| 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 for this week. The first question this week comes from Hui Lang. Hi, Hui. Hui says, "I always hear people say 'I wanted to do something.' What's the difference between 'want to' and 'wanted to'? Thanks." Yeah. I think I understand this question. A lot of the time, we say "I wanted to" in past tense before something we want to do in the future. So, of course, we use "want to" to express something we have a desire to do. Right. We might say, "I want to eat pancakes for breakfast," or "I want to go to the forest this weekend." We're expressing a future desire for something. And, generally, when we use "wanted" in past tense, we're doing it because we want to talk about something that we desired in the past. So, for example, "I wanted to eat pancakes for breakfast this morning," or "I wanted to go to the forest last weekend." So, we're talking about our past desires with the past tense form of "want" there. |
| As your question hinted at, there is another way that we use "wanted," and it's when we're asking someone for information and we're trying to sound very polite. We might do this when we're looking for directions, we need to find where something is in a store, or we're just trying to politely request something that we want from someone else. So, imagine you're in a department store and you need to ask someone where the restroom is. You might say to a staff member there, "Um, excuse me. I wanted to know where the restroom was." They used that kind of past tense sentence structure. This is done because it sounds a little bit less direct than "I want to know where the restroom is." No problem. That question sounds rather direct. It's very straightforward but there's no communication problem. "I want to know where the restroom is." By using this past tense sentence structure though, it makes it sound softer. It makes the request sound softer. "I wanted to know where the restroom was," or I wanted to know where something was. This is the reason you might sometimes hear people using "wanted" in past tense to talk about something they want now, some information usually they want. |
| Now, you might also hear this at a restaurant if someone is feeling like they want to be more polite, like in a nice restaurant. They might say to the staff for example, "Um, excuse me. I wanted to see a menu." Something like that would express the same idea as "I want to see a menu," but it sounds much less direct. So, if you pay attention to when people use "want" and "wanted," you can kind of get an understanding of how direct or indirect their speech is. Personally, I think I tend to use "wanted" when I want to sound more polite. Unless, I'm talking to a friend or a family member or someone that I'm very close with, in that case, I'll be very direct and say "I want this" or "I want that." If I want to be polite talking to a stranger or in a service situation, I would probably choose "I wanted" something, something, something. So, I hope this helps you understand the differences between "want" and "wanted." Thanks very much for the question. |
| Okay. Let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Yadana, ooh. Hi, Yadana. Yadana says, "How do we use 'either' and 'neither'?" Oh, right, it's a classic question. Let's do a little brain refresh on this. So, you might hear a couple of different pronunciations of these words. I used "either" and "neither." You might also hear "either" and "neither." Both are used, I think I probably use "either" and "neither" most of the time. Though perhaps, according to my mood, I might change something sometimes. So, when do we use these words? |
| We use "either" when we're talking about choices between two or perhaps more things. And, we use "either" in a negative sentence pattern. So, for example, if you have a choice between let's say two shirts, one is red and one is blue, someone says to you, "Which would you like?" And, you think, "I don't want a red shirt. I don't want a blue shirt. I want a green shirt." You can say, "I don't want either." I don't want either. This is a negative sentence structure. The "don't," the "do not" is the negative part of the sentence. "I do not want either." We could not use "neither" or "neither" in this sentence. So, saying, "I don't want neither," is incorrect. So, we use "either" when we have a negative in the sentence. Let's take a look at another example. |
| Imagine you are in a work situation and someone presents you with two proposals, proposal A and proposal B. They say, "Which one of these do you like?" And, you don't really think that proposal A is very good and proposal B doesn't look very good either. So, you might say, "I don't like either of these to be honest." So, we have that same negative "I don't like either." So, we use "either" in these negative sentence patterns. |
| Let's compare this to "neither." So, when we want to express the same idea, but we want to use a positive sentence pattern, we use "neither," or we just use it as a one-word response. So, in the first example sentence, with the two different colored shirts, someone could say, "Do you want the red shirt or the blue shirt?" You might say, "I want neither." So, that's a positive sentence, right? "I want neither." Some people very commonly just say, "Neither," or "Neither," as well. So, this expresses that both choices are no good. The same is true in the business example. So, if you are presented with proposal A and proposal B, and they say, "Which do you like?" You might say, "I like neither of these actually." So, this expresses that both option A and B are no good to you. So, this is a key difference between "either" and "neither." We use a negative sentence structure with "either," and we use a positive sentence structure with "neither." |
| Let's talk about one more use of "either" and "neither." This is used when we are presenting options to someone. So, in our shirt example earlier, when we present the options, we could also use the word "either." We could say for example, "You can have either the red shirt or the blue shirt." Or, in the business proposal example, we could say, "You can choose either proposal A or proposal B." So, we use "either" here to show the two options that are available. If you want to show that options are not available, you can use "neither" to do that. For example, "Neither the blue shirt nor the red shirt are currently in stock. We're very sorry." Or, "Neither proposal A nor proposal B are acceptable at this time." Please note another key difference in these sentence patterns. When I used the either sentence pattern, I said "either A or B," right? When I used the "neither" pattern, I used "neither A nor B." So, please note that when you use that "neither" pattern you need to change the "or" to a "nor." So, in matches, think of the two as kind of a set, "neither" and "nor," and "either" and "or." So, these are some ways that we use "either" and "neither." I hope that this helps you understand these two words. Thanks very much for the question. |
| Okay, great. Let's go on to our next question. The next question comes from Amy. Hi, Amy. Amy says, "I'd like to know how to use 'supposed to' in grammar, and the meaning of 'supposed to.'" Okay, sure. So, "supposed to." "I'm supposed to do something," "He's supposed to do that," "She's supposed to do this." We use "supposed to" to talk about some kind of expectation someone else has of us for our behavior. So, we talk about our responsibilities, for the day or maybe for the week, with the word "supposed to." "I'm supposed to," plus a base verb. So, when I say "base verb," I mean the infinitive form of the verb. "He's supposed to come," "She's supposed to go," We're supposed to leave," and so on. |
| So, these sentences all express some kind of responsibility that someone else has. And, the key with "supposed to," as opposed to for example "have to," is that when we use "supposed to," it's like saying there's some kind of expectation on us that someone else has. Someone has this expectation of us. So that means if I do not do this thing, maybe someone else is going to get mad at me. So, using "supposed to" has this feeling of there being kind of like a group expectation or some kind of societal expectation about the person doing the thing. So, if I say, "I'm supposed to go home soon," it sounds like someone is expecting me to go home soon. I could express, "I have to go home soon," which sounds like a responsibility. But, using "supposed to" expresses that maybe someone is counting on me, someone is waiting for me. If I don't go home, maybe my parents will be upset, or my husband or wife or partner will be upset. So, "supposed to" has this kind of feeling of societal or group expectation about it. Something like "have to" or "need to" also expresses our responsibility. And, it can imply that if we don't do that thing, there will be problems for us. But, it doesn't have the same feel quite as "supposed to" does. So, I hope that this helps you understand how to use "supposed to" and what's supposed to mean. So, thanks very much for the question. |
| All right. That is everything that I have for this week's lesson. 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 soon. Bye. |
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