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Аудио урок английского языка. Как и в каких случаях используются английские слова: «let» и «allow».

Matt didn’t see much of the concert. When he went out to get a drink, he was refused permission to go back in. In English, to talk about giving and refusing permission, we can use both let and allow. Both words mean ‘give permission to do something’.

First, here’s Matt using let.

Matt: …they let me go out to get a drink, but then they wouldn’t let me back in!

Now the verb let is usually followed by a noun or object pronoun, and then by an infinitive without «to».

Matt: …they let me go out to get a drink…

Did you hear it? Let, me, go. Let, pronoun, infinitive.

Now, let can be made negative by using an auxiliary verb, like didn’t, can’t or wouldn’t. And it’s possible to use a prepositional phrase like ‘back in’ instead of the infinitive.

Matt: … they let me go out and get a drink, but then they wouldn’t let me back in!

Now, we can also use ‘allow’ to talk about permission. Like ‘let’, ‘allow’ is followed by a noun or

object pronoun, but then, it takes an infinitive with «to», like this:

Matt: They allowed me to go out.

Like let, you can use won’t or wouldn’t to make a negative:

Matt: They wouldn’t allow me to go back in.

But ‘allow’ is a bit more formal than ‘let’, and so it’s common to find it in the passive form, like

this:

Matt: ‘people who leave the auditorium during a performance are not allowed to re-enter’.

Let and allow are both followed by nouns or object pronouns. ‘Let’ takes an infinitive without «to», and ‘allow’ takes an infinitive with «to».

Both can be made negative with an auxiliary verb, and allow is often used in the passive form.

Let

Subject	let	object	infinitive or preposition phrase
They	let	me	go out and get drink
They	wouldn’t let	me	back in

Allow

Subject	allow	object	infinitive with «to»
They	allowed	me	to go out and get drink
She	won’t allow	anyone	to smoke in the office

Allow (passive)

Passive subject	verb ‘to be’	allowed	infinitive with «to»
He	wasn’t	allowed	to go out and get drink
Nobody	is	allowed	to smoke in the office

Аудиоурок английского об английских словах  «Just» и «Only»

First, I ‘just’ want to say thanks for your question. Or perhaps I could say it like this — I ‘only’ want to say thanks for your question. Can you hear and understand there is a difference in meaning in those two sentences?

The first means I want to thank you, and the ‘just’ that I slipped in there doesn’t really add any meaning. It does give my sentence a polite and informal tone though. The second sentence using ‘only’ means I want to thank you but I don’t want to say anything else after that. ‘Just’ and ‘only’ are adverbs that point to or emphasise one part of the clause. In the example you gave me, Edgar, the same meaning is implied in both sentences:

I came just to speak with you for a couple of minutes.

I came only to speak with you for a couple of minutes.

But I’d like to point out that your sentences sound very formal and literary. On the one hand, ‘just’ and ‘only’ can ‘float around’ in a sentence and take more than one position. But on the other, the normal position in spoken English is between the subject and verb. They sound much better like this:

I just came to speak with you for a couple of minutes.

I only came to speak with you for a couple of minutes.

In many cases you’ll come across in spoken English, ‘just’ is used as a softener. I’d better give you an example to explain what I mean by ‘softener’:

Can I just ask you a question?

What I’m saying here is ‘I want to ask you a question but I don’t want to inconvenience you and it’ll only take a short time’.

Whereas directly saying ‘Can I ask you a question?‘ doesn’t have this tone.

So, we often use ‘just’ to add a polite tone, the word doesn’t specifically carry much meaning in itself. There are other situations when we use ‘just’ but we can’t use ‘only’ in its place, for example,

if I say ‘he was just here’ — I’m trying to tell you he was here a few minutes ago.

So although I’ve told you about some differences, there are lots of times when they are synonymous. Basically, anytime you can use ‘only’, you can usually use ‘just’ to mean the same thing. But you’ve got to remember that the range of uses and meanings for ‘just’ are quite wide.

 

В чём разница между словами: «Between» и «Among»? Ответ узнаете из этого аудио-ролика.

Hello Chuan!Well done! Jackie said the location was fantastic. It’s among the trees, between the mountains and the sea, and not too far from the station. Between and among are both prepositions, and they are usually followed by nouns. Let’s look at between first.

Between is usually followed by 2 nouns, like this: …between the mountains and the sea The nouns can be single, plural or uncountable. The important thing is that between identifies them as 2 separate, individual things (or groups of things). Here are some more examples:

Is there a connection between unemployment and crime?

He shared the money equally between Jake and Mary.

In fact, it is possible to use between with more than 2 things, as long as they are separate things. Listen:

He shared the money equally between his 3 grandchildren, Paul, Callum and Nuala.

Now among, or amongst, gives the idea of being part of a group of many, so it’s usually followed by a plural noun phrase. Jackie says her house is: …among the trees And some more examples:

Her exam results put her among the top 10% of students in her group

It gets very lonely, living among strangers

Ok, let’s summarise. Between distinguishes 2 or more separate things — and is followed by countable or uncountable, single or plural nouns. Among means ‘one of many’, and usually goes with plural nouns.

 
between

clause	between	noun(s) — referring to individual things
He shared the money equally	between	Jake and Mary

among

clause	among	plural nouns
Her exam results put her	among	the top 10% of students in her group