Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them. Maybe.
First question comes from Dewi Cita again. Hi again Dewi. Dewi says, what’s the meaning of for good? I’ve heard stay for good, here for good, nothing for good but I didn’t clearly understand them.
Yeah. Great question. For good means forever or it means for a very long time. So like,
He is here for good or we are going to stay for good.
Your last example, nothing for good, I am not sure. I’ve never seen that expression before. So I am not quite sure about the meaning of that but for good means forever. So I hope that that helps you. Thanks for the question.
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Byron. Hi Byron. Byron says, hi Alisha, my question is, do you recommend using apps to practice speaking? I was using this method and I just found people from another country whose accent is different from the American accent. Thanks.
Um. I think that this kind of thing really depends a lot on the app you’re using. There are many different apps that you can use to study many different things. So, I don’t know that I can suggest like apps are great or apps are bad. It really depends on the app that you’re using. So if you are not happy with the conversation partners that you found on the app you are using now, try a different app.
If you are having trouble finding a partner that you really connect with or that works really well with you. Another thing you can try doing is just recording yourself speaking and comparing that to a native speaker. So you could use just your phone to do this like record yourself saying the same thing as a native speaker said. So if you watch our videos for example, you could listen to something I said or something like Davie or Michael said and then try to say that again and record yourself saying it and then compare it just to kind of get an idea of where you can improve.
This is actually a really interesting exercise I think because when you are speaking, you think you sound a certain way and then when you hear yourself, you sound really, really different. So this can actually be a really good way to practice. Another thing. I know that on our website, we have another voice recording function where you can compare yourself to a native speaker and that’s specifically on the englishclass101 website. So that’s another tool you can check out. But for apps, yeah like I said, I think it really depends on your conversation partner and what other services the app might offer you. So you could just try out a few different things and see what you like.
So I hope this answer helps you and I hope maybe you found another technique you can use to work on improving your speaking skills. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay. Let’s move along to your next question. Next question comes from Henrique Ferreira. Hi Henrique. Henrique says, hey Alisha, I love your videos. Today, my question is about chatbot. In the beginning, I was very shy about chatting with other people in English. I am not anymore but I want to know if chatting with chatbots is a good tool for improving your speaking skills. What do you think?
Um, I think something like this could be good maybe for improving your basic like sentence building skills. I am not sure what kind of chatbot you are talking about. To my knowledge, I’ve seen chatbots where you can type things to a chatbot and the computer will return an answer to you. Maybe you are talking about speaking kind of chatbot. So that could be possible. I don’t know but I would say that these sorts of things could perhaps be useful for like making basic sentences or making very simple conversations.
So perhaps in the very beginning something like that could be a nice addition, a nice supplement to whatever you are doing but I think you are going to miss out on a lot of other really important stuff if you only use a robot to practice. A robot is not going to do the ums and ahs and use interesting vocabulary words. The robot is just programmed to do one thing.
So if you can remember that and maybe use it as like a method of refreshing yourself every once in a while perhaps but I just think that you are missing out on a lot of things if you are only using a robot. I think as soon as possible, you should be practicing speaking with other real people so that you understand really and truly how people use the language and then you can also be learning from them. So I would probably not recommend relying too much on a chatbot for your studies.
I think the purpose of learning a language is to be able to communicate with someone else in that language. So if you only use it to communicate with a robot, then it’s kind of defeating the purpose of your studies. So I would say, use it with other people as much as possible and try not to use a chatbot that much. So I hope that that helps you. Thanks for an interesting question.
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Olesya. Hi Olesya. Olesya says, Hi Olesya, what future form should we use when arranging official appointments or events in the future? For example – which is correct. The interview will be held on August 9th at 10 AM Moscow time, right or the interview is on August 9th at 10 AM Moscow time, right?
Yeah. This is a fantastic question. So actually, both of the example sentences you said are polite and they are correct. However, if you want to always be sure to sound professional and polite, use the passive form. So you use, the interview will be held, that sounds a lot more professional. So the reason that a passive form is preferred when making arrangements in like formal events or like in an interview situation is because we don’t always know exactly the person who is going to be doing that event. So in the case of an interview for example, you may not know exactly who is going to be giving the interview, who is going to lead the interview. So instead of saying, the interview will be held is much better. It’s much softer.
Remember, we use passive voice when we don’t know the person doing the action or when the person doing the action is not important. So this is really useful in like business situations and other formal events when the activity is the thing that needs the focus. Not necessarily the person or the people doing the activity. So it’s better to use the passive form here.
You can use the active form. So like for example, you are having the interview at 9 AM, right. So there’s nothing incorrect about that but using you can sound really direct there. And you might run into some problems where maybe the person you are contacting is not the person giving the interview. So using the passive voice avoids that. So in conclusion for this, really if you’re ever kind of in a formal situation or a business situation and you have this kind of question, try to use the passive voice instead of the active voice. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for an interesting question.
Let’s move along to your next question. Next question comes from Carlos Cordoba. Hi Carlos. Carlos says, I always struggle with the use of in and on. For example, when I am referring to a quote that I read in a book, should I say, you can find it on page # or in page #? Also, how do I use it for locations? For example, when should I use in or on or at?
Yeah prepositions are always a tough point. As a quick regular reminder, we do have a couple of prepositions, videos on the channel. These are good introductions to prepositions of place and prepositions of time. Regarding your question, your specific question now, when you are talking about books, we will say, read it in a book. In a book. When you are talking about something that’s on a page, we use On. On a page. If you want to get even more specific and talk about a line of text, we say, in a line of text.
So the reasons that we use these prepositions. First, the In preposition for a book. When you imagine a physical book like a cover, two covers and then the contents are inside it. The contents of the book are enclosed by the cover. So we imagine we have to open a book and go inside the book to find things. So we use In for the contents of books. We use On for pages. So you can kind of imagine a book as being like two layers almost. There is the paper and then there are the words.
So the words are on top of the paper, kind of like on the surface of the paper. So we use On to talk about things that are on the page, the things that are above the paper. Then, we use In to talk about lines because we are looking for something like specific inside one line or two lines of text. So it’s within like line #3 or line #4. So some examples.
In the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, there is a mistake on page 7 in line 5. That’s not true. So I hope that this helps you understand when to use in and on and again, I would recommend starting with the videos on the channel for information, some more information about other prepositions. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Nhi, hello, hi Nhi. Nhi says, do wild animal and wild life have the same meaning?
No, they have very similar meanings though. So first, wildlife is one word. It’s a noun. It’s an uncountable noun. Wildlife means all the living things that are not humans. So that’s like animals and fish and lizard. So it’s like all the creatures in an area that are not human. That’s the wild life in an area.
Examples:
Let’s go to the wildlife park.
We need to protect the wildlife in this area.
Wild animal however is a phrase. Wild is an adjective, animal is a noun. So a wild animal is an animal that has not been domesticated. Domesticated means trained.
So for example, a pet cat or a pet dog is a domesticated animal. That’s an animal that has been trained. So a wild animal is something that does not have training. Some examples.
Did you see any wild animals on your camping trip?
The news said, a hiker was attacked by a wild animal.
So thanks very much for the question. I hope that 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, thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week. Bye bye!
I wanted you to give us a list of possible wild animals?
Bears, wolves, antelopes, lions, tigers, cougars, jaguars, rats, mice, a whale, a crab is a wild animal.
Deer, rabbits, coyotes, uh squirrels.

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