❓'Wear', 'put on' and 'dress' - Improve your English with Learners' Questions

Hi guys! Dan from BBC Learning English here with this week's Learner Question. Find out

what it is after this.

OK! This week's Learner Question comes from Tugba from Turkey, who writes: "Hello, I would

like to know the difference between wear, put on and dress." It’s a good question,

Tugba, and three very confusing words. I hope you like the answer. Here it comes.

So, when you wear clothes, shoes or jewellery, you have them on your body. You can also wear

your hair in a particular style. For example, I’m wearing a green shirt and a silver wedding

ring. I usually wear my hair short.

There is another meaning to wear, which is: become used and weaker over time, like the

phrasal verb wear out. For example, I need to buy some new shoes. My old ones are getting

worn out. This can also be applied to humans when they become tired. After a long day at

work, I might say, I’m worn out. I need to go home.

When you put clothes on, you place them on your body in order to wear them. Also, when

you’ve finished wearing them, you take them off. First you put on, then you wear them,

then you take them off. For example, this morning I put on this green shirt, and later

I’ll take it off.

You can also put on weight. This means to gain or accumulate kilograms. The opposite

is to lose weight. For example, I thought I was going to put on weight on holiday last

week, but I actually lost weight because I went swimming every day.

When you dress, you put clothes on. If you dress up, then you wear smarter clothes than

usual. Likewise, if you dress down then you wear less smart clothes than usual. We also

talk about getting dressed as an alternative to the verb dress. And there’s little difference

between them. For example, I need to dress. The taxi’s coming in twenty minutes. Or,

I need to get dressed. The taxi’s coming in twenty minutes. No big deal.

Other things you can dress are other people, such as children, you can dress a wound by

cleaning it and covering it with a bandage and you can dress a salad by adding oil and

vinegar to it.

I hope that answers your question Tugba. Thank you very much for writing to us. If anybody

else out there has a question for Learners’ Questions, you can email us on: [email protected].

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bbclearningenglish.com. That’s it for this week’s Learners’ Questions. I’ll see

you next time. Bye!