Good morning, good afternoon and good evening! Welcome to Smashing English!
Before we start this video, be sure to subscribe because I make new videos all
the time and I don't want you to miss any! So with that said, let's get on with the video!
Let's just talk about the elephant in the room, all right? My T-Shirt is amazing, so if you
have never seen The Office: highly recommend it. Um, this man is David Brent and he, um,
is in the TV programme, so if you want to practice your English, The Office is a very good TV show.
Today I am answering your questions about English. Why? Because I am an online English teacher with
a TEFL and quite a bit of experience, so I'll try to help you as best as I can. Okay the first
question comes from 'Carricoandspanish' I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly and they say: 'Can I
say I had two toasts for breakfast?' That's a very very good question. Now, interestingly enough,
toast is what we call an uncountable noun and there's a lot of reasons why it's an uncountable
noun, it comes from the history of the English language, don't worry so much about it, all you
need to worry about is toast is uncountable. So we can't say two toasts. So, with toast
we actually have to say two pieces of toast or two slices of toast, it's very complicated, it's very
annoying, I wish we could just say two toasts, but we can't, we have to say two slices of toast
or two pieces of toast. It's up to you. It's like if you go into a restaurant and say
'Can I have, um, can we have two cakes please?' They were like, 'two cakes? Really?
One each?' Two cakes and you'd get like a huge big cake, but if you said, 'Can we have two slices of
cake? Or two pieces of cake?' Then they'd be like, 'Of course, of course, we can give you
two pieces of cake,' But two cakes would be a whole other thing, so to answer your question,
unfortunately we can't say two toasts but we can say two pieces of toast or two slices of toast.
The next question comes from gray211111wolf and they ask, 'How can I practice the listening of
others accents, like scottish and so on I don't know where to find?' Well, the internet is your
oyster on that one, there is a really great website called, let me just check it it's,
www.dialectsarchive.com and it is the International Dialects of English
Archives, called IDEA, and on that website they have recordings of people from
everywhere, everywhere that has english speakers, they've got recordings of those people. So you
can listen to Scottish people, you can listen to Welsh people, you can listen to Australian people,
you can listen to people from New York, I don't know, wherever you want to listen to, it's on that
website. So there's something and there's also loads of great TV, you know, if you want to be
entertained while you practice. If you want to listen to Scottish you've got TV shows like
Outlander which is apparently very good, I've not seen it but I've heard good things about it. If
you want to listen to a bit of Birmingham: Peaky Blinders, of course. But you've also got websites
like the dialects archive for things like that. Also just find celebrities that speak like that,
you know, you've got loads of great Scottish celebrities like James Macavoy, Ewan McGregor,
just listen to them in interviews, that'll help. The next question comes from Tiffany and they ask:
When to use either or neither, bring or take, effect and affect? Okay so let's start with effect
and affect. So affect with an A in front of it is the verb, so to affect someone, um, she affects
the business because she's very good at her job. The effect with an E is the end result, so it's
a noun, effect. So she has a big effect on me or, um, that film left a lasting effect on me, so it
depends on whether it's a verb: to affect someone or whether it's a noun: the effect. Then bring or
take, depends on context, Ican probably explain it best with an action. So so this would be bring:
I've brought this, I'm bringing this book. However take would be this, thank you,
thank you. So we bring the book and we take the book. There are contexts where both can work,
for example, um, tomorrow I need to bring my lunch to school. But you could
also say tomorrow I need to take my lunch to school. Sometimes it's both, you know, take
can also be the action of, hold on let me show you again, so take can also be,
so can you take um my child over there, I don't know like can you take the so it depends on the
context. There are a lot of times where you can, where bring and take are interchangeable, but
uh for certain things like if I take the book that's got to be take we couldn't say
bring the book ,that's take. So depends on the context, and then we have either or neither. Now
I could do a whole video on either or neither, so I will just give you a very quick explanation, um,
but I might make a whole video about it one day. So the main difference is neither means
not either, so it's a negative word. so we use neither for things like um neither one
of my parents came to my graduation. That's a lie, both of them did. Thank you Mum and Dad!
If you want to emphasise that that the negative, so neither one of my parents, my Mother didn't
come and my Father didn't come, neither of them. Then we would use neither because it's negative.
But either is like a choice between two options. so you can either have the steak or the fish.
Either, which? Either. So it's less negative, it's a choice between two options.
Next question comes from zolodaniela and they say 'I can't use the present perfect,
help please,' well lucky for you, I just made a video about the present perfect,
check it out in the link down below! The present perfect is not so hard to make but the tricky
thing about the present perfect is knowing when to use it, so I explain all of that in my video about
the present perfect so have a watch of that video, hope it helps! The next question comes from eva
and they say: 'How to stop translating in my mind while speaking English and really improve
fluency?' Now, I can only speak from my experience as a language learner because I am learning French
and the thing that is helping me with fluency and stopping translating in my mind is speaking to
a native. There are plenty websites, online things like iTalki, Cambly,
where you can speak to a native in that language. It is the best, best, best way, I promise you.
That's how we learn languages when we're babies, we learn it by hearing people speak the language
and trying it and speaking so you will learn so much quicker and you will stop translating in
your head if you speak it with a native. So I can't recommend that enough, so try something
like iTalki, Cambly, they're really good, the next question comes from KA.TE, guessing maybe Kate?
And they ask: 'What's the difference between study english and learn english?' Um it's all to do with
context, so learn english, I would say for me feels like the action of
learning it new, so you're learning new things. So I am starting from the beginning and I am learning
and taking in new information. However study for me feels a bit more like something you do
when you already know the knowledge. So I learned the past tense in English, now I'm studying it,
so I am, um, just having a look and making sure I remember it. So, learn is the beginning,
study is the thing you do to remember to do it again, but they're kind of interchangeable. You
could say I'm studying English or you can say I'm learning English, both are fine. The next question
comes from isanorms and they ask: 'Why are there too many synonyms in English?' I know, it's crazy.
we have a lot of synonyms. We have a lot of words, but it keeps it exciting I guess! There's always
something new to learn, but I understand it can be frustrating with all these different words but
the more you learn the more free you are to fully express what it is you want to say. Because you've
got options in your head, you know, rather than having two words for something you can have 17
different words to choose from: amazing! You can express yourself in a really free way!
And that's all we have time for today, thank you so much for your questions.
If you have any more questions for me you can send them to me on my Instagram which is here:
and if you would like to book a one-on-one English lesson with me or my partner the link
for that is down below. But thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time, tata!