| 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 Kenji Kumaki. |
| Hi Kenji! Kenji says, I want to know the differences between "as long as" and "as far as," I always think about how to use these two phrases when I talk to someone. |
| Okay, "as long as" and "as far as." So first, there is the basic |
| Comparison meaning as long as so a is as long as B and a is as far as B |
| I'm not going to talk about those the basic comparison ones rather |
| I'm going to talk about these expressions as part of other expressions |
| So let's first introduce a couple of example sentences we can use to talk about the differences between these two |
| let's start with as long as so we use as long as as part of a sentence that expresses a |
| Condition so for example as long as I finished work at 6 o'clock I can come to the movie with you |
| So another way of expressing this idea is only if I finish work at 6 o'clock |
| Can I come to the movie with you? |
| So as long as expresses this only if condition, as far as on the other hand is used in different situations. |
| We use as far as in expressions like as far as I know or as far as I'm aware |
| Which means to the extent that I'm aware or to the extent of my knowledge |
| So you can see that these two expressions are used very differently |
| We don't use as far as to talk about a condition like we do with as long as we use as far as to express the limitations of something so we use as far as most commonly in these kinds of expressions that describe our personal limitation, like "as far as I know" or "as far as I'm aware" or "as far as I've heard." |
| These kinds of things that express the limits of our knowledge or maybe in some cases the limits of our abilities. |
| So "as far as is" used in this way to express that limitation or another way to express this or another way to understand. |
| This is like saying to the extent that I am aware or to the best of my knowledge, that's kind of another way to express this idea |
| So with "as far as," we're usually talking about the extent or the limitation of our knowledge or our ability or the information that we have so as far as is used in expressions like as far as I know and as far as I'm aware to express the limitations of our knowledge to express that maybe there's some possibility that things are different from the current situation, but based on the information I have this is what I think or this is what I'm going to do. |
| So this is what we use as far as to do on the other hand when we use as long as we're expressing some kind |
| Of condition so a is possible only if B is possible |
| That's what we use as long as to do so one more example sentence with as long as might be something like |
| Mmm, as long as the weather's sunny tomorrow, we can go to the beach |
| So again, this expresses that condition right as long as it's sunny |
| Tomorrow is our condition only if a is possible only if it's sunny tomorrow |
| Is it okay or is it possible to go to the beach? |
| so I hope this answers your question about the differences between as long as and as far as as long as |
| expresses that only if condition and as far as expresses a kind of limitation or the |
| Extent of usually our knowledge or the information we have available |
| Also as I mentioned very briefly at the beginning of this answer |
| We can also use these to make comparisons like a is as long as B and a is as far as B |
| But I'm guessing your question is about the other uses that I talked about in this answer |
| So thanks very much for sending this question along. I hope that helps you |
| Okay, let's move along to your next question. Next question comes from Meijane Lo. I hope I said your name correctly, Meijane... |
| I hope I said it correctly. |
| Meijane says, please explain how to use "defensive" and "offensive." |
| Okay, great question. So defensive versus offensive. Let's first talk a little bit about sports |
| So if you're playing a game if you're playing a sport in which you have a ball |
| Let's say for example soccer and you have the ball |
| Your responsibility is to defend right so you want to keep the ball, right? |
| You want to keep the ball and so you're going to do everything you can with your team to make sure you protect |
| The ball right and of course score a goal the other team on the other hand |
| They want to do everything they can to get the ball, right? |
| They want to get the ball and use it to score a goal. They are the offensive team |
| So we call that the offense or the offensive team |
| So what's interesting about these words is that we don't just use them to talk about sports and to talk about war and fighting |
| And battles and these kinds of things. We also use these words to talk about our |
| Communication so we sometimes say that someone is on the defensive or they're on the offensive |
| When they start to attack someone else with their words or when they're trying to defend themselves with their words |
| So for example, if you have a fight with your roommate, your roommate is maybe angry with you because you didn't wash the dishes or something like that, they might say something like you never do the dishes. I'm always the one cleaning up out here. |
| We could describe that person as going on the offensive. |
| They are the one that is attacking you in this case you on the other hand are on the defensive side. |
| You want to defend yourself protect yourself? You can say I'm so sorry. I've been really busy lately or I just forgot. I apologize |
| I'll take care of it next time. So you are defending yourself. So we have this defense and offense in our |
| Communication as well. It does sound a little bit like sports or maybe like a official battle like a fight in a wartime situation |
| But we also use these defensive and offensive words to refer to other |
| Situations where we need to protect ourselves or where we need to attack or go after something |
| So you might also hear offensive being used when someone does something aggressively |
| Like for example, if a guy sees a cute girl at a bar and he really really really wants to talk to her |
| He might go up and introduce himself and try to make some light chit-chat or something like that |
| And his friends might say like oh he's on the offensive |
| So that means like he's trying to get something that's kind of the feel with offensive |
| So you can kind of imagine that there are many different communication related |
| Situations in which we might use defensive and offensive to communicate that idea |
| Okay to finish this answer. There's one more really interesting point that I want to make and it's about the word offensive |
| So you might notice the pronunciation is a little bit different |
| I've been talking about being on the defensive or on the offensive |
| Generally when we talk about sports we say like he's on the offense, right? |
| So that's the pronunciation we often use to talk about the offense the side that's attacking but there's another word that is… offensive, so it has the same spelling right? But the pronunciation of this word is always offensive so this word means something is disgusting or something causes us to feel very very strongly in a bad way. |
| So for example, if someone makes a really rude comment, you might say that's offensive or if you smell something that is absolutely terrible, you might say oh that is an offensive smell. |
| So offensive means it's something that's like attacking your senses or it's attacking your own personality |
| Maybe so we have this word that means that something is really really terrible, but the pronunciation is always offensive you might have noticed earlier. |
| Yeah, I said offense offense, but we also have an overlapping pronunciation here |
| So we always have to use this offensive pronunciation when we talk about things that are offensive. This is an adjective. |
| We can also use this pronunciation when we want to describe someone on the attack like oh, he's on the offensive |
| We can use that up sound at the beginning of this word. However, we cannot use the ah |
| Pronunciation with the adjective so we cannot say that something is offensive |
| We always say that something is offensive |
| So this is a really small pronunciation point |
| But make sure that when you're talking about attacking someone or attacking something you can use both pronunciations |
| Both are okay, though. I would say that the ah |
| Pronunciation is more natural. So just keep in mind that if you want to say that something is offensive and it's not good |
| You should make sure to use that a pronunciation |
| It's offensive if you want to talk about sports or the attacking side in a situation |
| You can say they're on the offense or on the offense. Both are okay |
| So this is an interesting pronunciation point, but just keep in mind you can only say that something is offensive not |
| Offensive. So I hope this helps answer your question about the differences between |
| Defensive and offensive. We also talked a bit about defense and offense and related words, too |
| Thanks so much for sending this question. Okay, let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Sum Yin Wong. Hi, Sum Yin Wong! Sum Yin Wong says, hi, Alisha. I want to know the differences between vegan and "vegetarian." Thanks. |
| Yeah, great question! |
| Okay. And a very important thing to know in this day and age the distinction to the best of my knowledge is very very simple. |
| Let's start with "vegetarian." So a vegetarian is a person that does not eat meat. So no pork. No chicken. No beef nothing |
| So some people might say I'm a vegetarian, but I eat some fish those people are sometimes described as pescatarians |
| But I think that some people consider true vegetarians to be people who also do not eat fish. So no red meat, no fish, that is someone who is a vegetarian. A vegan, on the other hand, or a meal that is vegan, is a meal that uses no animal products at all. |
| So when I say animal products, I mean, of course meat and fish, but also things that come from animals. So for example, that means dairy, so like milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, that means eggs as well. |
| So things that come from animals are also not consumed by people who are vegan. |
| So people who are vegan do not consume any animal products at all. |
| Or maybe some people who are vegan decide it just to do it every once in a while |
| It's up to individual preference, of course and people who are vegetarian simply do not eat meat |
| So this is the simplest breakdown of the differences between vegan and vegetarian |
| last point for this answer is that it's possible to use vegan and |
| Vegetarian to describe people and to describe the food that we eat so I could say I'm a vegetarian or I'm a vegan |
| You could also say this dish is vegetarian or this dish is vegan |
| So that means it doesn't have meat or it doesn't have any animal products |
| So we can use these words to talk about the people to describe the person's choices, |
| or we can use it to talk about the foods that we eat. |
| So I hope this helps you understand the differences between vegan and vegetarian. Thanks very much for sending this question along. |
| 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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