How to use the word 'afraid' and Q&A - Learn English with Simple English Videos

This week's lesson is a Q&A.

Question and answer.

Hey, we're back in our room with interesting things.

Yes, they come from all over the world, like the questions you've sent us.

So what's this lesson about?

We're going to look at a way to say 'go away' - and also how we use the word 'afraid'.

And we want to tell you about our live classes.

But first I want to say a huge thank you to our viewers for the captions they've been writing

Oh yes.

That's been amazing.

A few weeks ago we asked for help.

We asked our viewers to write captions for our videos in other languages.

The response was amazing.

Since then we've had more than 70 or 80 different caption files submitted.

It's incredible.

I feel really touched that so many people have been helping us with this.

Touched is when you feel emotional about something.

That's how I feel.

People have been so kind and I feel so happy and grateful to them.

These captions are helping us grow our channel and they're helping learners who need a little

more support in English.

And they help people who are deaf or hard of hearing too.

I want to say thank you to Anatoliy, David,

Dreamy2206, Danny, Marina, Nives, Wilson, Donnie D, Heiricar, Merav, Mayela, and a big

merci beaucoup to you Cecille, you're a star.

You're all stars!

And we also had a caption file from Vietnam but I didn't know who sent it.

You don't?

No, sometimes the system doesn't tell us so I hope I didn't miss anyone.

If I did, please forgive me.

We're really very grateful.

And if anyone wants to help, please do.

I'll put a link to the video here so you can find out more.

OK, now what about a question.

Nimky had a question about a video we showed where someone says 'Beat it'.

Go on now. Beat it.

Nimky says 'Beat it - what it means?'

So he means, what does 'Beat it' mean?

Yeah OK. Nimky it means get out of here.

Leave me alone.

Go away.

It's very direct - an order.

But I think it's quite an old fashioned expression.

What do you think, Jay?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say just 'Get out of here.'

That works in British English too.

And in British English we could say, 'clear off'.

That's very direct too.

I would probably say it to someone I was close to but probably not my boss.

Umm. Would you say 'clear off' in American English, Jay?

Absolutely not.

I would just say 'Get out of here'.

OK, that was a great question Nimky.

Thank you.

OK, next question.

Amit Chakroborty writes I saw most of the people use the sentence 'I'm afraid that...'

Ah, I think he means I saw many people use the sentence, yeah.

I'm afraid that.

But I don't know, what does it exactly mean.

So what does it mean exactly?

Could you tell me how I can use this sentence, I'm afraid that...

Another great question!

The word afraid has a couple of different meanings in English.

The first one is to feel fear - to be frightened because you think you might be hurt or something

bad could happen.

What kinds of things are people afraid of Jay?

Umm. Heights, for example.

When you're high up and look down and feel dizzy.

Yep, afraid of heights.

And I'm afraid of spiders.

Argh!

And going to the dentists.

I'm afraid of that.

I know something else that you're afraid of.

What's that?

Mice.

Help, help!

What?

I saw a mouse.

Where?

It ran into your office.

I'm afraid to go in there.

So we use afraid to say we're frightened of or nervous about something.

But there's another meaning of afraid, and I think that's what Amit is asking about.

Yeah, it's a different use of afraid and it's very common.

If we want to say we're sorry about something we can say 'I'm afraid...

We use it when we're being polite.

So, let's look at sales.

I'm afraid we don't have this month's figures yet.

Never mind.

We can use last month's.

Oh good.

Last month's were better.

So 'afraid' is like an apology there.

Yes, an advance apology because we think we're going to disappoint someone or upset them

or annoy them.

It ran into your office.

I'm afraid to go in there.

What happened?

It's gone.

Well where did it go?

I'm afraid it went to your office.

Well, I'm afraid we don't have time for any more questions.

Ah.

But come back again and we'll answer some more.

Now we need to tell everyone about our live classes.

Oh yes, that's very exciting.

Starting in the fall we're going to hold regular live classes on YouTube every Sunday.

We'll be broadcasting live from Philadelphia and we'll have people joining us from all

over the world.

Our friend Fluency MC says he'll come.

Yeah, and lots of other people have said they'll come.

It's gonna be great.

And because the lessons are live you'll be able to communicate with us in the chat window.

If you want to come to a live class, sign up for our newsletter so we can tell you the

schedule.

We'll put a link in the description below.

Yes, and thank you everyone who has been leaving comments and questions and suggestions for

new videos.

We love getting feedback.

Bye now.