Give or get?
Most students understand the difference between these basic words. To give is active (that is, the action is performed by someone or something). Someone can give you a present. To get is passive (that is, the action is received by someone or something). You get presents on your birthday. But there are other active/passive word pairs that are more confusing and often give students problems. You will become more fluent if you understand these differences and use the correct words.
Teach/learn
To teach is active. A teacher teaches you English. To learn is passive. You learn English from your teacher. Some common phrases using these words include:
To teach a subject (or a class, or a course)
To teach someone how to do something (The father is teaching his son how to swim.)
To learn how to do something (The son is learning how to swim.)
To learn a lesson (This also has an idiomatic meaning that you learn something from a bad experience, or “the hard way.” For example, he sure learned a lesson the hard way from his car accident. I bet he won’t drive so fast in the future.)
Lend/borrow
To lend is active. You lend some money to a friend. To borrow is passive. Your friend borrows some money from you. Notice that lending and borrowing are a bit different than giving and getting. To lend and borrow have a temporary sense. If you lend money, you expect to get paid back. If you borrow money, you plan to give it back. Here are some examples:
The library lends books.
You borrow books from the library.
The bank lends money. It issues loans.
You borrow money from a bank.
The bank and the library are lenders. They are making a loan. You are the borrower.
Pay/cost
To pay is active. You pay money for something. You pay $400 for a new cell phone. To cost is passive. The cell phone costs $400.
As a verb, to pay has a more specific meaning than to cost. Pay almost always involves money or a debt of some kind. For example: I have to pay for gas and electricity along with my rent. But many things can cost something. For example: To learn better English costs time, effort, and energy.
Cost can also be used as a noun. For example: The cost of tuition is rising rapidly at that university. However, price is a better choice when you’re using it for something that has a specific monetary cost. For example: I’m comparing the prices of these two phones. I think I’ll choose the one with the lower price.
Donate/receive
These words have the same sense as give/get, but they are Tier Two words and can help you sound like a higher-lever speaker.
To donate conveys a sense of generosity and service. For example, people donate money to a charity, time to a volunteer organization, and blood to hospital patients. The people and organizations who receive the money, volunteer service, or blood are called recipients. To receive simply means to get, but since it’s a higher level word, it’s good to use it on tests of English proficiency or in academic writing. It sounds better to say, This research received much attention from the scientific community, rather than This research got a lot of attention …
If you can think of other word pairs that have an active/passive meaning, please comment below!
