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 Vincent. Hi Vincent.
Vincent says, why is it I've got you, not I've gotten you?
Shouldn't we use the past participle? And does it mean the same as I got you in this context?
For example, A. I forgot to bring my paper for today's project.
B. Don't worry man, I've got you. I have some extra papers with me.
Nice question. Okay. So, your question asks, does this mean the same thing as I got you?
And the answer is yes. We use I've got you and I got you in two cases, really.
In your example, we have this situation where one person is helping another person, right?
He's saying, I've got you. Or, I got you. Here's some papers. I have some papers you can use, right?
So that's like saying, no problem. I can take care of you or I can help you. That's cool.
We can say, I got you or I've got you in this case.
Both are totally fine. Both are correct.
Regarding your second question though, shouldn't it be I've gotten you?
Don't think about the grammar for this expression.
Think of I got you or I've got you as set expressions.
This is kind of a slang expression or you can think of it as an idiom.
So don't worry about the grammar with this one.
We use both I got you and I've got you to mean the same thing and we use them both in this situation.
In addition to this use, we also have I got you and sometimes I've got you used to mean I understand you.
So when someone explains something to you and you want to casually express, I understand,
you can say, I got you or even shorter, I gotcha or even shorter, gotcha.
You might also hear this used.
So I got you and I've got you can be used in these two situations to mean either I understand or I'll help you.
I feel that we tend to use I got you a little bit more often because it's shorter and it just kind of sounds cooler and casual.
But don't worry about the grammar with this expression.
I completely understand that you are thinking, hmm, there's an I've and shouldn't it be past participle here together?
I completely understand. But think about this expression, this phrase as a set expression that you don't need to worry about the grammar for.
So I hope that this answers your question about this expression. I got you.
You can ask somebody else. You got me. You got me. I got you.
Okay, great. Let's move on to our next question then.
Okay. Our next question is from Ko Jun. Hi Ko Jun. Ko Jun says, which sentence is correct?
The stolen money was found by the police or the money stolen was found by the police.
Okay, very interesting question. So first short answer.
The first sentence is the better sentence here. The stolen money was found by the police.
The second sentence sounds a little bit clunky, a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit unnatural.
And there's a reason for this that I'll talk about in just a second.
But the reason that the first sentence sounds good and sounds natural and I would say is the correct sentence is because a general rule to follow is when you want to include something that
modifies a noun. So when I say something that modifies a noun, I mean something that changes the meaning of the noun.
In this example sentence, our noun is money. Yeah? In this sentence, we want to modify the noun by expressing that the money is stolen money, right?
So we're giving some more information about the money, right?
When we want to use other words to change the meaning or modify the meaning of the noun, generally the rule is to put those before the noun.
So this helps our sentence to be very well organized. If we have a few nouns in one sentence and we have different modifying words like different adjectives in front of the nouns,
it becomes much, much easier to understand which nouns and which adjectives go together because the adjectives or the other modifying words come before the nouns or whatever is happening in your sentence.
So this is a general rule to keep in mind when you're writing sentences like these.
Okay, so let's take a look at one more pair of example sentences and I'll use these to explain what I mean about how we might use the other type of sentence.
So first sentence in the pair, the purchase gifts were put on the table. And second, the gifts purchased were put on the table.
So there are some situations in which we might want to use the second sentence type here.
As I said earlier, generally, we want to put our modifying words before our nouns. So the first sentence here sounds most natural when we're just expressing one idea, right?
The purchase gifts were put on the table. Great, no problem. But there are some situations in which we might want to use the second sentence type.
And that's when we have two categories or two types of the noun that we want to talk about. In this case, we have the gifts purchased were put on the table.
But what if we have some other types of gifts? What if we have some gifts that were made by other people? Or what if we have some stolen gifts?
What if we have some gifts that were brought from other people's houses? What if we need to talk about those different types of gifts?
So for example, we might say the gifts purchased were put on the table, the gifts made by other people were put in the hallway, the gifts stolen were put in the closet, and so on.
So in these types of cases, when we need to talk about the different categories of noun, we might see those modifying words coming after the noun.
But this is the type of situation in which you'll see this style of sentence construction.
Generally, if we just want to say one statement, we'll put the modifying word before the noun, not after it.
If you see the modifying word coming after the noun, it might be because that person is making like a list of different types of nouns and they want to make it clear.
This one is different from this one, and this one is different from that one, and so on.
So this is the situation in which you might see that second type of sentence used when you need to make some specific details about different types of that noun very clear.
But generally, if you want to say just one simple sentence as a fact, you should put the modifying word before the noun.
That's a pretty good rule to follow in your writing.
So I hope that this answers your question. Thanks for sending it along. Very interesting.
Okay, let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Wisley Babora.
Hi, Wisley. I hope I said your name correctly.
Wisley says, Hi, Alisha. What is the difference between these two phrases?
I promise you and "I guarantee you."
Nice question.
Okay, so generally, they have kind of the same core, right?
We're saying that we are saying something is going to happen, right?
We have a good chance that something is going to happen.
But I promise you feels much more like a personal commitment, right?
So we say, I promise you to your friend or to your family member, maybe someone you're very close to, like your boyfriend or your girlfriend, your wife or your partner, whatever.
I promise you something, right?
So we're making a personal commitment to someone.
When we say I guarantee, it's also making a commitment, but we tend to use that more in like business situations.
For example, a salesperson might say, I guarantee you won't find a better price.
That's not so much a personal situation as it is a business situation, right?
And if we said I guarantee in our personal lives as well, it sounds a little bit more businessy, a little bit more like we're selling something to the other person.
We sometimes use the word guarantee in our personal lives.
And that's okay, because we want it to sound like it's more of a business situation.
Like I guarantee you'll have a fun time at the party.
Come on, we're trying to sell the party to our friend, right?
And that's very natural.
But generally, we don't use promise as much in business situations.
If a salesperson says, I promise you're not going to find this price anywhere else, that might sound a little bit too close.
I suppose it does depend a little bit on the salesperson.
We might hear some people use it, but generally guarantee tends to sound a little bit more like a business transaction.
Also guarantee means with 100% certainty of something.
I guarantee you're not going to find a better price or I guarantee this is the best product out this year.
These mean 100% sure.
Promise does not carry this meaning of 100% sure all the time.
Sometimes it means yes, 100% I will do this thing.
But promise can also be a lot more open.
So for example, we could say, I promise I'll come to the party with you.
That means I'm making a commitment 100% I will come to the party with you.
But we can also promise kind of more conceptual things like I promise I'll never leave you or I promise I'll work really hard this year and so on.
So these are kind of more conceptual open things.
So we tend to use guarantee with things that are a little bit more clear cut and less emotional.
So it sounds more like something we can express with data, with numbers like prices and so on.
We wouldn't say to somebody like, I guarantee I'm going to work hard this month or I guarantee I'm never going to leave you.
It sounds too business-y.
When we're talking about our emotions and these kind of personal connections, we tend to use the word promise more.
When we want to talk about something that's a little bit more like numbers and data focused, we would probably use the word guarantee.
So there is a little bit of overlap, like I talked about, like I guarantee you'll have a good time at the party.
There is a little bit of overlap, but generally this is the difference between these two words.
So I hope that this answers your question.
Thanks very much for sending it along.
Okay, that is everything that I have for this week.
Thank you as always for sending your super great questions.
Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again next time. Bye!

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