hi everybody welcome back to ask Alisha
the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them
maybe first question this week comes from hardik patel hi Karthik Karthik
says how can i improve my spelling yeah this is an important question and we did
a livestream about this topic so I'll quickly introduce the key points we
talked about in the livestream and hopefully they can help you as kind of a
starting point so the first and most important thing to do to improve your
spelling is read and make sure that you read things that are properly edited
properly prepared so this means I don't recommend for example social media posts
because not everybody is preparing everything thoroughly before they write
it it's not being checked it's not being proof read before it's being posted so I
would recommend books and magazines and newspapers that kind of thing that has
been properly edited and properly checked this is important because you're
not just listening to the words you're actually reading the words you're
reading the words on the page so you're getting familiar with how the words
should be spelled instead of just how it sounds some other things that you can do
are word puzzles word puzzles are a lot of fun in the live stream I talked about
something called crossword puzzles crossword puzzles are word puzzles you
need to know some vocabulary words you also need to know some like history
perhaps or science or maybe pop culture and then you need to put your knowledge
together with your spelling knowledge to create like the finished version of a
puzzle so a crossword is really fun and you can find beginner level crossword
puzzles to try so as you practice as you learn more English and as you learn more
about other topics too you can level up the difficulty of your crossword puzzle
so that can be a fun way to do it another thing that you can do is join a
spelling contest depending on where you live you may have a spelling contest in
your city or in your country in the US we have something called the spelling
bee it's for kids yes so if you're watching
this in your kid if you are a young person who's studying you can look for a
spelling bee if you are in the USA or maybe there's a similar spelling contest
in your country so those are great ways to practice your spelling because it's a
contest you're competing with other people to spell the word correctly so
that can be a fun way to do things if you are a student if you are a young
person another thing you can do regardless of your age is watch English
media with subtitles so again like I mentioned for the reading point make
sure that the subtitles have been properly prepared if it's someone who
has like created subtitles that are maybe not perfect or they were prepared
by a non-native speaker there might be some errors in there so if you can try
to find media like movies or even our videos for example sometimes they have
subtitles you can try watching that with the subtitles on so that you can
understand the spelling of the words as they're being said so that's another fun
way to stetic I think really though I think reading is the best thing that you
can do this was something I love to do when I was a kid I participated in a
spelling bee when I was a kid and I think that reading really helped me
understand the correct way to spell words and to like learn how to identify
new words in the future so read I think that's the best thing you can do thank
you for your question and good luck with your spelling let's go to our next
question next question comes from noir as Lena hi Nora Nora says hi Alicia my
question is what is the difference between I'm looking and I've been
looking we use I'm looking for when we are in the act of searching for
something right now in this moment we're looking for something so for example at
like a department store you could say I'm looking for shoes I'm looking for
the restroom that's something that you're doing right now you're in the act
of doing something right now on the other hand I have been looking for is
used for something that yes we're searching for it but the search has
continued for a long time so for example I've been searching for a new apartment
for four months or I've been searching for a new job in general if you are in
the act of searching for something right now you can use I'm looking for if it's
something that you've been searching for for a period of time a long period of
time you can use I've been looking for I hope that helps you thanks for the
question all right let's move on to our next question next question comes from
Lian heigen Lian Lian says hi Alicia hope you're doing great thank you I have
two questions what are the rules of semicolons and when should I avoid them
is one and do in some languages a multiple-choice test is called an
American test so is it true that American tests are really mostly
multiple-choice interesting let's go to your first question about semicolons the
quick version is semicolons have two uses the first use is they are used to
separate what's called compound sentences a compound sentence is a
sentence that's made from two independent clauses so there are two
clauses two parts to the sentence an independent clause is a sentence that
can stand alone like we don't need any other words to explain this sentence
that's an independent clause so when we connect these two in a compound sentence
we can use a semicolon to connect it to you like right here so let's look at
some examples an independent clause is a clause that is grammatically correct by
itself no other words are required the semicolon is used to separate the two
clauses like a period we do this when the ideas are closely related
the second use is when you're separating items in a list this can be tricky to do
but the reason we do this is because when you're making lists that have like
lots of complicated information they include commas for example it may be
difficult to understand where the items in a list end or start so we use
semicolons to help readers understand the points in a list here's an example
this is a long list so I'm gonna read it the citizens requested a new park
complete with a swimming pool improved roads sidewalks and traffic lights and
cleaner schools we have a few plans for our vacation
hiking biking and swimming near our campsite having a BB Q and enjoying
fireworks so you can see in these lists actually all of the items have a
semicolon in between them that shows us that's one item so we do that because
there are commas in other parts of the list if we use commas to separate the
items in the list we might confuse the reader so to show that each item is
clearly one item we use semicolons to do that this is not as common like there
are not so many situations where you need to use a semicolon in this way but
just in case this is the second use in most cases we just use the first one you
don't need to avoid using the semicolon it's a very convenient way to punctuate
your sentences so you don't have to avoid it you can use it just remember
that you need to use it two separate independent clauses like we talked about
in the first news as for your second point that's very interesting I didn't
know the tests were called American tests that's interesting we do have a
lot of multiple-choice style tests for sure especially in like high school and
university levels for like official tests like embedding tees for example
however we do have other styles of tests too so we have fill-in-the-blank which I
use a lot on this channel in the whiteboard videos we also have like
essay essay tests or essay examinations for students write essays we also have
like free answers so a student has to come up with an answer like just from
their own mind or using their own skills we see that a lot in math classes for
example so yes there are a lot of multiple-choice tests but it doesn't
mean that all tests are multiple-choice just it is very common so I hope that
helps okay thanks for the questions let's move along to our next question
next question comes from we sit - hi again do we sorry if I pronounced your
name wrong I do he says what is the difference between below under
underneath beneath bottom and down nice okay there may be some differences
depending on the situation but generally speaking let's look at the first for
example as you presented we can use all of these adverbs in the
same way let's take a look at some examples I keep my hairdryer below the
sink I keep my hairdryer under the sink I keep my hairdryer underneath the sink
I keep my hairdryer beneath the sink all of these mean exactly the same thing the
differences here is that probably I would say under is the most commonly
used in American English beneath sounds perhaps the most formal and maybe the
most old-fashioned so you can use them all in the same way they refer to being
positioned under or like below something else so there's not really much of a
difference there I think we just use under the most the word bottom however
that's a noun that refers to the lowest part or like the underside of something
let's look at some examples there there's dirt on the bottom of my bag
he cut the bottom of the pumpkin so these refer to the underside or the
lowest point of something so it's an actual amount after then the last word
in this list is down so down it's also an adverb but down refers to motion so
we use down when we're actually talking about movement of some kind so for
example put your hand down or walk down the stairs he sat down in the chair so
we're using some kind of motion there's word there's something happening from
like an upper level to a lower level there's movements happening there so we
use down to express movement the first four words that we talked about are used
to talk about position not about movement down is used to talk about
movement bottom is used to talk about a place on something so I hope that helps
you thanks for the question okay so that's everything that I have
for this week thank you as always for sending your creative questions remember
you can send them to me in English class 101.com / ask - alicia if you liked the
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check us out at English class 101.com for some other resources for your
English Studies thanks very much for watching this week's episode and I will
see you again next week