Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe!
Let’s get to your first question this week.
First question this week comes from Henrique.
Hi, Henrique!
Henrique says…
“How do we use ‘at,’ ‘in,’ and ‘on’ correctly? Thank you.”
Okay. Very quickly because there are videos on the channel about how to use prepositions, so please do a search and check them out.
Very quickly, to review. Let’s begin with “at.”
We use “at” to mark specific locations in cities. That means, like, buildings.
So, for example:
“I’m at the bank.”
Or, “She’s at the supermarket.”
We can also use “at” to refer to specific locations outside cities like in the countryside, like, “We’re at the river today.”
We also use “at” before times, to mark specific times of day, like:
“Let’s meet at 2 pm.”
Or, “She arrived at 3:30.”
We also use “at” with “night” as in “at night.”
Please note, we do not use “at” with morning or afternoon or evening. Those are incorrect. We only use it with “at night.”
Then, let’s talk about “in.”
We use “in” before the names of cities and countries, like:
“She lives in Switzerland.”
Or, “He lives in Barcelona.”
Or, “It’s in Toronto.”
So, we use it before city names and country names.
We can also use “in” before a length of time to mark a duration.
Like, “Let’s meet in ten minutes.”
Or, “We finished the project in one hour.”
We also use “in” with months.
For example:
“She moved in February.”
Or, “I’m going to Europe in June.”
Finally, let’s talk about “on.”
We use “on” with days of the week and to talk about the weekend, as in something we did on the weekend. In some variations of English, you may hear people saying “at the weekend,” but this is not used in American English. We use “on the weekend.”
So, we use “on” before days of the week, as in:
“Let’s meet on Tuesday.”
Or, “We had coffee together on Saturday.”
So, this is a very quick introduction to different ways to use “at, in, and on.” As I said, please do a quick search of the channel for prepositions, to find other videos with more details about this topic, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question.
Okay. Let’s move on to our next question.
Next question comes from Nazanin.
Hello, Nazanin!
Nazanin says…
“Hi, Alisha! What is the difference between ‘park’ and ‘garden’? Thank you.”
A “park” is generally a big open area with lots of grass. You can come to a park and you can do, like a variety of different activities. If you want to have a picnic or a barbecue or you want to maybe play a sport or something like that, you can generally do that in a park. There’s a lot of really big open space, so maybe we can show a picture on the screen here, so you can see what a park, a typical park looks like.
A “garden” on the other hand, is something that’s supposed to be enjoyed for its design, and when I say “design,” I mean like the landscape design, like maybe there are special flowers inside the garden or there’s maybe special decorations. There’s some kind of like landscape that is special in the garden.
So, you might see “parks” and “gardens” like together. There might be a garden inside a park, but a garden is generally not a place that you go to, to do a specific activity, like we don’t go to a garden to have a barbecue or we don’t go to a garden to play a sport, generally. We go to a garden to enjoy the scenery, to enjoy being in the garden, like walking along the paths in the garden.
So, “parks” are generally more open spaces where we can do a variety of activities. “Gardens” are spaces that we use for enjoyment of that natural space. So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Sumitha Arun.
Hello, Sumitha!
Sumitha says…
“I would like to know the difference between ‘resume’ and ‘curriculum vitae’?”
Okay. They are very, very similar. A curriculum vitae or CV as it is often called, these are very, very similar documents. We use both of them to apply for jobs. So, a CV is generally longer than a resume, maybe like three to four pages, and it includes everything you have ever done, all of your professional experience, so that’s like your work experience and your education experience, yes, so where you went to school, the degrees that you have, the topics that you studied and so on, but we also, on a CV, include our credentials, our certification. So, if you got some kind of special recognition, if you got a scholarship, a grant, if you’ve published anything like a book or a paper, or if you have a thesis somewhere, if you’ve given a presentation, basically, anything connected to your work and your professional experience will be listed on a CV.
So, a “CV’ is like a very long list of all of your achievements, all of your professional and your educational achievements. These are kind of longer documents. A “resume” on the other hand is generally a little bit shorter. It’s maybe like one to two pages long and it’s kind of more of a summary. So, in addition to including, like your contact information, you might have a short career objective, like that means the thing that you are trying to do in your career. You might have that.
And then generally with a “resume,” you have a series of summaries of your past work, so maybe you have three to four companies or three to four positions on your resume and you summarize your accomplishments and your role in each of those positions, so that someone has a good idea, has like a good image of what kind of work you have done and therefore how it connects to your current objective.
So, again, a resume tends to be a bit shorter than a CV, maybe one to two pages, but a CV like could be maybe three to four pages, if you have a long work history.
In the UK, you might find that nobody actually uses the word “resume.” So, if you’re speaking with a British English speaker, they might only use the word “CV.” CV generally refers to the same concept as a resume, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Siam.
Hello, Siam!
Siam says…
“What’s the difference between ‘not’ and ‘no’?”
I’ll give a very general answer to this question. We use “not” and “no” to give negative responses to things. The grammar of the sentence is what’s important here.
So, we use “not” before adjectives and verbs.
For example”
“I am not hungry.”
Or, “She’s not sleeping.”
Or, “They do not work on Saturdays.”
So, this comes before adjectives or verbs.
“No,” of course, is also used to respond to yes or no questions with the negative answer.
You may also hear “not” used in kind of a sarcastic way to reply to someone’s opinion or to respond to someone’s opinion.
For example, person A might say:
“Oh, I really liked that movie!”
And person B might respond with:
“Yeah me too… not!”
So, this is kind of an old-style humor. It’s not, it’s actually not very funny, but some people try to use this “not” to show contrast in the things that they just said. So this really means, I’m going to pretend that I agree with you for a moment, but I don’t really. So, you might hear some people use “not” in this way too, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question.
Okay. Let’s move on to our next question.
Next question comes from Arkan Geat.
Hello, Arkan!
Arkan says…
“What’s the difference between ‘police station’ and ‘police department’?”
Nice question, yeah. A “police station” is a building. It’s a physical place that we can visit, so people work inside a police station. “A police department” on the other hand is a part of an organization. So, the police department refers to a group of people working together to do police work. This is the same as like a marketing department in a company or it’s like a sales department in an online store. It refers to a group of people that are doing the same type of work, a police department.
So, a “police department” refers to that group of people. The “police station” refers to the physical building where police officers are located.
So, in sentences, you might say something like:
“I went to the police station to file a report about my lost wallet.”
Or, “The police department is working to reduce crime in our city.”
So, I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you, as always, for sending your questions. Remember, you can send them to me at englishclass101.com/ask-alisha. Of course, if you like this lesson, please don’t forget to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to our channel, if you haven’t already, and check us out at EnglishClass101.com for some other things that can help you with your English studies. Thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week. Bye-bye!

Comments

Hide