So vs Such vs Too - EnglishClass101

Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody, my name is Alisha.

In this video, I'm going to talk about the differences between "so," "such," and "too," three very commonly confused words.

So let's get started.

First, let's take a look at the word "so."

In today's lesson, I am going to focus on one use of the word so, and that uses for emphasis.

So we use the word so for emphasis before an adjective or an adverb.

So a reminder, an adjective is a word that tells us some extra information about a noun, and an adverb is something that tells us some extra information about a verb.

Okay?

So we use "so" in this lesson for the same way or in the same way as the word "very."

But "so" is more casual than "very."

So when we use the word "very," it tends to sound a little bit more formal or a little bit more polite when we use 'so' it's probably because we're talking to someone we're close to, we're talking very quickly, we have a more casual relationship with the other person.

We tend to use "so" a lot more than "very" in everyday life, but "very" is still very common.

So let's look at some examples of this use of 'so' and break down the grammar here.

So let's take a look at the first one.

The first sentence is, "The sunset is so beautiful."

"The sunset is so beautiful."

So here we have "so", our emphasis word, before "beautiful".

So "beautiful" is an adjective, right?

In this case we are talking about the sunset and we're saying the quality of the sunset is beautiful.

We do this with "so".

We could replace "so" with "very" here and the sentence would have the same meaning.

The sunset is very beautiful.

But when we use so, it sounds more casual, it sounds just more everyday, and we also like to extend the so sound for even more emphasis.

For example, the sunset is so beautiful that helps us to express ourselves more.

Okay, let's take a look at the second example.

He works so quickly.

So in this sentence, we have so before the word quickly.

So quickly is an adverb.

This tells us something extra about a verb, right?

So in this case, we are learning more about how he works.

In this case, the speed at which he works.

What is the speed?

Quickly, right?

So we have so before the adverb here.

Again, we could extend the sound and we could say he works so quickly if we really want to emphasize this for some reason.

And again, we can also replace this with very.

He works very quickly.

But again, that tends to make it sound a little bit stiffer or a little bit more polite.

So this one sounds very casual and very everyday.

Let's look at the last example here.

The movie was so exciting.

So here we again have an adjective after so, and we are communicating that this quality is related to this movie.

The movie was so exciting.

So you can see how we use "so" for emphasis in the same way as "very." Like I said before, there are other uses of "so," like the one that I use a lot in these lessons to connect ideas, but today I want to focus on using this emphasis.

So now let's compare this to the second point in this lesson, the word "such." So how do we use such?

What is the difference here?

Such is also an emphasis word. So we use for emphasis before an adjective plus noun combination.

So we have these two parts together.

Okay, and when we do this, we use it with the indefinite article.

So the indefinite article is uh or an with countable nouns.

Okay, so this might seem like a lot of information.

So let's Let's take a look at some example sentences.

First one here.

Last night, we saw such a beautiful sunset.

So let's break this down.

Here is our such, right?

Our emphasis word.

After this, we have a beautiful sunset.

Okay, so here we have our adjective and here we have our noun, right?

We do this with an adjective noun combination.

So we have beautiful sunset And because this is a countable noun, we use uh, the indefinite article uh.

Last night we saw such a beautiful sunset.

So you can maybe see this sentence is very similar to this sentence, right?

The sunset is so beautiful, right?

This communicates a similar idea, but you can see we need to change the structure of the sentence to use these different emphasis words, right?

So we can communicate similar ideas.

We just need to kind of change the makeup of the sentence.

Okay, let's look at another example of this.

Number two here, he is such a quick worker.

He is such a quick worker.

So in this sentence, we have such before a quick worker, a quick worker.

So again, we have this adjective noun combination, right?

Quick, fast, you know, we learn something about the speed and worker, here's our noun.

In this case, we have, again, the indefinite article, "a", right?

A quick worker.

So we can again see that this sentence communicates about the same thing as this sentence, but we just used a different grammatical structure to express the idea.

He is such a quick worker, right?

So we cannot replace "so" for such in these sentences.

He is so a quick worker, incorrect.

Or we saw so a beautiful sunset, incorrect.

We cannot use them in the same way.

And we cannot substitute such over here.

The sunset is such beautiful.

Nope, cannot use.

And he works such quickly.

Nope, we also cannot use them.

So let's look at the last example now.

That was such an exciting movie.

So again, we have our such plus an exciting movie.

So here's our adjective, exciting, and our noun, movie, right?

So we have the adjective noun, combination, and in this case we have the indefinite article "an".

Yeah?

This is because the next word starts with a vowel sound, right?

An exciting movie, not a exciting movie, an exciting movie.

So again, with this final example, we see we can communicate a very similar idea to this sentence too.

The movie was so exciting, or that was such an exciting movie.

We can communicate similar ideas.

We just need to use different grammatical structures to do it.

So both of these words are used for emphasis, but we just need to think about how we use them together with other words.

Okay, great.

So that's part one and part two.

Now let's take a look at part number three, the word "too", T-O-O.

So "too" and "so" often get confused.

And so I wanted to talk about kind of the differences between these and why sometimes using "too" in the wrong way can get you into a little bit of trouble.

So first, let's look at this.

When do we use "too"?

We use "too" to express more than needed or more than necessary.

So this has a negative feel about it.

It's like saying, this is the level that is required and this is what we have or this is the situation and this is bad.

So when we want to express that there is more than is necessary or more than is needed and this is a problem or this is negative, we use "too" to express that, okay?

We use "too" before adjectives and adverbs, just like so.

So this has the same kind of grammatical position sometimes.

And when we use this with nouns, we use too much before uncountable nouns and too many before countable nouns.

So we can use this word in front of adjectives and adverbs and nouns, but there are some changes that we need to think about.

So let's take a look at some example sentences and break down what they mean.

First one here, this food is too spicy.

This food is too spicy.

So this sentence communicates the spiciness level.

So this food is very hot, very spicy, right?

And it is more than necessary, or it is more than I can eat.

This is uncomfortable, this is painful for me.

That's what "too" expresses.

If you use so in this sentence, it creates a grammatically correct sentence.

This food is so spicy.

That sentence is 100% correct, but you are not communicating the negative nuance that you communicate with too.

If you say, this food is so spicy, it's like maybe you feel excited about that, or maybe you enjoy really spicy food, or you just want to make a comment, right?

Like, wow, this food is so spicy.

If you want to communicate, this food is too spicy, this food is more spicy than I can handle, you use "to" to include that negative feel.

Okay?

Let's look at the next example.

You're driving too quickly.

So in this sentence, we have "to" before an adverb, "quickly," right?

So "quickly" refers to the speed of something.

You're driving too quickly.

Again, this sentence expresses a negative nuance.

The speed of your driving is more than is necessary.

is faster than we need it to be.

Please slow down, right?

Again, if we use 'so' in this sentence, it makes a correct sentence.

You're driving so quickly, but it doesn't communicate that negative feel.

If you say you're driving too quickly, it sounds like, "Please slow down.

This is not good for me.

" If you say, "You're driving so quickly," it's just a comment, kind of, or maybe the other person likes to go fast or something like that.

So they both create grammatically correct sentences but they have very different nuances.

Okay, let's take a look now at some noun examples.

So I think we bought too many snacks.

I think we bought too many snacks.

So in this sentence, we have too many, right?

Before our countable noun, snacks, plural, right?

So this has an S at the end.

This is plural snacks.

I think we bought too many snacks.

This communicates the number of snacks we need is here.

We bought this many snacks.

We bought more than we need.

The number of snacks we bought is more than we need.

We communicate this by saying too many.

So sometimes I see learners using like something like we bought so many snacks, right?

Or I think we bought so many snacks, which again can communicate just a lot of something.

It doesn't communicate the negativity though and sometimes you do want to communicate, maybe there's a problem here, I think there's more than we need, what should we do, right?

So sometimes it is very important to communicate that negative feeling.

Okay, let's look at the last example.

He spends too much time playing video games.

In this sentence, we have "too much before" or "uncountable now time", right?

"Too much time playing video games.

" So again, this sounds like we are expressing our opinion about something that is more than is necessary or more than is good.

Maybe if this is the healthy level of video game time, he spends this much time playing video games.

So we want to express that negative feeling here.

Again, as with the other examples, we can create a correct sentence with "so" in this position.

He spends so much time playing video games.

It doesn't communicate the same level of negativity, but the sentence is grammatically correct.

So please, please, please be careful.

When you use "to," you are communicating negative.

Something is negative about this situation, in my opinion.

When you use "so," you are not communicating that.

So it's very important and to learn how to use the two of these very, very fluently.

Yeah? Okay, great. So I hope that this lesson helped you understand the differences between so and such and to, and the very, very important differences between the nuances, especially with to and so.

So I hope that this lesson was helpful for you.

Of course, if you have any questions or comments, or if you want to practice making some example sentences with this information, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video.

Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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