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You are actually going to use this vocabulary.
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Do you hear native speakers use actual and actually all of the time, but aren't sure how to use these yourself?
Today, learn how frequent these words are and how to say them correctly.
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Hello, Aubrey.
How are you today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Glad to be here.
We're here on a sassy Saturday, right?
Beginning of August.
But I'm wondering, it's summertime.
Do you feel like you have a lot of free time
Actually, I have no free time these days.
Keeping my kids entertained, working.
I'm super busy.
What about you?
Lots of free time?
Yeah, no.
I mean, as we know, our listeners know, I just had a child, so probably not a ton of free time.
No.
But, yeah, I do try to maximize any free time I do have.
But, yeah, what are we talking about today?
You said actually, right?
Exactly.
This is a great question.
We got a question from someone in our community who just said, should we say I actual have a lot of free time or not?
I actually have a lot of free time.
And then we talked about it a while and they're like, how can I know?
Because we do use both of these words actual and actually, but in very different ways.
Yeah, I'm glad this came up.
It is such an authentic and great question.
We use actually all the time, both of these words all the time as native speakers.
And it's really a big part of our spoken English repertoire.
Yes, absolutely.
And it is a common mistake to mix these up or put them in the wrong order in sentences, because that was something else we talked about is like, should it come before or after the verb?
Where should it be in a sentence?
And it does sound off to native speakers if it's in the wrong place in a sentence.
Yeah.
So guys, we're going to cover all of this for you today.
It's going to be a very useful episode.
So I hope you're ready to take notes, even though it's Saturday.
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Go ahead and hit the follow button right here on All Ears English.
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Exactly.
All right, let's dive in with actual first.
You know, this means real, exact, or true, and it's used as an adjective.
Yeah, so for example, this is the actual soccer jersey Messi was wearing when they won the World Cup.
So that's a big deal, right?
The authentic...
Yes, the real authentic one.
Exactly.
Or the crime documentary uses actual footage from the investigation.
This means it's not dramatized.
It is the real authentic footage.
And that's why I love going to museums because you do get the actual artifacts from different time, whatever museum you go to.
It's really cool.
Exactly.
Actually, we use that all the time.
When we were in Georgia, we almost went to see a historic site, but then I Googled it and we found out it was like a reproduction of an old fort.
I'm like, I don't want to see that.
It's not the actual fort.
It had burned down and they rebuilt it for tourists.
I'm like, no, thank you.
There's a lot of that, too.
Right.
There's a lot of that, too.
But sometimes you get the real stuff.
Original fort.
And then another use of this word would be what's the actual reason she quit?
So maybe she gave a reason.
But it wasn't the actual, it wasn't the real reason.
So we're asking now about the truth.
Yeah.
This happens a lot at work where you know that someone's sort of giving the answer they have to give or they're not wanting to give too many details.
You're like, what's the real reason?
What's the actual reason?
Yeah.
All right.
Let's flip over to actually now.
Very different.
Right.
So what does it mean?
So this means something is a bit surprising, but true.
It's used as an adverb.
So it describes a verb or an adjective.
So for example, I just said, actually, when we were in Georgia, or we might say something like, I've actually never seen the Simpsons.
And so it's sort of a way to signal that you're about to say something a bit surprising.
Yeah, I agree.
And something is coming that's surprising.
Sometimes I think it's almost used as a filler or a transition.
Like when you what you mentioned the going the relic and the thing Georgia not being real.
It was a surprising thing, but it's also like a bit of a transition into what you're going to say too.
Yeah, you're just signaling that you're going to say something related.
But in order to say, actually, it needs to be a little bit surprising.
Because I'm saying like, this is sort of surprising that sometimes these historic sites are not...
Actual historical sites.
Yeah, I agree.
It does need to be a bit out of the ordinary, unexpected.
Yes.
Or he's actually funny.
This would be like you didn't expect him to be.
It was a little bit surprising.
You know what?
I thought it was going to be boring, but he's actually really funny.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that's really important about actually.
So make sure we're using that correctly, guys.
So it can be used to correct someone to be careful here, but in a gentle way.
Tone does matter a lot.
Yes.
Right.
If I say, oh, he's from Honduras.
And then you would say.
He's actually from Guatemala, not Honduras.
Yeah, that's a good point.
When you're correcting someone, your tone can sound, you know, over the top, not bossy, but sort of patronizing when you're correcting someone.
So you really need to soften the tone and actually, actually helps to soften the tone that way.
Actually, actually helps.
Yes.
And then another example, what have I said?
Oh, the answer to the math problem is 20.
The answer is 20, right?
Oh, the answer is actually 10.
Yeah.
So I'm correcting you, but adding that actually does soften this.
It does.
It does soften it.
Right.
Yeah.
It's just tone needs to come along with the word, right?
If I say it without actually, oh, the answer is 10.
It's a little harsh, a little blunt, right?
And adding that actually softens it a little bit.
We don't like to be blunt because we don't like to lose face, right?
We want to connect as human beings.
Okay.
Exactly.
Who are you in your native language?
Confident, funny, opinionated?
Now, who are you in English?
If you feel smaller, quieter, or less expressive, that's not because you're bad at English.
It's because fluency is tied to identity.
When you're unsure, you hold back.
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All right.
So then where do these words even go in a sentence, Aubrey?
This is the next piece we need to know.
Yes, right.
This is where we can easily make mistakes.
So actual comes before a noun.
You might say, this is just practice.
The actual race begins at noon.
This is when it means the real authentic race that comes before the noun.
Yes.
And with actually, it goes after the subject and before the main verb.
So I've actually studied a lot for this test.
Yes.
Or she actually sang opera for several years.
So that is when we're saying this is a little bit surprising.
Like you might not expect this, but I actually studied a lot for this test.
Like I just blow everything off, but I actually studied a lot.
Right.
It also can come at the very beginning or very end of a sentence, though.
We might say, actually, I have a lot of free time.
Right.
I might say, oh, you just had a kid.
You must be really busy.
And then you might respond.
Actually, they sleep all the time.
So I have tons of free time.
Or you can also put at the end for the same meaning.
I have a lot of free time, actually.
Perfect.
And then what else, Aubrey, here do we need to know?
It could also go before an adjective.
So you might say he's a native speaker, but he's actually hard to understand.
So that is where it's coming before the adjective difficult or hard, actually difficult.
Yeah, now we're getting into more complex sentences.
When you have multiple verbs, he actually comes first.
So he's actually quite nice once you get to know him, right?
Multiple adverbs.
He's actually quite nice.
And this happens a lot that we stack adjectives like this.
And it's good to know, you know, you can't say he's...
Quite actually sounds strange to me.
Yeah.
Quite actually nice or quite nice.
Actually, you maybe could say that, but this sounds the most natural to say he's actually quite nice because we're emphasizing the surprise.
So we put that up top.
The service was actually really quick.
Right.
We thought it would be slow, but it was actually really quick.
Exactly.
Okay.
And then when you're correcting someone actually can also go before the information that you want to correct.
So the structure here is subject and then to be the infinitive, then actually, and then the information.
So for example, his birthday is actually tomorrow.
So you've got kind of a structure here if you're wanting to correct someone.
All right.
Perfect.
All right.
Let's see how this all comes out in a role play.
This is used so frequently for native speakers.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what we talk about here.
Awesome.
So you and I are English students in this.
So we are not from the United States.
We met recently and I am asking you where you are from, Lindsay.
All right, let's do it.
Here we go.
All right.
So you're from Chile, right?
I'm actually from Peru, but I get that a lot.
Oh, my bad.
So that's really cool.
Where in Peru?
Lima.
Oh, is that your actual hometown or did you move there later?
No, it's my actual hometown.
I grew up here.
Oh, that's awesome.
I'm actually visiting Lima this summer.
Cool.
I'll have to give you some tips.
Yes, I'd love that.
Oh, I was just at a Spanish meetup a few weeks ago and
Two of the people are from Lima or just have spent a lot of time in Lima.
And we spent like an hour talking about the food scene in Lima.
I don't know if you've heard about the food scene in Lima.
It is really good food in Lima.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
And I've been there.
I validate their experience.
It's 100% true.
The food is fantastic.
Oh, that's awesome.
I love that.
It's one of the perks of traveling and experiencing the food in a place and you had so much to talk about with them.
Yeah.
And it was funny because there was a guy who was planning to travel to Paris and we were like, actually, the food in Lima is fantastic.
He didn't know that.
And it was kind of fun to just talk about it and how good it really is.
Yeah.
So that's like the food in Paris has got nothing on Lima.
There's some good things to eat there, but it's not known for its food.
All right, cool.
So, all right.
So here we said, so you're from Chile, right?
And I said, I'm actually from Peru, but I get that a lot.
Yeah.
So this is where you're correcting me.
I made an incorrect assumption or maybe someone had told me you're from Chile.
So I thought that was correct.
You just say, oh, I'm actually from Peru.
And if you just said, no, I'm from Peru, that would feel harsher.
I would feel criticized, judged, right?
That actually softens that correction.
It actually kind of gives you the feeling of like, oh, I want to talk more.
I'm open.
I'm friendly.
It's okay if you made that mistake.
I'm going to correct you, but then we're going to keep chatting.
Yes.
And then I said, is that your actual hometown or did you move there later?
And I said, no, it's my actual hometown.
It's my real hometown.
It is where I genuinely grew up.
Yeah.
I said, oh, I'm actually visiting Lima this summer.
So this is where I'm using it to share something that might be a little bit surprising.
I met you.
You're from Lima.
I'm actually visiting Lima this summer.
Excellent.
Excellent.
All right.
Really good stuff.
So glad we got this question from one of our students.
It's a great one.
Guys, go back and listen again.
This is a very important episode for connection, for
Everyday speech, maybe not written English as much, but what you're going to speak and say, it really matters.
Yes, we use both actual and actually really often.
This is one of those where the transcriptions would really be helpful because a couple of times we say actually twice in a row because we're
Sharing the example of this word and then we're throwing in actually is just because it's so common in English.
Yeah.
Speaking of the transcripts, go on over to the app to get the transcripts in real time.
Go to allersenglish.com slash app.
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We've curated these transcripts to make sure they are correct for you inside the app while you listen.
Okay.
Exactly.
That's the best way to listen to the podcast.
Follow along with the transcripts, add keywords, vocabulary to your personal power list and make the most out of this podcast.
Exactly.
All right, Aubrey, any other episode we should check before we finish up today?
Yes.
If you missed it, scroll up and check out episode 2572, how to tease someone when they're not good at something in English.
This is a great way to connect to their fun and playful ways to do this.
And you want to avoid offending.
So you need all of the tips in that episode.
Yeah.
And I think for our takeaway today, anytime we're talking about words that are used so frequently in spoken English, it really matters.
It matters in these connection moments, Aubrey.
Tone matters, but the word use matters, the correct word.
Exactly.
And we talk often about mistakes that native speakers make too here.
This isn't one of them, right?
Actual and actually are used in specific places and in specific ways.
And so this is something that's worth paying attention to as you are taking in English.
Observe how actual and actually are used so that you can keep these straight.
Yes.
Very good point.
All right, Aubrey.
It's been fun.
We'll see you back here very soon.
All right.
Have a good day.
Awesome.
See you guys next time.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
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