“Bring” and “take” are two verbs that often appear on lists of commonly confused words. The words, bring, and take both are examples of irregular verbs, as they do not have a regular -ed ending in their past forms. They both mean that something, or someone, is changing its location with the help of another thing or person. These two are very commonly misconstrued, but they cannot be used interchangeably, as their meanings are diametrically opposite. Bring means to carry or transfer something from one person or place to another.
On the other hand, take means to hold something with hands or to accept/get something from another person. The essential difference between these two words is that bring implies movement towards someone or something: Bring your instrument with you when you come over. Whereas take implies movement away from someone or something: Take your belongings with you when you’re leaving. Both the words bring and take are related to the movement of something, but bring implies carrying or having something along with you, whereas take denotes carrying or having something away with you. The verbs bring and take have many different meanings, especially as phrasal verbs.
Difference between Bring and Take
BRING
- Bring means to carry or get something with, in order to provide or introduce it to someone, who asked for it.
- The word ‘bring’ refers to get something or someone, as demanded by the speaker. It may also be used to move some object to another place or location.
- The word ‘bring’ is a doing word, which refers to the movement of an individual or object towards a particular place, direction or person. In other words, the person or object moves from the listener to the speaker. As the word brings is an irregular verb, the past form of ‘bring’ is brought.
- Example: “Bring some food to the party at my house.” “Bring your homework to me”
TAKE
- Take refers to receive or have something with you, wherever you go or to occupy something.
- The word ‘take’ is used to denote ‘have’ something to the place you are going to.
- ‘Take’ means accept/hold something given by someone or to have something with you wherever you go. Simply put, we use the word ‘take’ to move something away from someone. Take is an irregular verb, whose simple past and past participle forms are – took and taken respectively.
- Example: “I’m going to take some cake to Paul’s house for his birthday party.” “Take your dog away from me.”
Basically, the point of reference for the movement or action plays an important role here. Meaning that, when you ask people to bring something to you, it means you are the ultimate destination of the object. As against, when you tell a person to take something with you, it means you are the source.
