hi everybody welcome back to ask Alicia
the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them
maybe first question comes from Isaac Alexander again hi Isaac what's the
difference between switch on and off and turn on and off which is more casual
less so than casual in American English turn on and turn off is more common
switch ON or switch off is just less common that's all hope that helps you
thanks for the question okay let's go to your next question next question comes
from Zachary hi Zachary the khari says I hear Americans pronounce the article a
before a word in a sentence with the sound a and sometimes pronounced with
the sound uh is there a rule about that no there's no rule there is absolutely
not a rule for this it's just Speaker preference though I do feel personally
when I'm trying to emphasize something I'll use a more it's up to personal
preference it's all just a speaker's preference so I hope that that helps you
know rule thanks for the question okay let's go to the next question next
question comes from Harris hi Harris Harris says hi Alicia what is the
difference between using yet and instead of and despite let's begin by comparing
yet and despite we'll talk about instead of at the end let's begin by comparing
two sentences I wanted to go to the party yet I stayed home I wanted to go
to the party despite that I stayed home let's look at the first example sentence
here which uses yet so yet is a conjunction here it's connecting these
two ideas I wanted to go to the party and I stayed home yet gives us the
meaning of even though or but so we see it's kind of like saying a which is the
desire I wanted to go to the party a and B the outcome the actual result I stayed
at home are connected with this yet statement so
a yet be desire yet outcome let's compare this to despite so a key
difference between despite and yet is that we cannot use despite as a
conjunction we need to include despite with that initial desire that a point
that I talked about in the yet explanation so it's like saying despite
a be so it has the same meaning yes but it just has a different structure the
sentence has a different structure when you make a sentence like this you can
introduce a the desire then connect it to the next sentence not using a comma
but with the next sentence you can say despite this or despite that where that
means part a so I wanted to go to the party a despite that despite wanting to
go to the party B I stayed at home so you need to connect your despite with
something like this or that or the specific noun phrase you might also hear
the very common expressions despite the fact that or despite wanting to blah
blah blah we need to use some kind of noun phrase to introduce that point so
this is a key difference between yet and despite finally let's take a look at
instead of instead of refers to a substitution so you're doing something
in place of something else I stay at home instead of going to the party so
this means in place of going to the party I stayed at home so despite and
yet have very similar uses but we need to make slightly different grammatical
structures in order to use them instead of just refers to something that is
being substituted for something else so I hope that that helps thanks very much
for the question alright let's go on to the next question next question comes
from Karima hi crema hi again karema says hi Alicia I want you to
explain the phrase get started grammatically if it's possible when do
we use get plus adjective or get plus a verb yeah okay so we can use get plus a
verb when we're talking about the getting the process of that verb so when
I start videos on this channel with the expression let's get started I'm saying
let's begin the first steps of starting some examples I gotta get going that
means I need to begin to leave let's get cookin that means let's start the
process of cooking something you should get writing so we can't pair all verbs
with this get plus verb pattern but there are quite a few that we can use to
move on to your next question though get plus adjective
yet just means become here but become sounds very formal so we use gift
instead some examples I'm gonna get pretty for my date tonight the fight got
ugly it's getting dark outside don't get drunk so I hope that this helps answer
your question thanks very much let's move on to your next question next
question comes from Milan hi Milan Milan says hi Alicia I would like to ask is
there any difference between my and mine for example he is my friend and he is
friend of mine okay your example sentences have the same
meaning just one small correction he is a friend of mine he is a friend of mine
don't forget that article that you need with your singular now I would say
though that the my pattern is more commonly used than the mine pattern I
think that this comes from the fact that when we end a sentence with mine it kind
of sounds like we're being greedy or possessive in your example like he's a
friend of mine that's very very common that's kind of a set phrase that we use
a lot but in other examples I would just go with the simple my pattern this
something is my something or this is my bla bla bla I just feel that that sounds
a little bit less like greedy like mine you sometimes hear kids or like even
adults sometimes when they get really excited about owning something or having
something they might say like this is mine so it can have kind of a negative
feel about it for that reason I would recommend the my pattern instead of even
pattern so I hope that that helps you alright so thank you very much as always
for sending your questions remember you can send them to me at English class
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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 yay some examples are gone