So which is better, Pokemon, or Spiderman? |
Cameraperson: ...Pokemon. |
Alisha: Ehhhh...Pokemon. |
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 Karima again. Hi, Karima. |
Karima says, Hi Alisha, could you please tell me... |
What does the expression "give it a try" mean? |
Give it a try is a friendly way to suggest someone try something. |
So, we use "give it a try" like after we show someone a process. |
We teach someone how to do something. |
We show them how to do something, and then we say, "okay, give it a try." |
Like, now it's your turn. |
Please try this thing I showed you. |
If you're at the golf course, and you show someone how to swing a golf club, you could say, |
all right, give it a try! |
I think we do it on this channel, actually. |
We introduce, like, a vocabulary point or a grammar point and then ask you, |
give it a try. |
So it's a suggestion. To try something. |
Hope that helps you. Thanks for the question. |
Okay, next question. Next question comes from Sanju. Hi, Sanju. |
Sanju says, what is the main difference between simple past and present and past participle, or perfect tense? |
The main difference is that simple past tense is used for actions that started and finished in the past. |
There is often a specific time point. |
We know when the action started and when the action finished. |
With perfect tense, though, we don't know when the action started or when the action finished. |
So we use it to talk about like, life experience in the past, like maybe when it happened is not so important. |
But we use it for like, travel experience or job experience. |
So that's one thing that we do with perfect tense. |
The other thing is we use it to talk about actions that started in the past and that continue to the present, especially with the continuous tense. |
We also do this to talk about the effects of actions that started in the past and continue to the present. |
So, like, for example, I saw Beyonce live last week |
is a past tense sentence. |
So, when we want to use the perfect tense, like "we've seen Beyonce live so many times," |
that means we've seen Beyonce in the past many times, but when is not important. |
So we use that perfect tense "we've seen." We have seen. |
So another example. |
Like, when I get this question, I sometimes will say |
I've talked about this many times. |
I have talked about this many times is a perfect tense statement. |
So, in the past, I have discussed this. This is something I talked about at points in the past. |
So, I can use perfect tense to describe that. |
So, if you have any questions about simple past tense or present perfect tense, I would recommend checking the videos that we have on the website or on the YouTube channel. |
So, I talk more about how to use these two grammar points. |
Thanks for the question. I hope that helps. |
Okay, next question. |
Next question comes from Semih. Hi again, Semih. |
Semih says, hi. What's the difference? I want you to know, I want to you know, I want you know. |
From these choices, only the first one is grammatically correct. |
I want you to know. |
So, it could introduce something. It could introduce an idea, like I want you to know I did my best. |
The other two things that you presented here; they're not grammatically correct. |
Maybe with some punctuation, or maybe in a conversation with the right emphasis they could be part of something else; I'm not sure. |
But the other two things are not grammatically correct. |
So the difference here is that your first option is correct and it can begin an idea. I hope that that helps you. |
Okay, let's move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Danny. Hi Danny. Hi again, Danny. |
Danny says, I'd like to know about "finish," "has finished," and "is finished." |
Okay. |
Um, finish can be a noun or a verb, as in the first item. Just "finish." |
In present tense, it's used like in present situations or to talk about future situations. |
So, like, let's finish work. Or, we should finish this soon so we can go to the party. |
Something like that. Let's finish. |
So, that's an upcoming activity. |
Let's go on to "is finished." |
When we see this "is finished," it's actually finished being used as an adjective. |
So, we know that because we see "is" there. |
Is is our verb. |
So like, he is finished. She is finished. |
Class is finished. So, it's an adjective; it's describing the situation. |
Finished there -- we use that to talk about something that is complete. It's done. |
So, we could use a verb form, like "class finished at 9:00." |
Or we could say, like, "at 9:00 class is finished." So that's the current state. That's the current situation. |
Uh, the race is finished. Or dinner is finished. |
Let's compare that to "has finished." |
So, "has finished" is using the present perfect form. |
So, "finished" here is the past participle form of the verb "finished." |
Something has finished. As I talked about in one of the other questions in today's episode, |
has finished -- that would be the present perfect tense -- means that something occurred in the past and the effects of that continue to the present. |
This is an example of an effect continuing to the present. |
We would see "has finished" used in like a polite situation, for example. |
Like, I imagine at like a hotel breakfast service. |
If hotel breakfast ends at like 9:00, but I'm a guest and I arrive at 9:30, and I want to eat breakfast, |
the hotel staff might say to me, "sorry, breakfast has finished." |
So, they could say "I'm sorry, breakfast is finished." |
That's kind of direct-sounding. |
But if they say "breakfast has finished," we could think of it like the... |
like the ending point for breakfast was at 9:00, but there's this effect. |
And the effect of that is that me--the guest--like, I can't eat breakfast now because it finished in the past. |
So we can kind of think of it like an effect. |
So I hope that that helps you. |
Thanks very much for the question. |
Okay. Let's move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Sridhar reddy. Hi again, Sridhar. |
Sridhar says, hi Alisha, which one is correct in the following sentences? |
1) Not all questions can't be answered by Alisha. Or... |
2) Not all questions can be answered by Alisha. |
The first sentence I read on your site. Why use both "not alll" and "can't be"? |
I thought using only one of them makes the sentence meaningful. |
Yes, thank you very much! |
You found what is a called a typo. A typo is a typing mistake. So, I checked this out on the website. |
We will fix it. You are correct. This should be "can," so "not all questions can be answered by Alisha." |
That would be the correct sentence. It should not be "can't." |
If you see a pattern like this, "not all [somethings] can be [something]." |
So that would be the correct way to build this kind of sentence structure. |
Okay, I hope that helps. |
Thank you very much for this point. |
Uh, next question comes from Antonio Laco. Hi, Antonio. |
Antonio says, I am confused about when to use "I talk with blah blah blah" versus "I talk to blah blah blah." |
Can you help with that? By the way, you're very funny. |
Thanks! |
I talk to, or I talk with. Yes. |
I've spoken about this very very briefly. |
In...I think the video about speak versus talk. |
Basically, there's not really a difference between "to" and "with" here. |
When we use "to," though, I feel that is has more of a one way conversational feeling. |
Like, if you're giving someone information, if it's kind of just one person sharing a lot of information talking, I might use "to." |
Like, go talk to your boss about this. |
Or like, let's talk to my parents about this. |
When you use "with," however, it sounds more like you're participating in something together. |
You're participating in a discussion together. |
Like, you do things with another person. So there's someone else there participating together with you. |
So, using "with" (to me) sounds a little bit more like there are other people participating; other people involved. |
Like I said, it's a really small point. |
Both of them are correct. You won't have any communication problems if you choose to or with or if you choose to mix them. |
Hope that helps you. |
All right, that's everything that I have for you for this week. |
Thank you, as always, for sending your questions. |
Remember, you can send them to me at EnglishClass101.com/ask-alisha. |
Of course, if you liked the video, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to our channel if you have not already, and check us out at EnglishClass101.com for a few 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 week. |
Bye bye! |
Hair police! Hair police! Erik is the chief of the hair police! [laughter] |
Oh my god. That's recorded. |
Okay. Ummm... |
Beyonce. |
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