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In English, we often use the words “look”, “seem”, “sound” and “feel” to describe our feelings about certain situations, but sometimes it is confusing as to which is the appropriate one to use in each situation. That’s what I’d like to write about today.

Let’s start with the easiest one: “look”. We use “look” when talking about something that we can physically see with our eyes. For example:

I saw a picture of Bill’s new house. It looks really nice.

This looks like a really expensive restaurant. I think we should go to another place.

We use “seem” when talking about a situation that we have experienced for a very short time and we want to give our impression of it. For example:

I only talked to the new manager for a couple of minutes, but she seems really nice.

I’ve only just arrived in this city, but it seems like a really good place to live.

We use “sound” when we are listening to another person talking about a certain situation and we want to talk about our impression of it. For example:

A: My new boyfriend is so sweet and romantic. Last night, he took me out for dinner to an expensive French restaurant.

B: He sounds wonderful.

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A: My new apartment has three bedrooms, a big kitchen and there’s a great view from the balcony.

B: It sounds like a great place.

Finally, we use “feel” when talking about the physical or emotional feeling something gives us. For example:

I love going to a hot spring. The hot water feels so good and relaxing.

I really like this restaurant. It feels like a place that I used to go to in my hometown.

So, as you can see from the examples, we can use these words by themselves or they can be followed by the word “like”. The difference is that we say “look” + adjective, and we say “look like” + adjective + noun or “look like” + noun. The same pattern is true for each of these words.

Sometimes, the pattern is a little different, especially when using “sound” or “look”. In these cases, the pattern is “It sounds/looks like” + noun + “be” verb + adjective. For example:

A: I have to work overtime until 11:00 p.m. every night, and sometimes I work on the weekends too.

B: It sounds like your job is really tough.

Did you see the reading list for this course? There are so many books on it! It looks like this course is not going to be easy.

Many of my students complain about articles (a/an, the) because they don’t exist in Japanese as well as in many other languages. This makes them very difficult to learn and many people don’t try to use them because they think they’re not important for basic communication. This is true in many cases, but sometimes they are extremely important and are necessary for effective communication. Today’s blog is about the difference between “little” or “few” and “a little” or “a few” and, in these cases, the “a” is very important!

We use “little” or “few” when we want to say there is not a lot of something; that the amount of something is very small. We use “a little” or “a few” when we want to say there is a certain amount of something which is a little smaller than saying there is “some” of it. Therefore, “little” or “few” sounds much more negative than “a little” or “a few”, and they indicate a much smaller amount of something.

Also, you should note that we use “little” and “a little” for uncountable nouns, and we use “few” and “a few” for countable nouns. For example:

Little of my knowledge comes from reading books; most of it has come from watching TV.

I have very little experience with computers. I only got my first computer two months ago!

Few people in my school are from foreign countries. I would say 99% of us were born in this country.

In Canada, few companies allow the employees to smoke inside. Most of them make people go outside to smoke.

We have a little beer in the fridge, so you can have some if you like.

I have a little time at 3:00 if you want to talk about the project then.

If you’re looking for a place to live, my building has a few empty apartments. You should come and check them out.

There are a few really good Indian restaurants in my city. I really enjoy going to them.

So, as I mentioned already we use “little” and “few” in situations which are more negative. Basically “little” is the same thing as “not much”, and “few” is the same thing as “not many”. If you want to think of them as being on a scale, it would be as follows:

none -> almost none -> few/little ->a few/a little -> some -> many/much/a lot of -> most -> almost all -> all

Sometimes my students get confused about when to use “later” and when to use “soon”. This is especially confusing for them with the expressions, “See you later.” and “See you soon.” So I’d like to go over this in my blog today.

The word “later” is used to talk about a future time, but we don’t know exactly when in the future it will be. However, when we say “later”, it sounds like it will not be in the immediate future. The word “soon”, on the other hand, is used when something will happen in the immediate future, and usually the person has a general idea of when it will happen. For example:

A: I had a really nice time with you tonight. Let’s go out again sometime.

B: Ok. I’ll see you later. Bye.

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A: We’re going to take a ten minute break now, and then we can finish talking about the project.

B: Ok, see you soon.

I don’t have time to write the report now, but I’ll do it later. I have lots of time because the deadline isn’t until next month.

I don’t have time to write the report now, but I’ll do it soon. The deadline is this Friday.

So, in the first example, the person says “See you later.” because they don’t know exactly when they will see the other person. The expression, “See you later.” is a friendly, casual way to say goodbye to someone. In the second example, the person says “See you soon.” because they know they will see the other person after a short time has gone by – in this case, after ten minutes.

In the third example, the person uses “later” because they don’t know exactly when they will write the report, but they know they have a fairly long period of time in which to do it. In the fourth example, they use “soon” because it must be done in the immediate future – in this case, before Friday.

In English, we often have a special word or term that is used to describe the first part of an action. One of my previous blogs was an example of this: the difference between “find out” and “know”. As I explained before, first we find something out, and then we know it.

This is the same case for “put on” and “wear”: first we put something on, and then we wear it. For example:

The shirt you’re wearing now is really wrinkled. You should put on another shirt.

A: What do you put on first when you’re getting dressed in the morning?

B: I put on my underwear first of course! After that, I put on my pants.

I love what you’re wearing. It’s such a nice outfit.

It’s time to leave. Go and put on your coat because it’s cold outside.

I need to wear a heavy coat today because it’s very cold.

So the term “put on” refers to the time that we put a piece of clothing on our bodies. This is very fast and would usually take no longer than a minute. After the piece of clothing is completely on our bodies, we then say that we are wearing it.

When we talk about removing that piece of clothing from our bodies, we use the term “take off”. For example:

It’s time for a bath. Go and take off your clothes, and I’ll fill the bathtub with water for you.

I often take off my shoes when I’m sitting at my desk at work.

I don’t want to take off my coat because it’s really cold in the office today.

Please note that we don’t say “put off” when talking about removing clothes; we always say “take off”. Also, please note that in English, we use “put on”, “wear” and “take off” for any piece of clothing: hats, shirts, pants, shoes, socks, etc. We also use these terms for other things we put on our bodies such as jewelry, glasses and make up.

Many of my students get confused about when to use the adjectives “clever” and “smart”, so that’s what I’d like to write about today.

In English, we use the word “smart” to say someone is intelligent in a general way. It has the same meaning as “intelligent” except that that “smart” sounds a little more casual than “intelligent”.  We use the word “clever” to describe people who are able to quickly find solutions to particular problems or who can think of witty and humorous things to say. We can also use “clever” to describe the thing the clever person thinks of such as an idea, story, joke, etc. For example:

My best friend is extremely smart. He went to Harvard and got his PhD in physics.

Pauline isn’t very well educated, but she’s very smart. She reads a lot in her free time and is very knowledgeable about many things.

Jim was the only person in our class who could think of a solution to our problem. He’s very clever.

My friend is extremely witty and clever. Sometimes she makes me laugh so hard with the things she says.

The suspense movie I saw yesterday had a very clever twist ending. I was very surprised.

My husband came up with a very clever idea to make money while staying at home.

There is also another misunderstanding about the word “smart” in Japan. The Japanese language has borrowed the word “smart”, but the meaning has been changed. In Japanese, “smart” is used to talk about a person’s body which is thin, but in English, “smart” is only used to say someone is intelligent. It has nothing to do with a person’s body.

The prepositions “on”, “in”, “at” and “for” can be used in many ways depending on the situation. In  my blog entry today, I would like to go over the difference between these words when it comes to talking about time.

The preposition “on” is used when talking about days or dates. For example:

I have to work on Monday, so I can’t stay out late on Sunday night.

I like to go to a temple on New Year’s Day and pray for health and happiness.

My birthday is on April 14th.

The preposition “in” is used when talking about months and years. For example:

I always take a vacation in August.

My company was founded in 1982.

The preposition “at” is used when talking about time. For example:

The meeting will start at 2:30 p.m.

I’ll meet you at the restaurant at 7:00. Is that ok with you?

The preposition “for” is used when making plans or reservations for a future event. For example:

I’d like to make a reservation for October 19th please. Do you have a single room available  then?

I booked the meeting room for 3:00.

Please arrange a meeting with the design team for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

The use of the word “for” is a little confusing for some people but, as I said before, it’s used to talk about a future time when making arrangements for a future event. So, today is Monday October 11th. Let’s say I call a restaurant today and make a reservation. The day of the dinner will be Friday October 15th. In this situation I would say:

I made a reservation on October 11th for October 15th.

However, we only use “for” when making reservations or arrangements. When we talk about the actual event, we use “on” again. For example:

The reservation is for October 15th.

The dinner will take place on October 15th.

I hope this is clear. I know prepositions can be very difficult, so the best way to learn them is just to memorize them within the context of a full sentence.

In my lessons, people often use the word “kind”, but it is overused, especially by Japanese people. English speakers use the word “nice” much more often than the word “kind”. However, we do use the word “kind” sometimes. The basic difference between them is that we say people are “nice” in a general way, and we usually use the word “kind” to talk about a specific action that someone does. For example:

My mother is a very nice person. She’s really friendly and is always willing to help other people.

It was very kind of your mother to help me cook dinner for my husband. Please tell her how much I appreciate it.

Bill is one of the nicest people I know. Everyone likes him.

Bill is such a kind man. Yesterday, he gave a homeless person $10 to buy some food.

Victoria is a really nice woman. She spent over five hours helping me with my project yesterday. That was so kind of her to do that.

As I mentioned before, “nice” is used much more frequently than “kind”. If you’re not sure about which one to use, you can use “nice”, and it will sound very natural.

Last week, I went over the difference between “come” and “go”. This week’s blog entry is about “bring” and “take” which are used in similar ways to “come” and “go”. As I mentioned before, “come” is used when talking about the place where we are right now; the word “bring” is used in the same way – when talking about the place where we are right now. The word “go” is used when talking about another place; the word “take” is also used when talking about another place. For example:

I brought my dictionary to the class today. You can borrow it if you want to.

We have some extra sandwiches. You can take some home when you leave.

Sometimes we use “bring” when talking about a place where we are NOT right now. Again, in this way the words “come” and “bring” are similar. For example:

A: Can you bring some wine to my house for dinner tonight?

B: Ok, sure. I’ll bring some red wine. Is that ok?

In this case, person A uses “bring” because the other person is going to come to their home. In these cases, we always use “bring”. Person B also uses “bring” because they are speaking directly to the person whose home they are going to. However, if person B is talking to another person about this event, they will use “take”. For example:

I have to take some wine to my friend’s house for dinner tonight.

Person A will also use “bring” to talk about person B going to the place where person A is right now, even if it’s not their home. Person B will also use “bring” in this situation. For example:

A: I’m in conference room A. Can you bring me an extra copy of the report.

B: Of course, sir. I’ll bring one to you right away.

So, we use “bring” when someone is coming  to our home or when talking directly to a person about going to a certain place where the person is now, but if we are talking about another place, we use “take”. For example:

A: What kind of food shall we take on our picnic?

B: Let’s take some potato salad and ham sandwiches. I love them!

I hope everyone will now be able to use “bring” and “take” more easily.  🙂

Many of my students get confused between when to use “come” and when to use “go”, so today I’d like to try to help people understand this. Generally speaking, we use “come” when talking about the place where we are RIGHT NOW, and we use “go” when talking about another place. For example:

I went to work yesterday even though it was a Sunday. (I’m not at work now.)

I came to this class because I want to learn how to play the piano. (Right now, I’m at the piano class.)

I think that part is quite simple and easy to understand by most people. However, sometimes we use “come” when talking about a place where we are NOT right now. Please study the following example:

A: Can you come to my house for dinner tonight?

B: Ok, sure. That would be great. I can come to your house at 7:00 tonight.

In this case, person A uses “come” because they are inviting someone to spend time with them at their home. In these cases, we always use “come”. Person B also uses “come” because they are speaking directly to the person whose home they will spend time at. However, if person B is talking to another person about this event, they will use “go”. For example:

A: Do you want to see a movie with me tonight?

B: I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have to go to my friend’s house for dinner at 7:00 tonight.

Person A will also use “come” to talk about person B going to the place where person A is right now, even if it’s not their home. Person B will also use “come” in this situation. For example:

A: I’m at the restaurant now. What time can you come here?

B: I can come there at 8:00.

So, we use “come” when inviting someone to our home or when talking directly to a person about going to a certain place, but if we invite them to another place, we use “go”. For example:

A: Would you like to go to the park with me this weekend?

B: Sounds great. What time do you want to go?

A: Let’s go at around 2:00 on Sunday.

Last week, I received an email from a reader in India asking me to explain the difference between “advice” and “advise”. So that is what I will write about today.

Basically, the difference between these two words is very simple: “advice” is a noun, and “advise” is a verb. Both are used to talk about giving or receiving suggestions from another person about how to solve a problem. For example:

I had a problem with my boyfriend, so I asked my friend for her advice.

I don’t know what to wear for my job interview. Can you give me some advice?

A: I have a problem with my neighbor. He’s really loud at night.

B: Take my advice, and call your landlord. I had the same problem and that worked for me.

My friend advised me to read this book in order to improve my computer skills.

I don’t know any good places to eat here. Can you advise me as to where I can go?

Your new boss can be quite short-tempered. I advise you not to be late for work.

The verb “advise” is much more formal than the noun “advice”. Therefore, in regular conversations, English speakers will usually use “advice”. If you want to sound very formal for a business situation, you can use “advise”.

Speaking of “advice”, I would like to give my readers a recommendation. Many people ask me how they can improve their English in their free time. My advice is to read in English all the time. However, if you read newspapers or novels, the language in them is not conversational; it’s too formal. So my recommendation is to read an advice column. This is a newspaper column which is published everyday in which people write letters asking for advice about personal problems. These letters are a wonderful source of natural conversational English. Also, the letters are short, which is good for people who are very busy. The one I recommend is called Dear Abby. The website version is at this URL:

www.uexpress.com/dearabby/

I will add this link to my blog. I think people will be able to learn a lot of useful expressions and language from this advice column.