| Alisha: This is episode 30! |
| 30 episodes of this show! |
| Thanks for sending all your great questions, guys! |
| Hi everybody, welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them. Maybe! |
| First question this week comes from Daniele. Hi, Daniele. |
| Daniele says: Hi Alisha, is it really a mistake to refer to animals with "she" or "he" instead of "it" in cases where the animal is considered part of the family, like cats or dogs? |
| Ah, okay! |
| No, it's not a mistake at all. |
| If the pet is like a member of the family, like you've described, it's very common to use "he" or "she" to talk about the animal. |
| Uh, cats, dogs—we can use this for verbs, hamsters, hedgehogs...whatever the pet is. |
| Uh, very common. |
| Also, when it's your first time meeting someone else's animal, uh, it's quite common to ask, |
| is it a boy or a girl? |
| And then after that, you can use "he" or "she" to talk about the animal. |
| We tend to use "it" when talking about animals we are not familiar with, like a stray cat, for example. |
| Or maybe like an animal we see at the zoo. |
| We would use "it" in those cases. |
| When we're talking about animals that are parts of our family, we tend to use "he" or "she" to talk about that. |
| Thanks for the question! |
| Next question! |
| Next question comes from Dewi. Hi, Dewi. |
| Could you tell me when to use "anymore" and "no longer"? |
| Sure, okay. |
| Um, so, both of these are used to refer to an action – something we did or something someone did in the past – uh, but from this point in the present, uh, that action is not going to continue. |
| We use "anymore" when we use a negative in the sentence. |
| Some examples: I'm not gonna go to that restaurant anymore. |
| He doesn't help me anymore. |
| They don't drink with us anymore. |
| We use "no longer" in positive statements, and it tends to sound more formal. |
| You'll also see that "no longer" can be put at the beginning of the sentence to increase the level of formality. |
| So, you might hear this in speeches, for example. |
| Using "no longer" at the beginning of the sentence really emphasizes that the action is not going to continue and that it sounds quite formal. |
| So, "no longer" might have a couple different places in the sentence. |
| Let's look at some examples. |
| No longer will we tolerate these problems. |
| She no longer has to come to work early. |
| We will no longer be a part of the group. |
| So I hope that helps you understand some of the key differences between these two expressions. |
| Thanks for the question! |
| Next question! |
| Next question comes from Aravind. Hi, Aravind. |
| Aravind says: What is the difference between "took" and "taken," and have you ever been to India? |
| Uh, okay, took and taken. |
| Took is the past tense of the verb take. |
| I took a break. |
| He took my drink! |
| They took our passports. |
| Taken is the past participle form of take. |
| Have you ever taken a trip to France? |
| She's taken the test three times. |
| We've taken long vacations every summer for 10 years. |
| So I hope that helps. It's a difference in grammar. |
| And no, I have not been to India. |
| Thanks for the question. |
| Let's go to the next question. |
| Next question comes from Pierre. Hi, Pierre. |
| Pierre says: Hi, could you please explain the difference between "belly," "tummy," and "stomach"? Thanks. |
| Sure, okay. |
| Let's start with stomach. |
| Uh, stomach is the most neutral word you can use to talk about this area of your body. |
| If you need to talk about this area in your life somewhere in a polite situation, stomach is probably the best word to use. |
| Examples! |
| My stomach hurts. |
| He got hit in the stomach. |
| They've been doing stomach exercises every other day. |
| So, now let's talk about tummy. |
| Tummy is a word that children use. |
| Adults use "tummy" when they're talking to children. |
| It sounds very young. It sounds very childish. |
| Adults typically don't use this word when talking to other adults unless they're trying to be funny or unless they really want to sound childish, for some reason. |
| So "tummy" is really a children's word. |
| Examples. |
| Do you have a tummy ache? |
| I want to put food in my tummy. |
| Now, "belly" is a casual word that adults do use. |
| It sounds kind of rough. It's not a dirty word, at all, but it tends to be used more by men than by women, I think. It's a very casual expression to refer to your stomach. |
| Uh, but we usually use it to talk about eating and food. |
| Some examples. |
| My belly is so full. |
| I need to put some food in my belly. |
| All right, so I hope that helps you. In most situations, if you're not sure what to use, use "stomach." |
| You can't go wrong with "stomach." |
| Hope that helps. Thank you for the question. |
| All right, let's go on to the next question. |
| Next question comes from Satish! Hi, Satish. |
| Satish says: What's the difference between "I shall" and "I will"? Similarly, between "shall I" and "will I"? |
| Ah, okay. |
| Uh, first, any use of "shall" is going to sound more formal than "will." |
| The difference between "I shall" and "shall I" is that "I shall" begins a statement. |
| Shall I begins an offer. |
| I shall call the police. This sounds very formal. |
| Shall I call the police? That's an offer. It sounds very formal. |
| Will, however, is quite different. |
| I will begins a statement, yes, but "will I" does not begin an offer. |
| Will I is used to think out loud. |
| So, when we are imagining our future schedule, and we're thinking about something in the future, uh... |
| We're alone, we're talking to ourselves and thinking about our future schedule. |
| We might use "will I." |
| So, examples. |
| I will call the police. |
| That's natural; we would probably use the contracted form "I'll call the police." |
| Hmm, will I have time to go to the bank today? |
| Will I be able to get a coffee this morning? |
| So, this is not used so much in conversation. |
| We use this "will I" sort of pattern when we're thinking about things we might be able to do in the future and we're thinking to ourselves about it. |
| So, I hope that helps. That's kind of a quick introduction to the differences between these two. |
| Thanks for the question! |
| Okay, let's go to the next question. |
| Next question comes from Marcelo Oliveira. Hi, Marcelo. |
| Marcelo says: Hi Alisha, are you ok? Thanks for your awesome videos. |
| My question is: what's the meaning of "gung-ho"? I heard this in an interview with Taylor Swift. Thanks a lot. |
| Okay! Um, so, gung-ho. Let's start with an example. |
| I'm gung-ho about my new project. |
| Gung-ho means you are full of energy and you are excited about something. |
| It means that you're enthusiastic; you're going to put all your effort into that thing. |
| So when I say, "I'm gung-ho about my new project," |
| it means I'm really excited; I'm really enthusiastic. I'm going to do everything I can to make that a success. Gung-ho. |
| So, I hope that answers your question about gung-ho. |
| Also, just a small side note and a note for everybody watching: |
| The question "are you ok" is typically used when we're worried about an injury or a sickness for the other person. |
| So if you just want to ask if someone is well, you can say, "hope you're doing well," |
| or "how are you?" Or "how are you doing?" |
| Maybe a little more natural to start the question. |
| Okay. Thank you so much for sending the question. |
| So, those are all the questions that I have for this week. Thank you, as always! |
| Remember to send your questions at englishclass101.com/ask-alisha. |
| Of course, don't forget to give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, |
| and check us out at EnglishClass101.com for some other good English study resources. |
| Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again next week! Byeeeee! |
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