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.

Posted in Uncategorized, Vocabulary
  • Jamal-edine Bouya says:
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    thanks

    Reply
  • Vinicius says:
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    Awesome stuff Chad. Keep it up =)

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  • Bianca Torres says:
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    Thanks Chad! My students loved this video! 😉

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  • Giancarlo Solari says:
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    Thanks! And BTW you're very handsome 😉

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  • Mitra Azar says:
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    ???? ??? ???.????.

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  • Janet Abedi says:
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    Good points . Thanks….

    Reply
  • Negin Akhzari says:
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    thank u

    Reply
  • Siham Smile says:
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    thank u very much

    Reply
  • Severino Dornelas says:
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    Excellent..

    You got something that talking about speaking orde of sentences: subject, verbs and complement.

    It’s very difficult for me.

    Thank you.

    Reply
  • Dina says:
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    thank you

    Reply
  • Thaís says:
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    ?Hey Chad, how is it going?
    Well, I have a great tip for people trying to get the hand of it (at least Portuguese and Spanish speakers).
    The thing is: borrow starts with ‘b’ (dahhh, obviously)…and in Portuguese/Spanish to borrow means pedir emprestado, (first letter: ‘p’)’, and the letter ‘p’ is just a letter ‘b’ up side down. So anyone can ‘relate’ these two words.
    It sounds quite silly, but once you write both words down (borrow and pegar), bolding their first letters, it’s something you will never forget!
    b
    p

    Reply
  • Fatima Ali Hassani says:
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    Wow ! What a explanation dude it is different in all languages we say : I give this as a lent for someone and I borrowed this from someone.
    ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ????? ? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ??? ?? ???? ????

    Reply
  • Kenia Reyes says:
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    thank you ¡¡ and you´re very handsome .

    Reply