| 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 Oleg. Hi, Oleg. Oleg says, is it correct to say I'm using or I'm doing to explain my everyday tasks to someone like my work colleagues? For example, when I want to show someone something in a program like Excel, should I say I'm using this formula in this cell? Or should I say I use this formula in this cell? hanks. Nice question. |
| Yeah, this is a really, really important but small detail. So to break this down, of course, we use I use and other present tense patterns when we talk about something regular and we use the I'm using or I'm doing pattern, that progressive pattern, when we talk about something that is temporary, right? So this is kind of the basic grammar difference. |
| But how about in your example, like when you're showing something to someone, you're explaining something like how to use that thing, what you are doing, how do you do that? How do you decide between the two? Kind of the rule here is that when you have something that you always put in like one place or something that you always do, use that present tense form there. So in your example, like okay for me always like my decision is always to use this formula in this cell. |
| So when you explain that to your colleague, you say okay, I use this formula in this cell or I do this process with this software. So when you're talking about something that is kind of always the same, maybe in your team or in your workplace, you always do this. You can use that present tense verb form there. |
| So I use this, I do this, I choose this, I save this and so on. However, if you're in a situation like where you and your teammates or you and your colleagues are trying to figure out a new process, you're trying to decide on maybe some way to do something and you're like sharing your ideas. Yeah, like let's say you're maybe creating a new Excel spreadsheet for your team to use and together you're trying to decide the best way to create the sheet. You might say when you're explaining it, okay, I'm using this formula in this cell. So that sounds like it's temporary, right? That sounds like it's more temporary, which sounds like there's a chance there's room for the other person to provide feedback. Like you might say I'm using this formula in this cell. Does that sound right to you? Or I'm doing this in this software. What do you think? That sounds like there's an opportunity for them to give you some feedback or to talk about the way you do it or to make a change in some way. So, of course, not everyone is going to follow this grammar pattern exactly. But generally like when we're brainstorming, when we're coming up with these new ideas, you might hear people using that progressive form more when they're talking about something that like they're trying to do together with their colleagues or they're trying to show someone how to do something. Of course, separate from this situation, if you're just talking about something happening right now, like now I'm typing my name or now I'm inputting my password. |
| Like if you're talking about the specific steps as you do them, then yes, of course, use the progressive form to do that. But if you want kind of like this nuance of like a little bit of this is what I'm doing it now in this moment, what do you think? You can use that progressive form to kind of show that you're doing something together with another person in that moment. And again, if you want to express something that you always do, you can stick to that simple present tense form as well. So I hope that this helps answer your question. This is a really interesting point, very small thing, but I think it really, really adds something to the conversation when you're talking with people that you're close to, like your work colleagues or maybe even your classmates. So thanks very much for this question. |
| Okay, let's move on to your next question. Next question comes from Laszlo. Hi Laszlo. Laszlo says, hi Alisha. How do I explain the place something was made or the materials? Should I use on, by, for, etc. For example, should I say this product is made by aluminum or made from aluminum? What's the difference and what are some common ways to talk about this? Great question. Yeah, so this is one of those situations where the prepositions can get really confusing. That's like by, for, in of these little tiny words that are so difficult to remember, right? So let's talk about some common patterns. Let's start with the ones you introduced. |
| When you want to talk about the material something is made from, we usually use from or of to do that. So for example, this material is made of aluminum or this product is made of aluminum. We can also use from in exactly the same way. This is made from aluminum. So we can do this to talk about the material of something. We can also use a different pattern that doesn't use a preposition. You might just say this aluminum product blah blah blah or this wool sweater blah blah blah. So you can do this with any kind of material and products like aluminum pole or wool sweater or glass jar, whatever. You don't need to always use that this jar is made of blah blah blah or this sweater is made from blah blah blah pattern. You can actually make it a lot more efficient if you just put material and then product after it. So that's the first part of your question. |
| So to go to the other part of your question, what are some other common expressions that we use to talk about materials and what things are made of? We also have some expressions about the origin of the material. So that means where did that material come from? So maybe if you have like wool or maybe if you're talking about wine, where did the grapes come from and so on? How do we express that? We can use a couple of different patterns. So I talked about before using that this sweater is made of wool, right? When we do this, we can say this sweater is made of wool from region. You might also hear people use with in this pattern. This sweater is made with wool from region. So this sweater is made with wool from Scotland. When you use this pattern, you might notice that with is more common than of here. So by that I mean this sweater is made of wool from Scotland is probably less common than this sweater is made with wool from Scotland. This sounds a little bit more natural this with pattern. So basically when you want to talk about the region something came from you can just say from region. So from country or from city and so on. The last thing that I want to talk about is one that's a little bit confusing which talks about how the materials are made. |
| If you want to talk about someone using their hands to create something you use the expression by hand. So for example, this sweater was made by hand from wool or this sweater was made by hand with wool from Scotland or this aluminum jewelry was made by hand. So when you talk about something that people use their hands physically to create use the expression by hand to describe that. So I hope that this helps you understand how we can express the materials that we use and things where they come from and how people make them. So I hope that give you some good ideas for what to do next time. Thanks very much for sending this question along. Okay, let's move on to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Tanya. Hi Tanya. Tanya says what's a polite way to ask about someone's money to pay for something? For example, when someone asks for a recommendation for something, how do I ask them about the money they want to spend? Should I say how much can you pay or how much money do you have? Thank you. Yeah, good question. It's really important to be polite when you ask this. So in this situation, I think if someone comes to you, I think what your question is, if someone comes to you and says, hey, can you recommend a restaurant or can you recommend, you know, this software product or this maybe technology product for me? And you want to ask them about how much money they can pay, right? How do you politely do that? So the ones you suggested here are how much can you pay or how much money do you have? So first, definitely don't say how much money do you have, like unless you're very, very close to the person. If you say how much money do you have, it sounds like overall in your life, like how much money is in your bank account. It's too big of a question. How much can you pay? Sounds a little dark. It sounds like it's a kind of a shady deal. Like how much can you pay? Like I want to know how much money you have so that I can, you know, get a deal on this somehow. So I don't recommend how much can you pay, but you might hear this in movies like action movies and like suspense movies and so on. |
| Instead, a much better question to ask is what's your budget? What's your budget or how much are you thinking about for your budget or about how much do you want to pay? So those are a little bit more polite ways to ask about someone's financial situation. Yeah, I personally would say what's your budget because it just sounds very quick, very easy, not scary, not threatening. It's just a very straightforward friendly way to ask about someone else's finances. So if they say for example, like hey, can you recommend like a video editing software for me? It's like yeah, sure. What's your budget? So that sounds quick and efficient and like you're paying attention and you're thinking of them as well. So I would recommend what's your budget or you might also hear people say something like, you know, oh what kind of budget did you have in mind? You might also hear sales staff say, how much are you looking to spend? How much are you looking to spend means about how much money do you want to spend on this thing? So you might hear that pattern as well usually face to face with salespeople. But again, I would recommend what's your budget? That's going to sound like the best way to respond to this question. |
| So thanks very much for this interesting question. I hope that that answers it. All right, that is everything that I have for this week. |
| Thank you as always for sending your great question. 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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