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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
angel mcnamara or angel mcnamara hi uh
hi alicia and team i read this sentence
having weighed up the pros and cons he
decided against resigning present
participle can you please explain that
to me okay so to my understanding this
question is about the use of the present
participle in resigning in decided
against resigning so we can use the
present participle to function as a noun
so this can take the position of the
subject of a sentence the object of a
sentence indirect object can have many
different functions here it's
functioning as the object of the
preposition against so against resigning
it's the object of this preposition
against so decided against is kind of
it's an idiomatic phrase so to decide
against something to decide against a
noun phrase means to decide not to do
that thing so here decided against
resigning means he decided not to resign
but we're just using this idiomatic
expression decided against something but
yes here the present participle is
acting as a noun we can do this we call
this a gerund so here are a couple other
examples of gerunds in different parts
of speech cleaning bores me i always try
to finish as quickly as possible
so here cleaning is the subject of the
verb boars and the object of the verb is
me so cleaning here is the gerund we're
seeing it as the present participle form
of the verb clean
we love cooking because we can try lots
of different things at home
okay so in this example sentence cooking
is the gerund and in this case it's
functioning as the object of the verb
love we love cooking so these are just a
couple of examples of the different
positions that gerunds can take in
sentences but yes we use this present
participle as a noun in different places
in sentences so i hope that this helps
answer your question thanks very much
all right let's move on to your next
question next question comes from
den heidend then says what is ipa i'm
really confused about it okay so in
language learning ipa stands for
international phonetic alphabet so the
international phonetic alphabet is
different from the standard alphabet
like the abcs that many of us know
this is different from the standard
alphabet because the phonetic alphabet
is an alphabet of sounds it's an
alphabet for pronunciation so when we
learn the abcs like many native speakers
i think most native speakers probably
know like the abc song a b c d e f g
song
in that song though we learn the names
of the letters we don't actually learn
how we pronounce those letters so like a
good example is like the second and
third letters of the alphabet song b and
c
so we learned that b is called b but we
don't actually learn how to pronounce b
with the phonetic alphabet though we
learn that b makes a b sound and if we
want to get really specific there are a
couple of marks that show us exactly
what kind of ba sound a b is supposed to
make
with a complex letter like c though the
phonetic alphabet can be super useful so
in the alphabet song we learned that the
letter is c
but we don't learn all the different
pronunciations that we can make with
this letter so of course there's the k
pronunciation as in like cat or car or
cape but we don't actually hear that in
the song so this k sound is represented
with a k actually in the phonetic
alphabet when we pair c with another
letter like ch to make the ch sound we
see this sound represented with a
different letter in the phonetic
alphabet so it's like cheat or chair or
chat so the phonetic alphabet can show
us pronunciations so even if we don't
know exactly how we should read a word
like the first time we see it we can
find the pronunciation in many
dictionaries with the phonetic alphabet
so for example if i look for the word
chair in an online dictionary that uses
the phonetic alphabet i'll find a
spelling like this so it uses that ch
symbol which doesn't look like a c and
then it ends with this air part so this
e r refers specifically to the air sound
so if you look at an international
phonetic alphabet chart you'll see some
symbols that are the same as the
standard alphabet like with consonants
like b or k sounds for example but when
you're looking at like vowel sounds and
some of these special sounds like ch for
example you'll notice that there are
these new symbols so if you look at
these sorts of symbols and kind of study
them as sort of sounds instead of just
names instead of just like symbols
you can use these to help with your
pronunciation of something so if i'm
learning and i don't know any rules of
pronunciation i might think the word
chair is pronounced like kahi or
something if i'm reading each letter
individually
with ipa however i can look at this
information and i can understand the
correct pronunciation easily as long as
i've studied the sounds so this is a
quick introduction to the ipa and how
you might use it so i hope that this is
helpful for you if you want to know more
about the ipa i would suggest a google
search for an ipa
chart you can find a few of them online
wikipedia has a nice one and a nice
explanation
and there are some that you can find
that will play audio so you can click a
button near a symbol and it will give
you the sound for that so the symbol
corresponds to a sound not just a letter
name so i hope that that helps you as a
side note ipa also has a beer reference
ipa also means indian pale ale or india
pale ale so quite different from the
alphabet we're talking about here but
don't get them confused there are those
two very common abbreviations ipa or the
very common initialisms rather okay so i
hope that that helps you thanks very
much for this question let's move on to
your next question next question comes
from alam hi alam alam says hi alicia i
want to learn english by watching movies
so should i watch it with or without
subtitles and should the subtitles be in
english also or in the language that i
understand
yeah uh we get this question a lot and
so what i usually say or what i try to
say what i recommend
is that you plan to watch your movie or
your tv show more than once so the
strategy that i like to use and that i
have used in the past is to watch one
time with subtitles in your native
language so in my case i watched with
english subtitles so in this example i
was watching a japanese tv show
so i watched it one time with all the
subtitles on in english so i could read
everything but i was listening in
japanese in this case
so as i was doing this i was picking up
like commonly used words in the series i
was picking up grammar points that they
used a lot and i was listening to
different speaking styles that the
different characters used so in this way
i had like this kind of basis for the
story that i could gain and i had kind
of this understanding of like okay this
is the way these different people talk i
was kind of prepared then after a gap i
went back and i watched it again without
subtitles so this forced me to try to
remember the words that i heard and that
i saw on screen in english the first
time around
but it also kind of forced me to make
guesses so of course i couldn't remember
everything and that meant i had to try
to make an educated guess about the
situation so if the characters used a
word i didn't know i had to think about
like um what did they do when i was
watching this the first time and i had
subtitles on so based on that i could
try to guess what words meant if that
makes sense so i remembered seeing this
episode in the past ah maybe i can
remember the sorts of things that
happened in this episode and maybe i can
make a guess about what they're talking
about now so actually when i was first
watching the series i was also studying
japanese in university so that really
helped me to improve my vocabulary and
grammar and just kind of be able to
enjoy the series and enjoy watching it a
little bit more and having a little bit
of space between my first viewing and my
second viewing also helped me see just
how much i had improved so i would say
maybe if you're planning on using a
movie or a tv show like try to space out
your viewings a little bit so don't
watch it like one time with subtitles
one time without subtitles like in the
same day so try to space out your
learning a little bit so you give your
brain a little time to try to recall the
information
then maybe you can try if you want to
you can try watching the movie with
english subtitles after that to review
again and to practice your reading as
well so this is something that i would
do i hope that this is helpful for you
this was fun and helpful for me so maybe
it'll work well for you so thanks very
much for sending this question along and
good luck and enjoy your movie studies
okay let's move on to your next question
next question
comes from
arjun singh hi arjun arjun says hi
alicia could you please tell me the
difference between stress and depression
okay
um so this is kind of a tough question
because for some people stress and
depression are very closely linked so
i'll speak very generally about this
stress refers to the everyday feelings
that we have that are negative so this
is like your anxiety your worries uh
maybe from lots of work or lots of study
to do or you feel tired or you make a
mistake you have problems so this is all
of the negative stuff that happens that
we think about that we kind of carry in
our minds we call that stress
so some examples in a sentence i'm under
a lot of stress at work right now
you need to reduce the stress in your
life depression on the other hand refers
to a medical condition in many cases for
some people there's something called
seasonal depression which usually
happens in winter and it's like this
feeling of sadness loneliness this kind
of empty feeling that people experience
for other people depression is year
round so it's this really really like
unhappy persistent unhappy feeling that
never really goes away so maybe people
with depression can have trouble
with everyday tasks or they might have
trouble getting out of bed or eating so
these very kind of basic things may be
difficult for people with depression so
that's considered
a medical issue and some people get
treatment for depression so depression
is something that's constant something
that's like a constant emotional state
or a medical state that requires
treatment stress on the other hand is
temporary or in most cases it's
temporary it's something that kind of
comes and goes with life depression is
something that's much longer period so
some examples of depression a friend of
mine is struggling with depression
do you have a history of depression
so i hope this helps you understand the
differences remember stress kind of
comes and goes for most people and
depression is a medical condition that
sometimes requires treatment thanks very
much for the question all right let's
move on to your next question next
question comes from ahmad reza hi ahmad
ahmad says hi alicia what's the
difference between college and
university oh yeah in general
conversation we tend to use these words
exactly the same i would say too in
american english we tend to use college
more often than university but the
actual difference is that colleges offer
just undergraduate education so an
undergraduate education in the u.s is
four years so that's a bachelor's degree
you get a bachelor's degree when you
finish your undergraduate education
a university however offers
undergraduate and graduate education so
at a university students can get a
bachelor's degree a master's they can
get their phd there so a university
offers more courses more opportunities
for education than a college but as i
said in conversation these days most
people use them interchangeably so for
example i might say i applied to five
universities last year we probably
wouldn't say i applied to two colleges
and three universities last year because
we consider them pretty much the same
so if you want to be super specific i
guess you could but it might sound a
little unnatural to use college and
university in the same sentence like
that so again generally we use them the
same way but specifically there are
those differences in terms of the
courses that are offered so i hope that
this helps you thanks very much for the
question all right that's everything
that i have for this week thank you as
always for sending your questions
remember you can send them to me at
english englishclass101.com
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for some other things that can help you
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much for watching this week's episode of
ask alicia and i will see you again next
week bye bye
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