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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 rizal
kuswandi hi again rizal rizal says hi
alicia what's the difference between
think and thought and when do we use
them thanks okay so i'm going to focus
on the verb uses of these words so the
simple answer is that think is present
tense and thought is past tense we use
think when we're talking about our
opinions or ideas for things that are
always true so for example i think
summer is the best season or i think tea
is delicious
we use thought to talk about our past
ideas and opinions yes but we use
thought to talk about actions or
activities that have been completed and
we want to refer to our opinions of
those things so for example i thought
the movie was great i thought dinner was
expensive
so sometimes we want to talk about like
a past situation so something that
happened before and we want to share our
opinion of it but we don't use present
tense think we use thought to refer to
that so i thought dinner was expensive
last night or i thought the movie was
great so the activity has ended but we
want to share our opinion of that so
when we're talking about our regular
like opinions and ideas like things we
think are delicious always or things we
enjoy or things we hate always we use
present tense think to do that we would
not use think for a completed action
like i think the movie was great last
night we would not use that we use past
tense to do that so i hope that this
helps you understand the difference
between think and thought thanks very
much for the question okay let's move on
to your next question next question
comes from maria hi maria maria says hi
could you tell me which one is correct
have a shower or take a shower thank you
yeah both are correct the difference
here is really just that have a shower
is perhaps more commonly used in british
english we tend to use take a shower in
american english some other expressions
you might hear related to bathing in
english are hop in the shower which
implies a very short shower or hop in
the bath hop in the tub as well where
tub refers to a bathtub or have a rinse
maybe you might also hear take a rinse
which sounds like you're just rinsing
your body off maybe like after a jog for
example rinsing sweat off of the body or
maybe rinsing some dirt off the body
after doing some gardening or something
so we have a few different shower and
bathing related expressions but the most
common one in american english is take a
shower have a shower is okay to use too
it's just more commonly used in british
english so i hope that this helps you
thanks very much for the question okay
let's move on to your next question next
question comes from farid jiham nur
hello fariji ham fariji ham says hi
alisha what is the difference between
had have can and could this is a really
big question let's start by looking at
have and had their uses and the meanings
it really depends on the situation so
first we can use have in present tense
to refer to owning something had is the
past tense form of that verb
we can also use have and had to make
perfect tense sentences perfect tense
statements and questions so have is used
for present perfect tense had is used
for past perfect tense we also use this
in responsibility expressions like have
to and had to in present tense and in
past tense respectively so let's look at
a list of example sentences that show us
how each one of these is used i have a
cookie
i had a cookie at lunch
i have had a cookie today
i had had four cookies by the time i
left the office yesterday
i have to eat all these cookies
i had to eat so many cookies yesterday
so these example sentences show us the
variety of ways that we can use have and
had sometimes together to make a lot of
different statements moving on to the
second part of your question about can
and could these two words also have
quite a lot of different uses
we can use can in present tense to talk
about our abilities and to make like
requests and offers we can use could to
talk about our past abilities and to
make polite present tense requests and
offers we also use could to talk about
unreal situations and this includes
impossible situations in the past i can
speak spanish
i could speak spanish when i was a kid
can you help me with my homework
could you please help me with my
homework
if i had a lot of money i could buy a
house
was that davey no that couldn't have
been davey davey's at the office
so can and could is also a very big
topic i hope that this very quick
introduction at least shows you some
examples of how we use these different
words thanks very much for your question
okay let's move on to your next question
next question comes from
waiheen hello waiheen waiheen what is
the difference between do you and are
you
do you begins questions that are asking
for help that are asking for information
or maybe making requests and offers we
follow do you
with the present tense form of the verb
just the simple infinitive form of the
verb some examples do you know where my
keys are
do you have a pen
do you want to get a coffee
do you go to the gym every week
ru begins a question asking about
someone's condition we follow are you
with a verb in the progressive tense
with a noun phrase or with an adjective
some examples are you a doctor
are you okay
are you coming to the office today
are you at home
so this is kind of a good guideline that
you can use when you're trying to decide
between do you and are you questions
what kind of information do you want to
know if it's a condition question you
can probably use are you if you're
looking for information or trying to
make a request you might use do you
instead i hope that this helps you
thanks very much for the question okay
let's move on to your next question
next question comes from sridhar reddy
hi against radar sridhar says hi alicia
what's the difference between it's okay
and that's okay
um not much really in most cases we use
them interchangeably but there are a
couple cases where we do use just one so
for example when you're making a
sentence that uses an if pattern
you always want to use it's okay not
that's okay for example
it's okay if you can't finish this today
or it's okay if you're running late
so we would not use that's okay in that
situation that's okay if you're running
late or that's okay if you can't finish
it today we would use it's okay if
you're making an if sentence an if
clause sentence so in many cases
especially in my case i tend to use
that's okay when someone apologizes to
me for some kind of small mistake so if
someone like bumps my shoulder or if
somebody forgets something i don't know
i could say that's okay to mean no
problem you could use it's okay in this
case too but i feel like that's okay
might be a little bit more common
also when you are in close proximity so
that means when you have a very close
relationship either physically or
emotionally to another person and you're
talking about an issue and you want to
present a situation and you want to make
the other person feel at ease like
everything's fine you can use it's okay
so for example person a might say oh no
i deleted an important file from my
computer
b says
it's okay i made a backup yesterday so
in that situation it's okay
proceeds or comes before the solution to
the situation in those cases using it's
okay might sound a little bit more
natural then that's okay but as i said
in most cases we use them
interchangeably and it doesn't really
cause a communication problem but i hope
that those are a few situations that you
can use in daily life
and that you can use these two
expressions a little bit more naturally
so thanks very much for the question i
hope that that helps okay that is
everything that i have for this week
thank you as always for sending your
questions and remember to send them to
me at englishclass101.com
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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
time bye bye
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