| All right! Mic is on. Alisha is on. |
| I have questions. You have... |
| ...to listen to me! |
| [laughs] |
| Hi everybody, welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them. |
| Maybe. |
| First question! |
| First question this week comes from Aiman. Again! |
| Hi Aiman, you send lots of questions! Thanks! |
| Which one is correct? |
| I want rest, or "I want to take rest." |
| Uh, well, you can say "I want rest" to mean in general just... |
| you would like to do nothing. To relax. |
| Um, grammatically, though, "I want to take a rest" is correct. |
| Or..."I want to rest." |
| Both of those are correct. |
| However, in American English, we don't usually say |
| I want to take a rest. |
| It's more common to say "I want to take a break." |
| I want to take a break, or "let's take a break," or |
| can we take a break? |
| Something like that is more common. |
| You can say "I want to take a rest," but again, |
| in American English, "rest" is less common. |
| Next question! From Gabriela. Hi, Gabriela! |
| Uh, Hi Alisha, what is the difference between "use to" and "used to" in fast speech? |
| The difference in pronunciation. Yeah. |
| Um, basically, when we're speaking quickly, |
| or I suppose even not quickly, we tend to pronounce "used to" |
| as "use to." The grammar doesn't change. Uh, it's just the pronunciation |
| changes because it's difficult to say "used to" very quickly. |
| I used to, I used to is very difficult to say, so we just say "use to" instead. |
| I used to use a smartphone. |
| He used to play soccer. |
| We used to cook every day. |
| In each of these sentences, I contracted "used to" to "use to." |
| I think actually in most cases we probably do say "use to" instead of "used to" |
| because it's quite difficult to say. |
| Again, this shouldn't really cause any communication problems. |
| Used to and "use to" have the same meaning, just different pronunciation. |
| Next question! |
| From Sooin-teh? Sooin-teh? Hope I said that right. |
| Sooin-teh says, Hi Alisha, which word do you prefer using as an American? |
| America, the United States, the United States of America, the US, the USA, or The States? |
| I only started using "America" to refer to my country when I moved to Japan |
| because the people around me use the word "America" to refer to the country. |
| But I think before that, I said, uh, "the US." I used "the US." |
| People would say, "where are you from?" |
| The US. |
| Why did I use "the US?" because it's short and easy to say "the US." |
| I don't want to say "the United States of America." It sounds long to me. |
| Thanks for the question! |
| Next question comes from... |
| Gerson Silva. Hi Gerson! Hi again, Gerson. |
| Gerson asks, uh, what does the American idiom "plead the 5th" mean? |
| Plead the 5th. |
| In a sentence like "I plead the 5th" it means "I choose not to say anything." |
| I choose to have no comment. I don't want to say anything. |
| This idiom comes from the US constitution. The Fifth Amendment. |
| So "amendment" is a word that means "addition." |
| So like, um, some new information was added to our country's rules; our country's laws. |
| Our constitution. |
| The 5th Amendment--the 5th addition to the constitution--gives people in the US the right to remain silent. |
| So in other words, if we are being investigated... |
| maybe police or law officials have questions for us. |
| We have the right not to make a comment because maybe |
| we'll say something that will get us in trouble, even if we don't mean to. |
| Maybe we just say something incorrectly. We don't know. |
| So, uh, "to plead the 5th..." so, the 5th amendment. |
| We use the word "plead" also. |
| Plead is a way of saying "ask for." |
| I plead the 5th means "I ask for the right to remain silent." |
| Meaning "I'm going to choose not to make any comment." |
| I'm going to choose not to say anything. It's my right. |
| So, uh, in most cases when we say "I plead the 5th" it's kind of in a casual situation, like |
| there's just maybe something we don't want to comment about or some people use it as a joke, or maybe there's some secret you need to hide. Whatever. |
| But "plead the 5th" means "I choose not to make any comments." |
| So, "no comment," in other words. |
| Next question. |
| Next question comes from Max! |
| Max asks, which one is correct and why? |
| Uh, "the car keys," "the keys of car," "the car's keys." |
| If by "correct" you mean "the most natural," the answer is "the car keys." |
| The car keys. |
| Why is this one better than, uh, "the keys of car"? Okay, |
| the keys of car is grammatically incorrect. The keys of the car, or we would say "the keys to the car." |
| We match keys to the object that they open (the object that they are kind of attached to) with the preposition "to." |
| We could say "the keys to the car." "The keys to the house." "The keys to the safe." |
| Here, uh, you have "the keys of car," so 1) you're missing an article. "The keys of the car." |
| Also, 2) the preposition used is incorrect. They keys TO the car would be correct. |
| We could say that. "Where are the keys to the car?" |
| That would be okay. Uh, but "the keys of car" is incorrect. |
| The car's keys, while there's probably no communication problem, with "the car's keys," |
| uh, "car's" you have in the possessive form. So, the keys belonging to the car. |
| Uh, but that kind of gives the image that like, the car has the ability to possess something. |
| Has the ability to own something. And it's a car. |
| It's an object. So it's kind of a little strange to suggest that the car could own something. |
| It sounds a little bit silly. So, "the car's keys" uh, doesn't sound right. |
| It's not something we would use. |
| Instead, we'll say "the car keys" in most cases. |
| Or we could say "the keys to the car." |
| But "the keys to the car" is longer than "the car keys," so |
| the car keys is the one that is most commonly used. |
| Hope that answers your question! |
| Next question! |
| From Aiman Chan. Aiman! Is this the same Aiman? I dunno. |
| You have lots of questions, thanks. |
| Is there any difference if we use "yet" at the beginning or at the end of a sentence? |
| Uh, well, yeah, actually. It depends on the sentence. |
| At the beginning of a sentence, or at the beginning of a clause, "yet" can have the meaning of "but" or "although" or "however." |
| He left the house for school, yet he hadn't done his homework. |
| We chose the more expensive house, yet we had no money. |
| When we put "yet" at the end of a sentence, it often means an action that has not been completed, but that we expect is going to be completed, or should be completed. |
| I haven't done my homework yet. |
| You haven't eaten lunch yet? |
| When we put "yet" at the end of that sentence, like I just did, that means something that hasn't happened, but we expect to happen. |
| Uh, in the first set of examples, it's referring to like an--a "however." A "but" sort of meaning. |
| So, depending on the positioning of the sentence, depending on the grammar of the sentence, uh, |
| the word "yet" can have different meanings. |
| So maybe I'll make a whiteboard video about this. |
| Actually, "yet" is quite an interesting word. But I haven't made a video about it yet. |
| So maybe I will! |
| Thanks for the question. |
| Next question! |
| Comes from James Kim. Hi, James! |
| James Kim asks, um, how can I distinguish between "in which" and "at which"? |
| Think about the meanings of the prepositions "in" and "at." |
| In which contains "in," which is used to refer to conditions of being surrounded. |
| A status of being surrounded. So like, in the supermarket. In the office. |
| In the hospital, for example. |
| We use "at which" to refer to like specific times, to refer to specific locations, and so on. |
| So yes, there are some cases where "in" and "at" can be used interchangeably. |
| So let's take a look at some examples. |
| Maybe that will help. |
| The meeting was in the office in which there was a pool. |
| This dish features a complex dessert, in which berries are included. |
| So, in the first example about the office, I said, "the meeting was held in the office in which there was a pool." So that sentence means "there was a pool inside the office." |
| I've used "in which" to show the pool is surrounded by the office. |
| In the second sentence, I used "in which" to say "in which berries are included." |
| So, "in" the dessert. So, within the dessert, uh, there are berries. |
| So I've used "in" to show that. |
| Let's look at some examples using "at which" now. |
| Let's add this to the agenda for the meeting, at which we'll discuss many different things. |
| The event, at which visitors will find free drinks, is $50 to enter. |
| So, in these cases, I'm referring to a specific location or a specific event. |
| If, for example, you changed the first example sentence: |
| Let's add this to the agenda for the meeting in which we'll discuss many different things. |
| That's a situation where we could use either "in" or "at." |
| Both would be correct there, because, like, it's a specific location. |
| A specific action, specific event. At. But it's also a meeting, so it's like we're being surrounded |
| by, you know, the meeting condition. The meeting status. So both are correct there. |
| But I hope that that helps maybe give some examples of how to use this. |
| So, those are all the questions that I want to answer for this week. |
| Thank you again for sending all your great questions. |
| If you have not sent a question or if you would like to send more, please feel free to send them |
| to me at EnglishClass101.com/ask-alisha. |
| Thanks very much for watching this week's episode, and I will see you again next time! |
| Byyyyeee! |
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