| 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. |
| The first question this week comes from Patricia Barbosa. Hi, Patricia. Patricia says, 'Good morning. I am reading a book and it has lots of contractions like I'd. Is this I had or I would? Which one is the correct one? Best regards, Patricia.' Oh, that's a great question, Patricia. |
| So this question is about how to know when 'I'd', the contraction I'D is 'I had' and when it's 'I would' because the contraction is the same, right? I'd and I'd can be used for the same thing. So the way to know is to look at the word that comes after the contraction. |
| Remember, when you use, for example, an 'I would' sentence pattern like 'I would like to' or 'I would go to that if I were you,' when we follow 'I would' patterns, we use a verb in that base infinitive form, right? 'I would like to', 'I would go' or 'I would eat that if I were you'. So when we use those 'I would' patterns, the verb that follows is in the base, the infinitive form, so like the dictionary form. |
| In contrast, when you use 'I'd' for the contracted form of 'I had', the verb that follows is different from the 'I would' contracted form. So when you use 'I had' in the contracted form 'I'd', you follow that with a verb in past participle tense. For example, 'I'd eaten too much' means 'I had eaten too much' or 'I'd slept late', 'I had slept late'. So the verb that follows the 'I'd' there is in the past participle form. |
| This is how you know whether 'I'd' means 'I had' or 'I would'. So again, to recap, you need to look at the word that comes after the contraction to know which one is which. And this might seem a little bit confusing at first, but over time you'll get used to noticing the verb pattern and the contraction pattern and you won't have to think about it anymore. So the best way to practice with this is just to read. |
| So to recap, when you see 'I would' used as a contraction 'I'd', you'll know that it means 'I would' because the following verb is in the base form or the infinitive form, the dictionary form. When the contraction means 'I had', it's followed by a verb in the past participle form. So this is how you know which is which in your reading. |
| I hope this helps you. Thanks for an interesting question. Okay, let's move on to your next question. |
| The next question comes from Ayman. Ayman says, 'What is the difference between in the other hand and on the other hand?' Okay, good question. |
| So 'in the other hand' and 'on the other hand'. Let's talk about the simpler one first. 'In the other hand' really just means that something, some object is inside someone's hand. So for example, if I'm holding my phone, I could say 'my phone is in my hand', right? If I say something like, 'oh, but there's nothing in my other hand' or 'there's nothing in the other hand', it means that there is nothing contained inside it or I am not holding anything. |
| So when you use 'in', the preposition 'in', it means physically you're holding something or you're putting something inside your fist perhaps, so you're containing another object inside your hand. So when you use 'in the other hand', this is what it means. Like 'I have a phone in this hand and in my other hand is nothing' in my example situation. |
| Now let's talk about 'on the other hand'. 'On the other hand' is a very common figure of speech. It doesn't actually mean on the surface of something. In most cases, perhaps there are some cases where maybe there's a bug or something like that physically on your hand and you might say, 'oh, there's a bug on your other hand'. Maybe in very, very few situations you might need to use that. |
| However, in most uses of this expression, 'on the other hand' is like a way of saying 'in this other situation' or 'by the way in this other kind of similar situation', so we want to talk about a related topic. So for example, I use 'on the other hand' a lot in this series to show when I want to explain the other side of a topic. |
| For example, if someone says, 'what's the difference between A and B?' I might say 'A is about this and this and this. On the other hand, B is about this and this and this.' So we use 'on the other hand' when we want to talk about two sides of a situation or we want to compare opposites of a situation, we tend to use this when we're kind of contrasting ideas or we're introducing maybe different sides of the same topic. |
| So when you want to talk about another part or another side of the same topic, you can use 'on the other hand' to do that. So I hope this helps answer your question. 'In the other hand' means physically contained inside your hand, something that you're holding and 'on the other hand', refers to the opposite side or another side of a topic of conversation. So thanks very much for this question. I hope that helps you. |
| Okay, let's move on to our next question. The next question comes from Khaled. Hi Khaled. Khaled says, 'I give up on learning English. I want some advice to keep up. I feel like I'm not good enough when I take a demo IELTS exam or read a newspaper and I find new words I've not seen before.' |
| For sure, it's hard to keep your motivation up when you find new things all the time and you feel like you're not making progress or there's still so much new stuff to do. Absolutely, I completely understand that that's really, really hard. |
| So how do you keep your motivation up? First, of course, don't quit. So accept that you feel like demotivated sometimes. It happens to all of us. It's totally, totally normal. So then what do you do? |
| So if you feel like maybe taking these practice exams or trying to read newspapers is too challenging for you, in your case, maybe because there's a lot of vocabulary words that you don't know, try taking it down a level. So for example, if reading a newspaper like a native English speaker made newspaper is too challenging, try to take it down a level. |
| So for example, you can find news articles that are made for English learners. So those kinds of news articles will have key vocabulary words explained. They'll be written in a way that makes it easier for learners to understand the information without so much difficulty or without so much challenge. |
| So if you're feeling demotivated because the things that you're using for your studies are just too hard, that's fine. Recognize that this is too challenging for you right now and just take it down a step. If you take it down a step and work on some goals at the level below where you are now, like building on some vocabulary or grammar skills or understanding how sentences are structured, you'll build your confidence up and you'll be ready to move up to another level in the future. |
| Just because you can't do this one thing right now today, it doesn't mean that it's not going to be possible in the future. So if you feel demotivated, it's okay to take it down a bit. Maybe something that you can do to regain your motivation is just to take a step back or take your studies down a little bit. Don't push yourself so hard and set some small achievable goals. |
| In your case, you mentioned running into lots of words that you don't know. So maybe that shows you that that's the next place for you to focus on. Perhaps your next study goal for the month can be to learn 300 new vocabulary words and focus on that. Then try to read that same newspaper article again. You might be surprised with the progress you make. |
| So in sum, if you're feeling demotivated, that's okay. Accept that you're going to feel this way sometimes. It's totally normal and it happens to everybody. In these moments, give yourself a little bit of time to regain your confidence. Try picking a smaller goal that you know you can achieve easily in a week or in a month, like choosing a certain number of vocabulary words to study or choosing a couple of different grammar lessons to review. Building up your self-confidence in this way will help you work towards that bigger goal in the future. |
| Thanks very much for this question and I hope that my advice can help you regain your motivation. Okay, that is everything 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 soon. Bye! |
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