Speaker 1: I'm planning on moving at the end of next month,
and I've been trying to decide what I'm going to take.
I know I need to take my computer and this microphone,
that's for sure, but I'm only allowed to bring two
suitcases on the plane, so I really need to make
a decision soon.
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 John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven eighty seven.
Is it bring or take? Bring and take? Both of
these words can be used in English to talk talk
about moving something or someone from place to place. Sounds
simple enough, right, well, believe it or not, these two
words tend to cause headaches for a lot of English learners.
For today's podcast English Lesson, let's have a look at
how we use bring and take in everyday English. Let's
look at bring first. Keep in mind that bring is
an irregular verb, and the three parts are bring, brought,
and brought. Now, in some conversations, movies or TV shows,
you may hear someone say brang or brung, like I
brang my guitar to the party last night, or Jane
brung some donuts to the meeting. Well, brang and brung
are non standard forms of brought and are considered like
colloquial or a local dialect, like a lot of slang
that I talk about here on the podcast. Brang and
brong are good to know, but I can't recommend using them.
Some native speakers feel that such language sounds well uneducated.
So just remember it's bring, brought, and brought. My dictionary
says that bring means to go with something or someone
to a place. Let me say that again, Bring means
to go with something or someone to a place. When
you go to the airport, you bring your passport or
your ID. You probably bring a suitcase or a bag too,
So basically, you can bring something to a place, and
as such, the nuance with bring is on the final location.
We bring something somewhere, and quite often with bring, we
don't mention where the thing came from. Like I brought
a bottle of wine to the party. I didn't mention
where I got the wine. I just said that I
brought it to the party. These days, if you want
to rent a car, you need to bring two forms
of ID to the car rental place. Again, bring your
ID to the rental place. I never mentioned the original location,
So what about take? Okay? First of all, like bring,
take is also an irregular verb, and the three parts
our take, took, and taken. I'm not familiar with any
colloquial or slang words used to mean take. And when
it comes to using take, the nuance is the original
location and not the destination. You can take something from
a place, like what happened to me today when I
left the office. I forgot to take my keys. Yikes,
it's gonna be a hassle to open up tomorrow morning.
The point of reference here is the office. That's where
the keys are because I forgot to take them. And
I just watched the weather forecast for tomorrow. They said
it's going to rain tomorrow. So for sure, I'm going
to take my umbrella. Now, I know what you're thinking.
Can't I also say I'm going to bring my umbrella?
Of course you can, But remember it depends on the context.
As I often say, context is king I'm at home
now and it looks like it's gonna rain. I'm gonna
take my umbrella. I never mentioned where I'm going. I
just said I'm gonna take my umbrella. Let's look at
the situation from a different context. The forecast said it's
gonna rain this evening. I think I'll bring my umbrella
with me to the office. This way, I don't get
wet when I walk from there to the subway on
the way home. I'll bring my umbrella to the office.
Since I mentioned the destination, I used bring. That's the context.
So to sum up, you can use take when you
refer to the original location of something, and you can
use bring when you mentioned the destination. And by the way,
this idea of bring and take works the same with people.
Jack always takes his wife when he goes on a
business trip. It seems that she likes shopping and she
always brings a lot of stuff home with her. And
here's one last idea for today. You can also use
bring when you want or need something. You can either
say bring me something or bring something to me, like
can you bring me a drink when you go to
the kitchen. Oh, and we're having a party on Friday,
can you bring me that book I lend you. In
situations like this, you can't use take, keep in mind.
The best way to remember vocabulary 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. Did you know? You can get more practice
using your English when you join my podcast Learner's study Group.
There you can make new friends, join us for live
group lessons every week where we practice these podcast lessons together.
Plus you get access to the pdf, transcript and audio
download for every Happy English podcast in the past and
in the future. And on top of that, each episode
has exercises where you can practice this English point with
speaking and writing checked by me. To learn more, just
visit Myhappy English dot com and choose podcast lesson seven
eighty five. 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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