So a couple of weeks ago I made an English lesson
about simple two-word questions that you can use
when you're having an English conversation.
Well, in this English lesson,
I'll teach you five more simple two-word questions
that you can use
to make an English conversation go smoothly.
(upbeat music)
The first simple two-word question
I'm going to teach you is the question,
Now what or what now?
You can actually say it both ways.
This is a question we ask after someone tells us some news
about their life, and we're not sure
what the next thing they're going to do is.
Someone might say to you,
"I lost my job today, today I got fired."
You could continue the conversation by saying,
"Now what or what now?"
Because you want to know what they're going to do next,
now that they've lost their job.
Maybe somebody says to you,
"I was in a car accident today and my car is totaled."
That means you can't drive it at all anymore.
You might then ask them one of the two-word questions,
"Now what or what now?"
To find out what they're going to do next.
They'll probably need to rent a car for a little while,
while they look for a new one.
So the first two questions
you can flip the words either way,
are the questions, what now and now what?
The next two-word question is the question, you did?
And this is a question that we ask
after someone tells you they did something,
and you don't quite believe them.
Maybe someone says to you,
"The other day with some friends, I went skydiving."
You could continue the conversation
by asking the question, "You did?"
"The other day we went skydiving," you did?
because you kind of don't believe them,
and you want to know more information.
Maybe a friend of yours says to you, "I bought a boat."
You could then ask the two-word question, "You did?"
Because you're not quite believing them,
you're thinking, "Wow, you bought a boat, tell me more?"
So you could use the two-word question, you did.
So whenever you're in an English conversation
and someone tells you
about something they've done in their life,
and you're not quite sure you believe them,
you can ask the two-word question, you did?
The next two-word question is simply another way
of saying, I don't care or it doesn't concern me.
And it's the question, so what?
This is a question you could use in the following situation.
If someone said to me,
"Bob, don't shave off your beard and mustache, your kids,
"and your wife, and your viewers on YouTube won't like it."
I could respond by saying, "So what?"
Which means I don't care what those people think.
So you can see it is a little bit informal
and a little bit rude,
and it's simply another way of saying that you don't care.
I do care, by the way,
that's why I keep my beard and mustache
because everyone likes this look,
so I'm gonna keep it for a long time.
Maybe you're driving over the speed limit,
and your friend is in the passenger seat and says,
"Hey, slow down a bit, don't drive over the speed limit."
You could say, "Ah, so what?
"The cops aren't gonna catch me anyways."
Again, basically another way of saying,
I don't care or it doesn't concern me.
By the way, you shouldn't drive over the speed limit,
it's always a bad idea.
The next two-word question is the question, how often?
This is a question you can use
when someone says they do something,
and you're curious to know how often
or how frequently they do it.
Maybe someone says to you, "I like to go running."
You could then ask the question, how often?
Because you want to know if they do it every day.
Do they go running every day?
Do they go running every other day?
You're curious to know how often they go running,
so you use the question, how often?
Maybe someone says to you,
"I love eating out, I love going to restaurants."
You could say, how often?
Because you want to know if they go every weekend?
Do they go once a month?
Do they go every night?
That would be a little bit crazy, but anyways,
if you need to know or you would like to know
how frequently someone does something,
what days of the week they do it on,
you could simply use the two-word question, how often?
The next two-word question can be used
when someone mentions something that's countable,
and they don't say the total number.
You could then ask, how many?
Maybe someone is a teacher and they say to you,
"I have a lot of students in my class."
You could then ask, how many?
Because you want to know exactly
how many students are in that class.
Maybe someone says to you,
"Oh, I have to bring cookies to the party tomorrow."
You might then ask how many?
Because you'd like to know
how many cookies they need to bring to the party tomorrow.
So whenever someone mentions something vaguely,
when they mention something that's accountable,
but they don't say the exact number
you can use the English question word, how many?
Well, thank you so much
for watching this English lesson about five simple
two-word questions you can ask
to keep an English conversation going smoothly.
If this is your first time here,
don't forget to click that subscribe button over there.
Give me a thumbs up, leave a comment,
and if you didn't watch part one of this video,
I'll link it right here.
And here's another lesson you can watch
if you're interested.
(upbeat music)