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  • want to speak really English from your first lesson.

  • Sign up for your free lifetime account at English Class 101 dot com Hi, everybody.

  • Welcome back to ask Alicia the Weekly Siri's where you ask me questions and I answer them.

  • Maybe first question this week comes from result.

  • Coups.

  • Wandy Hagen results, Results says Hi, Alicia, What's the difference between think and thought?

  • And when do we use them?

  • Thanks.

  • Okay, so I'm going to focus on the verb uses of these words.

  • So the simple answer is that think is present tense and thought is past tense.

  • We use think when we're talking about our opinions or ideas for things that are always true.

  • So, for example, I think summer is the best season, or I think tea is delicious.

  • We use fought to talk about our past ideas and opinions, Yes, but we use thought to talk about actions or activities that have been completed, and we want to refer to our opinions of those things.

  • So, for example, I thought the movie was great.

  • I thought dinner was expensive, so sometimes we want to talk about, like, a past situation.

  • So something that happened before, and we want to share our opinion of it.

  • But we don't use present tense Think we use thought to refer to that.

  • So I thought dinner was expensive last night.

  • Or I thought the movie was great, so the activity has ended, but we want to share our opinion of that.

  • So when we're talking about our regular like opinions and ideas like things we think are delicious always or things we enjoy or things we hate always we use present tense.

  • Think to do that.

  • We would not use think for a completed action.

  • Like, I think the movie was great last night.

  • We would not use that.

  • We use past tense to do that.

  • So I hope that this helps you understand the difference between think and thought.

  • Thanks very much for the question.

  • Okay, let's move on to your next question.

  • Next question comes from Maria.

  • Hi, Maria.

  • Maria says Hi.

  • Could you tell me which one is correct?

  • Have a shower or take a shower.

  • Thank you.

  • Yeah, both are correct.

  • The difference here is really just that Have a shower is perhaps more commonly used in British English.

  • We tend to use take a shower in American English.

  • Some other expressions you might hear related to bathing in English are hop in the shower, which implies a very short shower, were hopping the bath, hop in the tub as well, where tub refers to bathtub or have a rinse.

  • Maybe you might also here, take a rinse, which sounds like you're just rinsing your body off.

  • Maybe, like after a jog, for example, rinsing sweat off of the body, maybe rinsing some dirt off the body after doing some gardening or something.

  • So we have a few different shower and bathing related expressions.

  • But the most common one in American English is take a shower, have a shower is okay to use to.

  • It's just more commonly used in British English, so I hope that this helps you.

  • Thanks very much for the question.

  • Okay, let's move on to your next question.

  • Next question comes from Far Region Hom Newer Hello for E.

  • J.

  • Home Free Home says highly show What is the difference between had, have can and could.

  • This is a really big question.

  • Let's start by looking at, have and had their uses and the meanings.

  • It really depends on the situation so first we can use have in present tense to refer toe owning something had is the past tense form of the verb we can also use have and had to make perfect, tense sentences.

  • Perfect, tense statements and questions so have is used for present perfect tense had is used for past perfect tense.

  • We also use this in responsibility expressions like half two and had to, in present, tense and in past tense, respectively.

  • So let's look at a list of example sentences that show us how each one of these is used.

  • I have a cookie.

  • I had a cookie at lunch.

  • I have had a cookie today.

  • I had had four cookies by the time I left the office yesterday.

  • I have to eat all these cookies.

  • I had to eat so many cookies yesterday.

  • So these example sentences show us the variety of ways that we can use have and had some times together to make a lot of different statements moving on to the second part of your question about can and could.

  • These two words also have quite a lot of different uses we can use can in present tense to talk about our abilities and to make, like requests and offers we can use could to talk about our past abilities and to make polite, present, tense requests and offers.

  • We also use could to talk about unrealized situations.

  • And this includes impossible situations.

  • In the past, I can speak Spanish.

  • I could speak Spanish when I was a kid.

  • Can you help me with my homework?

  • Could you please help me with my homework?

  • If I had a lot of money, I could buy a house.

  • Was that Davy?

  • Now that couldn't have been Davey Davies at the office.

  • So can and could is also a very big topics.

  • I hope that this very quick introduction at least shows you some examples of how we use thes different words.

  • Thanks very much for your question.

  • Okay, let's move on to your next question.

  • Next question comes from why he Hello, White Heat.

  • Why, Hean says, What is the difference between do you and are you?

  • Do you begins questions that are asking for help that are asking for information or maybe making requests and offers we follow.

  • Do you, with the present tense form of the verb, is the simple infinitive form of the verb.

  • Some examples.

  • Do you know where my keys are?

  • Do you have a pen?

  • Do you want to get a coffee?

  • Do you go to the gym every week?

  • Are you?

  • Begins a question asking about someone's condition we follow.

  • Are you with a verb in the progressive tense with a noun phrase or with an adjective?

  • Some examples.

  • Are you a doctor?

  • Are you okay?

  • Are you coming to the office today?

  • Are you at home?

  • So this is kind of a good guideline that you can use when you're trying to decide between do you?

  • And are you questions?

  • What kind of information do you want to know?

  • If it's a condition question you can probably use, are you?

  • If you're looking for information or trying to make a request you might use, do you instead?

  • I hope that this helps you.

  • Thanks very much for the question.

  • Okay, let's we want to Your next question.

  • Next question comes from ST Har.

  • Ready?

  • Huggins Radar.

  • Radar says highly Sha.

  • What's the difference between its Okay, and that's okay.

  • Um, not much, really.

  • In most cases, we use them interchangeably.

  • But there are a couple cases where we do use just one.

  • So, for example, when you're making a sentence that uses and if pattern, you always want to use its okay, not that's okay, For example, It's okay if you can't finish this today or it's okay if you're running late, so we would not use That's okay in that situation.

  • That's okay.

  • If you're running late or that's okay.

  • If you can't finish it today, we would use its okay If you're making an if sentence and if Klaus sentence So in many cases, especially in my case, I tend to use That's okay when someone apologizes to me for some kind of small mistake.

  • So if someone like bumps my shoulder or if somebody forget something I don't know, I could say that's okay too mean, no problem.

  • You could use its okay in this case, do.

  • But I feel like that's okay.

  • Might be a little bit more common also when you are in close proximity.

  • So that means when you have a very close relationship, either physically or emotionally to another person, and you're talking about an issue and you want to present a situation and you want to make the other person feel at ease like everything's fine.

  • You can use its Okay.

  • So, for example, a person a might say, Oh, no, I deleted an important file from my computer.

  • B says It's okay.

  • I made a backup yesterday, So in that situation, it's okay proceeds or comes before the solution to the situation in those cases, using its okay might sound a little bit more natural than that's OK.

  • But as I said, in most cases we use them interchangeably, and it doesn't really cause a communication problem.

  • But I hope that those air a few situations that you can use in daily life.

  • On that you can use thes two expressions a little bit more naturally.

  • So thanks very much for the question.

  • I hope that that helps.

  • Okay, that is everything that I have for this week.

  • Thank you, as always for sending your questions and remember to send them to me in English Class 101 dot com slash ask hyphen Alicia.

  • Of course, if you liked this week's lesson, please don't forget to give the video of thumbs up, subscribe to our channel if you have not already and check us out at English Class 101 dot com for some other things that can help you with your English studies.

  • Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alicia and I Will See You Again Next time Bye bye.

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