Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That’s English! The Spanish Ministry of Education’s official distance learning English course. To find out more about That’s English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. One set of confusing verbs for Spanish learners of English is how to use the verbs BRING and TAKE. We use one or the other depending on the spatial location we are referring to. Let’s start with bring. Bring in Spanish is the verb traer. It is an irregular verb. Its past tense and participle form are both brought. Bring means to take or carry someone or something to a place or a person. The movement of the person or object is from where the listener is (for example: ‘Can you bring me my jacket?’) ¿Puedes traerme mi chaqueta? The listener will return the sweater to the speaker’s location. Or, alternatively, it can be from the speaker to the listener as in the example ‘I’ve brought you some flowers.’ Te he traído unas flores. (In this case, the speaker has arrived at the listener’s location). It may help to always bear in mind that with bring the context is always ‘close’, cerca. It is associated with coming to a destination where the speaker or listener is located. Always think of: · Bring that here. Trae eso aquí. The verb take is the opposite to bring. Think therefore of the context being ‘far’, lejos. In Spanish it is the verb llevar. Take is also an irregular verb. Its past tense form is took and its participle form is taken. Take means movement with something or someone from where the speaker or listener is, to a different place, or away from somewhere. Imagine this situation. You are a high school student, and you are at the high school secretary’s office. The assistant tells you: ‘You have to fill in this form and then take it to the Maths Department.’ Tienes que rellenar este formulario y luego llevarlo al Departamento de matemáticas. Both the speaker and the listener are together in a different place to the Maths Department. So, take is associated with going away from a starting point where the speaker or listener are located. Always think of: · Take that there. Lleva eso allí. Let’s do a final recap. Both bring and take are verbs that refer to movement. Bring implies movement towards something, whereas take implies movement away from something. You have to think of the perspective of the context. Bring what you can. Take what you can. In the first example, bring implies you are carrying something with you toward a certain location. In the second example, take implies you are carrying something away from somewhere. We hope you now feel more confident about when to use these two confusing verbs. Thanks for listening! We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on social media. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!