How to express opposing ideas: despite, although, nevertheless, in spite of...
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Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you a very good and useful
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trick on how to write essays, how to sound better when you speak, how to do better in
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presentations. This tip is very useful if you are taking the TOEFL or the IELTS, or
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if you are studying in college, university, or high school. Okay? So it's a very, very
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useful trick. This trick is called... Well, I'm calling it: "How to Start Right". Okay?
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So I'm going to teach you a great way to start, either in your essays or in your speech.
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Oftentimes, if you're taking the TOEFL or the IELTS, you're going to be asked to give
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your opinion on something. Okay? In general life, you might have to give your opinion
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on something. Maybe somebody wants to know: what do you prefer? Do you prefer going to
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a restaurant, or do you prefer eating at home? What's better? Okay?
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When you give your opinion, it's a very good idea to start by saying what is good about
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the opposite opinion. Okay? So, example: if I love restaurants, I want to eat at a restaurant,
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instead of just saying: "I love restaurants." A better way to start this is by saying the
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opposite, the good part of the opposite. So, how can I do this? Well, I can say something
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like: "Although some people love eating at home, I prefer eating at a restaurant." Okay?
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Another example. Imagine somebody wants to know if I like cats better or dogs better.
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What is the better animal? Well, maybe if I like dogs better, I would say: "Although
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some people prefer cats, I prefer dogs.", "Although some people prefer to live in cold
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countries, I prefer warm countries." So, you can use this in essays, in speaking, in so
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many different ways. It's always a good idea to start with the opposite of what you believe,
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a good point of the opposite, and then to say your opinion. Okay?
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So, I want you to try this. Okay? I'm going to give you a question, and I want you to
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use this formula. What do you prefer, waking up early or waking up late? Okay? So:
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"Although some people prefer waking up..., I prefer waking up..." and here you would say either
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"early" or "late". Okay?
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So, I've used this word "although". "Although" is to show this contrast. Okay? It's a very,
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very great word, useful word when you're writing essays or speaking in a formal setting. Something
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that has the same meaning as "although" is "even though". Okay? So very similar. "Even
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though". And we can use the same formula. Okay? If I ask you: "Would you rather go to
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a beach or go skiing?" You can say: "Even though some people love going to beaches,
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I prefer skiing.", "Even though skiing is a lot of fun, I'd rather go to the beach."
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Okay? So, again, you're offering the opposite idea first, and then your idea. Great for
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TOEFL and IELTS speaking.
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Okay, so let's look at these sentence structures a little bit closer. So, I have here my words:
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"Although", "even though". What follows is a subject. A subject can be words like: "some
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people", can be "he", "she", "we", "the teacher". Okay? So, the subject is pretty much a noun.
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"Although Canada", okay? "Although Canada", "Even though Canada..." Now you need a verb.
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"Even though Canada", can use the verb "is". "Even though Canada is a good country", okay,
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if I was writing now, I would put a comma.
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"Even though Canada is a good country, Canada has problems."
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So what I'm trying to get at here is that if you use "although", you will have two parts
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of a sentence. You will have part one before the comma, which has a subject and a verb;
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and then you will have a second part, part two with a subject and a verb. Okay? So let
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