Business English Vocabulary - COLLABORATE or COOPERATE?

Hi, my name is Rebecca and in today's lesson of Business English, we are going to differentiate

between two words "collaborate" and "cooperate", OK?

I'll say them again for you, "collaborate" and "cooperate".

Now these are quite close but at the same time they are different.

So let's understand the difference.

What does it mean to "collaborate" on something?

To "collaborate" means to work together to produce or achieve something, right?

It could be two individuals that collaborate to achieve something, it could be two corporations

that collaborate on a particular project.

So to "collaborate" just describes the official structure of that situation, right?

They collaborated on that project, they collaborated on that assignment.

That means they simply worked together, alright?

Let's compare that to the other one which is "cooperate", alright?

I see that we have a little bit of disturbance from outside, it's gone, so let's continue.

"Collaborate" refers to when you help someone in doing something, alright?

Not just that you're working together but that while you're working together you're

actually helping each other.

As we all know, sometimes human beings collaborate but they don't cooperate, right?

At other times they do cooperate.

So to cooperate means to work willingly together, to help each other as you collaborate, as

you work together.

To help someone in doing something is to cooperate, alright?

So you could collaborate on a project but if you cooperate then you will complete the

project much faster, right?

You could collaborate on an assignment but if you cooperate then everyone benefits, right?

Let's look at some other forms of these two words.

The adjective of "collaborate" is "collaborative", it was a collaborative effort.

The adjective of "cooperate" is "cooperative", he has a very cooperative attitude, right?

The noun of "collaborate" is "collaboration", can you say that after me?

"Collaboration", good.

The noun of "cooperate" is "cooperation", repeat, "cooperation", right?

Alright.

So I hope I've been able to differentiate between these two words so that you can use

them more successfully and effectively, alright?

If you'd like some more lessons in business English, general English, TOEFL, IELTS and

so on, please visit our website at www.engvid.com.

Thanks very much, talk to you soon, bye for now.