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

60,499 views ・ 2019-01-30

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Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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hi everybody my name is Alisha and today
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I'm going to talk about the correct use of the word only let's take a look at a
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few examples and see how moving the word only around in a sentence can change the
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meaning of the sentence alright let's begin
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first I want to define the word only and how I'm going to use it for this lesson
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the word only for this lesson we're going to look at it as an adverb so an
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adverb which means a single case or a single instance of something so there's
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nothing different nothing more nothing less there's just this one thing this
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one case of something but I want to focus for this lesson on the importance
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of the position of only in a sentence so one key to keep in mind when you use the
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word only and this is a point for native speakers and for non-native speakers we
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need to place the word only as close as possible to the word or to the phrase
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that it modifies and by modifies I mean only is connected to that phrase only is
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changing that phrase in some way and when I say places that place it as close
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as possible to that word I mean before that word it needs to come before the
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word it's changing before the word it's modifying so I want to show a few
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examples of how to do this but I'm going to move the word only around in the same
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sentence so let's take a look I'll show you what I mean let's take a look at
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this this sentence the base sentence here is Sara saw Michael at the park a
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simple sentence so there are two people involved one action in this case the
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past tense of soft and then a location at the park but I'm going to use the
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word only here in a few different positions to show how much it can change
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the meaning of the sentence depending on where we place it so the first example
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here I have is only Sara saw Michael at the park here the word only comes before
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Sara so that means that these two words are connected only is modifying Sara in
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this case this sentence therefore means that
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Sarah perhaps in a group of people or with
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somebody else Sarah was the only person the single person who saw Michael at the
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park maybe there were other people in the group she was with but she was the
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single person the only person who saw Michael so only Sarah saw Michael at the
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park that's the meaning with the placement of only before Sarah here
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let's look at the next sentence Sarah only saw Michael at the park so here
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only is coming before the word saw so in this case it's modifying this verb saw
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this sentence therefore means that Sarah the only thing Sarah did her only action
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was to see she only saw Michael at the park meaning no other actions happened
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Sarah did not wave to Michael Sarah did not greet Michael Sarah did not throw
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something at Michael whatever there was no other action the only action the
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single action the sole action was that she saw Michael Sarah only saw Michael
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at the part so the placement before the verb gives us this meaning let's look at
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one more example Sarah saw only Michael at the park here only comes before
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Michael in this case so the connection the modification is happening here Sarah
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saw only Michael at the park means she did not see any other people at the park
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so this could mean that there were no other people at the park or that maybe
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she just she just didn't see anybody at the park so this sentence is a little
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bit tricky it's a little hard to understand exactly what the writer wants
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to say but it could mean that there were perhaps no people at the park no other
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people at the park that Sarah saw so she went to the park she saw only Michael
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there was only one person a single person it was Michael that Sarah saw so
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placing only before in this case Michael gives us this meaning all right one more
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sentence Sarah saw Michael only at the park so here the word only
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coming before this phrase at the park this location in this case meaning that
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there was a single place where Sarah saw Michael so Sarah did not see Michael at
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the supermarket she did not see him at the store she did not see him at school
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she saw him only at the park so there's a single location where she saw Michael
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so these four sentences show us how much the meaning of a sentence can change
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depending on our placement of the of the word only so it's important to keep in
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mind another thing that I've done throughout this lesson a little bit is
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I've emphasized with my voice the word that only is modifying but I want to
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make one more point here in speech when actually speaking we can stress words
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for emphasis and for clarity to make it very clear which word in the sentence we
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want to emphasize which word we want only to modify so for example I can say
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only Sarah saw Michael at the park or Sarah only saw Michael at the park so
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with your voice you have the ability to emphasize certain words and certain
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phrases in the sentences however in in writing it's not possible
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to do this so correct placement of the word only is quite important so I wanted
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to give you a few examples and it's just something to think about the next time
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you use the word only so make sure that you're placing the word only as close as
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possible to the word that it modifies so just something to keep in mind all right
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so that's it for this lesson if you have any questions or comments please feel
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free to let us know in the comment section below this video if you liked
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the video give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and check us out at
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English class 101.com for some other resources thanks very
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much for watching this lesson and I'll see you again soon
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