How to Make Great English Sentences? Ask Alisha

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Welcome to our first ever evening edition of this series.

Because the sound in the original video was destroyed.

Hi everybody, welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions

and I answer them, maybe!

The first question this week.

The first question this week comes from Patrick.

Hi Patrick!

Patrick says, “I know the basic English words and I understand if someone speaks in

English.

for example, I understand your videos perfectly but I have problems building correct English

sentences, like when I speak with another person.

Do you have any tips on how to build correct sentences?”

I think that this just comes with practice, honestly.

It's difficult to do but I know that there's not always a person that you can ask for help.

I will tell you a secret when I don't have confidence with something but I don't know

how to answer something this is what I do…

“I google it.”’

Seriously, just google it.

I put quotation marks around like the phrase that I'm trying to make and then I search

Google for it and if it's there, great!

Then that means I can use it, maybe like thousands of people have used that phrase.

I know it's probably a common phrase if there are no results and that probably means I've

made a mistake somehow.

So, that's maybe one good way to help you as you try to build phrases by yourself.

So, try that out.

Next question!

Next question comes from Huang Sei Na.

Hi!

“I love your name, Alisha.

Is Alisha a common name in the US?

I happen to have a friend named Elisa also what's your personal favorite name?”

Um.

A common name in the US?

Alisha, I don't think “Alisha” is so common in the US and when I was growing up I didn’t

have any other friends named “Alisha.”

Also, the spelling of my name is a little strange.

Usually, it spelled “A-L-I-C-I-A.”

Maybe you know the artist “Alicia Keys,” that’s how she spells her name.

So, my name was commonly confused as “Alicia” a lot.

So, like for example, Allison and Elisa and Ali and so on, those are fairly common I think,

but “Alisha” especially my spelling is not so common actually.

So what’s my favorite name?

My favorite name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Next question!

Next question comes from Long.

“Is the ‘H’ sound not always pronounced when followed by another consonant?

For example, ‘wall hanger’ or ‘come back home.’”

Yes, the “H” sound is often pronounced very softly.

It’s quite difficult to pronounce all of these syllables clearly like in the example,

“come back home,” it’s quite difficult to say the “H” sound clearly.

So, in those cases, it’s quite common to make the “H” sound quite soft like “come

back home.”

Next question!

Romeo from Vietnam.

Hi, again, Romeo!

Romeo says, “Hello, Alisha.

Do native speakers say, ‘You aren’t going to blah, blah, blah?’

Or, ‘You’re not going to blah, blah, blah.’

Which contracted form is used more?”

I think they’re used equally like you can choose which you prefer.

Me, I think I usually say “you’re not going to.”

I probably use “you’re,” I contracted “you are,” “you’re not going to,”

or, “You’re not going to do something?”

I probably use “you’re not” more often than “you aren’t going to.”

Next question is from Wagner.

Wagner!

Wagner!

Vagner!

Have you written any operas?

“Why do American people pronounce EnglishClass “one-O-one” instead of “one-zero-one”

or “hundred one?”

Oh!

This relates to like university and college level courses, actually.

So, there are four levels to universities, or it’s colleges in the US, first year,

second year, third year and fourth year.

So, the classes for each of those are numbered.

So first-year classes begin with 1, second-year classes with 2, third-year classes with 3,

fourth-year classes with 4.

So, first-year classes, it tends to be like the basic classes begin with a 1 and like

the most basic of those classes is usually “one-O-one.”

so like EnglishClass101, that’s kind of making like a friendly introduction to English

in other words.

So we say, “one-O-One.”

We always use that sort of pattern when speaking we don’t say “one-hundred and one,”

we always use “one-O-one” or like “one-two-four” or like “three-six-seven.”

I don’t know what those classes are but we always say each individual number.

Nice question though, interesting!

Next question is from Danny.

“Would you tell us about? ‘here you are,’ ‘here you go,’ ‘there you are,’ ‘there

you go’ and ‘here, there, we, you, it, baby go.’”

Oh, gosh!

Okay, I’ll talk about the ones that you introduced.

“What do they mean and how do you use them naturally?”

So, let’s talk first about “here you are” and “here you go.”

So, we use these when we present someone with something.

So, you give someone something, “Here you are,” “here you go,” like you are at

a restaurant maybe your order arrives “Here you are.”

“Here you go.”

Something like in a service situation you might hear this kind of form like a friendly

staffish, like a staff-related person, I suppose.

“Here you are.”

“Here you go.”

Or maybe from a teacher to a school child maybe, “Here you go.”

We use it to like present something, to present an object that maybe they are expecting to

receive

Let’s talk then about “there you go” and “there you are.”

We use “there you go” when someone is able to do a thing they’ve been practicing

for a while.

For example, if the child is learning how to ride a bicycle and they’ve been struggling

with it for some time but then gradually they get better at it and they can do it the parent

might say “Oh!

There you go!

You got it!

You got it!”

It’s like a support word and encouragement word, “There you go.”

The last one on your list though, “there you are.”

In American English, we use “there you are” in a situation where we’re looking for someone,

we’ve been looking for someone we’re expecting to meet and it’s been difficult to find

them.

Maybe you visit a few different spots, but then, at last, you find this person.

Maybe like in a break room or someplace you might not expect them but when you do find

them and you say, “Oh, there you are!”

We say it with that sort of intonation, “Oh, there you are!”

It sounds immediately to the listener like, “Oh, this person has been looking for me.”

Next question!

Next question is from L-O-J.

L-O-J?

Loj?

Loj says, “My question is about phrasal verbs.

What is the meaning of ‘knock out’ like here, examples sentence 1, ‘Knocked me out

of my possession,’ or 2, ‘Knocked the wind out of me.’

I had a problem with the word ‘possession,’ “Knocked me out of my possession.’”

I’m not quite sure.

This could refer, though, too, in a very rare situation.

We have this word “possession” which refers to like this thing called “demonic possession,”

where there’s this idea that a bad spirit gets into the body and controls a person’s

behavior.

We call that “possession.”

So, we could say like, “A priest knocked me out of my possession.”

To go back to your original question though, the word “knock out,” as a phrasal verb,

“to knock out” means like forcefully or forcibly remove something because of some

impact an object is removed from its original location.

So, for example, a jogger could be coming at me and they run into me and they knock

my phone out of my hands.

So, in that case, my phone is being removed because of the impact of the jogger.

So, “to knock something out” means like to remove from its original location from

force.

In your second example then, “knocked the wind out of me,” this is an expression we

use which means like to lose our breath because of an impact.

If you get punched or kicked maybe this area, you might feel the air in your lungs come

out of your body.

So, we call that “the wind” in this situation.

So, “He knocked the wind out of me,” means he caused me to lose the air in my lungs,

the impact was so strong in my body, that the air came out of my out of my lungs.

So, “he knocked the wind,” so the wind, in this case, the air in my lungs in its original

location was removed from me because of this impact.

You might also hear this expression in boxing, “to knock out” or “to KO” someone

means to cause them to lose consciousness, in this case.

So, “consciousness” is the thing that’s going away, in this case.

So, “to knock someone out in a boxing match” means they lose consciousness, in other words,

a “KO” was sometimes said.

The first example sentence is not actually so clear to me.

It’s also possible there’s an error in the original place, I don’t know.

Alright, those are all the questions that I want to answer this week.

Thank you very much for sending your questions to me.

Remember, you can send them to me at EnglishClass101.com/ask-alisha.

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and check us out at Englishclass101.com for more good resources.

Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week.

Bye-bye!