The Most Common Words in English: 8 ways to use ‘THAT’

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Next, watch my lesson on how to use transitive verbs in English:

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everyone. In this lesson I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about "that". "That" is one of the most common words in English. Let's have a look at how we can use it in conversation and in writing.

First use is something close or distant. When something is close, we can say... "This" is a pointing word; it means close to me. "This man", "this room", "this pen". "This pen is close to me." But when something is further away, I can show that in language by saying: "That woman", "that house", "that pencil". "This pen; that pencil" - more far away.

We can also use "that" when we want to reduce the length of a sentence. Because "that" is a pointing word, we can take a longer sentence, such as: "The song that is playing sounds great", and instead we can just say: "That's a great song." In a sentence like this, "that" means the song that's playing now. You already know about it, so I don't need to say those extra words. I can make it shorter: "That's a great song."

Another example: "What's that thing in your hand?" I can simply say: "What's that?" If I'm looking at it, my eyes will show what I'm talking about: "What's that?" Another example: "The outfit that you're wearing looks great." You're dressed up, you're wearing something nice. I don't need to say all those words; I can simply say: "That looks great. That looks really great."

The next use of "that" is to intensify something; make it more strong. I can say... An example... An example situation: "Trust me. It's that bad", and I use my tone of voice to add the intensity on "that", and also a bit on "bad". "Trust me. It's that bad." Another example: "I'm not joking. His cat really is that fat." And when we use "that" with our tone, it's something that native speakers would do to emphasize something. When we're making a joke perhaps or we're exaggerating something in a story, we'll say "that" with a lot of emphasis.

Next use of "that" is the difference between writing and conversation. In conversation we don't always say the word "that"; whereas in more formal writing, we often will write "that" in a sentence. "I thought that it was a mistake." That's what I'd write. "I thought that it was a mistake", but perhaps I'd just say: "I thought it was a mistake." I could... I could also say, if I wanted: "I thought that it was a mistake." It's not right, it's not wrong; it depends on the speaker. But typically, if we do something in writing, that's because it's considered more formal, or more standard English, or more proper English.

Another example: "They said that the package has not arrived." Perhaps I would write that sentence: "They said that the package has not arrived", whereas I would say: "They said the package has not arrived." Another example: "You promised that you would be home by 9." A written example, maybe we'd see that in a novel. Maybe not actually because this seems like spoken... Spoken dialogue. We could simply say... We could simply say, instead: "You promised you would be home by 9."

Now let's look at example number five of when to use "that". We can use "that" in situations to comment and share our feelings about something that's happened. First example: "That's insane!" If I use that tone, I'm surprised. This could be you tell me that you've won 20 million pounds on the lottery - I'm so shocked about that, I say: "That's insane!" But equally, I can use this expression when I'm really shocked that something happened, and I think that it's crazy and insane. Let's say you knew about a criminal incident that happened - a crazy guy came and smashed up your friend's car. Maybe a jealous boyfriend or something like that - he smashed up the car, but when the police came, in the end they didn't charge him for anything. So, nothing happened to this guy who smashed the car. When you hear about it, you can say: "That's insane!" because you think it's a bad thing that happened. It depends on your tone.

The next ones: "That's a pity", "That's too bad", and "That's a shame" all mean a similar thing, which is that something unfortunate has happened to you, you've been disappointed. This could be you had a job, you loved the job, you thought it was going really, really well and then two weeks after you've been doing this job the boss suddenly comes to you and says: "Sorry, but we can't keep you on", so you lose your job. […]

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It's amazing. In a few minutes, I understand all about “that”.
Congrats. You are a good english teacher and your lessons are very didactic!

dle

I really love the way you speak, your pronuntiacion is amazing and the intonation is perfect. Thank you.

annarita

Thanks for this video. It has given to me so much more confidence when I am speaking.
In my particular case, I have been corrected for native speakers claiming that I am misusing the word THAT, which is why I started trying to find a lesson to understand what am I doing wrong. However, after seeing this lesson, I understood that for some people, in conversational speaking, using THAT is not correct, but now I can see why they think like that, and that it is grammatically correct to use it.
THANK YOU You have no idea how your explanation gave me back my confidence again. This is an amazing lesson!!!

personalJoke

Your have been making real difference by your teaching style.Please keep it up!

canbolkan

Please make more videos Jade. Your accent is perfect to listen and your videos are always very well explained. You are the best.

jairosouza

Another great video from Jade.Learn English looks so easy when she explains it.

nospe

Teacher you are amazing . God bless you.

mohammedabdullah

Amazing！ “that” is a pause in the conversation. It makes sense and helps me to solve a big English learning problem. Thank you Jade.

stdnqe

Wonderful explanation how to use THAT.
Thank you

ManishSharma-skzh

Thank you Jade. It´s a pleasure to listen you again. I haven´t see you for a long time. I´ve missed to you. Bye!

alexandervideo

Its nice when you learn english with a english teacher, that speak in english and the video's legend is english too, but you understand even though!

pinterpanvaks

never stop teaching us pls I LOVE U MISS JADE

claudiacc

I'm really like when you explain because I can understand about your lesson. I'm from Cambodia

simkimchhay

I've subscribed this week. I like your videos!
The examples you gave comparing writing vs conversation were veey useful. Could you do an entire video talking about that, maybe giving more examples?
Thank you in advance!

melinasimonetti