Me vs Mine: Show Possession in English - Basic English Grammar

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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check us out at English class 101.com 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 yay some examples are gone

where'd it go okay I gotta get what