{"id":73408,"date":"2020-03-24T09:41:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T09:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73408"},"modified":"2020-03-24T09:41:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T09:41:48","slug":"see-vs-look-at-vs-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/see-vs-look-at-vs-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"See vs. Look At vs. Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To\u00a0<b>see<\/b>\u00a0is to use your eyes in order to recognize things. We can<b>\u00a0see<\/b>\u00a0things even if we are not paying attention.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Suddenly I\u00a0<b>saw\u00a0<\/b>a strange sight.<\/li>\n<li>I couldn\u2019t\u00a0<b>see<\/b>\u00a0anything.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>See<\/b>\u00a0can also mean understand.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Did you\u00a0<b>see<\/b>\u00a0what I mean? (= Did you understand what I mean?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We do not normally use the continuous form of\u00a0<b>see\u00a0<\/b>with this meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I can\u00a0<b>see<\/b>\u00a0a ship. (NOT I am seeing a ship.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, continuous forms of\u00a0<b>see\u00a0<\/b>can be used to talk about future arrangements.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u00a0<b>am seeing<\/b>\u00a0your Dad tomorrow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Look (at)<\/h3>\n<p>To\u00a0<b>look at<\/b>\u00a0something is to try to see what is there. It involves paying attention. Note that we can see something, even if we don\u2019t want to see it. However, we can only\u00a0<b>look at<\/b>\u00a0something deliberately.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u00a0<b>looked at<\/b>\u00a0the screen but I couldn\u2019t see anything.<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>looked at<\/b>\u00a0her with suspicion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When\u00a0<b>look\u00a0<\/b>has an object, it is normally followed by the preposition\u00a0<b>at<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She<b>\u00a0looked at<\/b>\u00a0me. (NOT She looked me.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When there is no object, we use<b>\u00a0look<\/b>\u00a0without a preposition.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Look!<\/b>\u00a0(NOT Look at!)<\/li>\n<li><b>Look<\/b>\u00a0here! (NOT Look at here!)<\/li>\n<li><b>Look at\u00a0<\/b>him. (NOT Look him.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The use of the preposition is optional when\u00a0<b>look<\/b>\u00a0is followed by a\u00a0<b>wh-clause<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Look<\/b>\u00a0what you have done! OR\u00a0<b>Look at<\/b>\u00a0what you have done!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Watch<\/h3>\n<p>Watching involves paying attention and in that sense it is like<b>\u00a0look at<\/b>. We\u00a0<b>watch<\/b>\u00a0things that change or develop.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The police\u00a0<b>have been watching<\/b>\u00a0his moves for two days.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Watch<\/b>\u00a0is normally used with TV.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018What were you doing in the morning?\u2019 \u2018I\u00a0<b>was watching TV<\/b>.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Both\u00a0<b>watch<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>see<\/b>\u00a0can be used to talk about films and TV programs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u00a0<b>saw\u00a0<\/b>an interesting program on TV yesterday. OR I\u00a0<b>watched<\/b>\u00a0an interesting program on TV yesterday.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>See if \/ whether<\/h3>\n<p><b>See<\/b>\u00a0can be followed by an\u00a0<b>if-clause<\/b>\u00a0or a<b>\u00a0whether-clause<\/b>.\u00a0<b>Look<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>watch<\/b>\u00a0cannot be used in this way.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>See if\u00a0<\/b>we can get a ticket for the show. (NOT Look if we can get a ticket for the show.) (NOT Watch if we can get a ticket for the show.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To\u00a0see\u00a0is to use your eyes in order to recognize things. We can\u00a0see\u00a0things even if we are not paying attention. Suddenly I\u00a0saw\u00a0a strange sight. I couldn\u2019t\u00a0see\u00a0anything. See\u00a0can also mean understand. Did you\u00a0see\u00a0what I mean? (=&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2226,2223,2228,2229,2227],"class_list":["post-73408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-look-at","tag-see","tag-see-vs-look-at","tag-see-vs-watch","tag-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73409,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73408\/revisions\/73409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}