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 Hafsa.
Hi, Hafsa!
Hafsa says…
Hi, Alisha! What’s the difference between “chop” and “slice”?
Nice question, “chop” and “slice.”
So, these are two words that we use a lot in the kitchen, but there are other ways that we can apply these verbs as well.
So, let’s first focus on the kitchen use of these two words.
We use “chop” and “slice” to talk about ways of cutting things.
So, we use “chop” to talk about making, kind of a rough square. So generally, it’s a very rough shape. We take a knife and we take a vegetable, for example, we cut this way and then when we make smaller pieces, we turn the pieces and cut again to make them smaller still. So maybe, you chop things to create small squares or to create cubes or maybe to just create some random shapes and you’re not really thinking about it. You just want to cut it smaller. We use “chop” to describe this.
“Slice” on the other hand, is used to talk about creating a very thin piece of something with a knife. So, when we “chop” (something), we’re doing it in kind of many directions, usually, to make it smaller. But when we “slice” (something), we make just one cut, so we create just one cutting motion and that creates one piece of the vegetable. So, we slice things to make them very thin or just to keep like a specific kind of shape, maybe a half-moon shape, for example, when you’re cutting vegetables.
So, this is the difference in the kitchen between “chop” and “slice.” These are both very, very common verbs that we apply in the kitchen.
But now, let’s talk a little bit about how we use these verbs outside the kitchen.
First, we can use “chop” to talk about roughly cutting things with other objects. For example, you might hear the expression somewhere “chop wood.” This refers to using an ax, like a knife with a handle on it, to cut pieces of wood. Again, the idea here is that we are roughly cutting the pieces of wood. We’re not trying to make a specific shape most of the time, but we’re just cutting the wood into smaller pieces, so we use the verb “chop” to do this, to chop (something). You might also hear this motion referred to as a chopping motion. So, if we say, for example, like in martial arts that we want to judo chop someone, you might hear that somewhere, it refers to this motion, kind of making a rough cutting motion to something.
So, generally, you can think of chop as referring to this rough cutting motion. This is hopefully a helpful guide.
“Slice,” on the other hand, is used in a couple of different ways. So, in the earlier example, I talked about, we use “slice” to make one cut and create one piece from something with a knife. So, we can use “slice” in similar ways outside the kitchen as well. You might hear, for example, that someone sliced a body part. So, we might use this to talk about using a knife or maybe another very sharp object to cut our skin. Again, the same idea holds true here. The same idea is true that with one single motion, we cut our skin.
We might say, instead of…
“Ah, I cut my arm with a knife.”
You might say…
“Ah, I sliced my arm with a knife.”
You might also hear in this case “slice open” which means, for example, if you cut your arm, you slice your arm by accident, you cut open, meaning, the cut creates an opening in the body or in something else. You might also hear cut open like a vegetable or cut open a fruit as well. You might hear slice used in this way too.
So, we can use “slice” to talk about this cutting motion to create kind of another piece or two pieces, where they were just one before.
Another use of “slice” though is not as a verb, it’s as a noun, it’s as a counting word. So, we use “slice” when we’re talking about pizza or cake or bread, for example. When we want to talk about one piece of bread or one piece of cake, we often use the word “slice” as in “a slice of cake” or “a slice of pizza.” Why is this? Because you can think of the same idea, we use one cutting motion on both sides to create one piece. We use the same word, slice, to refer to that new piece we created by slicing, yeah?
So, “slice” can be used to talk about the cutting motion and to talk about the piece that results from that. We typically use “slice,” as I said with cake, pizza, bread, generally, things that we can make one cut and create a smaller piece from.
So, I hope this helps you understand the differences between “chop” and “slice” as a verb and as this counter word. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Anshika.
Hi, Anshika!
Anshika says...
Hi, Alisha! I want to ask about how we can use “could” in a sentence and to ask questions.
Yeah, nice question, “could.”
So, “could” has a lot of different applications. We can use “could” in lots of different ways. Let’s take a few minutes to review the basic uses of “could.”
The first I want to talk about is using “could” to give suggestions or to give advice.
This is when we are making plans with someone, for example, and you want to suggest something that is possible. You use “could” to do that.
For example, if you’re trying to make plans for the weekend, you might say to your friend:
“Hmm, we could go to that new restaurant.”
Which means it is possible for us to go to that new restaurant. When presented in this way, it’s like a suggestion or a piece of advice, yeah, your idea.
“We could go to that restaurant.”
Or in another example:
“We could go to the beach this weekend.”
Again, another piece of advice or a little suggestion. You could see it as one of those two.
So, “could” can be used to create suggestions in this way. We can also use “could,” as you mentioned in your question, to create questions.
Like, for example:
“Could you help me with this?”
Or “Could you do this?”
So, one common question that comes up here is people say, should I use “can” here? Should I use “could” here? Both are correct.
“Can you help me with this?”
“Could you help me with this?
“Can you do this?”
“Could you do this for me?”
Generally, the rule that you could follow is that “could” is going to sound more polite, a little bit more formal, but both are fine to use in every situation I can think of. We can use “can” and “could” at work, at school, with family members, whatever.
So, we can use “could” to create these requests.
“Could you help me with this?”
“Could you do this for me?”
“Could you go to this place for me?”
These are all valid applications of “could” here.
Where things, I think, kind of tend to get a little bit tricky with “could,” is when we use it for past situations.
So, for example:
“Hmm, what could’ve been the problem? Why did she make that mistake?”
So, when we use “could have been,” this kind of pattern, we’re referring to a past potential problem in this example.
“What could have been (something, something, something)?”
Or, “This could have been (something, something, something).”
These refer to possible past conditions or possible past situations or actions, etc. The key here with “could” is that it’s referring to possibility. And to make it even more tricky, we will use this in the negative as referring to something that was not possible.
For example:
“That could not have been the problem.”
Means it’s not possible that was the problem.
Or “That could not have been the situation.”
Means it’s not possible that was the situation.
So, “could” is used to refer to possibility in all of these examples that I’ve just talked about.
When you’re making a suggestion to your friend, you’re saying, “This thing is possible, what do you think?”
When you’re making a request to someone else, you’re saying “Would it be possible…” or “Is it possible for you to do this for me?”
When you’re talking about the past, you’re saying “This thing was not possible” or “This thing was possible,” right?
So, all of these uses of “could” reflect possibility. So, again, these are just a few of the uses of “could,” but the key here is to remember that “could” is very closely related to possibility or impossibility when you use the negative form.
Some of you might ask like, do I really have to remember that “could have been” sentence structure? It’s so hard for me to use.
Why can’t I just say, “It wasn’t possible that that was correct.”
Well, it doesn’t sound natural, that’s why. When I give you those example sentences like this sentence means it wasn’t possible, I’m explaining it in a different way, but that doesn’t mean that that explanation is natural. It sounds much more natural to use those “could have been” or “couldn’t have been” sentence patterns. That’s because that’s what we use in everyday conversation and everyday communication. So, yes, you should study those. Don’t rely on those other sentence patterns because they don’t sound natural. They’re just there to help you understand what the communication is in the sentence or in the question.
So, I hope this covers a few uses of “could” and gives you a good overview of this topic. If you have more questions about how to use “could,” definitely do a search on our Youtube channel. I have some more videos about this topic there. So, I hope that this helps answer your question and gives you a few key pointers to keep in mind. Thanks very much!
All right! Let’s move on to our next question. Next question comes from Amir.
Hi, Amir!
Amir says…
Hi, Alisha! I hope you’re having a good day. I wanted to ask, which is the plural of the word "fish"? Is it "fish" or "fishes"?
Oh, great question! Yeah, “fish” or “fishes,” that’s a good question, for sure!
There are some words in English, some nouns in English where the singular form (with just one) and the plural form (two or more) don’t change. “Fish” is an example of this in some cases.
So, for example, when you’re talking about “fish” like in your home, your pets maybe, you might say “I have one fish” or if you have more, you would say, “I have two fish,” “I have three fish.”
You might hear some people say “fishes.” It’s just kind of a personal preference for them and some people think it sounds kind of cute. You might also hear “fishys” which is extremely cute. I personally love to say that because it sounds very cute. It’s just kind of a funny, charming little joke, right?
So, you might use “fish” for one wish, two fish as well. You might also hear “fishes” used by some people and to be very cute or funny, you might hear people say “fishys” too. So, this is kind of a personal preference sort of thing in these kinds of casual situations where you’re talking about your home aquarium or your pets at home.
If, however, you are in a polite conversation, generally, we do not use “fishes” or “fishys.” We generally say “one fish,” “two fish,” “three fish,” and so on.
There is one exception to the rule. When we use “fish” to refer to species of fish, like in a scientific situation, for example, if you are doing research maybe on the ocean and you want to talk about many different types of fish you’ll find, you might say, for example, “Many different fishes live in this area,” which refers to many different species of fish. So, that means not just one fish, not just a bunch of different fish of the same type, but many different category, perhaps, or many different species of fish. So, there is, like an orange fish, a blue fish, and they have different characteristics and so on. In these cases, you might see “fishes” used to refer to those different types of fish, not just more than one, yeah?
So, this is the difference between “fish,” “fishes,” and even “fishys,” I hope that this helps you. In everyday conversation, it can be kind of up to you when you’re being casual, but if you want to avoid sounding cute or to avoid sounding funny and just want to focus on being correct, please use “fish” for singular and “fish” for plural; “one fish, two fish, three fish, four fish.” There’s a very popular kids’ book from a very popular kids’ author, an English kids’ author called Dr. Seuss. He has a rhyme we can use to help us remember this, “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.” So, “fish” is used for the singular and the plural. 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 me 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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