English Vocabulary - Appointments & Reservations

Hi there, my name is Ronnie, I'm here to teach you English, not French, not Spanish, English

today.

Good.

And today I'm going to talk about a common mistake that a lot of people use with making

plans to meet friends or family or making appointments for business deals.

There are three words that a lot of people get really mixed up.

I'll teach you what they are.

The first one is a reservation, okay.

The verb is to reserve.

When we reserve something, it's usually a seat.

For example, if I'm going on an airplane, I need to reserve a seat.

If I go to the theatre, I'm going to reserve a seat.

I need some place to sit.

So we reserve specific things.

Think of all the places where you would need to reserve a place to sit down, okay.

So I can make a reservation for an airplane.

One of the most common places where we use a reservation would be at a restaurant.

At a restaurant, you're going to call and you're going to reserve a table.

If you're going on a trip, you need to reserve a seat.

The verb we use with this is make.

So you can call the restaurant and say, "I'd like to make a reservation."

Okay, so when we make a reservation, it's usually for a seat or a place.

We can also do this, as I said, in the theatre.

You would reserve a seat.

In Canada, when we go to the movies, it's not necessary to reserve a place to sit.

It's as we call first-come, first-served basis.

You get there first, you get the best seat, okay.

The other thing that we can plan to do is have an appointment.

Now an appointment is usually with a doctor or a dentist, or it can be to arrange a business,

for example, a meeting.

When we make an appointment, it's very important that we get the correct time and the correct

date.

So we make, I would call my doctor and I'd say, "Hello, I need to make an appointment

to see the doctor."

If I have a toothache, I need to see a, we don't say, "tooth doctor," we should.

We say, "dentist."

We can also make an appointment to see business people.

For example, during tax time, you might make an appointment to see an accountant.

Now, we only use appointments for business meetings.

If you're going to make plans to see your friends, we never say appointments, nor do

we say a reservation.

When we want to hang out with our friends, we make plans.

When we want to hang out with our friends, we never say play, okay?

In English, only children play with each other and other people.

We won't go into that.

So you don't actually play with your best friend.

You actually hang out.

This is a very modern word.

If you're an older person, for example, like my mother, she would say, "visit."

She would say, "I went to visit my best friend."

I would say, "I hung out with my best friend."

That is the past.

So I can say, "Yesterday, I hung out," okay?

Or if you'd like to use a more formal language, you can say, "visit," or in the past, "visited."

So the next time you want to call your friend and go to the movies, you're going to have

to reserve a seat if it's the theater, not the movies.

If you are sick, you're going to have to make an appointment with your doctor, and if you

just want to hang out with your friend, you're going to make plans, all right?

Bye.