Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. Let's go to your first question this week.
First question this week comes from Sylvain Tuyisenge. I hope I said your name correctly. Hi, Sylvain. Sylvain says, "I appreciate you, my inspiring English teacher. I am from Rwanda. My question is about adjectives. I would like to know the difference between comparatives and superlatives." Okay, sure. Let's talk about the differences. Let's review the differences between the comparative form of adjectives and the superlative form of adjectives.
So, when we make the comparative form of an adjective, there are two ways that we do this. It typically depends on the length of the adjective. And, when I say "length," in this case, I mean syllables. So, how many beats are in the word? For example, an adjective like "beautiful" has three syllables, beau-ti-ful. We follow one rule for these long adjectives, and we follow another rule for short adjectives, like "big" or "small." So, first, let's take a look at what we do to make the comparative form with these very short adjectives, like "big" and "small." With these short adjectives, we add -er to the end of the adjective to create the comparative form. So, "big" becomes "bigger," and "small" becomes "smaller."
On the other hand, when we have a long adjective, something that has three or more syllables, generally, we have a different form that we use to create the comparative. We say "more beautiful," for example, or "more expensive." After this, we put "than" in all of these cases. So, for example, "bigger than," "smaller than," "more expensive than," and "more beautiful than." So, even though the rules for creating the comparative forms are different according to the length of the adjective, we follow the adjective in the comparative form with "than" when we're comparing to something else.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, the adjective "fun" is a very short adjective, but we don't say funner. We say "more fun." There are some exceptions. There are some words that don't follow these rules perfectly, and you have to memorize them as you find them. Thankfully, there are not a lot of them, and you probably already know a few. For example, "good and better," and "bad and worse." So, there are a few adjectives that don't follow this rule for comparatives. But, thankfully, they're pretty easy to remember. So, this is how we make the comparative form. This is the very, very basic information about the comparative form. If you want more information, I do have a video about this topic on the EnglishClass101 YouTube channel. So, check that out.
Next, let's talk about superlative. Superlatives. If you don't know the word "superlative," it's the word that we use to talk about the form of a word that expresses the most of something. Or, in some cases, the least of something. So, the highest degree of something. So, for example, we could use the same adjectives that we talked about earlier. We could use "big" and "small," and "expensive" and "beautiful" to talk about how we create these superlative form of these adjectives. Again, we have some rules we can follow.
When we have these short adjectives like "big" and "small," instead of adding -er like we did with the comparative form, we add -est, -est. So, for example, "smallest" or "biggest," in these cases. So, on the other hand, when we have long adjectives, you have to put a word in front of the adjective, just as we did when we were making the comparative form. So, for example, with the adjectives "beautiful" and "expensive," we make the superlative form by adding "most" in front of the adjective: "most beautiful" or "most expensive." Also, please keep in mind that when we use the superlative form, we don't follow it with "than." When we're making a comparison between two things, we use that "than" after the comparative form of the adjective. So, for example, "A is bigger than B," or "A is more expensive than B."
On the other hand, when we're using the superlative form, we're not talking about the differences between two things. So, please keep this in mind. Sometimes, I see learners following the superlative form with "than." Like writing, for example, "biggest than" or "most expensive than," we cannot mix these two things together. So, when you use the superlative form, you're talking about the highest degree of something. So, "This is the biggest house." Or, "This is the smallest dog." "The most expensive restaurant." Or, "The most beautiful sunset." So, we follow this directly with the noun phrase that we're describing.
So, again, this is a very quick introduction, a quick refresher on comparatives and superlatives. If you do a quick search through our videos, you can find more details and more lessons about this topic. But, I hope that this helps you get a good introduction. All right. Thanks very much for sending your question. Okay. Let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Shah Jahan. Hi, Shah. I hope I said your name correctly. Shah says, "What does 'freak out' mean?" Great question! Yeah, "freak out" is a really interesting expression. We have two versions of "freak out." We can use two: "freak out" as a verb, and we also have it as a noun, a "freakout." So, let's talk about the verb form of this.
First, to "freak out" can have a couple different meanings. We can use it in a positive sense and we can use it in a negative sense. Generally, it means that something is not working as expected, or we're not having the emotional reaction expected. Something is a little bit crazy. So, for example, if we get really, really great news, like, for example, "I got the job I wanted!" or "I got the apartment I wanted!" I might express that by saying, "Oh, my gosh, I got a promotion! I freaked out when I heard the news." So, this expresses something very positive. So, we're expressing kind of a crazy feeling, but we want to express that in such a way that it sounds like we're not in control. We use "freak out" to do that. In another example sentence of a positive use, we might say, "I just found an apartment I really like, I freaked out when I saw it." So, again, we're expressing a very positive feeling here.
On the other hand, we can use this to talk about negative feelings, too. When we receive some news or we haven't experienced that's kind of surprising, or that makes us feel something kind of strong emotionally, we can also use this expression to talk about that in a negative way. So, for example, "My boyfriend broke up with me last week, I freaked out!" So, that shows that we're feeling kind of crazy. We're feeling unhappy and really, really out of control. So, that expresses it in a negative sense. So, as you can see from these example sentences, the verb to "freak out" depends a lot on the context of the situation. But, this is a very casual expression. I do not recommend you use it in polite situations or at work. It's not rude, but it does sound a little bit rough because the idea is that you have no control over something. You have no control over your reaction.
So, we've talked about this so far in terms of our human emotions, right? But, we also use this to talk about machines or things that aren't behaving properly. So, for example, if your computer freezes or your computer starts doing something really strange, you might also use this word to describe that. You might say, "My computer's freaking out right now. What's happening? Is there a virus on my computer?" So, this means something crazy is happening, something unexpected. You're not in control. So, we have this use of "freak out" as well.
You might use this for another kind of machine in your life. Maybe if your car starts making some kind of strange noise or behaving in a strange way, you might say, "Oh, my gosh, my car is freaking out right now!" Or, to talk about another machine in your life, maybe your smartphone starts doing something really strange, opening and closing stuff, I don't know. Either way, it's really, really odd. You can describe that with this verb. Like, "Ugh, my phone is freaking out, I don't know what the problem is. Maybe I need an update." So, we can use this verb to talk about some kind of erratic or strange behavior that is unexpected. And, generally, the feeling is that it's out of control in some way. So, this is how we use the verb form.
Like I said earlier, we also have this as a noun. Keep in mind that when you use it as a verb, we have "freak," space, "out" as the spelling. When we use it as a noun, there's no space between the two words, a "freakout." So, this presents us just a very slight difference in speech. But, make sure you take note of this for when you're writing these words. So, as you can imagine, a "freakout" refers to the same thing. We can talk about these same kinds of experiences, just with a slightly different sentence structure. So, for example, we can express those positive emotions with "freakout" as a noun. For example, when you find a new apartment that you're really excited about, you can say, "I had a freakout when I found this new apartment, it's so great!" Or, when you get promoted at your job, you can express that with "freakout" as a noun. For example, "I had a freakout when I got my promotion!"
Again, we can do the same thing with negative emotions. "My boyfriend broke up with me. Last week I had a freakout." So, all of these expressed the same idea. They expressed the same kind of situation. It's just a difference in terms of grammatical structure. You'll also notice that we use the expression "to have a freakout" when we use this as a noun. So, please keep this in mind, too. You can use this for machines as well, as we talked about earlier. So, I hope this gives you a good understanding of the expression "to freak out." It's a very interesting word. Thanks very much for sending your question along. Okay. Let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Jese. Hi, Jese. I hope I said your name right. Jesse says, "Hi. My question is how and when do we use 'I don't have' and 'I have not'? I don't understand the difference. Thanks." Yeah, sure. Great question. Let's talk about the differences between "I don't have" and "I have not."
First, let's talk about "I don't have." Generally speaking, we use "I don't have" to talk about something that we do not own, or we do not possess, or maybe it's even kind of an abstract thing, "We don't have enough of (something)" for example. Like, "I don't have enough time." Or, "I don't have enough money," for example. When we use "I don't have," it's talking about a lack of ownership of something, something that we do not possess now, or generally. On the other hand, "I have not" is the beginning of a grammatical structure that indicates lack of experience. So, for example, "I have not been to France." Or, "I have not eaten caviar before." In these sentences, we're talking about some experience that we do not have.
So, very generally, this is the difference between "I don't have" and "I have not." "I don't have" expresses no ownership of something. And, "I have not" is the beginning of a sentence that expresses no experience of something. "I have not done that before." "I have not been there before," and so on. However, you may hear in maybe some TV shows, or some movies set in very old times, one more use of "I have not." So, in very, very old English-style speaking and in writing, you may see people using "I have not" to express ownership of something or to express no ownership of something. Or, we can also use it for these kinds of abstract concepts, as I talked about before.
So, for example, maybe you're watching a movie or a TV show, and the setting of that show takes place like, I don't know, a few 100 years ago for example. And, maybe one of the characters says something like, "I have not the time today," or "I have not the patience," or something like that. This is a very old English way of expressing "I do not have something." But, we don't use this speaking style today unless we're trying to be funny, like trying to make a joke or something like that. So, in very, very rare cases, you may hear something like this, somebody using "I have not" to talk about no ownership of something. But, generally, we don't use this form so much today. This is just for your information. So, I hope this answers your question about the differences between "I don't have" and "I have not." Thanks very much for sending your question along.
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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