'Before long', 'Long before' & Big, Huge, Massive

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

Yes, and it's time for a Q&A video.

Q&A - Questions and Answers.

And, we need to update everyone on The English Show too.

That's right.

But before we start, we should tell everyone to subscribe to this channel.

Good point.

It costs nothing and it means you stay up to date with all our videos.

We publish every Friday.

And thank you to everyone who's been sending us questions.

We've got several today.

Great.

Then let's start with them.

Ok, the first one is from Nimky Nimky, and he asks "...what's the difference between

before long and long before.

I never could before what's its meaning."

So, he could never work out how their meanings are different.

Yes, it's interesting, isn't it?

Yes.

Before long means soon - in a short amount of time.

So, if you watch our videos every day before long, your English will get better.

Yes.

Before long you'll notice an improvement.

So, before long means 'soon.'

But 'long before' is different, isn't it?

Yes.

If something happened long before something, it happened a long time ago - so much earlier

than something else.

I have an example.

(Whistles) This is a dinosaur.

it existed long before human beings.

So 'long before' means a long time ago before something else happened.

Yeah.

Thanks for that question Nimky Nimky.

It was a good one.

OK, next one.

Uh I can't quite pronounce the name of the person who asked this because it's written

in Thai.

Oh.

But the question is "...how different between big, huge, massive.

Thanks."

So, what' the difference between big, huge, and massive.

Great question.

They all mean the same thing, don't they?

Well, they can but we use them a little differently.

If something is large we can say it's big.

And if it's very, very large we can say it's huge or massive.

So, we can say there was a big crowd at Trump's inauguration.

And there was a huge crowd at Obama's inauguration.

Yes, Obama's crowd was huge or massive.

It was extremely large.

That's right.

Now another thing.

we can say very large, but we don't use the word 'very' with huge or massive.

So, Obama's crowd was really huge but we can't say it was 'very huge.'

Exactly. and 'massive' is interesting too.

We often use it to describe things that are very solid and heavy.

So - a massive castle, or a massive rock.

We could also say a massive explosion.

That's because we often use massive to describe things that are damaging.

So, a massive heart attack is a very big heart attack that causes a lot of harm.

Yeah, we could talk about a massive storm and a massive earthquake.

Yeah, they're bad things.

You know, we had a massive phone bill last month.

Hah, good example.

It was a very big phone bill that was very bad.

Stil, that was a great question.

OK, here's another.

It's from Imran Kalandar.

He's asking about our YouTube channel, and he says "...is this American English or British

English?"

Well that's easy.

It's both, Imran.

Yes, I'm American and I'm British.

I live in Philadelphia in the United States now, but I speak British English.

So, she sounds funny to me.

But, I understand her.

Sometimes.

Sometimes you understand me.

When there are differences in British and American we tell you about them.

And sometimes we make videos about the differences.

Maybe we should make some more of 'em.

Good idea.

Would you like that everyone?

And we have a similar question from Steven Sanchez.

He says, "...where is Fluency MC from?"

Ahhh.

Fluency MC, Flu...

Flu...

Fluency MC.

Fluency MC is our friend Jason R. Levine and he's American.

He used to live in New Jersey, near us in Philadelphia.

But he lives in Paris in France now.

We make The English Show videos together.

How many English Shows have we made so far?

Uh, fifteen I think.

We used to broadcast them live every week but we had some problems.

Yeah. Sometimes the stream would start and sometimes it wouldn't.

And, we had difficulty with the audio in the Skype calls too.

Yes, it depended on the internet speeds.

But sometimes it went out of sync.

The timing was wrong.

We couldn't fix that in a live show we decided to try recording it.

Yeah.

We're not giving up, we're experimenting with recordings now so I can edit them.

Last week we did a show with Shanti from English with a Twist and the recording worked much

better.

We've had lots of great guests and we've got lots more great guests lined up.

So, stay tuned.

Yeah and Fluence MC is going to be with us, of course.

It takes a while for me to edit The English Show videos because they're very long.

So we can't do them every week.

But we have some great shows planned.

What's your favourite bit of The English Show, Jay?

Oh, I like Fluency MC's raps.

Me too.

They're great practice.

And I like the games as well.

Yeah, they're pretty funny.

But, we should ask all our viewers "...what's your favorite part of the English Show?"

Tell us in the comments.

Yes.

And tell us if there's a topic or subject you'd like us to make an English Show about.

We read all your comments and really appreciate them.

And please keep sending us your questions.

You can write them below.

And join The English Show group on Facebook and you can write them there too.

OK, we should stop now and go write another English Show.

Yep - until next week.

Goodbye everyone.

Bye.