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hi everybody welcome back to ask alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and i answer them maybe first
question this week comes from sanju hi
again sanju sanju says hey alicia
how can i think fully in my target
language whenever i see you speaking
fluently i feel like i want to become
like you so how can i make my
communication like yours ah this is a
very common question and it requires
practice it requires regular practice so
this means you need to practice a little
bit
every day
where you can immerse yourself in the
language you're studying if you're
studying english try to use english as
much as possible in your day so if you
can try to make a time in your week or
in your day when you only speak english
or you only read english so try to read
english books watch english tv or movies
listen to music in english talk to
people in english where you can you need
to get used to using it in your everyday
life so that your brain gets used to
using it when you're just thinking about
things so this takes time absolutely you
need to practice and you need to give
yourself time every day and every week
to get used to doing this so practice
every day practice regularly of course
if you really want to practice speaking
like me you can mimic me you can shadow
me if you want but please keep in mind
as i've said on this channel before i'm
speaking in a way that's helpful for
learners so i'm trying to use very clear
pronunciation i'm trying to use kind of
simple grammar or grammar that's not
super complex
and i'm also not speaking in exactly the
same way that native speakers do in
everyday conversation so please remember
that the way i speak on this channel is
not necessarily the way that native
speakers talk in everyday life
that being said
if you want to use me for your shadowing
practice please feel free you won't have
any communication problems if you
practice speaking like me so i hope that
this helps you if you're interested
there are some other videos on the
channel that have lots of tips about how
to think in your target language and how
to get used to applying english in your
everyday life so definitely check those
out too okay i hope that this helps you
thanks very much for the question all
right let's move on to your next
question next question comes from
eric poshkov hi eric eric says what's
the difference between present perfect
and past perfect okay
present perfect is used one for general
life experience in the past at a
non-specific point in time this can be
an experience you had or an experience
you did not have so when the point in
time is not important we can use present
perfect to talk about that for example
i have been to france
i have never written a book we also use
present perfect tense to talk about
actions that started in the past and
continue to the present or the effects
of that action continue to the present
you'll see verbs used with progressive
tense in this case too so for example
have been plus the ing form of a verb we
also commonly use for and since to talk
about the entire length of time an
action has happened or has been
happening rather so for example
i have been speaking for about four
minutes or he has been listening to me
since i started this video so this is a
common way that we use present perfect
tense past perfect on the other hand
refers to things that happened in the
past so we're not talking about the
relationship between the past and the
present we're talking about the
relationship between a past action and
some other past point
so for example i had been studying for
three hours when i fell asleep so in
that example sentence we see that there
was one past continuing action and a
second action that happened closer to
the present that interrupted the action
when i fell asleep so we can use past
perfect tense to show like sequences if
you're telling a story and there are two
points in your story that were in the
past you can use past perfect tense to
explain the thing that came first then
use simple past to explain the thing
that happened nearer to the present as i
did in this story as i also mentioned in
this example sentence if you want to
describe a past action that was
continuing and that was then interrupted
you can use this pattern this past
perfect to simple past tense pattern so
we use it for that we also use it to
talk about life experience again so
general life experience or no life
experience but at a past point in time
so for example
by my 10th birthday
i had saved 100
for example so by my 10th birthday is a
point in the past i'm obviously not 10
years old now so by my 10th birthday i
had saved that means up until that point
in time i had saved 100
so when we want to talk about past
experiences in relation to other past
points you can use the past perfect
tense so you can find some other videos
about present perfect tense and soon
about past perfect tense on the channel
soon so i hope that you check those out
for some more information i hope that
this helps you too thanks very much for
the question all right let's move on to
your next question
next question comes from
hanas bayou hi hanas hana says what's
the difference between follow and
subscribe because they have the same
meaning okay
um for online media hubs like twitter
and facebook and youtube they have the
same feeling they have the same meaning
like you click the button and you
receive updates from that person or from
that company or whatever
um in terms of kind of a more historical
meaning though the word subscribe was
and is used for regular publications so
for example we subscribe to a magazine
or we subscribe to a newspaper when you
subscribe to something there's an
expectation that you will receive that
thing on a regular basis on a regular
schedule so for example if you subscribe
to a monthly magazine you expect to
receive the magazine once a month that's
a subscription so this same word carries
over into youtube when we subscribe to
someone's channel we expect to see their
content we expect that when that person
creates something we are going to
receive it so in youtube's case this
means we have like you know a channels
you follow list or we see
like something in our email that says oh
this channel has posted a new video so
subscribe in this way means like you
have some kind of expectation of
receiving something somewhat regularly
of course not everyone on youtube posts
regularly but this is the idea
to follow however like with twitter or
with facebook or instagram
is like you're just waiting for updates
from that person maybe you're not
expecting to receive something on a
regular basis but if that person or that
company or brand or whatever chooses to
share something you're saying you want
to have the ability to quickly and
easily check that thing so this is why
we don't really use like subscribe for
twitter or subscribe on facebook or on
instagram it sounds more like a service
for youtube though it makes sense
because it's like we're getting
something regularly many people on
youtube create content regularly so
subscribe is a better fit in this case
okay so i hope that this helps answer
your question thanks very much for
sending it along all right let's move on
to your next question next question
comes from abrar hi abrar abrar says are
like and seems the same word if not
what's the difference and how do we use
them thanks okay it depends on how the
words are used we can use both of these
words to share our opinion of someone or
something like in these example
sentences she seems nice
she seems like a nice person
notice how in the first example sentence
here we follow seems with an adjective
she seems nice
in the second example sentence she seems
like a nice person we're using like and
we need to follow this with a noun
phrase so a nice person is a noun phrase
when you're using like in this way you
need to follow like with a noun phrase
you can't use an adjective there as we
did with seams so we follow the same
rule when we're using like to make
comparisons for example
he eats like a pig
you look like my brother
so when we're making comparisons like
this we need to use a noun phrase after
the word like also we can use seems with
verbs for example
this seems to be the right answer
he seems to like hiking so another quick
point about the word seams is that we
use seam or seams when we want to make a
guess or share an opinion about
something but maybe we can't quickly
confirm so like she seems nice it's like
our opinion our quick opinion of that
person but maybe we don't know yet she
might not be a nice person we don't know
but when you want to make a quick guess
about something that you can't actually
check you can't really confirm you can
use seams to do that in the second
original example sentence i introduced
she seems like a nice person we're
combining seam with like there so she
seems like that means it's like you're
comparing this person she to a nice
person that's kind of the idea here so
she has the appearance or i guess she
seems as though she is a nice person so
this is an over complicated explanation
but think about using like when you want
to compare things think about using seem
when you want to maybe just share a
simple adjective or maybe when you want
to make a quick guess about someone so i
hope that this helps you thanks very
much for the question all right let's
move on to your next question next
question comes from junior hi junior
junior says hi alicia someone once said
to me you're neat and i was kind of
confused what does it mean okay
neat is kind of like a cute word or a
nice word that means cool or interesting
it sounds very casual very friendly
maybe a little bit childish we would use
neat in the same way as we use cool but
cool is a little bit rough neat sounds
kind of precious and nice and childish a
little bit so you can say that someone's
drawing is neat or that someone is neat
however there's a second meaning of neat
which means tidy or organized so if
someone like came to your house and said
wow you're neat like to talk about the
way that your house is organized or like
to comment about how clean your space is
it could have this meaning so it depends
how did the person use the word when
they were speaking to you what was the
situation so it can mean cool great
awesome nice or it can mean tidy and
organized some other examples i saw that
movie it was neat my new computer is
neat
your parents are really neat aren't they
okay so i hope that this helps answer
your question thanks very much
all right that is everything that i have
for this week thank you as always for
sending your questions remember you can
send them to me at englishclass101.com
ask hyphen alicia of course if you liked
this video please don't forget to give
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if you have not already and check us out
at englishclass101.com
for some other things that can help you
with your english studies thanks very
much for watching this week's episode of
ask alicia and i will see you again next
week bye bye
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