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 Moises.
Hi Moises, I hope I said your name right.
Moises says, hi Alisha, my name is Moises.
My question is Luke Skywalker and Simba both said, you knew my father.
Is that an idiom?
If not, when can you omit did in a question?
Thanks.
Great question.
So this, you knew my father is actually a confirmation question.
So when we are checking our own understanding, we use these kinds of patterns.
So the question that you're asking about is a question like, did you know my father?
Which is a simple yes or no question.
But in this case, you knew my father is saying, I believe this is true.
I'm asking you this question to confirm my understanding of this.
So that's why we drop that did you know pattern and change it to this confirmation pattern.
You knew?
This is the purpose of this kind of question.
So confirmation questions are extremely, extremely common and it's very important to know how to use them because we use them pretty much every day.
Whenever we want to check our own understanding of a situation, we can use a confirmation question to do that.
So here's another example that you might see in everyday life like at work or at school.
Here's a school example.
Let's say you have the option to choose between did you pass the test and you passed the test.
What's the difference here?
With did you pass the test, you are expecting a yes or no answer.
On the other hand, with you passed the test, it sounds like you're kind of surprised.
Maybe the test was really, really difficult.
You passed the test or maybe the person you're talking to didn't study very much and you're
surprised that they passed the test.
So you're saying, I didn't expect that.
You passed?
I want you to confirm my understanding.
So this is a very common example of another way that we can use these confirmation questions.
Let's look at one more in everyday life.
Let's imagine you're at home and you're talking about the chores that you have to do at home and you say to someone that you live with, did you wash the dishes?
This is a yes or no question.
On the other hand, if you say you wash the dishes, it expresses some kind of surprise
like you didn't expect the other person to wash the dishes.
Maybe that's not their regular chore or it's not something that they usually do or maybe
they did a really bad job washing the dishes and you look at the dishes and go, you wash
the dishes?
This does not look clean at all.
So these are the ways that we use confirmation questions.
So we want to make sure that we understand the situation correctly when we use these
patterns.
On the other hand, when we ask these simple yes or no questions, we just want that simple
yes or no answer.
So this is the reason for this question.
You knew my father in the examples that you gave.
I hope that this helps you understand this situation.
Thanks so much for sending your question along.
Okay, let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Miss Selly.
Hi, Miss Selly.
I hope I said your name right.
Maybe McKelly.
Hi.
McKelly says, hello.
I'm new on English Class 101.
Thanks for your videos on YouTube.
My question is, if I say my back hurts, doesn't that mean my back always hurts me?
What about saying my back is hurting now?
Great question.
Yeah, so this simple present tense structure, my back hurts or my head hurts.
This is what we tend to use when we talk about our body's aches and pains and other physical problems that we have.
So we do this because it's kind of like we're saying a fact that is true right now and we're not sure when that is going to change, right?
So if you have a stomach ache, for example, you can't say like, oh, my stomach is going to stop being a problem at this time, right?
So we don't know when that condition is going to change or when it's going to stop.
Same thing for your back, right?
We don't know when that's going to change.
So using this kind of simple present tense structure sounds more natural because it's like you're saying a fact in the moment, yeah?
So if you say my back hurts, it means right now and if you want to make it clear that
your back is like a regular problem for you, you would probably say my back always hurts or my back hurts every day.
If you want to use the progressive form, we probably would tend to use it most in situations
where we need to talk about something that's a little extreme or something that's different from usual.
So for example, you might say, oh, my back is hurting really bad today.
That might be like, oh, wow, this is special.
This is more than usual or like, oh, my head has been hurting for a long time.
So that tells us that this has been happening for a long time.
So these grammar points give us some information about like how extreme the situation is or how long the situation has been happening.
But we tend to use that simple present tense when we talk about our physical problems because
it's like a fact in the moment and we're also not sure when it's going to end.
So a good general guide to use is when you want to talk about a pain or a problem in
your body, use the simple present tense structure to do that.
For example, my stomach hurts or my chest hurts or my throat hurts, my ear hurts, my head hurts and so on.
If you want to talk about something that's kind of different from usual or more extreme
pain than usual, you can do that with maybe a progressive tense structure or you could
use a perfect tense structure like I talked about before, like my head is hurting really,
really bad today or oh my gosh, my throat has been hurting all morning.
These kinds of things give us a little bit more information about how long something
has been happening.
But generally when we talk about those pains in our bodies, we use that simple present
tense grammar to do that.
So I hope that this helps you understand and thanks so much for sending this question along.
Super good one.
Okay, let's move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Egorova Irisha.
Hi Egorova Irisha.
I hope I said your name correctly.
Egorova says, hi Elisha, could you please explain what the expressions it dawned on me and it grew on me mean?
Sure, okay, yeah, it dawned on me.
Let's start with this one.
It dawned on me.
So this key word that's in here, dawn, refers to the sunrise, yeah?
So sunrise, the point at which the sun becomes visible, we can see the sun again, is called dawn.
That time of day is called dawn.
So when something dawns on you, it's like you suddenly are able to understand something.
So you have the image of the sun coming up, right?
Suddenly we can see the sun, we can see everything, right?
Because there's light.
Conceptually in our minds, when something dawns on us, we go, oh, and we realize something, maybe for the first time, or we solve a puzzle.
Let's look at a couple of examples.
Usually when we use it dawned on me, there's some kind of outside force or some kind of outside influence that causes us to have this realization.
So let's say, for example, you are going to a bar or a restaurant and you have a great time there, and you're at a point in your life where you're thinking, hmm, what should I do next?
Like, what's my next career step?
What should I explore next?
Maybe you go to the bar or you go to the restaurant and it's beautiful, the food is amazing, there's
great drinks, there's great music and nice people, and you might say to yourself, oh,
in that moment, it dawned on me, I want to start my own restaurant.
So it's like that moment of realization that something becomes so clear for you.
This is how we use it dawned on me.
So let's contrast this with the expression it grew on me.
So in this situation, we have the word grow.
So the base form of grew is grow.
When something grows, it becomes bigger, right?
So when something grows on you, it sounds kind of gross, right?
But this is also a conceptual thing.
So when something grows on you, it means something that was kind of okay before became bigger and bigger and gradually now you actually kind of like that thing.
So this is very, very commonly used when we meet new people for the first time, and we're not sure about our connection.
So for example, let's say you meet someone at a party, and you have the first conversation
and you think, hmm, that person's okay, there's nothing bad about them, but I wasn't so excited.
And then you leave the party and you see them again a couple weeks later, like, oh, yeah, that person, hey, how's it going?
They have something really interesting to tell you.
And you're like, oh, that seems like a cool person.
And then you leave.
And then another week later, you see the same person again, and you both exchange interesting stories.
And after that, you go, you know, that person really grew on me.
So it's like saying, at first, I wasn't so sure about this person.
But over time, I decided I liked them.
So we typically use this for positive connections.
So it started out kind of not so special, and over time became something a little bit more special.
This is usually what we use it grew on me to do.
So in some, it dawned on me is used for realization, something that we think about for a long time,
and then suddenly we have an answer for.
And on the other hand, it grew on me is used to talk about something that started off not so special and became something that you actually enjoy.
So thanks very much for sending these questions along.
Awesome.
Great.
That is everything that I have for this week.
Thank you, as always, for sending your great questions.
Thanks so much for watching this episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again next time.
Bye.

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