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Hi, everybody.

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

Maybe first question comes from Sue N'kara Elia High.

Sankara Cinchona says I could do it now if you like.

What does could mean in this sentence does could mean ability in the present or possibility.

And what does likely toe happen mean in English?

Okay, yeah, it's something maybe that people would use to say something is possible Now.

I feel like we would probably say, I can do it now if you like, and it would sound like I can do it now if you like.

Perhaps a person would use could instead of can to make it sound a little bit more formal.

But it just means it's possible for me to do this now.

If you like, I could do it now if you like.

Do you have time to finish checking my paperwork today?

Yeah, I could do it now if you like.

So that's a situation where you might hear this used could will found a little bit more formal.

I think, then can.

So regarding your second question about the phrase likely toe happen, it just means there's a good chance of something.

So there's a good chance that something will happen in the future.

For example, the company says the new project launches likely to happen in June.

Our regular summer party is not likely to happen this year, so I hope that this helps answer your questions.

Thanks very much.

All right, let's move onto your next question.

Next question comes from Fabio High.

Fabio Fabio says, Hello, Alicia.

I'd like to know about some American dictionaries.

Which one do you recommend?

Okay, Yeah.

My favorite dictionary is Webster's Dictionary.

It's called the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as well.

So if you can't access the physical book, I highly recommend Merriam Webster's online dictionary.

There are my favorite resource to use.

I use them pretty much every week to plan these lessons to plan other videos.

It's a great resource, so of course you can look up words and you confined example sentences and pronunciation there.

But they also do a really nice job of sharing interesting articles about like word history about new words that are coming up, and you can also do quizzes on their website.

They post interesting information on their Twitter feed, so I highly recommend Merriam Webster's Dictionary.

That's my favorite one.

So just Google for a Merriam Webster, and you can find it really, really easily.

There are a couple of other official American dictionaries, the other two like big dictionaries.

There's one that's called the American Heritage Dictionary.

That's one that I personally have not used.

And my understanding is that that's a very like conservative approach to standard English.

So that dictionary originally came about because the person the publisher felt that Merriam Webster's approach was like a little bit to open like they were.

Merriam Webster was allowing, like too many new words to come in, and they weren't being strict enough about what's correct and incorrect and so on.

So the American Heritage Dictionary was like this conservative response to that.

You can still find the American Heritage Dictionary online today if you want to check it out.

There's like example, sentences and definitions and images and things you can use to learn more about words there.

There's also the new Oxford American Dictionary again.

I have not used this one personally, but that's based on the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning British English.

So that's as the base has had, like some updates, to make it like an American English dictionary.

So that's another resource that you could consider using.

But my personal favorite, as I said, is Webster's Dictionary.

That's a great great resource to use in terms of online dictionaries.

Ah, like I said, Merriam Webster is good.

I also like to use the Cambridge Online Dictionary because in addition to searching or to being able to search for a word meanings, you can search for grammar as well.

So if there's a grammar point you're not familiar with, they have a grammar search tool.

You can also listen to pronunciations of words in British, English and in American English, and they have lots and lots of example sentences.

So I use those to probably the most the American English Um, Cambridge Dictionary and the American English Merriam Webster's Dictionary.

So those are a few dictionaries for you to check out.

I hope that that's helpful.

Thanks very much for the question.

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

Next question comes from our wrongs.

I pi r wrongs.

I hope I said that right.

Ah.

Longs.

I ive says, Can we use wanna gonna and Ghada Informal English writing or speaking?

Mm.

I don't recommend it.

Informal writing.

No, I don't.

You might hear gonna informal speaking like when we're speaking quickly, but generally using wanna sounds too casual.

So wana is the reduced form of want to and that even just want to I want to He wants to Might sound a little too casual.

Instead, we would use I would like to in more formal situations I would like to reduce is to I'd like to I'd like to um gonna You might hear it in speech.

I would not use it in writing, but gonna is three reduced form of going to and so that's OK to use.

I'm going to He's going to Some other things that you could use in place of that are like I plan to or I intend to.

So these refer more formally to your upcoming plans and finally got a is the reduced form of got to or have got to or have Teoh Um So this one is okay to use in the non reduced form.

Like I have to do something.

That's okay.

Got to might sound a little bit too rough.

If you want to sound like extremely formal, you could say I have a responsibility to do something.

Eso The short answer is no.

I would not use thes informal writing.

You can listen to the other people around you to hear if they used these words in speech because in some cases, that might be OK.

But in writing, I would not do this.

No.

Okay, so I hope that this helps answer your question.

Thanks very much for sending it along.

Let's move on to your next question.

Next question comes from Zachary High.

Zachary Zachary says highly Sha I have two questions.

First, is there a difference between a bit and a little bit?

Second, do you never pronounce the T at the end of a noun?

If there's an s after the tea in the plural form, for example, event events.

Ah, okay.

Ah, First of all, no, there's not a difference between a bit and a little bit.

They have the same meaning, but native speakers often like to extend the sound little to really emphasize how small something is.

For example, can I have a bit of cake?

Can I have a little bit of cake?

So little like extending that sound makes it sound like the peace we want is even smaller.

It sounds super casual and kind of goofy kind of funny, but this is how it's used, so the meaning isn't actually any different.

But we'd like to kind of make an emphasis phrase or an emphasis kind of like feel with it.

Regarding your second question, we do actually pronounce the T here in events events.

It's not a hard sound.

It's more like a So it's like the tongue touches the back of the teeth quickly and then makes it sound so you can kind of try to imitate the sound of like a symbol in a drum set.

That's the same exact sound.

Like events, events tense, tense, dense sense events.

He's all in ts sounds.

T sound is pronounced, but it's just not.

It's not events.

It's all together.

We don't say events.

It's all together.

It's so if I don't make the tea sound, it sounds totally bizarre.

It sounds like Evans Evans, which would make like a Z sound.

So the tea is pronounced.

It's just kind of softened events events.

So practice making that sound.

And I think that this sound at the end of these words will become a little bit easier to say.

All right, so I hope that that helps you and good luck with your continued pronunciation practice.

Let's move onto your next question.

Next question comes from Alexey High, Alexey, Alexey says.

How correct is the expression?

And this weather had been happened in the sense that sometimes the weather was bad in the past.

Ah, to express that idea, Maybe try saying this bad weather has happened before.

So something has happened before We use has been before a verb in the continuous tense to express like a continuing condition or we use has been before an adjective to express like a condition like a recent continuing condition.

So, like, for example, this bad weather has been going for days or like the weather has been terrible lately, So we would not use has been happened.

We can use has happened like this.

Bad weather has happened before.

That's fine or we can use has been continuous has been adjective form.

So I hope that that helps you.

Thanks very much for the question.

All right, That's everything that I have for this week.

So thank you.

As always for sending your questions.

Remember, you can send your questions to me at English Class 101 dot com slash ask hyphen Alicia Also, if you like this video, please don't forget to give it a thumb's up.

Subscribe to our channel if you have not already and check us out in 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 week.

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