rolling all right hi everybody welcome
back to our weekly live stream my name
is alicia and today we're going to talk
about how to explain your strengths and
weaknesses so strengths means your
strong points weaknesses means you're
not so strong points your weak points so
in this lesson i'm going to talk about
expressions you can use for job and
school interviews to talk about your
skill sets and then at the end of the
lesson i'm going to talk about casual
expressions you can use just when you're
talking with your friends or your family
about the things that you're good at and
not so good at so i hope that lots of
people can find something interesting
from today's lesson while we wait please
make sure to send us a message in the
chat so that we can say hello to you and
please also like and share the video so
that other people can find today's
lesson a couple of points one uh
first there's free stuff for you from
the link below the video if you are
watching on youtube above the video if
you're watching on facebook if you're
watching on instagram please check
youtube or facebook there is free stuff
free vocabulary sheets to download you
can choose whatever topic sounds
interesting to you grab it study with it
maybe good for those of you who are at
home right now a lot i hope that it's
helpful that's announcement one
announcement two uh again i really
really want to emphasize you should send
me your questions um this is a
screenshot from our weekly q and d
series question and answer series called
ask alicia where you can send me your
questions and i will maybe answer them
uh i was filming some i filmed a new
episode yesterday and we'll be filming
more new episodes uh in the coming weeks
so if you think of a question about
grammar about vocabulary about culture
uh whatever if you have a burning
question and you just think it would be
fun to talk about in the series please
send it send it to me i really do read
all of them uh you can find the link for
this
at
englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia if that's too long to
remember please search our youtube
channel uh english class 101 for ask
alicia it's like a turquoise a light
blue color background is the picture so
please check this out send me your
questions uh and i will read them and
maybe answer them so that's that uh we
have our facebook and our youtube loaded
up today hi everybody on youtube i see
lots of people miguel hi carolina khan
hello amul fearless new rule sun kid hi
everybody and on facebook a couple
people there hi bori sherpa and pierre
hi and jorge and rasul
pjorn hello sorry if i said your name
wrong i'm very sorry but hi everybody
thanks very much for joining us uh live
again this week
yeah some of you are saying uh you are
writing from like locked down places i
know there are many people who are maybe
staying in their homes a lot right now
kind of a strange situation so i hope
that we can enjoy our time together
today uh i'm going to uh
share the lesson myself i'm going to
share the lesson myself and then i'm
going to get started um we're going to
begin today's lesson by talking about
your strengths so strengths means your
strong points the things that you're
good at doing
i'm going to talk about weaknesses in
part two and then in part three we'll
talk about uh just more casual
expressions that you can use okie dokie
i have shared the video so i will be
good all right so let's get started uh
let's begin uh over here with part one
for today send me your messages in the
chat i will try to check uh live uh but
sometimes there is a lot to check so i
can't promise anything anyway let's get
started strengths
first a very basic strength phrase again
strengths is the stuff that you are good
at doing so when you are in a job
interview or a school interview it's
common to talk about the things you are
good at what did you study what are your
skills what are the things that you know
how to do very well
so a very simple expression you can use
to talk about a strength is i'm good at
noun phrase i'm good at your preposition
here should be at i'm good at noun
phrase some examples i'm good at
project planning so project planning two
words this is a noun phrase this is an
activity so your noun phrase should be
some like maybe activity or like a
software perhaps i'm good at project
planning or i'm good at social media
marketing so what is your skill i'm good
at that thing
a note uh you might sometimes hear i'm
good
with
something
this is used in like uh to talk about
maybe you might hear like software i
suppose used with with like i'm good
with computers or something like that
i'm good with software but we use this
to talk about like groups of people
or we use it to talk about like specific
objects so i just said like i'm good
with computers that means maybe like i
have good technical skills or you might
hear people say i'm good with kids that
means i'm good
working with kids so when you hear this
i'm good with think about it like i'm
good at dealing with
that thing or i'm good at dealing with
that kind of people i'm i'm good with
customers is another example
so you might hear people use with uh
when they want to talk about
a specific group
of people or like a specific object that
they have uh some skill with but when
you're talking about your skills
uh in most cases uh using at plus the
noun phrase is going to be the best some
examples are coming in uh
andrew said a lot i'm the same one many
times i'm good at cooking and i'm good
at baking hi
uh okay some other examples
uh sun kid says i'm good at learning
math okay cool uh that's maybe a good
one for your studies uh hi everybody on
facebook i see lots of people saying
hello on facebook please send me your
example sentences on facebook i will try
to check them there so again this
pattern you can use this to talk about
your work or your studies if you're a
student right now you can use this to
talk about the things you're good at
in your in your school work so like i'm
good at studying for tests or i'm good
at preparing for tests
uh whatever that might be for you
randall on youtube says i'm good at
guitar very nice
uh
okay i don't see anything else frankie
says i'm good at eating yeah me too
i am also good at eating but maybe don't
say that in a job or school interview
yeah so let's kind of let's try to think
of some like professional examples we
can use someone also said i'm good at
sleeping that is maybe my greatest skill
sleeping oh my gosh mom and dad if
you're watching it you know that's true
okay
let's go to the next pattern which is i
like
and infinitive or gerund so many of you
have asked me questions about
infinitives in gerunds so
infinitive if you don't know infinitive
this word infinitive refers to the two
plus a verb so like
two cook two eat two run two sleep that
base form of the verb the basic form of
the verb is called the infinitive form
that's the infinitive form
uh the gerund or a gerund is a verb with
an ing at the end
so it's verb
plus i n g but it's not the progressive
form so like when we say i am sleeping
or i am cooking or whatever that's the
progressive form of the verb when we use
the verb in the ing form
as a noun a gerund is a verb used as a
noun this is called a gerund so some
examples of this
i like planning trips i like planning
trips planning here
is like the gerund form
i like planning trips so i've used this
pattern infinitive or gerund because
many of you have asked like should i use
the infinitive form should i use like
the ing form here what should i use when
you use the verb like you can choose
either both are fine
this question it depends on the verb
that comes before your infinitive or
your gerund with the verb like you can
use either the to verb or verb ing form
so i like planning trips or i like to
plan trips both are perfect both are
correct they have the same feeling same
meaning you can choose which you prefer
another example
i like working in a team i like working
in a team so again i've used the gerund
form i could say i like to work in a
team also totally correct totally
correct
uh
kim says i like listening to music yes
so
again this pattern i have it here
to introduce your strengths so some of
you are talking about your hobbies yes
you can use this pattern to talk about
your hobbies that's correct
but this
my attention here my plan here is for
you to talk about your strengths so what
do you like to do at work what do you
like to do at school think about this in
the context like as if you were going to
a job interview so what do you like to
do at work i like working in a team or
maybe i like working alone or i like
editing video sometimes or i like
teaching uh things live on the internet
so whatever your work thing is you can
express that with i like to talk about
your working style that's my intention
here
everybody's sending me sentences about
their hobbies so please send me
sentences about your work preferences
what are your work or your study
preferences
you guys are being very silly which i
can appreciate but i'm not seeing many
uh
many sentences about your work or your
study
style leah hey leah way to be a team
player leah i like arranging files
neatly yeah
thanks leah
uh can you please talk about corona so
we can learn some expressions i'm
thinking about it i'm thinking about
planning a lesson for it i have it in my
head yes
uh
other examples don't see any okay
let's go
to
uh another example byron has a nice one
nice i like working under pressure good
lovely says i like working very fast and
well good okay nice one miguel says i
like making programs yeah okay good you
guys have got it you guys have got it
okay some work examples okay let's go to
uh this next one
the next one is a past tense expression
um for your topic of study so if you
have a university degree bachelor's
degree master's degree uh if you have
your phd
you can use this expression to talk
about your specialty your focus the
thing that you spent a lot of time
studying and have become good at doing
so
the verb here is i specialized
so past tense specialized i specialized
in is your preposition i specialized in
someone wrote paleontology earlier i
specialized in economics i specialized
in japanese language i specialized in
topic of study so you can send me now uh
the for those of you who have finished
school past tense i specialized in your
topic of study if you are in school now
or if you are maybe high school student
you can use the progressive tense i'm
specializing in or you can just say i'm
studying
if you want to express something you are
doing in university now you can say in
university my focus is
is that was very weird like way of
delivering that anyway in my university
my focus is
thing you're studying now or past tense
was
something something please however note
my focus is or was on your preposition
changes in this sentence my focus was on
something something or i specialized in
something something so please note that
there are there are different
prepositions used in these uh sentences
so please be careful of that
uh
examples uh good examples are coming in
hi on youtube i specialized in systems
okay i specialized in business good i
specialized in agriculture okay i
specialized in math education good i
specialized in accounting maybe
i specialized in university okay so what
what was your topic of study in
university what was like your major the
thing that you focused on
uh i'm specializing in business law nice
good examples
uh
on facebook
i specialize in public speaking says sam
very nice okay good
uh i specialize in english language says
hello cool i specialized in accounting
nice ones
um edwin says when should i use at
university or in university uh when you
want to talk about your location
use at so like for example now i am at
the university so
you can talk about your physical
location um or you can talk about like
past tense like when i was at my
university i studied blah blah
some people will use in to talk about
their studies like in university i
studied something something something so
if you want to talk about your location
or the experience uh
uh in your university i'm just using use
at to talk about that
if you want to use an expression like
when i was in university use in
depending on like uh on like british
english or american english you might
hear people use different prepositions
there so i hope that that was helpful
for you good lots of examples coming in
now oh my gosh uh raj says i specialized
in nature photography ooh what's that
uh karim says i specialized in amphibian
evolution whoa that sounds cool that
sounds cool what's going to happen to
salamanders next um
oh funny to me okay uh
muhammad on facebook says i specialized
in medical studying and medicine uh
studying from the arabic world i
specialized in medicine i specialized in
medicine cool you have all studied very
interesting things okay cool let's move
on then to this last group
so it's very common in interview
situations to give and i recommend this
to give examples to uh to support these
ideas so if you say i'm good at social
media marketing or i'm good
at like working in a team or whatever
give an example of that and this part is
true for your cover letters
and for your resumes if you don't know
when you apply for a job
it's common to in many cases submit a
cover letter or a resume and it's like
an introductory letter to introduce
yourself so it's important to use these
kind of like powerful uh verbs in your
cover letters
so don't try to make yourself sound
small in your english cover letters you
need to make yourself sound kind of big
like this is what i achieved so when you
talk about your strengths at work and
you give examples of these things you
can use expressions like i achieved so
this is past tense of achieve or i
launched
so launched sounds like bigger than just
i started or
my team developed like some of you are
programmers i know so like my team
developed this new app that was very
popular in the app store or something or
i created or i built so these really
like
strong verbs are important
these verbs are much better than just i
made like i made it's like it's kind of
a it's a less powerful word choice so
choosing something like i created or i
built
uh is a little bit more powerful has
some more punch
so please keep this in mind okay that's
part one let's take a break uh
i don't see
okay some of you are still sending your
specialization questions i specialized
in studying philosophy or just i
specialized in philosophy is fine
cool okay we'll take a quick break and
then we'll go to part two
i showed you a couple of these at the
beginning of today's lesson uh
if you want to download a few things
to oh sorry if you want to download a
few things uh to help you work on your
vocabulary you can check these out this
is the business one i kind of designed
today's lesson thinking about
uh
job interviews
on the back of this business one
hard to see i know right here at the top
these are phrases for a business meeting
but you can use some of these in
interview settings
uh like
or you might rather hear some of these
in interview settings like introductory
questions let's start with or now i'd
like to talk about so-and-so
so you can use this to study up on your
business uh vocabulary there are lots of
other topics too maybe uh these are a
little bit tricky at the moment
given the
uh situation around the world but there
are lots of different things you can
talk ooh this is a good one maybe to
practice now leisure time activities
this one could be fun to review there
are
genre vocabulary words and other things
on the back so take a look at these you
can find many different topics check
this out from the link below the video
if you're watching on youtube above the
video if you're watching on facebook if
you're watching on instagram please
check youtube or facebook and i cannot
see your comments so
let's continue to part du
uh
part two
cool lots of people are joining thanks
very much for joining us please make
sure if you have not already to like and
share the videos so other people can
find our lesson this week
oh ki doki let's go to part two
weaknesses so now let's talk about
expressing your weaknesses weaknesses
that means your weak points those things
that you are not good at doing it is
very common and expected that you will
talk about your weaknesses in job and
sometimes school interview situations
so
how do you do that how do you tell
someone
what you're not good at doing like
nobody wants to do that obviously so how
do we do that
first let's ex let's take a look at a
couple patterns you can use
but um first one noun phrase
is challenging for me noun phrase is
challenging for me so something
something is challenging so challenging
you could say is hard is difficult or
whatever i like challenging because
again it has kind of like a more uh
professional sound to it if i just say
like this thing is hard like it sounds
kind of like a complaint
or that thing is difficult it also
sounds like i'm not really working to
improve it to me challenging sounds a
little bit more like i'm actually you
know trying to work on this thing
so for example uh noun phrases then time
management is challenging for me this is
true for me i'm always late on these
live streams for example i always talk
too much time management is challenging
for me time management means managing
your time like using the correct amount
of time for things
another example working by myself
is challenging for me or maybe for some
of you like working in a big group of
people is challenging for me
so you can talk about the kinds of
things that are difficult for you but i
think if you share it as a challenge it
sounds like something that you're
working to improve yeah
mahmoud on youtube says public speaking
is challenging for me but i'm working on
it nice example yeah public speaking
public speaking if you don't know means
speaking in front of a big group of
people yeah like that's kind of a that's
a huge one that's difficult for me too
the only reason i can do this is because
you're all not in front of me like okay
uh making progress at teaching is
challenging for me hmm do you teach
interesting hamza says writing is
challenging for me
uh shalala says learning new languages
is challenging for me okay nice good for
your studies i think too so yes again
you can use this for job or for school
situations
okay let's go to another pattern it's
sometimes hard for me to verb phrase
and sometimes i'm sorry that was very
funny to me funny huge as well okay it's
sometimes hard for me to verb phrase so
hard for me too a big hint here is this
two
i talked about the infinitive form
earlier yeah infinitive is tu plus the
verb so that means your verb here
should just be the base form of the verb
so don't worry about using ing or
whatever here it's sometimes hard for me
to prioritize
tasks it's sometimes hard for me to
prioritize tasks in native speed
prioritize means choose which thing i
should do first to prioritize something
uh so it's sometimes hard for me to
choose which things i should do first
another one it's sometimes hard for me
to focus
in noisy places so if you're working
maybe you're studying in a very noisy
environment it might be important to
mention this so again i have written uh
it's sometimes hard i've used hard here
but i've kind of softened it with
sometimes it's sometimes hard for me to
do this thing
so you can choose
one of these patterns to talk about
something that is challenging for you
um
examples oscar says learning by myself
is challenging for me good learning by
myself is challenging for me
uh other
examples i don't see any on facebook
lots of people saying hello and thank
you on facebook cool hello thank you
um
okay then let's continue
to
as we talked about with your strengths
with your good points when you describe
your weaknesses it's important to share
about how you're trying to fix them or
how you're trying to like um
to improve yourself so
if you say like time management is
challenging for me you know this about
yourself you should probably also share
how you're working to improve it how do
you deal with your weakness how do you
handle your weakness
so like time management is challenging
for me because of this
i communicate a lot with my teammates
or
i create and share project schedules
publicly
or i ask for feedback about my work
so think of like the solution or
something that helps you to deal with
this weakness to deal with this like
problem point that you have and don't
say i'm perfect i have no weaknesses
like that's actually not a good strategy
everybody has a weakness so share your
weakness and talk about how you deal
with it
so like for example
um
work actually working by myself is
challenging for me uh because i like to
have lots of different projects and so i
kind of get like lost in what i should
do first sometimes so i
uh because of this
i
create and share project schedules
publicly that's very true for me i will
share about like my deadlines or i'll
talk about it on like social media i use
that to share my deadlines and keep
myself accountable like when i'm going
to put something out that's a strategy
that works for me i i don't like to
like miss deadlines uh public deadlines
for sure
okay
ooh because of anger issues i started
meditation and it helps very interesting
okay good strategy
okie dokie
five minutes left oh
okay cool so i hope that this is helpful
for talking about your weaknesses the
things that you are not good at doing
okay uh
i'll go on to a break and then we'll go
to the last point then i'll share a
couple more things i'm kind of trying to
choose things that i hope might be
helpful for you some topics that might
be helpful for you for those of you who
are stuck at home oh here's a good one
emergency words
this one could be a good one to review
at this point in time for some of you uh
this one is about
parts of the body yeah there's parts of
the body here
and then there's
a couple of other vocabulary words these
are like natural disaster related
emergencies everyday emergencies oh
that's funny well it's not actually
funny but just this is maybe
interestingly timed this is one to
consider maybe another one is this one
uh this one is a like around your city
something you can use to practice
vocabulary around your city
places stuff to do and so on
again there are many different topics so
depending on where you are and what you
would like to review you can download
all of these for free from the link
below the video on youtube or above the
video on facebook if you're watching on
youtube please check uh youtube or
facebook if you're just joining today's
topic is how to explain your strengths
and weaknesses i've talked about part
one and part two i'm going to finish
with part three some other very casual
expressions you can use outside
of your job or interview situations
uh
do i live on youtube or do i do a live
on youtube yes this is live on youtube
and on facebook i think that's the
question
okay um
oh yeah if you haven't already please
make sure to like and share the video so
other people can find the lesson as well
okay let's go to these casual
expressions i have chosen three things
uh to finish today's topic with again
these are for everyday life so this
first one i'm going to introduce please
do not
use this in polite conversations this is
a very casual but very common
expression we use with our friends and
some of us with like our family members
and so on uh the expression is i suck at
something something something
i suck at something means i am very bad
at something
we can also use uh this verb to suck to
refer to other things like that movie
sucked or like that music sucked or
whatever
that expresses that something was very
very bad so please do not use this when
you're talking about your weaknesses
like if you say in a job interview like
i suck at time management it sounds
really really unprofessional but this
word is very common in everyday
conversations so please use this with
your friends only
so we use this i suck at noun phrase
like an activity of some kind for
example i suck at singing or
i suck at travel planning whatever the
thing is that you're very very bad at
doing you can express that with this
phrase
so please be careful so again uh to suck
at something means to be very bad at
please keep in mind yes this verb means
like to remove the air from something
like a vacuum cleaner like it it sucks
things into it this use is like is slang
use so uh again very casual rough word
but very very commonly used
uh some good examples are coming and i
suck at cooking says someone i suck at
paying attention good okay well not good
but just good example sentence okay uh
good so this is very very common you can
use it to talk about things you're very
bad at it's okay
let's uh be a little more positive then
and talk about this expression i'm
pretty good at noun phrase another
activity i'm pretty good at something
i'm pretty good at cooking or i'm pretty
good at skiing so this pretty means
decently or somewhat a little bit but we
don't say a little bit good we say i'm
pretty good i'm pretty good this is
different from very good if you say i'm
very good it sounds like you're
confident if you say i'm good at cooking
it's kind of neutral if you say i'm
pretty good at cooking it sounds a
little softer like maybe you have some
confidence but
you don't need to be like
the best you just you feel pretty good
you feel a little confident about your
skills
[Music]
kai says i'm pretty good at math
excellent i'm not very good at math well
i mean i am like
you know but like i don't know i got to
like quadratic equations in high school
and then i don't think i really went
beyond that very much like pre-calc
pre-calculus yeah i didn't really
explore it much anyway uh on to the next
one i can't plus the infinitive verb
form or
or a verb phrase at all i can't
infinitive verb or verb phrase at all
for example i can't speak chinese at all
i can't speak chinese at all
or i can't play guitar at all so
infinitive verb
by this this part i mean you can use
just a verb like i can't cook at all
that's fine
i can't sing at all just the verb alone
is okay or you can make a phrase i can't
speak chinese at all i can't play guitar
at all so you can use those
this expression finishes it's maybe a
little bit hard to see
here this expression finishes with at
all at all this is like an idiomatic
expression which means totally not able
to do something
i can't do this thing at all means
totally not able to do that thing so you
can use this at the end of your
expression to emphasize this is correct
if you say i can't speak chinese or i
can't play guitar totally correct but at
all gives emphasis to that statement
hamza says i can't speak french at all
excellent
mahmoud says i'm pretty good at solving
javascript algorithms excellent
uh jorge says alicia in instagram oh yes
indeed well okay that's comment uh
let's see
i'm pretty good at eating but i can't
cook at all oh if you if you learn how
to cook that's a good skill i recommend
learning to cook i i like cooking i'm
pretty good at cooking
uh someone says on facebook i'm pretty
good at eating many of you are pretty
good at eating many of us are pretty
good at eating uh durga says i'm pretty
good at speaking nice nice like public
speaking speaking in front of a group
it's a good skill to have definitely
uh
rabil
says i can't talk in english at all you
gotta practice yeah so don't just watch
me you gotta practice uh at your
computer too
um edwin could can at all be used in
positive sentences um we use it really
in negative sentences uh we use it uh to
talk about things we are not able to do
we don't really use it in positive
sentences
uh
i can't run for a long time at all tax
tax reform okay interesting username
other examples good i'm i'm happy there
are many positive and uh
not positive examples
um
i'm not good at painting says someone
okay i think you guys have it i think
everybody has it very nice uh i'm late
as usual because time management is
challenging for me so i'll end there uh
we'll finish there next week's topic
is something so uh we'll be back next
week we'll be back next week uh now 10
p.m eastern standard time that is new
york city time ah different uses of have
has and had everybody asks me all the
time forever about these questions so
i'm going to do another lesson about
this next week so please join us again
next week wednesday 10 p.m new york city
time uh google your local time or just
set a notification on facebook or on
youtube uh so that you don't miss us
so that will be a good grammar lesson uh
you can review past lessons about this
topic uh before the uh before the live
stream if you want to be prepared and
ready with your example sentences so
please join us again next week for next
week's topic uh please be safe please be
well uh
please take care i hope that you check
out um
all kinds of good stuff to do if you are
stuck at home uh of course we would be
very happy if you choose to study with
us uh you have free stuff you can pick
up from us from the link below the video
or above the video but i showed you some
of these
uh otherwise take care uh
enjoy your week as much as possible and
enjoy your weekend and we will see you
again soon bye-bye