Speaker 1: I agree sounds simple, right, But depending on what you're
agreeing with, or who you're agreeing with, or what you're
agreeing to, the grammar can change a bit. So let's
make it easy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, Jan, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode eight fourteen. I agree.
The verb agree is an interesting word because it can
be used with a variety of prepositions, each one with
its own usage. So for today's podcast English Lesson, let's
have a look at how we use this vocabulary. And
let's start with the most basic way we use agree.
It's when someone says something and you have the same
opinion as them. Just say I agree, like your friend says,
oh this place has the best pizza in town, and
you say, I agree. Your friend says the rolling stone
still sounds great after all these years, and you say
I agree. No preposition, they are just I agree, nice
and simple. But what if you want to agree with
someone or agree with their opinion? Then we say agree
with like I agree with Tom the new boss is
kind of a jerk, or I agree with Tom's opinion
about the new boss. Or maybe you're talking to your
sister and she gives you some advice. You can say
I agree with my sister, or I agree with her
investment idea. Again, when you have the same opinion as
another person or a thing that they said, you use
agree with. Now here's a quick grammar note, and this
one's important. Agree is a stative verb that means that
we don't usually use it in the progressive form. So
you can say I agree with Jenny, but not I
am agreeing with Jenny. Just say I agree with her. Cool. Cool.
Now here's a surprising use of agree with that a
lot of English learners may not know. Sometimes we say
agree with to talk about things like food, drinks, or
habits that do or don't feel good in your body,
like spicy food, like that curry doesn't agree with my stomach.
Here's another one. I tried smoking once, but it just
doesn't agree with me. So in this case, agree with
means something is not good for you physically. It's not
that you don't like it, but it's more like it
doesn't suit your body. Spicy food doesn't agree with my stomach.
Now let's talk about agree too. You use agree too
when someone makes a suggestion or a request and you
say yes, like after talking with my doctor, I agreed
to quit smoking. I agreed to quit. Agreed to is
usually followed by a verb like Jack and his wife
agreed to go to a marriage counselor they agreed to
do that. You agree to do something. Next up, what
about when two or more people are making a decision together.
In cases like that, we say agree on. We use
agree on when people decide something as a group, and
it's usually followed by a noun or a gerrand, like
everyone at the meeting agreed on working a four day week.
They all agreed on it. Here's another one. We agreed
on the idea that the new marketing manager suggested. So
if people are discussing and reaching a decision, use agree on.
Remember the subject of agree on is two or more people.
We agreed on it, they agreed on it, And finally,
we've got agree that. We use agree that when we're
talking about a decision or opinion, and it's followed by
a subject and a verb like we all agreed that
it's too risky to open a second office in Tokyo
or I agreed that our new coworker wasn't working out,
but I didn't agree that he get fired. I think
he just needs more training. So there you go. Agree
is a small word, but there are a lot of
ways to use it. And keep in mind, the best
way to remember English like this and any other word
or phrase in English, is to take that word or phrase,
write it in a sentence that's true for you or
true in your world, and then memorize your sentences. Hey,
did you know you can get more practice using your
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visit my Happy English dot com and choose podcast lesson
eight fourteen. Remember, learning another language is not easy, but
it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you on
your journey.
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