English Vocabulary - Look / See / Watch

Hello there, my name is Rani and today we're going to talk about three, three words in

English that are very confusing and the reason why these words are confusing is because in

most languages they like to keep it simple and they like to use one word for all three

of these words we have in English.

English is not easy, English is difficult and they like to have three options to confuse

you even more.

So I'm here to help you, maybe, and help you understand which one to use, when, how, if,

why.

Let's look at these words.

The first word is look, the second word is see, pronounced like the third letter of the

alphabet, see, and then we have watch.

This thing on your hand, if you have one, is also called a watch, by the way, the thing

on the wall is a clock, okay.

But today we're just going to look at how to use these and the differences between them.

First of all, we have to think about how long we are actually doing the action for.

So look and see have the shortest time span.

If I said, "Look over there!" it's very fast.

If I say, "Do you see that?" it's a very fast action.

Watch, however, takes a longer time.

So both look and see are for a very short time, and watch is a longer time.

Now, let's think of things that you actually watch.

You can watch a movie, how long is a movie, an hour, an hour and a half?

You can watch TV.

You can watch people.

If you sit in a mall or if you're on a main street in a big city, you can watch all the

crazy, funky, funny people go by.

It's actually called people watching.

So, these things, movies, TV, and people, the action takes a long time to do it, okay.

If you're seeing something, you're looking at it, and then you're moving away very quickly.

If you actually look at something, you need another word.

You need "at".

So I'm actually telling you to do something.

Look is what they call in English an imperative.

I like to call it a demand.

It's easier to understand.

So look is actually a command, or if you prefer, a demand, okay.

So maybe someone's doing something funny, and they're like, "Look at me!"

So you always need to look at something or someone.

Look at me.

Or you could say, "Look at her."

Look at it.

It we use for things only, not people, and thus the person's really not knowing if it's

a person or a thing.

So people watching, you might say, "Look at it," but just for things, we're going to use

it.

Animals as well, we use it usually.

In some languages, you might know that the dog's a girl or a boy, but in English as a

general rule, we just say it.

People get angry, but it doesn't matter.

So look at it is a command, and see is a quick glance.

For example, people will say, "Did you... Wow, did you see that car?"

Cars travel really quickly.

You get one chance to have a quick glance and look at it.

So you're going to see something, but it's not going to stay in your view for a long

time.

Something like a TV and a movie, they don't move.

The TV set doesn't move out of your view.

So these things, most of the time, will stay in one place.

Now people will move, but TVs and movies don't.

Things that you see have the capability to move and move very quickly.

So if I saw a deer, I wouldn't really watch the deer unless I was in the forest.

I would see the deer, and it would run by me very quickly.

So if you want someone's attention and you want them to feast their eyes on something,

you say, "Look at that.

Look at me."

If something's going by very quickly, "Did you see that?"

And if you're going to be there for a long time, you're going to watch something.

If you go shopping, you're not watching the clothes.

The clothes aren't coming out and dancing around for you.

You're looking at the clothes, and sometimes you're seeing the clothes, but you're mostly

looking at them.

So I hope after seeing this video, you go on to www.engvid.com, and you can do a little

quiz and test your knowledge of look, see, and watch.

Bye-bye.

I hope you're all paying attention to that, because I just said, "After seeing this video."

And I told you that "watch" we use with a movie or a video.

Like every rule in the English language, there are exceptions.

They're the hard bits of the English language.

If we use the past, we usually see a movie.

We don't say, "I watched a movie."

We say, "I saw a movie."

I don't know why, but usually the exceptions are for movies and videos.

We say that we watched a movie or TV, but in the past, you can also say that you saw

the movie.

But we never say, "I saw TV."

It's very British.

You can say that, "I saw a movie" or "saw a video."

Alrighty.

I hope you enjoyed watching and seeing this video.

Bye.