Borrow and Lend, What’s the difference?

By Chad | April 7, 2014

Have you ever borrowed somebody money?

If you have I’m sorry to say that you have just made a common mistake. Even though the words BORROW and LEND are used in the same situation, there is a big difference in meaning.

In this lesson you will learn how to really use these words and never make this mistake again.
(See transcript below)

Transcript

Hey there, RealLife TV fans, welcome to another episode. Today I’m going to teach you all about the difference between borrow and lend.

Is this RealLife?

So, these two words are very commonly mistaken, especially because in a lot of other languages they’re actually the same word. So, I’m going to first explain to lend someone something.

To lend means you give someone something, whether it’s money, or some kind of an object, but you give it to them because they’re going to give it back to you later.

For example – I could lend you some money for lunch.

Borrow is the opposite. Borrow is when you are the person who is taking it from the other person. So, a common way to use this would be “Hey, can I borrow 10 dollars?” or “Hey, can you lend me 10 dollars?”

Ok? So, that is the difference between the verbs to borrow and to lend.

Thanks a lot for watching today, thank you for lending me your ears, and I’ll see you next time on RealLife TV.

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Posted in Uncategorized, Vocabulary