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hi everybody welcome back to ask Alicia
the weekly series where you ask me
questions and I answer them maybe first
question this week comes from my hi my
my says hi Alicia can you explain the
difference between attractive and
attracting for example Denver is a
famous tourist destination and is
renowned for its cuisine and something
scenery yeah okay I would use the word
attractive here attractive in the
adjective form attracting would be the
progressive form of the verb attract so
to attract means like to draw something
or to pull something in like to gain
attention for some reason so attractive
on the other hand means something that
is like appealing something that seems
good or exciting something that people
want that's something that's attractive
let's look at a few examples of how we
would use this Denver's delicious
cuisine and beautiful scenery are
attracting many tourists our job
advertisement is attracting lots of
great candidates the light bulb in our
living room is attracting moths okay so
now let's compare this to attractive the
adjective the travel company prepared
some attractive summer vacations for
customers a good sense of humor is very
attractive how do we make our products
more attractive okay so I hope that this
helps you understand the difference
between attractive and attracting thanks
very much for the question all right
let's move on to your next question next
question this week comes from I'm N hi
I'm n I'm n says hi Alicia I'm from
Algeria my first question is one what is
the difference between years and year
old my second question when can we use I
were instead of I was okay regarding
your first question we use years old to
talk about age we do not use year to
talk about age the only time that we use
year old in the singular is when we're
talking about a baby
a baby that is one year old in all other
cases we use the
years old so he's 13 years old she is 47
years old when we're talking about age
we use gear in the plural form years old
to do that when you're talking about
just like a length of time you can use
year or years to talk about that so just
remember that years old is for ages okay
regarding your second question then
about I were and I was we use I were
when we're talking about unreal
situations so this can be something
that's in the past and it can be
something that's in the present so some
great examples are like if I were a
doctor or if I were a teacher or if I
were rich so that means you are not that
thing now so it's not a real situation
it's not true we use I were to describe
those kinds of situations so a lot of
native speakers actually make a mistake
with this they use I was like if I was a
doctor if I was a teacher if I was rich
it's actually not correct but so many
people have made this mistake that it's
quite common now it's become quite
common actually but the correct way to
express unreal situations is with if I
were if I were so we use was just to
make simple past tense statements about
ourselves so like I was a teacher five
years ago or I was in the car this
morning for example so I work is for
unreal situations I was it's for simple
past tense statements about yourself 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 app graph I hope I said that
right hi a craft a craft says hi Alicia
I've been learning English for many
years now in school but I feel that my
English level has stagnated over the
past few years so I've started reading
English classic books like Jane Austen
and the Bronte's books in the beginning
I looked up every word I didn't
understand but I have to stop about 20
times every page I decided to just read
without looking up the difficult words
do you think this is a good idea ah okay
I think that
strategy sounds good but the book that
you're using sounds too difficult I
think that using a book to learn like
this is great one of the problems here
though is that classic English
literature is often written in like
old-fashioned English so that means that
the books English and today's English is
a bit different so if you're learning
English I probably I would say baby
don't choose a classic English
literature book as it's going to be
difficult to read just the way that
things are expressed in those books are
kind of different from the way that we
speak in everyday life so I would
recommend first choose an easier book so
by that I mean choose a book that was
written recently fairly recently and
also I would suggest when you're making
your book choice try to choose something
that you can understand about 70% of
without a dictionary so it sounds like
right now if you're stopping 20 times
per page that the book is too difficult
so look for something that you can stop
maybe two three four five maybe tops at
the most per page otherwise I think
you're gonna kill your motivation and
you'll feel just discouraged and you
don't get to enjoy what you're reading
so I would say yeah choose something
that's modern and choose something that
you can get about 70% of without using a
dictionary so that's different for
everybody as far as what kinds of
materials that might be helpful for you
I've personally found that reading
biographies so stories of people's lives
is really great and I also have enjoyed
using lecture books to study so I
recommend these or I've found these
useful because with a biography there
are very few characters there's usually
one main character telling a clear story
there's not a lot of characters and it's
usually someone you're already
interested in so you probably already
have some vocabulary about that story so
that's good I also like lectures because
if it's something that you're interested
in a topic you're interested in you can
gain more vocabulary about that thing
and again maybe you already have
vocabulary so I hope that this helps you
and good luck as you continue with your
studies thanks very much for the
question okay let's move along to your
next question next question comes from
Alexander hi Alicia I have a weird
question what's the difference between
the following words murder homicide
killing murderer killer and assassin
this is indeed a very weird and dark
question let's begin with the first two
words here which are murder and homicide
okay so actually murder and homicide
refer to the same thing homicide is the
legal word for murder murder means
taking a person's life so homicide is
just the legal way to describe that the
defendant was found guilty of homicide
there was a triple homicide in the city
last month killing is the progressive
form of the verb kill which we can use
for people we can use for animals and we
can also use this for time actually in
the expression to kill time which just
means to wasted time someone is killing
pets in our neighborhood terrible
sentence a terrible organization killed
a journalist last month so the next word
on your list was murderer okay so a
murderer is a person who kills or has
killed other people someone who has
committed murder murderers are dangerous
people the police are looking for a
murderer
you're next word is killer so a killer
in this case refers to someone who kills
so again this could be animals this
could be people we can also use the word
killer to talk about someone who ruins
things actually some examples there's a
killer on the loose that guy is a
conversation killer so the final word
that you have here is assassin so an
assassin is someone who is highly
trained in killing people so that sounds
like a very specific job that they have
is killing people so some examples of
assassin the assassin was on the roof
the government hired an assassin so that
was probably the weirdest and darkest
question I've ever received on this
series but I hope that that helps you I
hope that helps answer your questions
thanks very much for this ok let's move
on to your next question
next question comes from Andy hi Andy
Andy says what is the difference between
these words definition concept theory
notion and conception okay definition
your first word is definition so a
definition is the accepted meaning of a
word or a phrase we find definitions in
dictionaries check the dictionary for
the definition your next word was
concept so a concept is like a way of
thinking about something a concept is a
thought a type of idea this is an
exciting new concept your third word
here was theory so a theory is a new
idea it's something to test we see
theories used in science a lot like
theory of something so that means it's
an idea that can be tested we can
experiment to learn more like to try to
prove a theory or disprove a theory we
developed a theory about our customers
your next word was notion a notion so a
notion is an idea or a thought we tend
to use notion in more polite discussion
so maybe like in an academic discussion
for example the notion that we should
wake up early and go to sleep early is
crazy your final word is conception a
conception so conception is the point
where a new idea forms it's like the
beginning point for some new theory for
example it's the beginning point maybe
for a new project that start point is
called the conception she's been a part
of this project since conception so
these are all fairly similar words but
we tend to use like concept and notion
the same way some other words we use
similarly are like idea and thought so
when we're having these sort of like
philosophical discussions especially
these words get mixed around a lot but I
hope that that helps you understand
again I would recommend checking a
dictionary for other example sentences
and for some other explanations of these
words I hope that that helps you so
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 English class 101.com
slash ask
Alicia of course if you liked the video
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thanks very much for watching this
week's episode of ask Alisha and I will
see you again next week bye bye want to
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