Speaking English - How to use “so“ and “neither“

“So do I.“ “Neither did he.“ “So will we.“ Learn how to use these common expressions in the present, past and future tenses in English. I’ll teach you how these shortcuts can improve your speaking skills so you sound more like a native English speaker. This is a practical English lesson you can apply right away. Go test your skills with the quiz: TRANSCRIPT Hi. My name is Rebecca from . In today’s lesson, you’ll learn how to agree with a positive or negative sentence in English. And you can do this by using the words “so“ or “neither“ -- “neither“ or “neither“, okay? It’s pronounced both ways, and both ways are acceptable. I’ll show you how to agree within five different tenses, okay? So let’s have a look at the board. Let’s start with the present simple. If someone says to you, “I work every day“ or “I work five days a week“, and you want to agree with them, you can say, “So do I.“ In present simple, we would use the “do“ -- “So do I.“ “I don’t work on Sundays.“ “Neither do I.“ Okay? That’s present simple. If it was present continuous -- or present progressive, as it’s also known -- someone says, “I’m working on Thursday“, and you want to agree, you say, “So am I.“ The “am“ is taken from here: “I am working.“ “So am I.“ “I’m not working on Friday.“ “Neither am I.“ Okay? See there is also a kind of intonation to that. So try to listen for that as well as for the words. Someone talks to you in the past simple, tells you something that happened, okay? So he says, “I worked last weekend“, and you agree with him, so you say, “So did I.“; or “I didn’t work last week.“ “Neither did I.“ Okay? So basically, these are short forms. These are abbreviations. So that you don’t have to say, “Well, I didn’t work last week either.“ You don’t have to repeat the whole sentence. By saying “so“ or “neither“, you are, in fact, repeating what the person said. Past continuous: “I was working when you called.“ “Well, so was I.“ “I wasn’t working when you called.“ “Neither was I.“ Okay? And lastly, we have the future tense. The future -- we can, of course, say, “I will work“, or “I’m going to work.“ So let’s try to see what happens with both of those. “I’ll work -- I’ll work tomorrow.“ Okay? So you can agree with that and say, “So will I.“ “I won’t work on Fridays.“ “Neither will I.“ Okay? Again, “I will work“, so we’re saying “will“. And this, which is the negative “I will not work“, when we contract it, we actually say, “I won’t work.“ Okay? But in this form, we still say, “Neither will I.“ Last: “I’m going to work on Friday.“ “So am I.“ Again, “I’m going to work“ is “I am going to work.“ So therefore, we have the “am“ here. And last, “I’m not going to work on Saturday.“ And you say, “Neither am I.“ I know it’s a little bit confusing, but once you are able to do this in the -- the five basic tenses in English -- present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continuous, and future tense -- then you will be able to say a whole lot of things in English. Next, I’ll give you a chance to practice this through an exercise. Now, remember: We use “so“ to agree with a positive sentence and “neither“ to agree with a negative sentence. So you’ve to keep this in mind, and you also have to keep in mind the tense that’s being used in the sentence. Let’s get started. “I like jazz.“ So the other person says, “So do I.“ Good. “Mark didn’t go to school.“ How do you agree with that? “Neither did I.“ “Neither did I“ because it’s in the past tense. “The baby was sleeping.“ How do you agree with that? “So was I“ -- past continuous. “Jim isn’t studying.“ How do you agree with that? “Neither am I“ -- present continuous, right? “Dad’s flying to Nigeria.“ What do you say? “So am I.“ And last: “Susan doesn’t dance.“ How do you agree with that? “Neither do I.“ All right? I hope you got those right. If you’d like to do a little more practice on this, please go to our website, , and there you’ll be able to do a quiz on this subject and also watch lots of other videos to help you improve your English. So thanks for watching, and good luck with your English. Bye for now.