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 Komal godara. Hi, Komal. I hope I said your name correctly. Komal says, could you please make a PDF on tenses, narration, and voice with lots of examples? It's amazing to learn through PDFs. They are very easy to comprehend. Okay. Thanks for the question. So we can consider, sure, making a PDF about that. That's up to the team to create, but I thought I would try to answer your question a little bit here. So first, you ask about tenses. So I would recommend if you want to practice with tenses and lots of examples of tenses, you do a quick search on the YouTube channel.
I have a video about all of the tenses of English and I have some other videos that focus on other tenses, like simple present tense or present perfect tense, or simple past tense. So I would recommend if you're looking for practice with tenses, check out some of the videos that are already on the channel, just do a quick "tense" search and you can find those.
The second part of your question was about narration and voice. So I think that this is maybe about the different ways that we describe stories, for example. So I hope that this will answer your question and I wanted to talk about something called first, second, and third person voice, or these types of narration and what they are because you use these in your writing and you might also hear them and see them in things like movies and TV shows from time to time.
So what is this first-person narration? Let's start with this first person. Narration is a way of telling a story. "I" is the subject of the sentence. So when we use first-person narration, we say, I went to the store. I saw my friend, I did this, I did that. So the focus is the speaker. So the person who is telling the story is the person that is sharing the I statements.
So this is called first-person narration.
Second-person narration, what's called second-person narration is kind of a rare form of storytelling. If you've ever read a book that's called a choose your own adventure book. You'll know this kind of storytelling it's with you as the subject of the sentence.
So this is describing something that happens to you. So in these kinds of story books that are usually written for children in the story, you'll read things. Are written in the story. You'll read actions that are happening in the story, like they're happening to you. So for example, you enter a haunted house, you see a scary monster.
This kind of storytelling is to make the reader feel that they are experiencing that in the moment. So this kind of storytelling is called second-person narration. This is the least common kind of narration. And you really usually only see it in cases like I mentioned before, in kind of young people's story books, where they're trying to share an experience as though it is actually happening for the reader.
The last type of narration or storytelling is called third person, third person narration or third person writing refers to when we use people's. So there's no, I there's no one single person. Who's the narrator, it's everybody in the story. So we understand everybody from everybody else's perspective. If that makes sense.
So for example, if I'm writing a third-person story, I would not use "I did this," "I did that"; instead, I would say "Alisha did this," "Alisha did that." Alisha went to the store. Alisha saw her friend, Alisha entered the house. So even though I'm the person writing the story, I use Alisha because it's third-person storytelling.
This is very, very common in books. And in other types of storytelling, like essays and things like that. So generally we see first-person storytelling when we're speaking from our own perspective. And then we see third-person storytelling. In like news media and in other books. So those are situations where we don't need to focus on ourselves.
Right. So you can probably apply first-person storytelling. When you do things like share updates on social media, for example, or maybe share a story about your childhood and you can use third-person storytelling when you're sharing a report about something that happened and you do not need to be the focus.
Second-person storytelling, as I mentioned, is kind of rare. It's not so common, but you may see it from time to time to give that feeling of someone experiencing something in the moment. So I hope that this quick answer helps you understand a little bit better about narration and the different voices that we use in our writing.
And again, if you want to know more about this, I would recommend just doing a quick search on the YouTube channel for some videos about tenses. So I hope that this is a quick answer to your question. Thanks very much for sending it along. Okay. Let's move on to your next question. The next question comes from Elisvaldo.
Hi, Elisvaldo. Elisvaldo says, how do we use the repetition system to learn English? Okay. So I think this question is about something that I talk about on the channel, quite a lot. The spaced repetition system. So the basic concept with spaced repetition is that after you'd study something for the first time, like a new vocabulary word, you give yourself a short break.
That's the space in spaced repetition. So for example, if you study a vocabulary word today in the morning, maybe you take a break for today, like during your lunchtime or as you go to work or at school. And then you study the word again in the evening. So that's your first space, right? So from morning to evening, and then the spaces get longer and longer.
So you study the word again in the evening. Okay. Then you don't see the word again until the next evening. So you have 24 hours. That's your next space. And then maybe it's 48 hours until the next review and so on. So the idea with space repetition is that you study something. Multiple times, but you give your brain a chance to think about the information for a while, and then you review it again.
So you can apply the same concept with grammar points as well. You study grammar for 1 week, and then you review it the next day you review it three days later. Then another week later you can apply the same idea. So you can use this same kind of. Space repetition system with pretty much anything that you're working on studying.
You can use this with listening practice. You can use this with your speaking practice as well. Just try to give yourself a little bit of a break after you study something or practice something and then come back to it again. Also, another thing that's important to do with this kind of repetition is to evaluate yourself.
So think about what you did well and think about the things that you still need to work on. So of course, this doesn't mean that you should only practice and that you shouldn't ever try to evaluate yourself and see what's good and what's not so good, but rather it's just about getting into a rhythm of making sure that you space your practice sessions out, so you're not like cramming everything into one day every month. And you're also not just doing maybe 30 seconds of study here and there, but rather making sure that you have spaces throughout your day and throughout your week that are there for your studies.
So this is a very open answer. I know, but I hope this is a good introduction to spaced repetition practice. If you want to try this out, there are some spaced repetition flashcards on the EnglishClass101.com website, you can check that out. So those are flashcards that will do this for you. If you want to study vocabulary words, it will give you vocabulary words to study, and then remember. Which ones were difficult for you and quiz you on those words sooner than the words that were easy for you, so check that out if you want to try a little bit of spaced repetition practice.
So I hope that this helps you. I hope this was a good answer for your question. Thanks very much for sending it along. Okay. Let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Nicole LTran. Hi, Nicole. Nicole says, hi, Alisha, I've heard many people say I don't do nothing when they want to say they don't do the thing. Is that right? As far as I know, negative plus negative equals positive. What's the right sentence if we wanna say we don't do any actions in a situation, I don't do anything or I don't do nothing. Thanks.
Yeah. Great question. So in very basic standard English, yes. We would say I don't do anything. That would be the standard correct form of English. However, this "I don't do nothing" or these kinds of double negatives are part of some dialects of English. So depending on the region or the community where someone has grown up, they may use this kind of dialect that uses these double negatives sometimes.
So this is an example of one of those double negatives, I don't do nothing; while yes, it is a double negative, as you pointed out in this question, it's also a manner of speaking that also just means "I don't do anything." So this can be a confusing point for learners. I completely understand. But once you can identify these kinds of dialects and realize that this is a way of speaking in certain communities or in certain regions, then you can kind of understand that, oh, this is just the way that this person speaks. Okay. I can adapt to that. So it doesn't mean that that's bad or wrong or anything. That is just a manner of speaking. So yes, it is different from the English that's taught in most textbooks, but that is a style of English speaking that is used in certain places and among certain people.
So I hope that this answers your question and you can keep an ear out or an eye out for other kinds of double negative speech as well. So thanks very much for this interesting question. That was cool. 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 week's episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again soon. Bye.

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