LOOK, SEE, WATCH Differences, Meanings, Example Sentences Learn English Vocabulary

In this video, I’m going to talk about some similar English verbs

‘look’, ‘see’, and ‘watch’.

A lot of students ask me the difference between these words,

so I’m going to make sure that this video will clear up any confusion.

Let’s get started.

First, let’s start with ‘look’.

It is used as a regular verb.

We use ‘look’ when we direct our eyes at something

and pay attention to it.

Let’s look at some examples.

The first sentence says,

‘Look at this old photo of me.’

I am directing your eyes to the photo.

I want you to pay attention to it with your eyes.

‘Look! It's snowing outside.’

In the same way I want someone to pay attention with their eyes at the snow outside.

Now, I will talk about ‘see’.

It is an irregular verb.

The past tense of ‘see’ is ‘saw’.

You should use ‘see’ when you notice or become aware of something with your eyes.

You are not looking for it but you suddenly see it.

Let’s look at some examples.

Let's look at the first sentence.

It says, ‘I see an airplane in the sky.’

The person didn't know that there was an airplane in the sky

but they saw it with their eyes.

So, ‘I see an airplane in the sky.’

‘She suddenly saw a dog on the street.’

In this example, ‘see’ is used in the past tense, ‘saw’.

‘She suddenly saw a dog on the street.’

She noticed it with her eyes.

Now, I will talk about ‘watch’.

It is a regular verb.

‘watch’ means to look at something for a long time

and to pay attention to it.

Right now, you are watching my video.

Let’s look at some example sentences.

The first sentence says, ‘I love to watch my cat play.’

This is something I like to do for a long time

- look at and watch this happening.

The next sentence says, ‘I watched the football game last night.’

Again, it's something that you watch or pay attention to with your eyes

for a long period of time.

You can use ‘watch’ or ‘see’ when we talk about movies, TV, and concerts.

You can say, ‘I watched a movie last night’

or you can say, ‘I saw a movie last night’.

So the rules are not so strict in spoken English

about watching or seeing a movie or tv show.

Let's do a checkup.

In this conversation, there are two sentences.

In these sentences, we should use the verbs ‘watch’, ‘see’, and ‘look’.

Take a moment to think about where we use these verbs.

‘A’ says, ‘_blank_ at the TV.’

‘A’ is directing ‘B’'s eyes to use his eyes, to look at the TV.

So again, ‘A’ says, ‘Look at the TV. You can _blank_ that new TV show.’

So because this is a TV show

you can say ‘see’ or ‘watch’.

In this case, let's use ‘watch’.

‘You can watch that new TV show.’

And ‘B’ says, ‘Oh I _blank_ it already.’

Since we already used ‘watch’, let's use ‘see’.

In this case, the past tense.

‘B’ says, ‘Oh, I saw it already.’

Now you know the difference between ‘look’, ‘see’, and ‘watch’.

This video is not enough to master these expressions.

You need to keep practicing.

Thank you guys for watching this video and I’ll see you in the next video.