Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| Know your verbs, look at your verbs, look at your verbs. |
| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha and welcome back to Know Your Verbs. In this episode, we're going to talk about the verb, "look." So, let's go. |
| The basic definition of the verb, "look" is to use your eyes, to use your skills of vision, to use your eyes, to look, to turn your eyes towards something, to use your vision is to look. The difference between the verb, "see," if you watch the "see" episode of Know Your Verbs, "see" means to perceive something with the eyes, "look" means like to focus the eyes on something, to direct your attention towards something. Whereas, "see" is like to take in something, to perceive, to gain information with the eyes. "Look" is just focusing your attention on something. |
| Conjugations. Let's check out the conjugations of this verb. Present tense, "look" or "looks." Past tense, "looked." Past participle, "looked." Progressive or continuous tense, "looking." |
| Let's check out some of the additional meanings of the verb "look." First, "to appear in accordance with." Here are some examples. "She's had a rough year." "Yeah, she looks it." Burn. Second example; "He's 60?! He doesn't look it!" Okay. So in these example sentences, "look" is referring to matching some other information about a person or about a condition, about a situation. In this case, in the first example sentence, we hear, "She's had a rough year," and then the response to that is, "Yeah, she looks it." So, "it" means--in other words, the "it" here means "as though she's had a rough year." "She looks" meaning she appears in accordance with the fact "she has had a rough year." But that's a very long thing to say. Instead, we say, "Yeah, she looks it," her appearance suggests what you have just said. "She's had a rough year." "Yeah, she looks it," where "it" equals "rough year" and "looks" shows that matches. So, her look matches this rough year fact we've learned about her. The second sentence is similar, someone says, "He's 60?!" meaning he's 60 years old, but we hear the negative response, "he doesn't look it," meaning he does not appear as a 60-year-old man. Meaning, in other words, he probably looks much younger than 60, "He doesn't look it." Could be, but he seems way, way older than 60 years old. Like if someone looks ancient, if someone has the appearance of a very, very old person and you go, "Oh, my gosh. He's 60? He doesn't look it." That's possible too, that's possible I suppose, so do you just have to gauge based on the intonation. So, we can use an expression like that to mean someone is significantly younger or older. |
| The next meaning is "to seem," "to seem." Here are some examples. "This looks pretty tough." "This is looking like it's going to be easier than I thought." In these example sentences, we can replace the verb "look' with "seem" and the meaning stays the same. So, "This looks pretty tough," has the same meaning as "This seems pretty tough." So "to seem" and "to look" have the same meaning in these examples. In the second example sentence, we saw, "This is looking like it's going to be easier than I thought," we can replace "looking" with "seeming" and the meaning stays the same. "This is seeming like it's going to be easier than I thought." Both of these we can simply replace the verb and we have the same meaning in these cases. So "look" means "to seem." Why would you use "look" instead of "seem"? What is the difference here? For me, personally, I think "seem" sounds slightly more formal than "look." I would not use "seem" in most cases, I would say, "looks," in most cases, when I want to say, "seem'. If I want to sound slightly more formal or slightly more polite, I would probably use "seem." "There seems to be the problem." "What seems to be the problem instead?" instead of "What looks like the problem?" Or, "Looks like this one's your problem." Like, "look" sounds like not nearly as formal. Alright. |
| Next is "to have in mind as a goal." Here are some examples; "We're looking to buy a new car by the end of the month." "He's looking to complete his job transfer by next month." Both of these sentences define a goal, they explain a goal. We're also using the progressive form of "looking," so that means we are in the progress of working towards a goal or in the progress of completing a goal. In the first example sentence, "We're looking to buy a new car by the end of the month," means "Our goal is to buy a new car by the end of the month and we are currently trying to do that." But, this is quite a long expression, so instead, we use "look." "We are looking to buy a new car." I suppose we could replace this with the verb, "aiming to," "We're aiming to buy a new car." "Aiming." But "aiming" sounds rather formal and "looking" is a little bit more casual, so "We're looking to buy a new car." In the second sentence, "He's looking to complete his job transfer by next month," we see the same thing, his goal is to complete his job transfer and his aim is to do it by next month. So, he is currently working towards his goal, he's looking to complete something. We use it in the progressive tense to show he is currently trying to achieve this goal, to achieve this outcome. |
| The next meaning is "to express with your eyes or with your face." You're actually creating an appearance with your eyes or your face, an expression, in other words. Here are some examples. "She looked surprised." "They look pretty angry." Here, both of these examples are talking about an expression, a facial expression or some appearance that is created with the face or with the eyes. In the first example, we see, "She looked surprised," in past tense. This indicates that with her face, something about her face or her eyes showed surprise. She created a surprised face with her facial expression, in other words, so she looked surprised. In the second example, "They look pretty angry," present tense. "They look pretty angry," means their facial expression appears angry, something they are doing with their face or their eyes creates an angry look. "Look" is a noun here. So, "They look pretty angry," is their expression appears angry. |
| Let's go on to some variations of this. How can we pair other words with "look" to create a new meaning? First is, "look into." This means to investigate. Here are some examples; "We need to look into these accusations." "Have you looked into the requirements for your license?" Both of these mean "to examine" or "to investigate" something. So, in the first example sentence, "We need to look into these accusations," means we need to investigate these accusations, we need to maybe research, we need to search for more information about something. So, "look into" kind of contains all of that, find more information about something. But "look into" is much shorter and easier to say, "to look into" something. It does sound more casual, you could replace this with the verb, "investigate," "We need to investigate these accusations," instead of "Look into these accusations." "Investigate" sounds more formal than "look into." In the second sentence, "Have you looked into the requirements for your license?" we see the same thing, "Have you investigated the requirements for your license?" But "investigated" sounds quite polite, quite formal, so instead, we use "have you looked into" past tense. "Have you looked into the requirements?" Past tense shows "investigation," but it doesn't sound so formal as "investigate." |
| The next variation is "look the other way." This means to direct your attention away from something unpleasant. Here are some examples. "You can't just look the other way while your boss mistreats the employees in your company." "We shouldn't look the other way when our fellow humans are in trouble." These example sentences show the use of "look the other way," meaning to look away from something unpleasant. In the first example about a boss mistreating employees in a company, it means we can't just turn our attention away from the mistreatment of the employees in the company or we should not do that, that's a bad idea. We should not direct our attention away from this unpleasant situation. If there's a bad situation there, we should not ignore that situation, in other words. We should not look the other way, we should not turn our attention away from this bad situation. And in the second example sentence, "We shouldn't look the other way when our fellow humans are in trouble," it's a more general statement, but if other humans, fellow humans, other people are in trouble, we should not ignore it. We should not ignore it, we should not turn our attention in another way. |
| Okay. So, I hope that this video helped you level up your understanding of the verb, "look." If you have any questions or comments or know some other uses of the word, "look," please let us know in the comment section below this video. |
| Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs, if you like the video give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel and check this out at EnglishClass101.com for other good things too. Thanks very much for watching and I'll see you again next time. Bye-bye. |
| So many verbs. |
| Luke, I am your father. |
| Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. |
| Extremely correct use. |
| Excellent work, French tour guide. |
| Examine? |
Comments
Hide