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Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody, welcome back to Know Your Verbs.
My name is Alisha, and in this lesson, we're going to talk about the verb bring.
Let's get started.
Let's start with the basic definition of the verb bring.
The basic definition of bring is to carry or lead someone or something somewhere.
Examples.
You should bring a friend to the beach this weekend.
He brought us a nice bottle of wine.
Now let's take a look at the conjugations for this verb.
Present bring brings past brought past participle brought progressive bringing.
Now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb.
The first additional meaning is to cause something to be in a state.
Let's look at some examples.
Let's bring the meeting to an end.
He's brought us nothing but trouble.
This meaning, this additional meaning might be kind of hard to understand because it's very open, but here we can kind of think of it as like a concept or there's some condition that's happening as a result of one person's behavior.
We use bring to talk about that.
Something that caused some situation or caused some condition or status to happen.
The first example sentence is let's bring the meeting to an end.
We could understand that as meaning let's end the meeting or let's cause the meeting to end.
Here though we're using end as a noun.
Let's bring the meeting to an end.
We use bring and end together like we're causing an end to happen is kind of the idea here.
This is a simple example of like how to close a meeting, how to finish a meeting.
Let's bring something to an end.
This is a common expression.
The second example sentence, he's brought us nothing but trouble shows that he in this situation has caused a condition of trouble.
In this case, nothing but trouble means the only thing this person has caused is trouble.
This is a very negative expression and we see past tense bring here.
He's brought us nothing but trouble.
He's caused us to be in a situation of trouble.
That's the only thing he has done for us.
We can use bring to talk about this kind of causing of some situation or some state.
Keep an eye out for this when you're reading.
You'll notice that there are some common words like trouble or bring something to an end, bring something to a close.
You'll see those sorts of things when you're reading.
Those actually mean cause, not physically carry something.
So keep an eye out for this when you're reading and listening.
Let's move along to the next additional meaning.
The next additional meaning is to have characteristics.
This is quite open sounding so let's take a look at some examples.
She brought a refreshing positive attitude to the team.
He doesn't bring much to the table.
The additional meaning here is to have characteristics and the idea with this is that you have those characteristics as like a person, for example, and you can take those characteristics with you.
So it's like those characteristics are a part of your personality and therefore you can take them places, move them around and do things.
So it's more like we're carrying a concept somewhere.
So the original definition that we talked about at the beginning of this lesson was to take or carry something with you to another place.
In this case, think of it as carrying a characteristic or a personality trait somewhere, like you're carrying a concept.
In the first example sentence, it's a positive, refreshing attitude.
So that's not an actual object, but it is a characteristic a person can use like in work or in life.
In the second example sentence, though, he doesn't bring much to the table.
This is a very common expression.
It's a negative expression.
He doesn't bring much to the table means he doesn't have many positive characteristics.
So to bring much to the table, we can imagine a table as being a place where people eat or people share things together, be at work or social events.
When we say he doesn't bring much to the table, it's like he's not sharing much or he's not able to offer much in this social setting or in this group setting.
So we can use bring in this way to talk about kind of conceptual things like personality related things, so characteristics.
So let's move along to some variations with the verb bring.
The first variation is to bring something back.
This actually has a few different meanings.
This verb can mean to return something like to a retail store.
It can mean to recall, to cause to recall something, and it can also mean to do something that used to be done commonly in the past.
Let's look at some examples.
Seeing this old toy brings back so many memories.
It wants to bring back some of our policies.
So the first example sentence is about recalling something, about remembering something.
So seeing this toy, seeing this old toy brings back so many memories.
So to bring back in this case means causes to remember.
So the act of looking at a toy causes the speaker to remember something, causes the speaker to think about old memories.
So it brings back those things from the past, so a recollection.
The second example sentence is about doing something that was done in the past but maybe stopped for a period of time.
The sentence was management wants us to bring back some of our old policies.
So that sounds like because we're using bring back there, it sounds like the policies stopped at one point and now management wants to start those again or wants to bring them back.
So the idea with this use of bring back is that something was popular or common for a time period, maybe like 10 years ago or a few months ago, and then it stopped or was not popular for a time period.
But now there's some surge, some rise in popularity or an interest in that thing again.
We can use bring back to talk about this.
There's a very famous Justin Timberlake song that begins with the expression, I'm bringing sexy back, for example.
So he's suggesting that he himself is the person who is like bringing this idea of like sexiness and attractiveness back.
Like it hasn't been around for a long time, but I'm going to be the person that does this again.
So I'm going to do it.
I'm going to bring it back.
I'm going to make sexy cool again.
Let's move along now to the next variation.
The next variation is to bring somebody down.
This means to cause someone to lose confidence.
Let's look at some examples.
Losing the game really brought me down.
Don't bring your classmates down.
So to bring someone down means to cause their confidence to fall or to cause someone to feel badly about himself or herself.
In the first example situation, we see losing the game really brought me down.
So in other words, losing the game caused me to feel badly about myself or I lost confidence because I lost the game.
So in this case, losing the game brought me down.
But we see in the second example sentence, though, we can talk about other people in this situation with this word.
So don't bring your classmates down means don't cause your classmates to lose confidence.
So this is a way of saying, for example, don't bully your classmates or don't tease your classmates.
Don't be unkind to your classmates.
Don't bring your classmates down.
So any kind of behavior or any kind of situation that causes someone to lose confidence or to feel badly about themselves, we can use bring that person down to describe it.
The next variation is to bring somebody on.
To bring somebody on means to appoint someone to a position.
This is especially used for work and jobs.
Let's look at some examples.
We decided to bring on a designer for this project.
They brought on two bilingual salespeople.
So when we bring someone on, it's for a specific position usually, like maybe there's a special project that we need a specialist for, or there's some kind of new thing happening in a company or happening in an organization, and we need someone specific to fill that job or to fill that role.
These are cases where we might use the expression to bring someone on.
In the first example sentence, we decided to bring on a designer, it sounds like there's some kind of special project that we need some special help for.
For that reason, we decided to bring on a designer.
So it's sort of like there's an existing team or there's an existing group or workforce.
And for one specific project or for a special reason, a new person comes to that group.
So you can kind of imagine it like a boat if it's helpful.
Like someone has to come on to a boat and using the verb bring here shows that someone is carrying someone or leading someone.
So it's like the leader of this group or the leader of this organization chooses someone and carries them or leads them to the rest of the members in the group.
So this tends to be used I feel for more like time sensitive projects.
So perhaps not always, this is not a rule, but perhaps not always for long term things.
Sometimes it can be for short term projects as well.
The second example sentence shows us a situation where it could actually be a long term situation.
They brought on two bilingual salespeople.
In this case, they could mean the management of the organization and saying they brought on two bilingual salespeople shows they specifically chose bilingual salespeople to do something specific in the company.
So the basic feeling here with bring on is that there's some specific reason why that person was chosen.
So it kind of I feel like elevates the position just a little bit.
So those are hopefully a few new ways that you can use the verb bring.
There are a lot of phrasal verbs associated with this verb.
So please check out a dictionary to see some more examples of ways that you can use this verb.
Of course, if you have any questions or comments or if you would like to practice making some example sentences, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video.
Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and we'll see you again soon.
Bye bye.

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