| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe! |
| Okay, let’s get to your first question this week. |
| First question this week comes from Abhinand. |
| Hello, Abhinand! I hope I said your name right. |
| Abhinand says... |
| What is the difference between "be" in progressive and "get" in progressive? |
| For example: "without getting caught" or "without being caught." |
| Please explain the difference and share some more examples of these. |
| Sure, good question! So, in patterns like these where we can use either “be” or “get,” the difference is in the nuance of the expression. In your example, “without getting caught” sounds a little more serious than “without being caught.” |
| So, when we want to express that something could be unexpected or have a more negative result, we might choose to use “get” in these kinds of passive structures. It isn’t limited to just the progressive use of the verbs. We can also use it in non-progressive uses as well. |
| So, for example, in the classic passive sentence example sentence, “My bag was stolen,” we could do the same thing, “My bag got stolen.” This choice of “got” instead of “was” indicates that the speaker is even more surprised, is even more shocked. They want to communicate that the situation is very, very negative. So that’s what using “get” in place of “be” in these passive structures does. |
| Here’s one more example: |
| “Oh no! My book was rained on!” |
| versus |
| “Oh no! My book got rained on!” |
| So, both of these sentences are 100% correct. In both example sentences, the speaker expresses that rain fell on their book and they are not happy about it. |
| In the first example sentence, “Oh no! My book was rained on!” it sounds kind of like a basic report. We have “oh no” there to tell us the speaker is unhappy. |
| But in the second example sentence, “Oh no! My book got rained on!” it sounds a little bit more like it was unexpected, like we weren’t expecting rain that day or maybe we didn’t think we left our book outside to get rained on. So this a small choice, yes, and it doesn’t communicate a huge amount of difference, but it does indicate the speaker’s level of unexpectedness or surprise. |
| So you can do the same thing. When you want to communicate that something was especially negative, unexpected, or surprised, you can use the verb “get” in place of “be” in this passive sentence structure, so I hope that this helps answer your question. Thanks very much! |
| Okay, let’s move to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Ramisha Islam. |
| Hi, Ramisha! |
| Ramisha says… |
| Can you please talk about the difference between “may be” and “maybe” with some examples? |
| Sure! This is a very common question. So, to break it down, the difference here is about “may (space) be” and “maybe” with no space between “may” and “be.” This might seem like a very small difference. It might even seem like it doesn’t matter, but it does. It’s very, very important. |
| Let’s start by talking about “maybe” with no space. |
| So, we use “maybe” in the same way that we use “perhaps” like to talk about something we’re not quite sure of. |
| For example: |
| “Hmm, maybe I’ll go to that party tonight, I’m not quite sure yet, I’m thinking about it.” |
| Or “Maybe I should think about getting a different haircut. Hmm, it’s getting hot outside.” |
| So we use “maybe” with no space to talk about something we’re not quite sure about. We often use it at the beginning of a sentence or we use it as a reply to someone else, like when we receive a request. |
| For example: |
| “Hey, do you wanna join me for dinner tonight?” |
| You might say… “Hmm, maybe… I have to work late. We’ll see.” |
| So, you might use it as a response to a request or something similar. So, as in these examples, you might use it as a quick response to a request to show that you’re not sure about something. This is “maybe” with no space. |
| “May be” with a space, so “may be” is used in the middle of sentences. |
| For example: |
| “Hmm, this may be the right place.” |
| Another way to say this is: |
| “This might be the right place.” |
| So, we use this sentence pattern when we’re talking about something, again, we’re not quite sure of, but we’re talking about a condition. As with the “maybe” construction, this “may be” pattern is also used to talk about things that we’re not quite sure of, but we typically use this to describe conditions. |
| For example, in my earlier example: |
| “This may be the right place.” |
| Or, another example might be: |
| “She may be the new director of the company, you should be nice to her.” |
| Here’s a quick tip you can use to help you to make a decision about which one you should use in your sentence. Try substituting “might be” in your sentence and see if it makes sense. |
| For example, if you’re not sure whether to use “may be” with a space or “maybe” with no space, try substituting “might be” there. Does it make sense? If so, you can use “maybe.” If it doesn’t make sense, you can’t use that. |
| So, for example, if you want to reply to someone’s request and someone says to you, for example, “Hey, do you wanna come to this party tonight?” you can’t say “might be” right? You have to use “maybe” with no space. |
| On the other hand, if someone says to you, “Hey is this the place that we’re supposed to go for the event tonight, you could say, “Hmm, it might be the right place.” In that case, “might be” makes grammatical sense, so “maybe” is also okay to use. |
| Keep in mind that this “may be” or “might be” construction is often followed by an adjective or some other kind of condition. So I hope that these example sentences helped you understand the differences between “may be” and “maybe.” Thanks very much for the question. |
| Okay, let’s move on to our next question. |
| Next question comes from Semih. |
| Hi, Semih! |
| Semih says… |
| Hi, Alisha! What is the difference between “ready” and “set”? For instance, do both sentences have the same meaning? "Everything is set" or "Everything is ready." |
| Ah, nice question! Yeah, “everything is set” or “everything is ready.” These sentences, in many cases, can be used in exactly the same way. We just want to express that all of the preparations are complete. So, “set” and “ready” in sentences like these are fine to use interchangeably. |
| Please keep in mind that although you can use “set” and “ready” interchangeably in a situation like this, it doesn’t mean that you can use these two words exactly the same way all the time. |
| In these cases, “set” and “ready” are used as adjectives: |
| “Everything is ready.” |
| “Everything is set.” |
| However, you can use both of these words as verbs as well. So, “to set (something)” means to place something and “to ready (something)” means to prepare something. So please keep in mind that you can’t use “set” and “ready” in the same way as verbs. But if you want to talk about being prepared for something, yes, you can use them in the same way. “Everything is set” or “everything is ready.” |
| You could also say “everything is prepared” or “we’re all set” or “we’re all ready.” All of these convey the same meaning, so you don’t need to worry about which one. It’s just up to you and your vocabulary preference. I hope that this helps you. Thanks 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 episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again soon. Bye! |
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