How English Works #4
How English Works 4
Ish, Sorta, Esque
Intermediate
In this series, we learn about English grammar differently than usual. There are no charts, no memorization, no confusing rules with millions of exceptions. Instead, we look at interesting aspects of English and how you can understand them. Don't worry if you fully understand. Notice these while you're immersing in English, and it'll all make sense with time.
Hi, my name is Ben. Welcome to How English Works. These videos are not your typical grammar lessons. Here we don't do any drills, there's no charts, and certainly no memorization. Instead, I want to talk to you casually to help you understand English, how English actually works, the things that we say to mean things. And today we're going to talk about an interesting concept, or some words rather. These words are ish, sorta, and esk. And there are more like this, but I want to talk about these specifically. So I like to think of these as modifier words, right? Because they modify something. They're not words themselves. They don't mean anything. Sorta doesn't really mean anything. But when you combine it with something else, it does have meaning. You modify the word. So I like to think of them as modifier words, right? So, oh, why does this keep happening? The thing that I used to record just decided to not work. This is fine because you can't see my right anymore. Yeah. What the heck, man? What are you doing? All right, we're back. Sorry about that. There we go. Okay. Anyways, so we could say that this system that I have to record sort of works. Sorta, and that's, we can start with that one. Sorta, it actually is sort of, if you break it out to the actual parts. Sort, that's soft. Sort of, but we just say sorta. And it means that something isn't fully to that thing. The actual word sort of doesn't make any sense. It would be sort of saying type of. but we've just completely reused what it, changed the meaning rather. And so when you say something sort of works, it means that it partly works. It's like halfway working or 30% working or 70% working. It sort of works, but it doesn't fully work. And so you can think of that sort of as three different levels if you want, right? So it sort of works, or no, let's start with it fully works. Fully works. Then we have sort of works, and then we have doesn't work. Right? So these are sort of three different levels of something, how something can be. So fully means that it's all the way to the top, right? Sort of is in the middle, and then doesn't is at the bottom, right? Just doesn't work. And this word doesn't have to be works necessarily. It can be something like, What's another example? It's like she sort of knows, right? To know, right? I sort of know what you're talking about. I totally know what you're talking about. I fully know what you're talking about. Or I don't know what you're talking about. And so the exact function of the other words changes a bit between different words, but sorta kind of stays the same. Kinda is another similar word, by the way. It usually refers to something being a little unsure, and it's not quite negating it, so it's not like adding a doesn't, does not, but it's like a light version of that. It sorta works, it sorta means that. Um, and it's sort of easy to understand, I guess. Right. Um, it can also be added to the end of a sentence just to like make that sentence work. So for example, um, I, well, what's, what's an example there of just like, you can kind of just say sorta at the end. Um, I got it done, sorta, right? At the end, it kind of weakens that sentence saying, yeah, I didn't really get it done, right? So I got it done, sorta. Or I recorded five episodes today, sorta. Actually, I recorded five and only three of them worked, or something like that, where it kind of weakens that initial statement. Kinda works almost exactly the same way, by the way. So sorta, kinda, sort of the same word. See there? There are little differences, so sort of the same word. Now, let's move on to the next one, which is ish. And actually functions quite similar, but it's usually used for something that we can count or there's, it's more about saying like it's a close number, right? So for example, you could say that I have like 10-ish pens on my desk. That doesn't really make sense, but 10-ish should be like around 10, 10, 11, 12, nine, eight, something like that. Or, um, oh my God, it crashed again. Oh, it's cause like my, the thing that I used to do this is like disconnecting. Oh, weird. Okay. That's strange. Um, huh. I get it. So it's not the program, it's the connection. I'll have to check the cable after this. But let's get this going again so that you can see what I'm writing. Ish is going to say when, like around ish a number, usually. So for example, when somebody invites you over, you go, what time should I come? What time should I come to your house? And they go, come around five ish. right so five ish is around five o'clock right maybe it's five fifteen or five thirty something like that right so it's around five o'clock it's not always for time though where you can say You can modify another number, right? You should use, like in cooking, for example, you can say it needs about a half a teaspoon of salt-ish. It clarifies, it's not, doesn't have to be precise. That's the clarifying thing there. It doesn't have to be exactly half a teaspoon. It can be a little under, a little more. You don't have to measure. Again, like sort of, it can also be tacked on to the end of a sentence if you want to make it a little bit weaker or make it a little less strong, right? So, he was the best friend that I ever had, ish. That doesn't really make sense. That doesn't sound good. But what that would mean is like, he wasn't really the best friend that I ever had, but I want to say that or something like that. It does work a lot better for numbers or things that you count or quantities of some kind, because it's more like saying around that amount. I've seen 20-ish movies in the past month. That's a really good example. 20-ish is like around 20. So that's ish. I didn't really write much on here, but the last thing is esk. And you almost never see this written out. This is a thing that you usually hear spoken. And it's not that common. I use it fairly often, but it is not the most common thing in the world. But when esk is added on to something, it becomes a, it's describing, or it's comparing something to that other thing, right? So, ish can do the same thing, actually, now I'm thinking about it. So I'm thinking of specifically something like professional. Professional, right? So if your friend says, hey, what's that English channel that you use to learn? And you go, oh, Ben's Language Lab. It's my favorite YouTube channel. I subscribe all the time. And then they say, oh, is it a professional channel? And you go, it's professional-ish or professional-esque, which is saying it's close to professional, but it's not all the way there. And that's the big thing. So professional-ish. or professional-esque, E-S-Q-U-E, saying that it's close to that thing. Another example, you can also say that it's, like, just a full-on thing, like a proper noun. So, for example, America, America. You could say, like, you could compare somewhere to being, like, America-esque. Canada is sort of America-esque. It's very similar in a lot of ways to America, to the US. You can also use names, especially if somebody has a, like a famous person, to describe that somebody looks like them or they act a bit like them or something like that. And so it's sort of comparing two things by saying, this thing is close to that thing, but not really quite the same. A good example actually, thinking again about this channel, is there is a channel similar to mine, but it's quite different, called Dreaming Spanish for Spanish learners, and they make videos with a big team and editing and all these different things. And so you might say that Ben's Language Lab is Dreaming Spanish-esque, but it's not the same. They're quite different, but there's like similar things. We both make videos for learning a specific language, yada, yada, yada. And so that's how you generally use esk and ish and what it means. I'll probably say esk especially on the podcast. And so if you want to hear good uses of these, I definitely use all of these words all the time. And so that's how English works. That's how we use ish, sorta, and esk. And I hope that this helped you. That's all that I got for today. I don't really have anything else to say, but I'm curious to know if you've heard these words in interesting places. Let me know down in the comments below. And if you have a question about how English works, please make sure to put it down in the comments. I want to respond to questions that actual people have and are wondering what something means in English. And that's the kind of thing I want to talk about. But that's everything from me for today. Sorry about the technical issues. I don't know what happened. And I'll see you again in another video. Bye-bye.
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