Commonly Confused Words - Speak English Fluently - Advanced English Listening Practice - 81

hi there I'm Drew Badger, the world's

number one english fluency guide and it

is a pleasure to welcome you to another

advanced listening practice lesson

today we won't be talking about kind of

deeper philosophy or psychology things

like I usually enjoy discussing I just

wanted to talk about a couple of things

because I do get lots of letters from

students and often they will be they

will have quite good English but they

will have a few things kind of slight

mistakes that really stand out and to

stand out this is a really great phrasal

verb meaning that something is more

prominent or more noticeable than other

things so if i have a bunch of circles

in front of you and then one square your

mind will notice the square more so

often when we're communicating with

native speakers they will notice I you

kind of used maybe a grammatical point

in a different way or more commonly you

that you have used a word that might not

be exactly what you want to use and so

that's what I wanted to talk about in

this video just give two quick examples

of that so I received a letter recently

from a student and it was just saying

thank you for creating some lessons for

him and it began with goodnight

so instead of good evening he began a

letter with goodnight now I understood

what he was trying to say the meaning

was clear but when you're beginning a

letter like that goodnight is something

you say when you're finishing the

evening with someone or maybe people are

going to bed that is usually the final

greeting that you would give them in the

middle of the night or right before

they're going to bed so if you see

someone walking down the street and it's

you know even like ten o'clock at night

you wouldn't say goodnight to them

unless they are leaving for the rest of

the day so good evening is the greeting

that you would give someone in a letter

or even when you're speaking with

someone just in you know an evening when

it's dark outside but you would not say

goodnight goodnight is something again

it's the end of a conversation or the

end the final thing you say so maybe if

you're going out to dinner with someone

and then you are leaving them if it's

late at night you would say goodnight to

them you know just letting them know

sleep well that

kind of thing so when you're writing a

letter to someone use good evening if

you're addressing them in the evening

it's important to say that or you can

just say hello that's fine as well

another thing that I notice his students

will be using talk with and talk to and

neither this isn't really a grammatical

issue but it's a more sensitive thing

that a native speaker would notice when

you're just speaking with them in kind

of everyday conversations or especially

in a professional setting

so if i say to someone I need to speak

with you about something I need to talk

with you about something

this is more implying like you have to

actually make a connection with that

person you're having an actual dialogue

with them about something now

occasionally people will use I need to

speak with you or I need to talk with

you about something when really they

want to talk to you about something so

they would say i want to speak with you

or talk with you because it's implying

more of a conversation as opposed to one

person saying something to the other one

so when you talk with or speak with

someone your kit you're actually

connecting with that person and it's

more an equal relationship at least in

that situation and when you're talking

to someone like a parent would talk to

their children about behaving properly

or a you know boss might talk to an

employee about how they're trying to you

know maybe do their job better something

like that but in these situations your

again moving from one maybe authority

person to someone of a lesser authority

or someone the little lower social rank

in the group but again you're having one

person it's sending the conversation or

sending the the talking to the other

person so talking to just like you would

go to a different location but when you

speak with someone like yesterday I

spoke with a friend of mine about going

to you know a vacation so I spoke with a

friend of mine because we were talking

together it's an exchange of ideas and

we're both in the conversation so with

when you're speaking with someone or

talking with someone and you can use

either of these speak with or talk with

your having a conversation with the

other person not the one way direction

of a conversation or the one-way

direction of

word so keep these two things in mind

these are just two quick ideas things

that might be maybe or you might seem

like confusing both of these words but

things you might not notice as a

non-native speaker but as you're

learning pay attention to what native

speakers say because they will give you

a very quick insight about whether you

used a word incorrectly or not and often

people will try to be polite

so if I'm having a conversation with

someone and they say oh good night

it's nice to see you today and i would i

would understand what they mean but i

would kind of very quickly that you

would see it in my face like I something

something weird just happened now as a

learner you should be paying attention

to these kinds of things so always be

when you're speaking with someone pay

really close attention you know not to

worry about the situation but to just

get clues from the other person about

how you should be speaking and if maybe

i'm in a conversation and they just say

good evening to me then I don't think

about it because that's the natural

thing that people would be using in that

situation so goodnight

it's nice to see you again how was your

day wait a minute they just ended the

conversation at the beginning I don't

understand what happened there but i

might want to be polite and not say

anything about it but you so you'll

still kind of notice the way a person is

reacting in these situations and if you

can just ask them oh did I say something

did I say something incorrectly and they

might be able to give you a good

explanation about that anyway if you

have enjoyed these kinds of tips and

you'd like to hear more of them

specifically talking about maybe the

ways that a non-native speaker might use

something incorrectly or that you might

use something incorrectly and that

there's a better way to express it if

you have specific questions about things

like that just put them in the comments

below and they might make it into future

videos

well that's it for this advanced

listening practice lesson I hope you

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