 Hi, my name is Jennifer, certified English teacher and communications expert. Let me guess, you've been studying English for years, but you still struggle to understand the English on TV and movies. Don't worry, it's not your fault. The problem is that this English is very different than what you learn in a classroom. When you learn English in a classroom, it follows very strict grammar rules. It uses perfect pronunciation, but then you watch a movie or a TV show and all of a sudden you notice they're making grammatical mistakes or they're using slang and their pronunciation is not what you expected. This is because there's big difference between classroom English and real world English. So that's what we're going to do in this video today. I'm going to help you understand real English, the English that you need to know if you want to have conversations outside of the classroom, if you truly want to become a fluent, confident English speaker. So let's do this in the form of a listening exercise. I'm going to say an expression three times and I want you to write down exactly what you hear. And then afterwards, I'll explain the expression to you. Okay, here we go. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Are you surprised that all I said was one word? Can you even imagine what this could mean? Well, this is a really fun expression and one that you'll hear all the time on TV, in movies, and in everyday conversations. So let me give you a sentence to explain what this means. Let's say your boss comes into your office and says, you need to finish that report by five o'clock tonight. As a reply, you can say, gotcha. Okay, so this gotcha is used as a reply and you're telling your boss that you understand. So when you say, gotcha, you're telling your boss, I understand that I need to finish the report by five o'clock. So that's what your boss would make a request. And if you want to say, I understand, I see, or it could also mean no problem, you're acknowledging the request. And you're implying that you will be able to meet the request as well because you're saying gotcha, which means no problem in a lot of ways. I explained this expression to the students in my online school. And it was so great to hear their reactions because I had a lot of students already using it. And it was really fun for me to hear my students reply to my questions with gotcha by telling me they understand. And it made them sound so natural and so fluent. So here's a clip from my online school to show you exactly what this expression means. And this clip uses the popular TV show friends to show one of the characters using this expression. I'll explain the pronunciation and the expression in more detail in the clip. I wanted to be with you. I missed you so much. Hey, who'd you miss the most? Monica. Gotcha. Gotcha. And then Joey says gotcha, gotcha. This is a good one. And you should know it and also use it. It's a fun expression. Okay, so it actually means got you, got you. But this means I understand. So Joey's not saying it, but it's really I gotcha. But I wouldn't pronounce that. I just wouldn't say it either. I would just use the expression gotcha, which means I got you. And this just means I understand. For example, your boss could say, we need to finish the project tonight. And if you want to tell your boss that you understand, you understand that you need to finish the project tonight, you can reply and just say, gotcha, gotcha. This is a totally acceptable reply. It is not slang. It's not offensive. And I would use it with my boss. And you're welcome to use it as well. Gotcha. It's a fun expression. Okay, let's talk about the pronunciation. So here we have a T and a Y sound. So a T and a Y together. This is pronounced as a That's why you hear gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. And that's why we actually spell it like this. But this gotcha is not a word in a dictionary. It's got you, but it's pronounced as gotcha, gotcha. Okay. So let's look at another example. We have a T and a Y. So here I have a T and a Y side by side. So I can say, I need to meet you, meet you. So I'm adding that I need to meet you as soon as possible, meet you. This is something that you now that I've told you about it, you're going to hear it all the time, you're going to notice this sound. And you'll also notice the J sound as well. Gotcha. Gotcha. Great. Now the next time you want to tell your friend, a coworker or your boss that you understand, you see, you agree, no problem, you can use the expression gotcha. Now if you liked that clip, you would love my online school, the J Forest English Academy. Each week in the academy, we do exercises just like this to help you learn and understand natural spoken English. And so you can become a fluent, confident English speaker. And I have a free trial of the academy so you can get inside and see the lessons for yourself absolutely free. So join the free trial now. I can't wait to help you become a confident, fluent English speaker.