How to use “ALMOST” correctly? - Basic English Grammar

hi everybody my name is Alisha today I'm

going to talk about how to use the word almost I'm going to show a few different

example sentences and give you a couple pointers some things to watch out for

when you're using this word so first let's look at the meaning of the word

almost so almost is an adverb it's a word that

means merely or not quite or not completely it can also mean similar to

something but not exactly like something so I've got a lot of example sentences

here that I hope to talk about to kind of explain the use of almost before I do

that though I want to mention this point over here almost comes before the word

it modifies so modifies means like almost is attached you can think of it

as being attached to another word and almost changes the meaning of that word

so using almost before another word or before another phrase adds this meaning

of nearly or not quite or not completely to that word or to that phrase so let's

begin with that and look at a few examples I almost forgot my homework so

here almost comes before the verb forgot in this case meaning I nearly forgot my

homework so the word almost like I said almost should come before the word it

modifies so here it's modifying the word forgot so I nearly forgot my homework I

was very close to forgetting my homework another example he almost always calls

on his way home so here it comes before the word it comes before the word always

in this case almost always meaning maybe like 95 percent of the time or 90

percent of the time so not always but nearly very nearly always calls on his

way home is the meaning of this sentence okay let's look at another one maybe an

opposite meaning here they almost never leave the house so here we we've got

never as the word that almost is modifying so almost never means you can

think of it in terms of a centage for example like 5% of the time

they leave the house very very close to zero but not quite zero so almost never

not quite never but very near to never the next one you are almost finished

you're almost finished so here almost is modifying the word finished so in other

words you are nearly finished in this case maybe you're nearly finished with

your job for the day or you're nearly finished with your homework for example

you're almost finish is the meaning here let's look at the next sentence then so

the next sentence is we're almost home we're almost home in this case almost is

modifying the word home home in this case means at your place of residence so

to be in a status and the status of being at your at your place yet you're

dwelling at your residence so to be almost home means merely at your house

in other words so we can modify in this way similar to this negative I used up

here with never we've got there's almost nothing left in the refrigerator so

again almost nothing in this case so very nearly no things very nearly maybe

nothing to eat or no food in the refrigerator so this sentence means

there's something in the refrigerator a few things maybe but almost nothing so

very little of something okay the next sentence shows another point that I want

to make about the placement of the word almost I mentioned in these initial

example sentences that the word almost comes before the word it modifies as

we've seen so far however when you're using the verb to be and the variations

of it like was and were for example almost comes after that verb so let's

look at an example of that here we have here here I have he was almost fired

from his job so here is my to be verb in this case using was he was almost fired

from his job so here almost follows the verb to be this is a slight change I'll

show you one more example sentence later so again let's go back to this first pad

almost no one came to her party so here almost begins the sentence

it's modifying the word no one almost no one came to her party so meaning very

few people came to her party lastly let's look at one more to be example

here I was almost late for the movie so again here's our to be verb I was and

almost follows that to be ver I was almost late for the movie

okay so these are quite a few examples of how we can use almost I want to talk

a little bit about some other ways to use almost we use almost with time and

quantity expressions so in these cases we use the word almost before the time

or before the quantity let's look at some examples for example we've been

waiting almost two hours so here two hours is a length of time we use almost

before that so nearly two hours not quite two hours but nearly two hours the

next example I've lived here for almost five years so that doesn't mean five

years exactly but very nearly five years same thing here he said they were almost

I'm sorry he said there were almost five thousand people

so almost five thousand not quite maybe like four thousand nine hundred for

example very nearly five thousand again the recipe made almost 200 cookies so

again not quite is the meaning here so all of these kind of we use this when it

maybe it's easier to round up to use like the next easily recognizable number

like it might sound strange in the last example to say the recipe made 498

cookies it sounds very very specific and it also sounds like maybe the speaker

counted each individual cookie so sometimes that's really not reasonable

or it might just sound a little bit strange so or also it's just sometimes

not possible to count exactly how many people or how many of something were in

a situation but using almost we can make a guess sometimes so this is quite a

useful thing for time and quantity expressions okay so as we've seen so far

in the lesson we can use always with words like

always and never I used it over here for example he

almost always and they almost never so just keep in mind that these have very

very different meanings kind of opposite meanings so I almost always means very

nearly always and almost never means very nearly never but not quite same

thing with all or nothing or no so I used an example here there's almost

nothing for example so here it means very close to zero if I used almost all

like almost all the people were happy it means very nearly everybody as well so

you can kind of see a pattern here and the same one is we can see here at the

end everyone and no one it's like extreme so like 100% versus

zero percent of something so all or nothing everyone or no one we can use

almost to show that we are very near to these levels but not quite at these

levels the last thing I want to mention in this lesson is a word of caution just

be careful about where you place almost in a sentence because it can really

affect the meaning of the sentence so here let's look at two very similar

sentences one he almost told his boss all the secrets and two he told his boss

almost all the secrets these are very different sentences but they seem very

similar here I've used almost before the verb told so almost is modifying the

word told here he almost told his boss all the secrets meaning he very nearly

told his boss all the secrets but he did not he did not so here almost modifies

this verb told meaning the action itself he almost did this action but he did not

do the action in this sentence however he told his boss almost all the secrets

almost because of its positioning is modifying the word all he told his boss

almost all the secrets meaning he told his boss very near

everything all of the secrets so maybe like 95% 90 to 95% of the secrets he

told his boss so the action happened he did tell his boss but he didn't tell

everything in this case so please keep this in mind your placement the place in

this sentence where you use the word almost can create very very different

meanings so remember at this point here almost should come before the word it

modifies so when you're writing and when you're speaking you should think

carefully about this also remember when you're using the verb to be almost

should come after that verb finally when you're speaking as I am right now we do

have the ability to use our voices we can emphasize key words we can stress

them with our voices to make it clear which word we want to emphasize however

we can't really do that in writing so it's really important to consider to

think about where we place the word almost when we're writing so I hope that

this lesson was useful for you if you have any questions or any comments

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lesson and I will see you again soon