 Welcome to this video. Today, you're going to learn how to use despite and in spite of, and you're going to feel confident using these in your daily speech. Of course, I'm Jennifer from jforisenglish.com, and this channel is dedicated to helping you sound like a fluent, confident, natural English speaker. Now before we go any further, make sure you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. Now let's dive in with this video. Let's talk about how you can use despite and in spite of in your daily vocabulary. First of all, you need to know that both of these are prepositions. They have the exact same meaning and they mean to not be influenced by something or someone. So you can think of them as excluding the something or someone. And generally, we use them to show contrast. So between one thing that's negative and one thing that's positive. This will make sense when we see some example sentences. Now before we do, I want to point out one big difference and that's we have despite and in spite of in spite of those two words are necessary to form the correct sentence. But with despite, we never use of. This is a mistake. I see students making a lot. So take some time and get comfortable with the sentence structure. Now remember they have the exact same meaning. You can use them interchangeably. I would say in spite of is a little more formal and therefore it's less commonly used despite is the more common one. However, they do mean the exact same thing. Now with these prepositions, there are two different sentence structures. First of all, you can have the preposition plus something. So a noun. For example, despite the cold, I went to the party. Despite the cold. So remember, we use this to say not influenced by. So you can think of it as my decision to go to the party was not influenced by the cold. And remember, I said we often use these with a contrast. The cold, you know, you can think of that as a negative. But then we have a party that's a positive. So they are a negative and a positive. Despite the cold, I went to the party. Now the other sentence structure is to use the preposition plus a jaren verb, which is our verb in ing. For example, despite being sick, I went to the party. So here, despite being being sick, despite being sick, I went to the party. Now again, we have that contrast. I'm sick. That's a negative. But I went to the party. That's a positive. So we have that contrast. Now one final thing that you should know is that the placement of these prepositions is flexible. You can put them at the beginning like I did, which I think is the most common, but they can also come at the end of your sentence. So I could have said I went to the party despite the cold, or I went to the party despite being sick. Both placements are correct. Now you know how to correctly use despite and in spite of. Now make sure you practice. I want to see you leave two sentences in the comments below using both of the structures. And hey, why not do four sentences to with despite, and then two with in spite of just so you can make sure you get those structures correct. If you found this video helpful, please hit the like button, share it with your friends, and of course, subscribe. Now before you go, make sure you head on over to my website, jforsenglish.com, and download your free speaking guide. In this guide, I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. And until next time, happy studying. All right, look at you, some advanced expressions in your vocabulary. Just remember, despite in spite of. Super important, okay? I don't want to see any of those mistakes in the comments below. So leave your examples and I'll see you in my next video. Bye.