Already - Still - Yet

Already - Still - Yet

Hi, dear listener! I’m Georgiana, founder of the Speak English Now podcast. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. Speaking English is way easier when you use the right material and techniques.

Do you have a hard time using the words Already, Still and Yet?

Well, today I’ll help you to understand how to use these three words.

And with a point of view story, you will learn grammar without memorizing any rules.

As you know, I don’t teach grammar to my students. However, many of you have difficulties using the words: already, still, and yet. So in this episode, I’m going to explain how to use them.

Before I go any further, I want you to know that native English speakers do not learn these words by studying grammar. Not at all!

What’s the secret then? Well, they learn new words and expressions in context. And that’s exactly the way you learned your own language.

Let’s see some examples:

My idea is to give you a general sense of how to use these words. So I won’t go into details, exceptions, etc. Because the only effective way to learn these subtleties is to listen and read in context.

Let’s start with an example:

“It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, and Finn is still in bed.”

So here we have Finn. It’s 11 o’clock, but Finn is STILL in bed. Here we emphasize the idea that the situation hasn’t changed (Finn didn’t get up.) even though it’s late (it’s 11 o’clock).

Now, let’s say that Finn is a responsible guy and doesn’t want to oversleep because he has many things to do.

For example:

“It’s 6 o’clock in the morning, and Finn is already up and ready to go.”

See? It’s very early (6 in the morning), and Finn is ALREADY up. Since it’s so early in the morning, we didn’t expect our friend Finn to be awake.

Now back to the first example. This time I’m going to use the same example to explain how to use “YET.”

“It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, and Finn is still in bed.”

(this was the first example)

If I want to use “YET,” it will be something like this: “It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, and Finn’s not up yet.”

See? If we compare these two examples, they look very similar.

So how do we differentiate still and yet?

Unlike still, yet is used in negative phrases or questions.

The following question contains the word “yet.”

“It’s 11 o’clock in the morning. Is Finn in bed yet?”

Let’s hear more examples:

“Is Finn in bed?”

“Is Finn in bed yet?”

Here the meaning is almost identical, but in the second sentence “yet,”

provides a sense of expectation. We don’t expect Finn to be in bed.

Let’s see more examples:

“It’s getting late, and Finn is still working.”

“It’s only 5 p.m., and Finn already finished all the tasks.”

“It’s getting late, and Finn hasn’t finished the task yet.”

“Has Finn finished his task yet? It’s getting late.”

POV Story

(improve your grammar)

Cool! Let’s continue with a point of view story. You will improve your English grammar without memorizing any rules.

I’m going to tell the same story three times, so pay attention to the different grammar points. It is a technique that I use in my courses. You just have to listen and enjoy the story.

ALREADY

Tom is a highly responsible man. He works from 9 to 5, but he’s usually up by 5 o’clock in the morning. Tom’s so anxious to work that at 7 o’clock in the morning he is already in the office working. At 2 p.m., he has already finished all his work. And from 2 to 5, he helps his colleagues with their tasks. He is so productive that he has already been promoted 5 times this year. When he gets home, he’s already in bed at 8 o’clock dreaming of the next day in the office.

STILL

Tom is a very unreliable man. His office hours are from 9 to 5, but he is usually still in bed at 7:55 in the morning. At 8:30, he’s still on his way to the office. Because Tom is so unproductive, at 5:30, he’s still working.

Therefore, his colleagues need to help him with his assignments.

He still works there, although so far, he has received 5 warnings for poor performance. When he gets home, he still watches TV until 2 a.m., trying not to think about the next day in the office.

YET

Tom is a lazy person. He works from 9 to 5 p.m., but at 7:55 in the morning, he’s not even up yet. At 8:30, he hasn’t even arrived at the office yet. Since Tom is so unproductive, by 5:30 in the afternoon, he hasn’t finished his work yet. From 2 to 5, his colleagues help him with his tasks. Although he already got 5 warnings for low performance, he hasn’t been fired yet. When he gets home, he watches TV until 2 a.m., avoiding to think about the following day at the office.

O.K., this is the end of this point of view story. Have you seen the power of point of view technique? We have checked a lot of grammar by merely using the same story. It’s very easy to compare the different structures because you compare them in parallel.

If you want to get hours of audio with mini-stories and point of view lessons, I’d like to recommend to you my Fluency Course.

You can get it at Fluency.SpeakEnglishPodcast.com Well, that’s it for today.

I’ll be back next week with a new episode.

Take care! Bye! Bye!