Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha. The weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them. Maybe.
First question this week comes from Askar. Hi Askar. Askar says, hi Alisha, could you please explain the meaning of this phrase for me.
“A woman 20 years his senior.”
Yeah. This means, a woman 20 years older than him, be he in this situation. So, we use number of years, his or her junior or senior to express a difference in age. So, if you want to talk about someone younger, you use the word junior. To talk about someone who is older, you use the word senior.
Some more examples.
She’s working with the team of people 10 years her junior.
The manager is 5 years his senior.
Okay so I hope that that helps you with your understanding of this phrase. Thanks very much for the question.
Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Maxime Yang. Hi Maxime. Maxime says, hi Alisha, I was wondering, I heard that the verb propose is used for marriage proposals only. I thought I would use the verb suggest instead but I saw propose used in several movies. For example, I propose we go forward. What’s the truth? Can I use propose or not?
Yes, you can absolutely use the word propose for something other than a marriage proposal. So yes, for marriage proposals when we ask someone to marry us, we do use the word propose. To propose or to ask someone to get married. Those are the two verbs we use. Propose however outside of this case just means like to suggest an idea. To put something forward and it is very commonly used in business situations. I propose we break for lunch. I propose we begin searching for a new creative director. We also very commonly use this in the expression, I’d like to propose a toast. When you are at like formal parties, often someone like will decide to make a speech and they will begin the speech by like usually lifting up their glass and saying, I’d like to propose a toast which means like they are going to present some kind of like positive or congratulatory message to everyone and then everybody agrees and like, “cheers” that kind of thing.
So yes, please feel free to use the word propose outside of marriage proposal situations. Thanks very much for an interesting question. Okay, let’s move on to your next question.
Next question comes from Silver Way. Hi Silver Way. Silver Way says, hi Alisha, would you please tell me the difference between the verbs recognize, admit and acknowledge.
Um, these words have multiple meanings. So I will try to introduce the meanings that might be kind of confusing or difficult to understand the differences between. Let’s start with the word recognize. So to recognize something means like to be able to notice or to be able to understand something.
For example, I cut my hair and the boss didn’t recognize me.
I recognized you from across the room.
Another meaning of recognize is to accept or to understand as acceptable.
The University recognizes credits earned in overseas courses.
Do you recognize qualifications from independent organizations?
So the verb to admit can mean to tell the truth about bad behavior.
He admitted he broke the glass.
She’s going to admit she stole the money.
So, to admit can also mean to allow or to permit. We often use this when we are entering a building or like we are entering an organization.
For example, I was admitted to my first choice university.
We don’t admit new students until autumn.
So finally, acknowledge can mean like to recognize someone’s status or to recognize that someone helped you in some way. It’s like an expression of gratitude as well.
Some examples. We acknowledge the hard work of our team.
He acknowledged us as his best clients.
So this is a very brief introduction to these words. If you want to know more about the meanings and if you want to know more about the additional meanings of these words, you can check out a dictionary and look for some example sentences that use these words. So you can kind of start to notice the ways and the situations in which these are used. So thanks very much for this question.
All right. Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Jimmy. Hi Jimmy. Jimmy says, hi Alisha, I would like to know how I can teach English to my kid, a 5-year old boy? I am not a native English speaker and I don’t live in an English speaking country. It’d be great if you could give me some advice.
Sure. When I was teaching kids, a really great way to teach them was through singing and through playing games. By making the learning process fun like kids often didn’t even realize they were studying. It just became like an enjoyable way to spend time.
A couple of things to be careful about. When you are using songs, make sure that the student that your kid understands the correct pronunciation of each word in the song. So for example, if you are learning the ABC song, make sure that the student or your child understands that each word, each sound is a letter in the alphabet. So something that I heard among little kids especially is they would kind of understand the melody of a song but they would just sort of make sounds that sounded similar to what they were hearing.
So like for example, when I heard kids get to the L, M, N, O, P part of the alphabet song which a native speaker sings as L, M, N, O, P, the kids would just go, [*] like they would sort of make these like weird sounds that weren’t actually letters. So make sure that the kids understand exactly what they are doing. So it’s not just like making sounds that sounds kind of fun. You are actually singing a song. So that’s something that you can study together.
Another thing you can do is use games as part of your study materials. A really great way to do that is with flash cards. So you can make flashcards together with your child if you want or if you are teaching kids, you can make your flashcards with those students. This was really good to do when there was a picture for the kid to color and something to write as well. So if your student is at a high enough level where they can write the word that they’ve drawn, that’s great because they can practice like writing the letters themselves but having that visual and having a word is a great way to practice.
So some things that we would do, we would play just like a simple you know throw a ball into plastic like bucket sort of thing like try to score points if you get the answer right by like guessing the correct word on the flashcard for example.
So we were kind of just using this as a way to study vocabulary. That was fun. So I would say, make it fun. Use games and just make sure that they understand that they are also learning a tool and if you have the chance to, kind of try to show them how they could maybe use it in the future. So it’s not just fun with mom and dad but it’s also something that they can use outside of the home too. So I hope that this helps you and good luck with your studies with your child. Thanks very much for this question.
Okay. Let’s move on to your next question. Next question comes from Marcelo Oliveira. Hi again Marcelo. Marcelo says, hi Alisha, what’s up? Could you help me with the meaning of the expression, Jump on the bandwagon?
Yeah. Jump on the bandwagon means to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. So, this comes from the expression bandwagon. So if we break down this word band and wagon, a band like a traveling you know musician group used to or in some cases travelled in a wagon. So like a big, open kind of – before cars, a big and open like structure on wheels. So it could like attract a lot of attention. There are lots of people. There is maybe music and so on. So, you know, maybe they are kind of popular because they look like they are a lot of fun.
So a bandwagon, to jump on the bandwagon would mean, to join that group, to become a part of that group in some way.
So in today’s English, to jump on the bandwagon means to finally participate in something or to just join a group that looks really popular or something that is gaining a lot of support.
So some examples.
My friends all jumped on the Pokemon Go Bandwagon right away.
I finally jumped on the Netflix bandwagon last year.
So if you want to be specific about which bandwagon you are jumping on like which thing you are supporting or which like kind of popular group you’ve joined, you can put the name of that right before bandwagon as I did in these example sentences. So I hope that this helps you understand that expression. Thanks very much for the question.
Okay. That’s everything that I have for this week. Thank you as always for sending your questions. Remember, you can send them to me at englishclass101.com/ask-alisha, thanks very much for watching this week’s episode of Ask Alisha and I will see you again next week. Bye bye!

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