Okay, let’s move on to our next question.
Next question comes from Lorenzo.
Hi, Lorenzo!
Lorenzo says…
How do I be less shy in conversations? I want to practice, but I worry about making mistakes.
Yeah, this is a very common question. How do you build your confidence to practice in conversations? Well, unfortunately, one of the best ways to build your confidence is to practice, actually, to practice speaking.
So, here are a few reminders that you can think about if you’re trying to work on building your confidence and practicing a lot in conversation situations.
First tip, if you go to an English language conversation school, or if you have a teacher or a class of some kind, remember, that’s your opportunity to speak. That is the perfect place to make mistakes. Your teacher and the others there expect mistakes to happen there. That’s the spot to make your mistakes, so you can feel really good about making mistakes in that situation. That’s the point of going to the lesson, is to make the mistake and to learn from it there in that safe space. So that’s a really good thing to do. When you go to your lesson, make sure you practice speaking.
Second is to check out any kind of community groups in your area or online as well to do the same kind of thing. So maybe it’s not just your classroom situation, but maybe it’s like a hobby group or a group of some kind for people who are learning other languages. You might be able to find other, kind of, similar situations where people recognize that it’s okay to make mistakes and they recognize that you’re not a native speaker. So, going to places like these and, kind of, building your conversation skills in this way can also be really helpful in building up that kind of confident feeling when we speak too.
Finally, another thing to do is just work on making friends. Making friends can also really help you because your friends understand you’re not going to speak perfectly all the time. If you’re really, really worried about this, then maybe you can try practicing some things you want to say before the conversation. Maybe there’s somebody that you see a lot at work or at school. Maybe they’re not quite your friend yet, but you want to become a little bit closer to that person, you can try rehearsing the things that you want to say before you say them. If you have a couple of questions in mind, then it becomes much easier. Try saying those sentences or saying those questions to yourself alone at home before you go to the actual conversation.
So, for example, if you know that this person you would like to be friends with or closer to has the same hobby as you, you can prepare some questions to ask that person, like “Oh, did you go to that event last weekend?” or “I noticed that you have the same hobby as me.” You can use those kinds of things to start a conversation. You don’t have to have a long conversation with a person to begin with, but just asking those small questions to establish a connection can be really helpful and can also help you to feel more confident, if you just break it down into a few kind of sentences and question patterns you can rehearse before the actual conversation.
So, I hope those 3 tips helped you.
One: Make sure that you’re talking in your classes.
Two: Look for situations outside of your lesson environment to practice.
And three: Try rehearsing those conversations you want to have with other people before you actually go to them.
So, those are a few tips and there are a bunch of other tips around on the channel too, so you could do a search for that as well. So, I hope that this was helpful for you. Thanks for the question.
All right! That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your great 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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