"AT ALL!" - How to make a strong point in English!

260,277 views ・ 2013-05-13

Learn English with Rebecca


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

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Hi. My name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson I'm going to explain the meaning of a commonly
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used English expression, and that expression is: "at all". I'd like to thank Mitchelin
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from Columbia, one of our viewers on engVid, for suggesting this lesson. Okay? So, Mitchelin,
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this lesson is for you and also for all you other viewers out there. All right, so let's
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see how to use this expression: "at all".
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In order to understand it, let me read you a few sentences where I've used this expression,
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and you try to figure out if you can understand what it means and why we use "at all".
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"I don't like this music at all." "He doesn't enjoy his work at all."
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"She didn't understand the instructions at all."
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All right? So, what's going on here? Why did we use the expression "at all" at the end
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of these three sentences? After all, I could have said: "I don't like this music." So why
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did I say: "I don't like this music at all"? What do you think? Well, the reason I said:
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"I don't like this music at all." is because I was trying to emphasize or stress that I
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really don't like this music. Okay? So one way of doing that is by adding this expression,
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"at all", at the end of my sentence.
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Similarly, in the second one, I could have said: "He doesn't enjoy his work." All right?
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And that's a perfectly correct sentence. But when I said: "He doesn't enjoy his work at
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all." I mean he really, really doesn't enjoy his work.
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Okay? All right. So that's the expression, "at all".
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Now, there's another way in which you might see this expression being used. For example,
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if someone says: "Do you like spinach?" And you don't, you really don't like it for some
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reason, you might say: "No. Not at all, though I know it's good for us." Okay? So: -"Do you
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like spinach?" -"Not at all." All right? So that's another way in which you might see
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that expression being used.
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And one last point about this. Let's read this one: "I eat non-vegetarian food at all."
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Well, we can't use this expression "at all" in this way. Why? Because this is a positive
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sentence. And as you might have noticed, we can only use the expression "at all" in negative
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sentences. So, we cannot say: "I eat non-vegetarian food at all." You have to... You could only
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use it in a negative expression, like this one: "I don't eat non-veg food at all." That
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means I don't eat even a little bit. Okay? Because the expression "at all" means even
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a little, to the slightest degree. That means I don't like this music at all. I don't like
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this music even a little bit. Okay?
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All right, if you'd like to do a quiz on this and practice using this expression, please
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go to our website: www.engvid.com. And you can also leave comments for us there. So if
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there's a lesson or idea that you have, you have some suggestions, you can leave us some
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comments, and, who knows? We might be able to record a lesson for you.
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Thanks very much for watching. Good luck with your English.
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