Hi everybody, welcome back to Ask Alicia, the weekly series where are you ask me questions and I answer them.

Maybe. Let's get to your first question this week. First question this week comes from Joseph. Hi Joseph.

Joseph asked, hi Alicia. What does what's the matter mean? I've only heard matter in the expression,

it doesn't matter. Is it the same? Good question. Okay, let's talk about the word matter.

For this video, let's just talk about maybe three uses of matter. First, let's talk about

the expression, it doesn't matter, or that doesn't matter. This is a way to say, that's not important.

This thing is not important. When someone says, it doesn't matter, it means it's not important and we don't need to worry about it. However, in your question, in what's the matter, this matter does not mean important, right? It's not asking what is important. Usually we ask what's the matter when someone is upset. Like they're crying or they look really stressed out.

Maybe they look sick or very tired.

And you want to ask if they're okay.

When we ask the question, what's the matter?

It's like asking what happened or what's the problem or like, what is wrong with you?

Not in a mean way. We're asking like, is your condition okay?

We notice that something is maybe different from usual.

So when we ask what's the matter,

it's because we are concerned about you.

So this doesn't mean like what's important right now.

So I know that can be very confusing

because it doesn't matter.

It means it's not important.

So this use of matter is different, or rather these two questions or these statements are different.

But when someone asks you the question, what's the matter?

It means, are you okay? What happened? What's going on?

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