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 Eliab.
Hello, Eliab.
Eliab says...
Hi, Alisha! I love your videos. I was watching a series and they said these things:
“I can read him” and "You're reading into that.”
What do they mean? Thanks!
Nice question, yeah!
First, let’s start with “I can read him.”
So, the question here, I think, is about the verb “ready,” right? We usually use “read” for books and newspapers, right? Words on a page. But we can also use “read” for people or maybe even buildings if you work in a certain profession. But when we talk about being able to read a person, it means we understand something about that person based on maybe how they’re dressed, how they speak, the way that they move. When you can read someone, it means that that person is communicating something to you, not just through the words that they’re saying, right? So, that’s the idea here, that that person is giving you some information about themselves and you are able to read that. So that’s what this means, this can I read him.
So, you can use this as well, like you could say like:
“Oh my gosh, I can read that guy like a book, he’s trying to talk to that girl across the room,” for example.
So that means that that person is communicating something and you are able to read it as if that person were a book. You can kind of think of it that way.
Okay, let’s talk now about that other use of “read” that you described, “You’re reading into this.” This use of “read” means that you are finding too much detail in this situation or in this comment. In other words, you’re understanding something or your understanding of the situation is beyond what is happening here.
Here is an example situation you might find at work. So, maybe, you come to a contract’s discussion with your company and they make an offer and you’re not so happy about the offer, but you think about it for a long time. You think about it so much and you start to think, is the company valuing me? Do they care about me? You start to think all of these kind of intense thoughts and maybe you go beyond what the company is actually saying. So, your friend or someone else might say to you, “I think you’re reading too much into this,” which means you are reading more information from the situation than is actually there. Like you are looking for too much detail or you’re thinking too much about the situation.
That’s what this “reading too much into (something)” means, like you’re thinking too much about the situation or you’re thinking too deeply about the situation. Just think about the information you have in front of you. So, I hope that this helps clear up your understanding about these two uses of “read.” It’s a really interesting verb. Thanks for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Conan.
Hi, Conan!
Conan says...
Hello! May I ask the difference between "in my twenties" and "at the age of twenty"? Thank you so much!
Sure! “In my twenties” versus “at the age of twenty.” You can also do this for something like “In my thirties” and “at the age of thirty” and so on.
“In my twenties” means from the year 20 until the year 29.
So, your “twenties” refers to the years in which you are 20 something, 21, 22, 23…
“In my twenties.”
So, for example:
“I was so crazy when I was in my twenties.”
Or “I did so much studying when I was in my twenties.”
It refers to that time period of your life.
Before twenties, you can say, “In my teens,” but that specifically refers to like 13 through 19. So generally, we use this for “in my twenties, in my thirties, in my forties, in my fifties,” those kinds of numbers.
In contrast, “at the age of 20” refers to something that happened only in the year in which you were 20 years old. It doesn’t refer to 21, 22, 23, all those other years. It refers to one year only.
So, “At the age of 20, I was a university student.”
Or, “At the age of 20, I had two part-time jobs.”
That refers to that year only.
So, “in my twenties” refers to a whole group of years. “At the age of twenty” refers to just one year, so you can use different years as you see fit. I hope that this helps you. Thanks for the question.
Okay, let’s go to our next question.
Next question comes from Hemam Mohamed.
Hello, Hemam!
Hemam says...
Hi, Alisha! “Thrown” in this sentence:
“I’m really just thrown by the place. It's not what I expected at all.”
What does it mean?
Great question! To be thrown by something means to be surprised or to be confused or to encounter something unexpected. So, in this sentence, I was really thrown by the place. It means I was confused or I was surprised or there was something kind of strange about it that I didn’t expect. You can also use this in conversations. Like if someone says something really surprising to you like, “Hey did you know that I’m leaving the company tomorrow?” you might go, “Whoa, I was really thrown by that, I had no idea!”
So, it’s like someone kind of shakes you or maybe throws you across the room and you feel confused or suddenly, like kind of startled or surprised. So, that’s kind of the feeling here. You might feel shocked or maybe, like I don’t know what to do. Your mind is kind of upset by something in some way.
So we tend to use this in a way that shows surprise, shock or confusion. So this is how we use “thrown” in this way.
“I was really thrown by that.”
Or, “I was really thrown by her comment.”
It expresses that confusion, surprise, something unexpected happening. Thanks for a great question.
Okay, let’s go to our next question.
Next question comes from Aleena.
Hello, Aleena!
Aleena says...
What is the difference between “scare” and “intimidate”?
Nice question! Let’s talk about “scare” first.
“To scare (someone)” or “to scare (something)” like maybe an animal means to cause that person to feel fear, like I scared my little brother or I scared the cat. I feel so bad about it. You caused someone else to feel fear. To intimidate someone is kind of like scaring them a little bit, but you’re not causing them to feel fear. When you intimidate someone, you are showing them your power.
So maybe you could say:
“My coworkers tried to intimidate me at work the other day.”
So you’re trying to express your power to someone else. When you intimidate someone, it’s generally not seen as a positive thing. You’re trying to make someone feel lower than you. So, when you intimidate someone at work, you’re trying to maybe make your own power seem higher, which is generally not seen as a very healthy kind of thing to do.
So, “to intimidate (someone)” might mean to scare them as well. If someone is trying to intimidate you, yes, they may also scare you, like they may threaten you or they may say mean things or they may bully you and so on. But the objective of “intimidation” is to find some kind of power, to get some kind of power over you. So, this is the difference between “scare” and “intimidate.” I hope that this answers your question. Thanks for an interesting one.
Okay, let’s move on to our next question.
Next question comes from Ali Ahmad Khan.
Hello, Ali!
Ali says...
Hi, Alisha! Could you tell me the difference between these examples - “how I met your mother” and “how did I meet your mother”? I’m confused about these examples.
Great question! Okay. This is actually the name of a very popular TV series in the US, maybe that’s what your question is from.
So, “How I met your mother,” this is a statement, right, how I met your mother. This is how I met your mother, the way in which or the manner in which I met your mother.
“How did I meet your mother” is a question. How did I meet your mother or how did I meet that guy? I forgot. “How did I (do something)” refers to a question pattern. So, how did I do something, these kinds of patterns are like questions you ask yourself, like how did I do that? What did I do? Or how did I meet that guy, I forget, or “How did I meet your mother?” in this case. It’s asking yourself a question. That’s the idea with this kind of sentence pattern.
“How I met your mother” or how I did that is the beginning of an explanation for something. So this is how I met your mother or this is how I did that. So, that’s the difference here. With one, you’re explaining something, you’re sharing some information. With the other pattern, you’re asking yourself a question about the manner in which you did something, so I hope that this helps you. Thanks very much for the question.
All right! That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you as always for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next time. Bye!

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