Live Lesson with Sarah - Sarah Answers Questions

hello good morning everyone uh  welcome to this week's live stream  

uh i'm teacher sarah and i hope that you guys  are coming into the chat so as usual please  

just say hello over in the comments or down in  the comments so i can see that you are here and  

that you are ready for today's lesson so today we  are actually going to do a question and answer so  

last week on youtube and facebook we posted  something that said post your questions below  

so i have chosen some of your questions to answer  in today's video so some of the questions will  

have very long answers and some just short  but we may talk about again in the future  

okay so i see some people coming into the  chat hi good morning thank you for being  

here hello thanks guys hello teacher hello  good morning hello hello hello hi hi thanks  

guys thank you so much for your comments hello  um so today today i'm going to uh go as usual  

oh thank you very much same to you and i hope you  have a wonderful holiday so um today i'm going to  

uh as usual give the lesson and then while you  watch you can ask some questions about the topic  

or if you have other english questions maybe you  did not have a chance to write your comment last  

week uh then in the chat leave your english  question okay question about english and then  

we will answer some after okay so let's begin  we're going to answer some of your questions  

today so hang on a second and here we go okay  guys so you should be able to see my screen uh so  

welcome to the live stream question and answer  uh so today i think there are seven or eight  

questions i'm going to be answering so uh let's  go ahead and remember please leave your questions  

while you listen your english questions okay all  right let's take a look at this first question  

here their question is do you think this is  grammatically correct our creamiest now creamier  

this was an advertisement of the coffee brand  which aired on television is this an exception to  

the rules of degrees of comparison i thought the  right order would be cream creamier and creamiest  

so this is a great question and thank you so much  uh leica for your question so let's take a look  

so here you're right that the normal way we  compare things is we have our base adjective  

so here creamy creamier and creamiest right so we  have our comparative adjective and our superlative  

adjective creamy s so i'll put a c  here comparative s for superlative so  

the coffee company saying our creamiest now  creamier is correct that is grammatically correct  

and let's take a look at why this means that  the coffee is creamier than their creamiest  

product so far well maybe that sounds a little  confusing so let's say i like to make coffee  

and i have made many coffees and i have my coffee  i have made it is the creamiest i have made  

but then maybe tomorrow i find a way to make it  even creamier so this means that it is just the  

most so far so our creamiest let's underline  our creamiest maybe let's say until now  

and then they made a change now even creamier  so we use the superlative form to talk about yes  

the most of something but it can be the most of  something until a certain point in time we can say  

something is er than the fist thing so we can say  uh so if we have our comparative and superlative  

we can say something is more something than  a superlative and let's take a look at a few  

more examples he is smarter than your  smartest friend okay so here my friends  

i'm thinking about my friends where'd my  mouse go there we are um your smartest friend  

here we're using the superlative because it's  your smartest friend in your friend group  

right so the superlative doesn't mean everyone  and everything in the world it can just mean for  

that situation so your smartest friend  but he is smarter so this person over  

here is smarter than your smartest friend  so yes we can say something is more than a  

superlative a superlative can be about a previous  or past time or just about one group of things  

this is the most delicious pizza i have had  but i think that pasta is more delicious right  

so the group is pizza but i think something else  is even more delicious right so here's another one  

it is hotter than the hottest chili  pepper i have had so here we're looking at  

something that happened in the past maybe in 2010  or let's say even more recent let's say in 2020  

i had the hottest chili pepper i have  ever had and then in let's say today  

i have a new chili pepper that's even hotter i  can say it's hotter than the hottest chili pepper  

i have had at some time before right it's even  more than that so the superlative has now changed  

now this pepper is the hottest pepper  right okay um so uh i hope that that  

explanation helps we can use er than or  a comparative to say something is more  

than a superlative okay so take a look at these  examples and if you want to try in the comments  

to uh make a comparative superlative sentence like  this go ahead and i'll see them after the lesson  

okay next let's go to question two uh so here  from vasil please forgive me if i mispronounce  

your names guys um could you tell me about  some stative verbs used in the continuous form  

understand like hope consider wish think and so  on could you build up more on this topic thank you  

from the bottom of my heart of course and i would  love to answer this question so let's talk about  

stative verbs what does that mean and we'll  look at them in the continuous form this is a  

very good and kind of higher level grammar  question so stay tuned guys for the answer  

first let's look at the two kinds of verbs we have  dynamic verbs and stative verbs so a dynamic verb  

describes things that happen within a limited time  that have a clearer beginning and a clear end and  

these are verbs we can use in the simple form the  perfect forms like present perfect past perfect  

and the continuous or progressive forms so  these are all things that again clear beginning  

clear end and happen in a limited  time for example eat walk and learn  

the other kind and these are verbs that we're  very used to and they follow all the normal rules  

but then we have something called stative verbs  so these usually have to do with the state or  

condition which is unchanging usually a  state of being so often these have to do  

with our thinking or things about  thinking and our minds or relationships  

between things so these really stative have to  do with a state of being okay so we'll write  

that there so these include things like believe  and think meaning have an opinion like i think  

or disagree so these are states and  verbs of relation so let's take a look  

we cannot use stative verbs in the same way so  right this question is about the continuous forms  

let's give it a look so here's an example using  a dynamic verb and remember dynamic verbs are  

normal right we can use all of these tenses  simple right a simple present simple past and  

simple future i run i ran i will run continuous  forms i am running i was running i will be running  

perfect forms uh present past and future i have  run i had run or i will have run and perfect  

continuous i have been running i had been running  i will have been running so all of these we can  

use with dynamic verbs again like eat walk and uh  play for example um but stative verbs are a little  

different and remember these have to do with a  state of being things about our mind words like  

think and know and believe uh so let's take a  look at this stative verb no so here we can use  

simple and perfect tenses and these sentences  are all correct i know i knew i will know  

i have known i had known i will have known  but we cannot use the continuous tenses with  

this verb i am knowing no i have been knowing no  so uh we cannot use them in quite the same way  

so here we have a in another example so we've  seen dynamic verbs in their correct forms  

stative verbs their correct forms and that we  can't use them with the continuous forms and  

now we see a verb that kind of we can use in a  few different ways has a few different meanings  

so have here we can use the simple form for  possession means it's mine i own it i have a car  

i had a car i will have a car in the continuous  form we can we we can use the continuous form  

to describe an activity like having a good time  this is kind of a phrasal verb have a good time  

that is always together it's a it's a phrasal verb  so we can say i am having a good time i was having  

a good time i will be having a good time but we  cannot use the continuous form for possession have  

right i have a car we do not say i am having  a car right it's just i have or i don't have  

okay so let's take a look um this is one of those  situations in english where really this comes from  

practice and uh really being familiar just like in  a previous lesson we talked about past participles  

like i have known i have seen i have walked  some of those irregular ones there's no easy way  

to remember them it's just practice so let's  take a look at some little tips for which verbs  

are always stative which ones are always dynamic  and so on so here verbs that are always stative  

have to do with mental states mental means  your mind okay and emotional states how you  

feel so this includes let's start with mental  states words like admire doubt want know and need

uh so there can be some common errors  with these like uh remember with stativ we  

cannot use the continuous forms which is ing right  progressive forms so i do not say i am knowing  

or i am needing or i am understanding uh these  are some common mistakes we can just use their  

simple and perfect forms like i know john we need  some help and i don't understand what you mean  

next let's look at emotional states words  that we use often like love like hate and care  

so again we don't usually say something  like i'm loving or uh i'm hating  

here we might say something like remember the we  don't use the continuous forms just simple and  

perfect the kids love she likes and i hate okay  a couple more that are always stative means no  

continuous form have to do with possession which  means you own something it's yours or mine right  

senses like the word here and then we have  some others so these are the verbs that we  

see that we do not use in the continuous forms  and it would be grammatically incorrect to do so  

so uh as always guys this powerpoint this ppt is  posted so you can go and use this as a resource  

here we have some more oh my gosh some that  depend on the situation so again we see that  

this can be pretty uh complicated and  difficult but let's look at these four  

verbs uh that that are that we have examples  for so here they could be stative which means  

not continuous forms or dynamic which is a normal  verb like run that we can use in all of the forms  

and it depends on the situation or  the meaning so let's look at think  

if i'm saying i think and i'm about to you talk  about my opinion this is a stative verb which  

means not no continuous forms right so if i'm  asking for your opinion like what do you think  

well this is stative asking about your opinion  or i think you should accept that job offer that  

is correct i cannot say i am thinking you should  we would say this would be grammatically correct  

i think you should now the dynamic verb is the  act of thinking what are you thinking about  

right this is the action not opinion right not  a noun my opinion is uh but the act of thinking  

what are you thinking about i'm thinking about  what to do next so here the active thinking  

we also have this with have the stative verb  refers to possession i have a car i have a  

phone and the dynamic refers to an activity  which we saw in a previous example i'm having  

a party we're having a great time right that  those are activities oh sorry guys my allergies  

itchy nose uh so we also have this let's  look at two more verbs taste and the be  

verb if we're talking about the state of being  or a quality using taste taste as uh equality  

it tastes delicious this is stative i would not  say it is tasting delicious it tastes delicious  

and if it's an activity she is tasting  the soup right so here we can see  

uh in these a theme a quality a thing a state of  being a possession or a relation these are stative  

activities activities activities are dynamic and  last let's look at the be verb they are they are  

being so they are refers to a general condition or  state right it's a state so it's stative they are  

helpful i wouldn't say they are being helpful  no matter what happens they are helpful it's  

equality condition or state they are being  is a temporary so not forever temporary state  

they are being helpful under the circumstances  they are being helpful for now at this moment  

so again this is all on the ppt you guys i  really encourage you to look this over and  

this is something we may talk about in the future  okay let's go on to question number three uh let  

me kindly request how to write a professional  email so i'm going to give you a quick  

short uh tutorial how to write a  professional email so you need a few things  

first you need your introduction so uh we would  say something like hello mr or mrs something  

right what's their name good  morning good afternoon good evening  

and so on then you have the body of your email so  first you should state your purpose why are you  

writing the email let the person know right  away what you are writing them about and if  

it is your first time writing you can state your  name right i am such and such then your purpose  

so for the body for the whole email we want  to use professional formal academic language  

so this means don't use slang or something called  colloquialisms which is also similar to slang  

so we want to use professional formal language  no slang and also academic language so in a  

professional email we'll use some higher  vocabulary if you need help with this to  

develop your vocabulary you can use a thesaurus so  this is like a dictionary that has synonyms in it  

which are words that mean the same thing right  synonyms like big and large are synonyms so you  

can use a thesaurus to help you if you want to  make your language a little bit better if you are  

asking a question use high politeness modal verbs  like would could and may so that's something we  

talked about uh in a previous live stream i think  in our last q a about the formality of these words  

and after your body you need a closing  where you should thank the person  

thank you for your time and have a great day  have a great evening have a great weekend and so  

on so let's take a look at an example so in this  example i am writing to someone to apply for a job  

good morning mrs connell okay so there's my polite  formal introduction good morning mrs connell so in  

a professional email if we do not know the person  we do not want to call them by their first name  

in our first email to them okay we  want to be respectful and polite  

okay let's take a look at the body my name is  sarah rodriguez i'm writing you to inquire about  

the academic coordinator position that you posted  on linkedin i have attached my cover letter and  

resume for your consideration please let me know  if you have any questions regarding my application  

okay so what do we see here this is my first  time writing to mrs connell so my name is  

and then my purpose why  why am i writing this email  

and remember we want to use a little bit higher  vocabulary so here we have the word inquire  

so this means ask and i could say i'm  writing to ask about but i looked at my  

thesaurus ask oh different words that mean i'll  ask question oh inquire oh that's a good one to  

inquire uh often if we are submitting documents  to someone we say it in the email i have attached  

right attaches the word we use when we  add a document to an email i have attached  

just to let the person know maybe they don't  see it you want to make it clear and then  

just a polite uh sign off of the body  please let me know if you have any questions  

then our polite uh closer thank you for your  time and consideration and sign off your name  

so this is a simple structure for a professional  email remember to use uh academic language you can  

use a thesaurus if you need to and be very polite  okay so maybe this is something we'll talk about  

more in the future for now let's go to question  four why do people write english almost perfectly  

while speaking they're not as impressive  naveen thank you for your question  

uh so let's go ahead and see why this is quick to  answer why is my writing better than my speaking  

this is a problem i have had also so why  why is my writing better than my speaking  

the reason is that reading and writing are often  easier to develop in a second language why because  

we have more time to think about it so when i  am reading i can look at the sentence and i have  

as much time as i need to think to look  it up and the same is true for writing  

so maybe when i'm writing i can oh how do i  say that pause and think oh okay there we go  

and maybe my writing is very good but speaking  of course is much faster we have to respond  

right away so it's a little bit more difficult  to speak well even if your reading and writing is  

pretty good your comprehension is pretty good but  speaking and communication is a different skill  

the more you practice reading and writing the  more it will help your speaking the more you  

read and are used to the structure of the  language and especially writing the more often  

you write the more that will help you in your  speaking and one trick here is to write about  

things that you want to speak about if you want  to work on speaking about your daily life keep a  

journal write about your daily life if you want  to work practice uh have better speaking about  

technology well then write about technology  writing helps you develop your speaking skills  

but why is writing better why is my writing better  because we have more time so it's a bit easier  

okay all right question number five what is the  difference between simple past and past perfect  

for example did you see the class or have you seen  the class so i'm going to switch my screen here

and we're going to pop over to a new screen  so just hang on a second guys while i prepare

uh-oh okay here we go

hold for a moment

um sorry guys just a little technical difficulty  here um there we are okay this ought to work okay  

thank you guys for waiting so again the question  is simple past or past perfect and here we go

all right so hopefully you guys can see that now  so here we have a little screen a little uh thing  

explaining the difference so simple past is used  to talk about completed and finished past events  

or actions for example i watched a film last night  this means it happened in the past and it is done  

i'm not watching a movie now it happened  last night i didn't go to school on monday  

so this is the negative form i did not do  that at that time right it didn't happen  

in the question form did you go surfing last week  so this is asking about a completed or finished  

past event and there in those we saw the  structure a normal sentence is subject  

past simple verb and completing the sentence so  i went to school the negative form subject didn't  

base form and the rest of the sentence i  didn't go to school and the question form  

did subject base form and the rest of the question  did you go to school and again these are all used  

to talk about completed past events past things so  the past simple is verb plus ed but don't forget  

about those irregular verbs like went right we'd  say today i go yesterday i went no ed right don't  

forget about those irregular verbs now let's  look at past perfect past perfect is used to  

express the idea that something happened  before another action in the past  

i had seen a film i hadn't gone to school had  you god should say gone surfing so there we  

saw our structure for the past perfect subject  had participle subject hadn't participate and  

had subject participle remember our participles  are those words like been seen gone and so on

so the past simple the past participles are  verb plus e.d walked i had walked unless we  

have an irregular verb like b changes to ben  okay so again this is about a timeline we have  

our past perfect then the past simple up to now  so these are really useful for talking about  

something that happened before so let's  take a look our past perfect paul had gone  

plus our past simple sarah arrived so our  sentence is when sarah arrived paul had left  

so which action do you think happened  first when sarah arrived paul had left

well here paul left first sarah arrived after paul  left so we used that past perfect to talk about  

something that happened before another event  in the past when sarah arrived paul had left  

he was already gone okay let's take a look at  a few more examples to see this uh that we use  

that past perfect to talk about events that  happened before so we'll just look at a few  

so here when we arrived to the theater they had  sold all the tickets so again what happened first  

did they sell all the tickets first  or did we arrive to the theater first  

they sold all the tickets first that past perfect  is something that happened before before we got to  

the theater all the tickets had sold let's go to  number three i had met him before he was famous  

okay so here what happened first was  he famous first or did i meet him first

here i met him first our simple past is  what happened first before he was famous  

right i had met him before he was famous  so he became famous after i met him  

okay guys and i'll leave these here  for a second and uh there we see  

the difference the key difference between simple  past and past perfect past perfect is used to talk  

about things that happen before something else  very often okay let's go back to our main ppt  

just a second again guys  we're switching the screen  

okay let's go back and answer a few more of our  questions okay here we go back to the main ppt so  

here from osmond we have the question what  is an absolute adjective great question so  

an absolute adjective is an adjective with a  meaning that cannot be compared or intensified  

they are always superlative so we talked about  superlatives before this means like the most of  

something but here these are adjectives that  are superlatives as they are so for example  

supreme infinite perfect unique and unanimous so  unanimous let's use that as an example unanimous  

means everyone agrees so if i am in a room of  100 people and we vote what is better chocolate  

ice cream or vanilla ice cream and all 100 people  say chocolate ice cream it is unanimous this is  

absolute because unanimous is a superlative  it means everyone there's no uh disagreeing  

right unanimous it cannot be more unanimous it is  only unanimous this makes it absolute the same is  

with the adjective perfect perfect means what no  problems nothing needs to change it is perfect  

nothing can be more perfect right it's perfect  it is as good as it can be okay and i think this  

is our last question today what does at my worst  mean so here this is a little phrase at my worst  

uh so at my worst at something or someone's  worst means in the most serious undesirable  

or unpleasant state so for example not let's say i  go to a restaurant and their ice machine is broken  

and their oven stops working maybe they say oh  nothing is working right now so i suppose you've  

seen us at our worst this means everything is  so bad it is the worst right worst is another  

superlative bad worse worst so at my worst or  at the worst means uh in the most bad situation

let's say yesterday i had a really bad day and  i saw my friend maybe i was in a very bad mood  

the next day i might say i had an awful day  yesterday i'm sorry you had to see me at my worst  

i felt so bad it was uh you will never see  me more bad than that i was at my worst  

uh or here's our last example she is at her worst  first thing in the morning before she's had coffee  

so maybe she is irritable and tired and right  in a bad state so she's at her worst first thing  

in the morning uh so this is a pretty common  phrase in english at my worst or at someone's  

worst okay guys that's it for today's lesson so  i'm gonna stop sharing let's go ahead and see  

if we have any questions uh so i see we have  uh some comments here lots of hellos and good  

mornings lolly lolly hello from france so  good to see you thank you for joining today  

uh let me know if you have any  questions okay so i'm looking through

ah so what is the difference between don't take  it too hard and don't take it to heart um let's  

see well i'd say that in this situation the  correct form would be don't take it to heart um  

well actually i suppose we we could  use either so don't take it to heart  

we'll start with that one means don't  take it personally this means uh let's say  

i am talking to i meet my best friend and she is  having a really bad day and maybe she's kind of  

mean to me don't take it to heart means don't take  it too seriously don't take it too seriously it's  

not right our heart is our feelings so don't let  it hurt your feelings don't take it to heart to  

take something hard don't take it too hard means a  very similar meaning um it means try not to let it  

bother you too much um so these two meaning these  two have a very similar meaning okay let's see

if we have any other questions today

hello hello hello so i'm just looking through  here just scrolling through your questions

thank you all so much i'm looking  through all of your hellos thank you guys

um so

um okay so i see a question up at  for at 907 a.m from alyssa marie  

is this grammatically correct unless versus until  so let's see if we can get that on the screen

um that like 907 alyssa murray is this  grammatically correct unless versus until i won't  

give you this ice cream until you do your homework  i won't give you this ice cream unless you do your  

homework um so uh these are very these two have  a again similar meaning almost the exact same  

meaning in the sentence um but there's a slight  difference so if i say i won't give you this  

ice cream until you do your homework this means  i will give it to you after you do your homework  

do your homework first then i'll give it to  you i won't give it to you until this thing  

happened after this thing happened i'll give it  to you i won't give you this ice cream unless  

you do your homework very similar meaning i  will only give it to you if you do your homework  

if you don't do your homework i won't give it to  you so these can be used uh pretty interchangeably  

okay thank you alyssa

um i let's see going through

looking for i i'm not sure  if we have more questions

lots of hellos hi guys

what's the difference thank you  very much uh for your question  

what's the difference between  specially and especially  

so to look at this we should think about the  word special uh if something is special it is  

unique or different right so if i say something  like this was specially made for you it means  

that it was made special it was made uniquely just  for you especially is often used in a sentence  

where we are comparing something or using maybe  a superlative for example i might say i love uh  

horror movies oh no no i don't i don't love horror  movies i love action movies especially marvel  

movies so this means we can use especially to say  i like something and especially or even more or  

really really this one right i love um rap music  i especially love kendrick lamar right so any  

uh this is the the slight difference especially  is used a bit different especially we used to  

kind of say what is the uh important thing  in that group what do you like the most  

okay i think that's it guys uh thank  you so much for tuning in to the chat  

thank you for asking me your questions thank  you for watching um i hope that you guys enjoyed  

the answers to some of today's questions and  remember to follow us on facebook and subscribe  

on our youtube channel which you can find the link  to in the description on our facebook channel if  

that's where you are so thank you guys for  watching see you guys see you next week bye