Let's review the Parts of Speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and more
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| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. |
| First question comes from Ruben. Hi, Ruben. Ruben says, "Which one of these sentences is correct? 'Are you mad with me?' or, 'Are you mad at me?'" Ah, here, we use "at." When we want to express anger and we want to use the word, "mad," we use "at," the preposition, "at." Like, "Don't be mad at me," or, "Are you mad at me?" When we use the word "angry," however, we use "with" instead. We do not use "at." So, even though these two words express the same emotion, when we use "mad," we use "at." And, when we use "angry," we use "with." So, for example, "Are you angry with me?" or, "Don't be angry with me." So, you can see that there are these small differences, the meaning doesn't change but just the words that we use, those small in-between words. In this case, the preposition, "at," and we use "with" with "angry." So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question. |
| Let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Akmal Mirza. Hi, Akmal. Akmal says, "Hi, Alisha. What is the difference between 'but' and 'yet?' Explain, please." Well, it depends on how the word is being used in the sentence. Both "but" and "yet" can have different grammatical functions. So, to compare the two let's look at two ways that these words are used with the same grammatical function. So, let's first look at using these words as a conjunction. Remember, a conjunction is a word that's used to connect ideas. So, we're putting phrases together with conjunctions. When we're using "but" and "yet" in this way, you can use them interchangeably. That means they have the same meaning. So, as a conjunction, they function the same. I would say that "yet" tends to sound a little bit more formal than "but," but they do have the same meaning. They mean "however." So, you can use them as you like. If you find that you're using the word "but" too much in your writing, you can swap it out for "yet." So, some examples, "You said you were going home, but you're still here working." "I tried to get a loan, but the bank rejected my application." "Our team was defeated in the semifinals, yet everyone kept a positive attitude." So, as conjunctions, they have the same function. Let's move along, though, to talking about these words used as adverbs. So, when we use "yet" as an adverb, it means up to now or up until the present point in time. So, we use this a lot in questions, like, "Have you finished your homework yet?" or, "Have you seen that movie yet?" When we're making statements, we can use it as well. "We have not yet reviewed the emails from our customers." "I have yet to receive a phone call today." When we're using "but" as an adverb, it means only. So, this is a key difference. When we're using "yet" and when we're using "but" as adverbs, they have very different meanings and we cannot use them interchangeably. So, some examples of "but" used as an adverb, "This is but the first step in our exciting new project." "This cut? Don't worry. It's but a scratch." So, this use of "but" is actually a little bit formal and can sound a little bit old-fashioned. It's not used so much in everyday speech. We might instead say something like, "It's just a scratch," or, "It's nothing big." We might use something else slightly different in place of "but" here. But, please keep this in mind when you're choosing between "but" and "yet." So, in summary, "but" and "yet" can be used in the same way if you're using the words as conjunctions. If you're using them as adverbs, keep in mind that they are very different. So, this is a quick introduction to two of the uses of these words. For more information and for more example sentences, you can take a look at a dictionary. This will give you some of the more detailed uses, especially of the word "but." So, check that out. Thanks very much for the question. I hope that this helps you. |
| Okay. Let's move along to your next question. Next question this week comes from Sanju. Hi, Sanju. Sanju says, "Hi, Alisha. I have a question about similar words which start the same. For example, simultaneous, simultaneously, simulation. How do I understand these kinds of words and how do I use them?" Nice question. So, I think that, maybe, the best way to answer this question is to give some guidelines for how you can recognize the different parts of speech. By that, I mean, like, how do you know is this a noun, is it an adverb, is it an adjective, is this a verb? How do you identify that? Also, another thing to keep in mind, and the words you've chosen are great examples, is that even though words sometimes begin with the same set of letters, they don't have the same meaning. So, let's take the words that you've provided and expand on them a little bit. And then, let's look at how we can identify the different parts of speech. As a noun, "simulation." As an adjective, "simultaneous," as an adverb, "simultaneously." And, as a verb, "simulate." So, you can already hear the pronunciations are different, especially with simulation and simulate, and simultaneous and simultaneously. Okay, so, with that in mind, let's first look at how we can identify different parts of speech, based on a couple of hints. |
| First, there are a couple of spelling hints that you can think about. Please keep in mind, this is not a rule. This is just a hint that you can use. When you see a word that ends in "ly," in this case we have the word "simultaneously," it might be a hint that that word is an adverb. There are many adverbs that end in "ly." So, like "happily," "thoughtfully," "unfortunately," "hopefully." In this case, "simultaneously" ends in "ly." Please keep in mind, though, that not all words that end in "ly" are actually adverbs. So, you need to also think about the position of the word in the sentence. We can also think of words that end in things like "ed" or "tion" similarly. So, words ending in "ed" might be regular past tense verbs. Words that end in "tion," for example, might be nouns. So, once you recognize a few common spelling patterns that are associated with certain parts of speech, you can start to identify clearly which words are adverbs, which are adjectives, and so on. So, again, this not a perfect rule but it can be a helpful guide if you're not sure. So, let's move along to looking at a full sentence to understand the part of speech. Let's begin by looking at our noun here, "simulation." In an example sentence, "Let's do a simulation." Okay. So, if we saw this sentence and we wanted to understand the word "simulation," how could we do that? There are some hints in the sentence, actually. First, simulation comes after the indefinite article, "a." We know that when we use an indefinite article, we follow the article with a noun. So, that's one hint. We also see that the word "simulation" is not followed by any other word. So, we can guess that it's probably not an adjective that's modifying another word. We also notice the positioning of "a simulation" comes after the verb, "do." So, do what? So, we're doing some activity. In this case, because we know the verb is "do," we can guess that the following word is some kind of activity, and is, therefore, a noun phrase. So, in this case, we have several hints that can guide us to determining, is this a noun, is this a verb, is this an adjective? So, with all of these hints together, we can see "simulation" is a noun. To go back to the spelling suggestion, the spelling guide I mentioned before, simulation ends in that "tion." That's a common pattern for it noun endings, or it's one that many nouns have. So, let's do the same thing, but let's focus on identifying an adjective now. Our example sentence, "Have you ever done simultaneous interpretation?" Okay. So, here, if we don't know the word "simultaneous" and we want to identify the part of speech, how do we do that? Here, we see "simultaneous" comes before another word, "interpretation." So, "interpretation" is a noun. We see that "tion" ending there. So, that's a great hint that, maybe, this is a noun. So, "simultaneous" could be an adjective. This is one hint that we can use. We also see that this expression, "simultaneous interpretation," comes after "done." Have you ever done? From grammar practice, we know "have you ever done" is followed by some activity. We need some activity to follow that phrase. Have you ever done this thing before? So, that's another pretty good indicator that there's some noun phrase there, but we know that "interpretation" is the noun, so, maybe, "simultaneous" is modifying that noun. So, these are a couple of hints we can use to determine, is this an adjective, is this a noun? In this case, it's an adjective. So, it's modifying "interpretation." "Simultaneous interpretation." It's giving us extra information about the noun word there, "interpretation." So, this is how we might identify an adjective. |
| Let's move on, then, to the word "simultaneously." How might we identify an adverb in a sentence? Adverbs can be a little bit tricky, depending on the adverb, because sometimes we can place adverbs on, like, the beginning or the middle, or the end of a sentence. Let's look at an example sentence with "simultaneously." "Many people in the crowd were laughing and crying simultaneously." Okay. So, in this example sentence, we already see our spelling hint that we can use. There's the "ly" ending for this word. We also see that the word comes at the very end of the sentence. This is a position that adverbs can be placed in. Also, we see "simultaneously" comes after these two actions, laughing and crying. So, there are actions happening in the situation, and we have this other word at the end of the sentence that's giving more information about it. So, that tells us that this is probably an adverb. It's giving us more information about the actions happening in the situation. So, these are a few hints that we can use to identify an adverb. |
| Finally, let's take a look at identifying a verb. "We simulated weather patterns for next week." Here, our focus word is "simulated." Simulated. So, going back to our spelling guide, we know that some words that end in "ed" are simple past tense regular verbs. So, this is a pretty good example of one such case. So, "simulate" in present tense becomes "simulated" in past tense. We also see the position of this word in relation to the other words in the sentence. The subject, "we," is followed by this word, "simulated." And then, there's this noun phrase, "weather patterns." So, something is happening here. "Weather patterns" is a noun and we have a subject. And then, there's this place that's just right for a verb, for some action, here. So, we can guess from these few hints that "simulated" is probably a verb, from this situation. So, again, this is just kind of a rough guide. And, as you get more practice and you can identify more spelling patterns and the ways that words are commonly positioned, this will become easier. But, the other point, the other big point that I want to make in my answer to this question, is something that I mentioned at the beginning of my answer, which is that even though these words share the same first four letters, they don't have the same meanings. So, "simultaneous" and "simultaneously" refer two things happening at the same time. "Simulation" and "simulate" refer to making a model of something, and like creating a model of a thing happening. So, even though these words do share spellings, at least, at the beginning of the word, they do not share meanings. That is something that will come with study and with practice. So, I hope that this helps you, and I hope that this helps you be able to identify words in a sentence too. Thanks very much for sending this question. |
| Okay, let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Ricardo Gallardo. Hi, Ricardo. Ricardo says, "What is the difference between 'sense' and 'feel'?" It depends a little bit on how they are used. For this answer, let's focus on using these words as verbs. So, when we use the verb, "feel," we use it to talk about our emotions or our physical condition. "I feel sad today." "Are you feeling okay? You look a little sick." "That massage felt so good." "I feel this is enough example sentences." So, let's compare this to the verb, "sense." We use "sense" to explain our opinions or our ideas, yes, but we do this with relationship to information we receive indirectly. So, when we use "feel," we're talking about our emotions, our physical condition. When we use "sense," it's like we're just making a guess about something. "I sensed some tension in the room." "She sensed he was angry with her." So, in these example sentences, in these example situations, rather, there's not necessarily information being provided directly. Like, maybe, there is some specific way that a person looks at someone else, or there's like a certain choice of vocabulary words in a meeting, and you don't have direct, like, clear information about the situation, but there's a feeling there. When we want to describe that or make a guess about that, we can use the word "sense." We would not use the word "feel," the verb "feel" to do that. Another great example is, like, the famous quote from Spiderman. Like, he says, "My spider sense is tingling." So, a sense, in this case it's being used as a noun, but the idea remains the same, that, like, there's some kind of feeling, it's an indirect sort of thing, but you get a feeling that something is happening. There's some kind of sensation, somehow, like, in your mind or, maybe, just in the air, that something is happening. So, we use "sense" to describe that. We use "feel" more for, like, physical things or for, like, emotions, for things that are a little bit more direct and more clear. So, I hope that this helps you understand the difference between "sense" and "feel." If you want to use "sense" to talk about things that are clear, it's going to sound a little weird, like, "I sense you are sad today." You sound like, I don't know, like a Jedi or something. It sounds kind of weird. If you can clearly see, like, "Oh, you look sad today," or, "Are you feeling sad today?" that sounds much more natural. If you use "sense" for things that are pretty obvious, it's going to sound strange. So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question. |
| Okay. Let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Carol Moreno. Hi, Carol. Carol says, "Hi, Alisha. I don't know how to use 'in order to.' Can you help me?" Yeah, sure. People use "in order to" to mean for the purpose of. But when you're using it to make positive statements, it's actually redundant. So, redundant means it's extra. It's like you have two things that serve the same purpose. So, you don't actually need to use "in order to," because the infinitive form of a verb, "to" plus the verb, has the meaning of in order to do something, for the purpose of doing something. So, let's look at some examples. "In order to arrive on time, we need to leave for the airport now." "You need to study every day in order to learn a new language." So, in both of these example sentences, we can remove "in order" and the meaning remains. Like, we don't need to use "in order" in the positive. You can just include "to" plus the verb, and you're fine. In the negative, however, it can be important to use "in order not to," or you can use "in order to not." There is some debate about which is the correct way to use it. But, in my mind, since there's no communication problem and both forms are used, you can choose. But, when you're using this in the negative, you should use "in order not to" do something, because this can help you avoid some confusion. So, let's see some examples in the negative. "We should carefully review our plans in order not to make any mistakes." "He should leave early in order not to be late for class." These are patterns that you can use, if you like. Personally, I don't like the way that "in order not to" sounds. I would use something like "We should leave now so we're not late for class," or, "We should review these so we don't make any mistakes." I would use a pattern like that. I personally don't like the way "in order not to" or "in order to not." I don't like the way that that sounds so I tend to avoid that pattern. But, if you want to use it, you can. Just remember, yes, you need to include "in order not to" when you're making a negative statement, but you can drop "in order" when you're making positive statements. It means, for the purpose of something. So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for sending this question in. |
| Okay. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your questions. Remember, you can send them to me in 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! |
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