Learn how to ask and answer "Have you seen this movie?"
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| Welcome to EnglishClass101.com’s British English in Three Minutes. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn English. |
| Hey everyone, I’m Gina! |
| In this series, we’re going to learn some easy ways to ask and answer common questions in English. It’s really useful, and it only takes three minutes! |
| In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to ask and answer the question “Have you seen this film?” |
| Sometimes when you’re talking to someone, you might run out of things to talk about. Don’t worry - it happens to everyone! This lesson is going to be really useful in increasing your repertoire of small-talk questions, by focusing on a topic that most people are at least a little bit interested in - films! |
| If you find yourself with nothing to talk about, or if you just really like films, then you can always start a conversation about a new or controversial film. |
| You ask this by saying: |
| “Have you seen [the name of the film]?” |
| The question “Have you seen...” is used when asking about films rather than “Did you see”, because you’re asking about the person’s present state. |
| There are several possible answers to this. |
| If you have seen the film, there are again several ways to reply according to how much you enjoyed it. If you saw it and really enjoyed it, you can say: |
| “Yeah, I really liked it.” |
| Or if you saw it but only thought it was so-so, you can say: |
| “Yeah, it was OK.” |
| Or, if you saw it but didn’t like it: |
| “Yeah, but it wasn’t a genre I usually watch.” |
| Remember with this last one that you shouldn’t criticise the film too much until you know what the other person thinks of it in order to be polite. |
| The logical follow-up to one of these responses is to ask what the other person thought of the film. You can just say: |
| “What did you think of it?” |
| And then this starts off a potentially interesting conversation about your opinions on the film! |
| However, how do you answer if you haven’t seen the film in question? |
| All you have to say is: |
| “No, not yet.” |
| This “not yet” implies that you’re planning to see the film at some point, and so indicates to the other person that they shouldn’t tell you about key points of the story. |
| If you don’t plan to see the film in question, or if it’s not the type of film you like, you can get this across politely by saying: |
| “Yeah, but it's not a genre I usually watch.” |
| Now it’s time for Gina’s Tips! |
| If you have seen the film in question but the other person hasn’t, it’s a great conversation starter to tell them about the plot of the film, or about any particularly funny or memorable scenes. But be careful! You should always ask if the other person plans to see the film in the future before telling them any important plot points. Just say “Do you plan to see it at some point?” |
| Telling someone an important plot point, or the “twist” or ending of a film, is called “spoiling” a film. The noun is “a spoiler”, as in “Don’t tell me any spoilers!” It’s considered very bad manners to reveal a spoiler without giving warning first, and some people can get very annoyed if you do this - so be careful! |
| Remember that when you're in the UK you will go to the cinema (and not the “movie theatre”) |
| Are you as young as you feel? Tune in to our next lesson to find out how to ask someone's age! Thanks for watching and see you next time! |
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