'Try + verb-ing' or 'Try to + verb'? - English In A Minute

104,106 views ・ 2020-01-06

BBC Learning English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, everybody.
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Welcome back to English In A Minute.
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I'm James and today we're going to look at the verb 'try'.
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It can be a little bit tricky to use this verb,
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because it changes its meaning
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depending on whether you use an –ing verb
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or a verb with to.
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So, let's take a look at some examples.
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I tried baking a cake.
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I tried to bake a cake.
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These two sentences are almost exactly the same
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but their meaning is a little bit different.
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I tried baking a cake.
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When we use 'try' with an –ing,
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all we're saying is that we attempted to do something.
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It could be a new experience
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– something that you haven't done before.
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I tried to bake a cake.
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When we use 'try' with a verb and 'to',
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we're saying that a task is quite difficult to complete,
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or that we've failed.
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If you'd like to try learning more English,
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why not go to our Facebook page,
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or to the website?
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Bye, everyone.
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