want to speak real english from your
first lesson sign up for your free
lifetime account at englishclass101.com
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 duong du
tuatam i hope i said that right duongju
says hi alicia how do i practice
listening to english better um i would
say make sure you're doing active
listening not passive listening so
passive listening is like just turning
your phone on or turning your computer
on to something english like an english
movie or an english video on youtube or
english audio and you leave it and you
go do something else like cleaning or
cooking or doing your homework or
whatever so you're not paying attention
to the audio you're not paying attention
to the video at all so you're just
listening to the background noise there
active listening on the other hand is
really focusing in on the things that
you're hearing so to practice good
active listening of course you can just
listen to audio but i would recommend
trying to read along with the things the
speakers are saying so i think really
fun ways to do this are to use movies
and videos so movies turn on the
subtitles in english to do this uh and
turn on like uh youtube captions as well
you can do that with some of the videos
on our channel
and i think that there are some
auto-generated captions that you can use
on our youtube channel as well
so i would recommend reading along as
you listen so this helps you because it
can help you identify the pronunciation
of unfamiliar words so words that you
don't know you can learn how to
pronounce them you can also hear the
different ways that native speakers
connect words in everyday speech you can
learn how words are stressed in everyday
speech and you can just pick up new
vocabulary words and work on some
grammar patterns too so i would
recommend you practice active listening
not just passive listening passive
listening is fun and easy but try to do
active listening as well so that you're
really focusing on gaining new things i
hope that this helps you and good luck
with your continued listening studies
okay let's move on to your next question
next question
comes from
behat vin hello behatvin behatvin says
what is the difference between england
british and united kingdom okay
england is a country one country it is a
noun for example i went to england last
year
have you ever been to england
british is an adjective something that
is british is something or someone that
comes from great britain so great
britain is the largest of the islands in
the british isles examples my roommate
is british
do you speak british or american english
i speak american english the united
kingdom or the uk is an area that's made
up of most of the islands in the british
isles including great britain and it's
made up of a small part of the
northeastern part of ireland as well as
a few other small islands in the area
this is referred to as the united
kingdom or the uk
examples have you ever been to the uk
i hear it's rainy in the united kingdom
okay so i hope that this helps you
understand the differences between these
words thanks very much for the question
all right moving along to your next
question this week next question comes
from alex hi alex alex says hi what's
the difference between bush and forest
thanks okay
in american english bush and forest are
quite different however in australian
english the word bush could be used to
mean something kind of similar to forest
so first let's look at how bush is used
in american english in american english
bush is used to refer to like a shrub
it's one single plant that is low to the
ground people usually have them in front
of their houses or in a forest among the
trees you might see bushes uh like below
trees so they're usually not very big
maybe this size or so i don't it depends
it depends on the type of plant um but a
bush is a single unit it's a single
plant
examples my grandparents have lots of
bushes in their yard there's a row of
bushes leading up to the castle
so some of you may know that this word
does have another slang meaning but it
is totally unrelated to plant life so
you can google that if you like so bush
can also refer to like an area of wild
lands like untamed creatures and just
free-growing plants
but that's something that we only use in
australian english american english
speakers and to my knowledge british
english speakers do not use this word
forest on the other hand refers to a
huge huge huge area of trees and
creatures and all kinds of wildlife so
for example the amazon rainforest is a
huge forest so it's not just one unit
not just one tree or one group of
animals but it's the whole area all the
plants all the wildlife everything in
that area that's a forest area so i hope
that this helps you understand the
differences between these words thanks
for an interesting question okay let's
move on to your next question next
question comes from zvataslav hi
svatislav i hope i said that correctly
savatislav says hi alicia could you
explain the difference between other and
another okay
i talked about this in a previous
episode of ask alicia so if you want
some more example sentences and a little
bit of a different explanation you can
check out that video so we use other
when we're referring to the known
alternative in a situation so if for
example our camera person offers me
these two markers and
he offers me the red one but i can see
the blue one i can say no i want the
other one i want this one i want the
other marker so i use the other because
i see that there are two choices in the
situation i am offered one but i say no
i want the other one in the situation
we use another when we want to refer to
something outside the known situation so
here if i'm offered a red marker and a
blue marker and i don't want either i
can say do you have another color and
maybe i'll get the black marker so it's
outside of my existing options it's
outside of the known situation another
one so for another example of how we use
another and the other
you can check out the previous episode
of ask alicia that i talked about i hope
that that gives you another example
and another explanation that can help
you understand the differences between
these words so i hope that that helps
you thanks very much for this question
okay let's move on to your next question
next question comes from emma hi emma
emma says hi alicia i'm wondering what i
should say when people ask me what my
job is and i'm just a housewife and
raising kids is it okay to say i have no
job i'm just a housewife well yes but i
definitely wouldn't say just or i have
no job because i think many people now
today recognize that being a housewife
is a like a kind of job so you could say
yes i'm just a housewife but because
there's a lot of work related to taking
care of a house and taking care of
children i would say don't use just just
say i'm a housewife and explain i take
care of my home and my children so i
hope that this helps you yes using
housewife is a great way to describe
what you do thanks very much for your
question okay that is everything that i
have for this week thank you as always
for sending your great 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
it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel
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
want to speed up your language learning
take your very first lesson with us
you'll start speaking in minutes and
master real conversations sign up for
your free lifetime account just click
the link in the description