| 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 Laura. Hi, Laura. Laura asked, what's the difference between keep away and |
| keep off? They seem like the same. Yeah, great question. What is the difference between keep |
| away and keep off? They do have kind of a very similar meaning, but let's break down |
| that tiny little difference that we have here. So first, let's talk about keep off. |
| To keep something off of something else means to do something to prevent something else |
| from like landing on it or going on top of it in some way. So maybe a great example for |
| this might be if you have a picnic outside somewhere and you have your food on the table, |
| but there are lots of flies or bugs or something like that and they want to land on the food, |
| you might say, we need to keep the flies off the food or we need to keep the bees off |
| the food. So off in this way is like the opposite of on, right? So the bugs want to go on the |
| food. We want to keep them off. So this keep doesn't mean like hold, but rather it means |
| prevent something from landing in this case. So we want to keep the flies or keep the bugs |
| off the food. So we use this in situations where we're trying to prevent something from |
| happening. So keep that thing off that other thing is the pattern that you will see. On |
| the other hand, keep away can be used in a couple of different situations. There's one |
| situation that's like a little bit of a dangerous situation. Like you find something that's |
| really scary, maybe like a snake or maybe you find a really, I don't know, dangerous |
| person. You might say, keep away from the snake or like keep away from the tiger. Keep |
| away from that guy. It means that thing is dangerous or that thing is bad. So that means |
| don't go over there. Don't go near that thing. So again, this keep doesn't mean like hold |
| or carry. It means like prevent you from going somewhere in this case. So in this case, like |
| keep away, you could kind of think of it as like maintain a position away from that thing |
| or maintain a position that is far from that thing. So this is the first use of keep away. |
| So this is one way that we use keep away, like saying don't go near that thing. The |
| other way is the one that's a little bit similar to the keep off meaning that we talked |
| about earlier, but the grammatical structure of this is different. So we might use keep |
| away when we're talking about like that picnic situation earlier. So earlier I said something |
| like make sure that we keep the bugs off the food, right? We might also use keep away in |
| this situation. Like we might say we need to keep the flies away from the food. That's |
| an example that we might use to talk about the same situation, but just with a slightly |
| different nuance. So instead of keep the bugs off the food, we might say keep the bugs away. |
| So the difference here is not landing, but also having distance from the food. So it's |
| not just being on top of the food as in keep off, but it's also creating distance from |
| that thing from the bugs in this example sentence. So this is the difference between keep away |
| and keep off. They do have a very, very close meaning in that we're trying to prevent something |
| from coming maybe onto something else or coming near to something else, but the difference |
| here is whether it's like directly on top of that thing or just somewhere in the area. |
| So I hope that this answers your interesting question. Thanks very much for sending it |
| along. Okay, let's move on to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Sophia. Hi Sophia. Sophia asked, what's the difference between |
| intervene and interfere? Oh, this is a super good question. Okay, let's begin by talking |
| about the verb to interfere. So to interfere with something is usually the grammar pattern |
| that we use when we use this verb to interfere with something like to interfere with an election, |
| for example, or to interfere with data processing or data collection. So this means something |
| is going on, some kind of activity, some kind of process is happening now. So in this |
| example sentence I gave, an election, so that means for example, a country is choosing their |
| new leader. So let's use this as our example situation. If we use the sentence to interfere |
| in an election or to interfere with an election, it means that some outside force like some |
| group or some organization did something to change the results of that situation. So |
| in this example sentence to interfere with an election, it means maybe somebody tried |
| to change the votes or maybe somebody tried to change the information available in that |
| country to change the outcome of that election. So to interfere with something is like you're |
| interrupting something or you're changing something that is currently in process. So |
| we'll use typically, like I said, to interfere with something, though you might also hear |
| what I used very, very briefly earlier once to interfere in. I think I tend to say interfere |
| with a little bit more commonly, but you might hear both of those. So to interfere with something |
| also has this feeling that it's not supposed to happen or it's maybe an outside force that |
| is not a good force. So it sounds like some interruption or some change is happening that's |
| not originally supposed to be there. So this is really, really interesting when we compare |
| this then to intervene. So when we intervene in something, we have the same idea of some |
| like situation that's going forward. Like let's say, for example, a class, someone is |
| teaching a class or maybe we could even use like the election process, I suppose here. |
| But the deal with intervene is that something is wrong in the process that is happening |
| right now. So we might say like, this teacher is really not doing a good job in the class. |
| They're drunk, who knows? It's something really crazy that's happening, right? That's a crazy |
| shocking situation. So when we intervene in a situation, we come into a situation to stop |
| something bad from happening. So in this example, this really crazy example of like a drunk |
| teacher, oh my gosh, we have to stop that, right? So we might say the principal intervened |
| in the situation or the principal intervened in the class to stop the lecture. So this |
| is an example of how we might use intervene. When we intervene in something, we enter the |
| situation that is happening now in order to change it or in order to stop it because it |
| is bad or because something is wrong. So with interfere, we don't have this feeling that |
| the situation is wrong or the situation is bad. Rather, the outside force is doing something |
| that might not be like good, it might not be like the original intent of the situation, |
| but something else is entering and it's changing the outcome in some way. With intervene, something |
| is wrong or something is not supposed to happen and so someone enters the situation in order |
| to change it. So this is the difference between intervene and interfere. Super interesting, |
| right? They're very, very close, but the intent is quite different and the situation before |
| the change in behavior is also really important to consider here. So very interesting question. |
| Thanks so much for sending it along. I hope that answers it. Okay, let's move on to your |
| next question. Next question comes from Tian. Hi, Tian. Tian asked, how can I explain something |
| if I don't know the exact word? Really good question. So this is an important communication |
| skill. So I want everybody to think about how they do this in their native language |
| because we all forget words from time to time, right? We all forget, what was that |
| word I just learned? I forgot it. Or just sometimes we just forget a stupid thing, right? |
| Like how do I say fork, right? Every once in a while, you just forget things, right? |
| So I want you to think about how you express that when you don't remember a word or when |
| you don't know a word in your native language. There are a lot of different ways that we |
| can do this. We can use our body language, right? We can act out the thing that we're |
| trying to describe. We can use our hands, we can use our faces to express that thing |
| and then someone will hopefully tell us the word, right? So this is one thing we can do. |
| Another thing we can do is give examples. We can say, it's the thing that you use to |
| do this or it's the thing that you sometimes need when you go to this place, right? You |
| can give example situations or example uses of that word. You can give other types of |
| examples depending on the word that you're looking for. You can maybe explain where you |
| heard the word or who used the word or something like that to give the listener a hint like |
| what was that word again? I forgot. So you can do this to ask for help and to hopefully |
| get the answer from your audience in this way. |
| The third way that I might suggest to do this to try to come up with a word you don't know |
| or to get someone maybe to teach you a word that you don't know is something that I might |
| call like making it a comparison or creating a comparison with this word. So here's an |
| example of when I needed to do this. I needed to do this for a word I didn't know in the |
| language that I'm studying recently. So I needed to know the verb. The verb that I wanted |
| to use in English was ooze. This is a true story. So I didn't know how to express that |
| in the language that I'm studying and I thought, gosh, what could I do? I can't think of like |
| an example so clearly but I wanted to try to think of something so that the listener |
| could understand what the situation was at least so that they could suggest something |
| for me. So in my case, I thought, gosh, what is something else that does this verb? So |
| in my case, I thought, okay, when you push down on a sponge and the water comes out of |
| it, that is in English, oozing. So the sponge is oozing water and I said, this is the verb |
| I'm trying to say. I don't know how to say this and then my friend was like, oh, I know |
| what you mean now. I've got it. So in that situation, I didn't really have like an example |
| and I didn't really have a way to act it out with my body but I just had to compare |
| it to something that I could explain like I knew how to explain the sponge and the water |
| in this case but I didn't know how to give any other kinds of examples. So I chose to |
| compare it to something that I could explain and then asked my friend, does this make sense |
| to you? Can you tell me the word? So in that way, we were able to communicate. I finally |
| got the word that I needed to use and my friend also understood what I meant right away by |
| using this kind of comparison. So I think that it takes a little bit of training because |
| when we're in our native languages, it's very easy to just think of the word and then you |
| don't really have to try after a while when we become fluent in languages but when we're |
| studying another language, we have to sometimes get creative and think of different ways to |
| explain the kinds of things that we want to say. So if you are ever in that situation |
| where you're like, I don't know how to explain this, give yourself kind of like the option |
| to be a little bit creative like, oh, what's another way that I could express this same |
| idea or what's another way that I could get this person to think about what I'm trying |
| to say. So you can get a little bit creative with this. These are kind of the three things, |
| the three types of ways that I might try to express an idea if I don't know the word. |
| So I hope that those ideas help you and I hope that that is a helpful and fun way to |
| kind of try to express new ideas or even just ideas that you have forgotten. So thanks very |
| much for sending this interesting question along. All right, that is everything that |
| I have for this week. So thank you as always for sending your great questions. Remember, |
| you can send them to me at EnglishClass101.com slash ask hyphen Alicia. That's a very long |
| URL. So please find the link for this in the YouTube video description. Please send your |
| questions to me at that link. Don't put them in comment sections or DMs. I don't know. |
| There are way too many every day and I cannot check them all. So please make sure to send |
| them to the official question submission page. That would be super, super cool. Of course, |
| if you like this lesson, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel |
| if you haven't already. Also, check us out at EnglishClass101.com for some other things |
| that can help you with your English studies. 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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