| 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 Ken. Hi Ken. Ken asked, sometimes I see written sentences with no subject like |
| thought you'd never ask and hope this helps. Are there any rules about when you can omit subjects |
| in English writing? Great question. So the rule, I guess we could say rule or perhaps |
| guideline is better, is that if it's understood from context you can remove it. So when you know |
| who you're writing to in an email and you write hope this helps, it's very clear who hopes, right? |
| I hope, right? I hope this helps, right? If you're writing to somebody else and you say what was the |
| other one? Thought you'd never ask. Again, very, very clear. It's coming from you. I thought you'd |
| never ask. If the context is very clear you can omit the subject like this. So when you're talking |
| to your friends and it's super, super clear who is doing the things, like it's you and there's only |
| one other person in the conversation, it's very, very common to drop subjects in this way. If, |
| however, you're in a big group of people and you're talking about who is making this decision and who |
| is doing that task and it's very important to talk about the different responsibilities and the |
| different roles, then it's probably a good idea not to drop the subjects, right? Because it's |
| important to be very clear about who is doing what, right? So when you are talking usually one-on-one |
| like with your friend or family member or partner or something like that, very, very common to drop |
| the subjects because it's very clear from context who is doing the thing. If you are in a group |
| setting, especially in one related to responsibilities, I recommend you don't drop the subjects or at |
| least not very much unless it's extremely clear because it's very important to always be as clear |
| as possible in these kinds of situations. So I hope that this answers your question. Thanks very |
| much for sending it along. Okay, let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from |
| Dashrath. Hi, Dashrath. Dashrath asked, what is the difference between belief and believe? Okay, |
| these are just grammatical structure differences. So a belief is a noun. This is something that you |
| think is true. It is often related to religion or perhaps spirituality and it can also be related |
| to something that happens in your life. A belief that you have about maybe your society or your |
| country that you live in. Something very, very like kind of fundamental, very like basic and essential |
| to the way that you live your life is your belief. So for many people that is a religious belief or |
| spiritual belief, right? On the other hand, to believe is a verb. To believe means to think |
| that something is true. So you might say like, I believe in X, Y, and Z, or I believe in this |
| religion. So the words are closely related, yes, but belief is the noun form and believe is the |
| verb form. So you might notice I just said, I believe in X, Y, and Z, or I believe in this |
| religion. So you might say like, I believe in, followed by the religion name that is the most |
| important to you. We use that preposition in, in that expression. I believe in something. Also, |
| when we want to show that we think that someone else's statement is true, we do not say in. |
| We say, I believe you. This is very interesting because we also have the expression, I believe |
| in you. So when we say, I believe you, it means I think that you are telling the truth. Someone has |
| a crazy story and you say, oh my gosh, that's so crazy, but I believe you. I think your story is |
| true. Okay. We also have the expression to believe in someone, like I believe in you, which means |
| I believe you can do it. I think you can do it. It's a support phrase. Like when someone is running |
| a marathon, we might say to them, I believe in you, keep going. Or they're doing something that's |
| really difficult. You might say, I believe in you. Great job. Which means I support you. And I think |
| that you can do that thing. So please note, I believe in you and I believe you are different |
| expressions. That little preposition makes a big difference. But to go back to the main point, |
| the difference here is just noun and verb, but they both relate to thinking that something is |
| true, especially something that is very, very important to us on like a spiritual or religious |
| level. So I hope that this answers your question. Thanks very much for sending it along. Okay. Let's |
| move on to your next question. Next question comes from Uri. Hi Uri. Uri asks, hi Alicia, |
| what's the difference between to postpone and to take a rain check? Oh, good question. Okay. |
| So let's start with to postpone. So when we postpone something, like let's say an event, |
| we say, okay, we are just going to delay the event and we are going to postpone it until this day. |
| So let's say the event is on Monday. We have to postpone the event. Let's have the event on |
| Saturday. Right. So we choose the new date for that thing. We are going to postpone the event |
| until a new day. You might also see that something is postponed indefinitely, which means that the |
| date has not been decided. Okay. But generally when something is postponed, it's just moved to |
| another date. And maybe they will tell you the new date right away, or maybe you'll receive an email |
| or something that gives you the new date very soon. So usually there's another date that's very, |
| very clearly expressed, or it's going to be expressed very soon. Okay. So we can imagine, |
| oh, the day will just be moved. No problem. On the other hand, with the expression to take a rain |
| check, it's like saying, ah, I can't do that thing that I said I was going to do. Can we cancel it |
| for this time and just schedule it again sometime in the future? So the key difference with take a |
| rain check is that there's not really a plan made for a new date and time to meet or whatever it is. |
| Another thing worth noting is that when we postpone something, it's usually more formal, |
| like in a business situation, or maybe a big event. If we postpone a meeting, it sounds like |
| it's something kind of formal and important. If we postpone an event, it sounds like it's very |
| formal. We do not usually say postpone for like a lunch with our friend. We might say, ah, can I take |
| a rain check, which means let's schedule again someday in the future? I don't know when, or we |
| might just say, ah, can we change the date for this to be more specific? So maybe you can kind of see |
| my hint here, but to take a rain check for something is often used as like a way to get out of doing |
| something that they don't really want to do. They cancel like, you know, within like a day or two, |
| or maybe last minute, something came up and they don't want to be clear about when the next time |
| is that they have available. So they might say, can we take a rain check for this? So I hope that |
| this makes it clear the difference between to postpone and to take a rain check. To take a |
| rain check is much more casual on like a personal level kind of cancellation situation. And to |
| postpone is a much more formal situation usually where a date is actually decided fairly quickly. |
| So thanks very much for this question. I hope that this answers it. All right, that's everything that |
| I have for this week. So thanks as always for sending your questions. Thanks very much for |
| watching this episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next time. Bye! |
Comments
Hide