“LEND” or “BORROW”? What’s the difference?

Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today we have

a lesson on lending and borrowing. When do

you say "lend" and when do you say "borrow"?

I know it can be a little bit confusing. Okay,

so I hope this lesson will help to clarify.

So, I've started with a quotation which says,

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be." That's

about money. I mean, you can lend and borrow

things other than money, but this is a piece

of advice spoken by a character in a play. You

may recognize it if you know your Shakespeare.

It's from Hamlet, and it's a character... It's a father talking to his son, and the

son is about to go away to another country, and the father is giving him some... What

he thinks is good advice. "Neither a borrower

nor a lender be." That's why the word order

is a bit strange because it's a poetic line from a Shakespeare play. So, anyway, that's

just a little introduction to the idea that

you can be a borrower and you can be a lender,

and they're different in some way. So, how

are they different? Well, let's have a look.

So, somebody might say, "Could you lend me

your pen, please?" And someone else might...

Or they might say... The same person might say, "May I borrow your pen, please?" But

they're asking the same thing here, but the

construction is just a bit different. They're

saying, "Could you lend me your pen?" So they're

asking for the pen to be given to them. Or,

"May I borrow your pen?" So, it depends on

who is doing the action. So, I hope this will

also help to show. So, you lend something to somebody, you give temporarily, you give

something to someone, they take it from you,

they borrow from you, you lend to somebody,

that person borrows from you. Okay? So, the

direction is from this person to that person.

This person is giving, lending, and this person

is borrowing, taking, temporarily, because

they're supposed to give it back again later.

Okay? So, "Could you lend me your pen?" or

"May I borrow your pen?" It means the same

thing, but it depends who is doing the lending

or the borrowing. So, let's just try a little

example here so that you can work out which...

Which word belongs in the gap. So, "I never ______ money to anyone." Or, "She is always

trying to ______ money from people." So, remember

we've got "to" and "from" here, which is a

clue. You lend to, you borrow from, so that should help you to work out how to fill in

these two gaps, which one is "lend" and which

one is "borrow". Okay. So, "I never ______",

so it's to do with giving. "I never give/lend."

Okay? So, "I never lend money to anyone, but

then another person, she is always trying to

take/borrow." Okay? "Borrow". "She is always

trying to borrow money from", so this is "to",

"lend to", and this is "from", "borrow from".

Okay? So, those prepositions help you sometimes to work it out.

So, okay, I hope that's clear. But then in the

past tense, we just have to be a bit careful

with the past forms because "to lend" is an

irregular verb, so the past form of "to lend"

is "lent". "I lent", "you lent", "he lent". It's

the same for all, all the pronouns, singular and

plural. "We lent", "they lent". It's the same

all the way through, but it's irregular. So,

we've got "lend" with a "d", then "lent" with

a "t". But then "borrow" is a regular verb,

so you just put "ed" on the end. "Borrowed", "borrowed". Okay?

So, again, we've got two sentences here with gaps, so it's the same situation

said in two different ways. So, "Yesterday, Anne _____ my pen" and didn't return it.

"Yesterday, I _____ Anne my pen" and she didn't

return it. So, which word goes in which gap?

So, one person does the lending and another person does the borrowing.

So, "Yesterday, Anne", and this time you haven't

got the "to" and the "from" to give you a clue,

so... Because they don't always appear, so you have to just work out. So, "Anne

did something with my pen", so what did she do? She took it, didn't she?

"You gave it, but she took it", so "Anne borrowed...

Anne borrowed my pen", she did the borrowing,

the taking, and she didn't return it. So,

then it's the other one in this gap. "Yesterday, I lent", "I gave", "I lent Anne

my pen", and she didn't return it. And if you

put the name of the person immediately after,

you don't say "I lent to Anne", I just... "I

lent Anne", you don't need the "to" in there.

So, that means you don't always have the little prepositions to help you

to know which it is. So, "Anne borrowed", "I lent", "I gave", "She took". Okay.

Right, so I hope that helps to give you a way of

working out whether to use "lend" or "borrow".

It's all about what direction it's going in,

giving or taking. Okay? And "to" or "from".

Right, so if you'd like to do a quiz on this topic, just go to the website,

www.engvid.com, and see how you do. I hope

that's been helpful. Thank you for watching.

I hope to see you again soon, and bye for now. Bye.