hello Aubry we are on YouTube today very exciting yes right come and check us out on YouTube if
you're more a visual learner if you want to see all our expressiveness my hand gestures
I talk with my hands guys have my hands moving a lot as I'm speaking I think a lot of people do I
do too but we have a question for you today you ready all right yes all right so how do
you like to start off your day oh I start off my day immediately with a cup of coffee with almond
vanilla creamer with almond cream without it I'm like please no one talk to me until I just
have a few sips it's not even that I have a headache or a um I just kind of feel like I
don't want anyone needing anything for me or asking anything of me until I've just had a few
minutes to myself I can imagine I can't imagine what that's like I mean I'm not a mom yet and so
but you're a mom to four kids and I can imagine it must really be that you need moments in your
day yes right especially when you're starting off your day that you just have it for yourself
right absolutely and you guys will notice Lindsay has used this phrasal verb start off a couple of
times here we got a really good question about this phrasal verb and one that is very similar
we're going to share about that but first we want to shout out a reviewer right Lindsay yeah I'm
so excited to get into today's episode but we need to acknowledge our amazing listeners who
have left us reviews and rated our show whether it's in the iOS or Android app or whether it's in
Spotify or apple podcast or castbox or wherever you listen find that function right now inside
the app to leave a rating and review this listener was called Negan shamloo and they basically said I
listened to your podcast while driving to work and every single time I'm super happy with the
topics you guys choose and then tell myself I'm going to leave a review and I finally did right
and so she's just saying thank you right and we want to say thank you back to this listener for
listening to our show and reviewing our Show and The Listener says at the end keep shining I love
that keep shining I love reviews you guys this helps other listeners find us other people trying
to learn English find our podcast and I just feel like it's such a a wonderful way to thank us and
because we see those we appreciate them so thank you yeah I think I sent you and Jessica review
from the IELTS energy podcast this morning or something and it just really warms our hearts
and amazing Minds gets our us motivated so guys give us those reviews leave us those reviews now
let's get into it yes awesome okay so let's share this fantastic question this was from conrado he
says he lives in a monastery in Brazil and he said all of us here who are preparing for mission in
our Monastery in Ohio listen to your podcast I'd love that to think of them preparing for
moving to the United States in this amazing way and and listening to others English as a way to
prepare for that so cool so then he said although I live with two Americans they couldn't explain to
me the difference between start out and start off and also when I'm up for it and I'm down with it
thank you very much for all your work please keep it up really good questions right Lindsay it's a
tough question for a native speaker it's even you know even as I'm thinking about it now I hope we
have a good answer yes we do but I agree I had to really think about it I had to think of a lot of
examples I had to Google it because this is a tricky one and we're going to split this into
two episodes because there's so much to say just about start out and start off and examples so stay
tuned make sure you're following the podcast just um very soon we'll do a part two with those other
two he asked for I'm up for it and I'm down with it exactly hit follow on the show I won't tell you
when it's coming out but it's coming out soon and you will miss it if you're not following the show
so let's get into it all right exactly where are we going to start here so okay so this is really
interesting because it's one of those things that if you Google this or if you ask a native speaker
you may get some conflicting information there's quite a few different where people are saying oh
this one means just a little different this and this but the more I read examples and the
more I thought about it I have come to the conclusion Lindsay and let's see after our
conversation if we still agree is that these are totally interchangeable that in every sentence
you can say start out or start off but what's going to be interesting is possibly not every
native speaker would agree because there are some Regional dialect issues happening where depending
on where you're from where you're born you might be more likely to say you start out a journey or
you might be more likely to say start off I hear both both sound correct to me I read lots and lots
of examples online and from books and I see both used very interchangeably so if one sounds wrong
to native speakers out there it's likely due to Regional dialects yeah we have a lot of those
situations where something we've this comes up a lot with us Aubry because you're from the West
right the Mountain West Region and I'm from the Northeast closer to Boston the east coast and so
we do make different choices sometimes when it comes to language yeah right and sometimes it's
a vocabulary like this which phrasal verb sounds more natural to us and sometimes it's a grammar
tricky things where in your Regional dialect certain grammar is accepted and or you don't
even realize it's a mistake because you hear it so often yeah and this is one of those things where
some might be more likely to use one or the other but for your purposes listeners they're
interchangeable you can use both so that's the end of the episode we're definitely going to give the
the meanings of these and lots of examples and I think you'll see like every sentence we can
think of at least both sound correct to me it's really interesting all right let's talk about it
when it comes to beginning anything then what do you think exactly right both are good I would say
let's start off by introducing our new employees and equally correct let's start out by introducing
our new employees yeah and I agree with you here I think this is fine for introducing beginning
anything um to start off doing something right or by doing out doing something start out by
doing something exact same meaning yeah like for example usually a conference starts off with a
speech from the keynote speaker or usually a conference starts out with a speech from the
keynote speaker exact same meaning they both sound exactly correct to me yeah you can why
are there two English who knows I don't know they mean the same thing yeah this is why your native
speaker friend couldn't explain it because right they're the same what's the difference
um is there I don't know no there isn't it's crazy but we're going to give you in this
episode lots of situations where you could use these so let's look at another one now this is
where if you search this online you'll see some online forums disagreeing right because they'll
say I saw this several places that you only use start out for a journey but then I saw lots of
examples online and I've definitely heard and said both right so for example they wanted to
get home early so they started out at 8am I am for sure would also say started off they started
off at 8am because they wanted to get home early totally I think they're both good yeah I think
interchangeable pretty much interchangeable I think I would tend to say here start out
um but I really don't think that there's any material difference in the business World it
doesn't matter I think if ever a native English speaker were to say to you like oh I feel like
that should be start out instead of start off it's just because in their Regional dialect
that's what they hear more often but I hear both in TV on you know in movies
they they they're very interchangeable and guys remember you know native speaker grammar nerds
can spend all day debating things but what matters here on this show to us is connection
not Perfection that's why aller's English exists and both are going to help you connect okay so
don't waste a second worrying about it yeah yes and we want to point out that these this can be
split some phrasal verbs you have to keep like start out next to each other start off next to
each other this is one where the direct object can go between them so here's some examples you could
say he started his speech out with an anecdote right so you have started and out split by the
direct object speech yeah or we started the meal off with an appetizer and I actually think this is
the more interesting question you know when can we do that when can we split that phrasal verb both
of these are examples of how you could split that phrasal verb and sound Supernatural exactly and
unfortunately there's no Rhyme or Reason to which phrasal verbs can be split and which can't every
time you learn a phrasal verb you have to find out like is this one fused together or can it be split
because there just seems to be no real answer to which why why can some and some can't but the best
way is as your alert maybe these both of these phrasal verbs are brand new to you guys as you're
learning them go ahead and learn that they are both separable right you can separate both of them
and start using them in that way instead of going back later and saying oh what about these phrasal
verbs can I separate it becomes too mechanical like too conceptual at that point it's not using
this right away yeah learn it as you learn the phrasal verb in the first really good point all
right so why are we not saying just start right I think that's really interesting here because both
of these just mean start and the more I looked into it they're so Superfluous they're unnecessary
because absolutely for all of these sentences you could just say start let's start by this let's
start this but here's what's interesting though it has the same meaning phrasal verbs are always
a little bit more informal right yeah so this is a way to sound a little more native natural it
is a little more informal you know that would actually be a great episode idea so you guys
gotta hit follow on aller's English to get this Aubry I think it'd be cool to do another episode
on meaningless phrasal verbs phrasal verbs that literally add no value whatsoever to the verb but
we just other than just being a little bit more casual that would be a multiple episode yeah it's
so interesting to think about right instead of let's start off by introducing you could just say
let's start by introducing our new employees but that is quite a bit elevated it sounds a little
bit more formal rather than when you use this phrasal verb let's start off by doing this it
is a little more native a little more natural just a little more informal exactly so I would imagine
contrasting a situation for example you're giving a presentation in a business English seminar or
an English sorry a professional seminar of people in your world your industry you might just stick
with start versus maybe you are telling stories around a campfire you might say let me start off
by telling you this okay so there you go that's right it all comes down to once scenario right
what's the situation what's the relationship how informal do I want to sound and then you know
whether you should use phrasal verbs or not yeah but let's do that episode sometime soon Aubry I
love that it's a meaningless phrasal verb useless phrasal verb so good um because I think phrasal
verbs do add a lot of stress for our listeners that some of it might be unnecessary yeah some of
them you could just ignore just use them so we'll let you know which ones you can ignore I love that
all right what are we doing here in this role play yeah we're gonna do a little role play where you
and I Lindsay are planning a vacation I'll start us off ready did you hear that I'll start us off
nice so good accidentally all right to start off I'd just like to say that I'm very excited about
this trip same okay we just started we decided to start out in Belize right yes but I've been
thinking what if we start off in Guatemala and then end in Belize that could work too I'm most
excited about Belize so we could save the best for last let's do a hike that first morning what time
should we plan to start out maybe 10 a.m I'm going to want to sleep in so let's not plan to start the
day off too early nice I love it are you the type of person when you're vacationing that you want
to get up early and do all the fun things or do you're like okay time to sleep in a couple days
uh usually I'm up pretty early I'd rather go to bed early and get up early like eight nine
if I'm sleeping past nine on a vacation when I'm traveling there's something wrong because I want
to see the place I can't remember the last time I slept until nine that's sleeping into me I wake
up at six like let's go play tennis the Sun's Up yeah I know I don't I want to go out and explore
for sure absolutely okay let's go through this we used all of these here I started with to start off
I just like to say and we do use we use this as a linking ver a linking phrase like this to start
off I would just like to say I'm very excited yeah exactly and this is a good example of where if you
do take off that off it might sound a little too it's good I agree right I wouldn't say start I'd
just like to say no right this is a couple friends planning a vacation so though we say these phrasal
verbs are you know unnecessarily unnecessary because the meaning is the same as to start
we do need them really just to be more informal exactly I love it so good and then I said same
and that by the way is a bonus for today same incredibly I do that all the time yeah same but
it's so common guys and it's so natural and I said same okay we decided we decided to start out in
Belize right yes and all of these interchangeable right you could say just start off or to start out
I'd just like to say and we decided to start off in Belize you can just choose either every tell
yeah they really are interchangeable yep and then I said I've been thinking what if we start off in
Guatemala and end in place yeah this might be kind of an annoying person to plan a trip with like
we've made some decisions and now they're like why don't we change it just now go back to the drawing
board and read book all the hotels yeah no thank you that person's voted off the trip yeah you're
off the island and then you said let's do a hike that first morning what time should we plan to
start out yeah yes meaning to begin the hike right what plan should we time should we leave and then
you said and this is where we divided it let's not plan to start the day off too early so you
have that direct object between the two parts of the phrasal verb you can divide this always yeah
and as we said guys so your biggest takeaway today for today's episode is not so much worrying about
the differences in this case it's more about learning that this can be separable both of
them can be separated but the direct object in the middle and you can sound very native and natural
absolutely yes phrasal verbs can be so confusing especially where some of them are separable and
some of them are not but and sometimes there are multiple versions like this with the exact same
meaning totally interchangeable so confusing especially when native speakers can't even
tell you sometimes why like what's the difference oh now today's tips I think have really clarified
these are interchangeable yeah guys so for our listener here you can go back to your native
speaking friends and let them know yeah there's no difference very interchangeable all right guys
so remember this is the first in a two-part Series so you want to go ahead and hit follow right there
on aller's English check that follow button so that you get the next episode it'll be a mystery
when it's coming out Aubry we don't know awesome I will see you in that episode very soon Lindsay
and we'll see all of you there all right talk to you soon Aubry have a good one you too bye