Shadowing Practice: AEE - Did You See It or Watch It? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hey there, Aubrey. What's shaking? Not too much. Lindsay, are you watching any good TV shows lately? Yeah, I mean, I'm back to the classics that I watched last year, like um Doc is a good one and Ghosts and uh let's see. Matlock is one that I've been watching. Did I tell you I started watching Ghosts? Oh, good. You told me about it. I watched it with my kids because I watched one episode and I was like, "My kids are going to love this." We love it.

We laugh so hard. It's so clever. That's kind of cool that they're able to laugh at that because in my head it was like, okay, like you know, Pete, for example, he's from the 80s and I can tell, okay, I know exactly every phrase he says and I remember when we used to say those phrases, but your kids weren't around then and they can still love it and enjoy it. I love that they because it's funny. It's really well written. There are some of those references that they don't get. Same with Stranger Things. Stranger Things is from the 80s and they don't get all the references, but it's so funny. They laugh like they love the the one that knew cuz they know Hamilton. We all love the play Hamilton. And the guy who knew Hamilton but is like shocked that Hamilton's famous and so mad that he's not. They thought he was so funny. It's a great show. That's cool that you're watching that now. Yeah, I watch that all the time. I think it's great. It's good writing and it's very nostalgic because you do think of the different time periods and it's fun. So, it's so clever. Well, the reason we're talking about that is we got a great question in our Q&A from Shelly. Shout out to Shelly. She was asking about the difference between see and watch and when to use each. And this is tricky because they are used differently in other languages. This is something that you can't translate directly. You have to know how they're used in English, but they're important words for connection, right, Aubra? And we talk about what we experience, how we take in the world, what we witness, which is a huge part of of the human experience. Not to mention what we're watching on TV. I feel like this is a very common connection topic. What shows are you watching? Give me some recommendations. Yeah, we even just connected in that in that quick moment there about enjoying the same show and that makes you feel closer to someone, right? Yes. Exactly. But you do have to know the difference. You know, we couldn't say what shows are you seeing on TV. We use watch there. So, it's important if you want to be understood to connect. You want to express yourself accurately and use the correct verb here.

Yeah, there's quite a bit of nuance if you really dig into see versus watch. There's some nuance.

So, guys, bear with us today. Let's get into it. Uh listen, you can always listen again to these episodes if you need to, but go ahead and hit the follow button right here on All Ears English. This is where you want to be 5 days a week. Let our episodes drop right into your queue. Okay. Yes, absolutely. So, let's dive into see first, right? This is about noticing something visually, right? It just happens. You weren't necessarily trying because for watching, like there's effort there. Seeing is usually passive and it can be quick. Yeah. I mean, you didn't just happen to see ghosts, right? You weren't just No. watching TV and you saw a a commercial come on. No, you went and you figured out how to watch it. How to get your kids in front of the TV together and and that's a good point that it you use them both in the same sentence. Right. I was watching a show and I saw something out the window. I saw a commercial come on. Right. That's when we use it for spontaneously just talking about something we witnessed visually. This is passive. It can happen quickly. Flashes in front of us. Right. Um, right. There was no intention. Maybe I didn't want to see it, but I couldn't help it. Exactly. Exactly. But if it's a dog, you do.

Right. Did you see that cute dog? Right. There's a dog in the park. Um, or Yeah. Or, I don't see a parking spot. And this is interesting because what would it be? What would it mean if I said, "Did you watch that cute dog?" Well, you say that, but it means something else. You could totally say it means you you saw the dog and then you stopped and you your eyes actually followed the dog on purpose. Yeah. You observed it. Maybe you watched it play for a little while. There's intention there, right? Whereas C, it's just like quickly you saw a dog. Yeah. Best thing in the world is watching two dogs play together. It is like the especially like puppies are really energetic dogs and they're like jumping around each other. It's so cute. The best thing in the world. Um, so then also C can mean that you bumped into a person unexpectedly and you saw them, right? Yes. And we use C this way. Be like, "Oh, I saw your mom at the grocery store yesterday." And that might mean that you just saw them and didn't talk to them. It might mean you stopped and chatted with them for a little bit because sometimes we'll use saw when we mean like, "Oh, I I saw them and we visited." Yeah. You could have seen them from far away and maybe you couldn't approach them or you actually chatted. Yeah. Um see is also about uh ability. Aubrey, tell us about this. Yeah. You might say, "I can't see without my glasses." So here we're talking about this the you know sight, one of our senses. Are we able to see? Yes. This reminds me of Lindsay. Have you seen the movie Bird Box? Uh, yeah. I think I have. It was probably a while ago, right? It was Sandra Bulock. I watched it with my kids. I'm like, I think they will actually like it. They really like a thriller. And oh, now I'm realizing I can't spo spoil, but for those of you who haven't watched it, the end has a lot to the whole movie has a lot to do with seeing and what you see. So, people are like wearing blindfolds. So, highly recommend it. No spoilers, but Well, that was a really intense movie. Quite a thriller. Yeah, that's very intense. And also we say we see someone for an appointment, right? Like I'm going to see my doctor this week. Doesn't mean you're going to see them from a distance. That means you are meeting with them. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So you've got an appointment. You need to see a doctor, right? You've had a pain in your knee. It's time to go see a doctor, right? Yeah. Or someone might say that, right? If they think if you break your leg and you need to go to the hospital, they might say, "You need to see a doctor about this." Which is interesting.

We're not actually saying see what we mean. We're kind of using it idiomatically to say you need to visit a doctor. You need to be seen by a doctor. You need to have them look at this. Schedule an appointment with a doctor. Exactly. Let's flip over to the other side, Aubrey, now and talk about watch. So, let's look at the nuance differences. So, watch is when you focus on something visually.

This is more intentional. Like we said, we stop. We see a dog, then we stop and we watch the dog.

Right. Exactly. It's intentional. It's active. There's time to it. It might involve movement, right? But that's definitely not just something that we passively do. We happen to see something.

Watching, we're doing with intention. Yeah. Your eyes are literally moving with the thing. Um, he's watching the kids on the playground. Uh, what else, Aubrey, could you say? Watch the road when you're driving. Right. So, because it's I don't just see the road. I could be like, "Oh, I see the road." But if I'm doing something actively, watching out for something, watching the road, there's intention to that. I'm focusing on what I'm looking at. Or we watch the sunset together.

Yes. Right. You could also say, "We saw the sunset together." But what's the difference? Yeah. The difference is maybe you're on a walk. You're not intending to see the sunset and just like, "Oh, we saw the sunset. It was beautiful." There's intention to we watched the sunset.

That probably means you stopped and watched it for a few minutes. There's time to it. There's focus to it. Yeah, totally. So, I used to teach tennis as an assistant tennis pro and my boss, the head pro at the club I watched uh that I we taught at used to have a saying of his own. So, everyone in tennis says watch the ball, watch the ball, watch the ball. Right. But his thing was see the ball. So, he he made it like a bigger thing. Um and he so he would just see the ball. See the ball. So less about the mechanics of the eye moving towards the ball but more broadly seeing the ball. So we can play with things that way too. Definitely. Especially in sports I feel like we'll play with it that way, right? Um and people will make jokes sometimes in volleyball sometimes you'll be like uh you'll warn someone that there's a tip or whatever you be like watch out or something and then you might make a joke that's like I saw it happen but I didn't do anything about it. Exactly. Exactly. So it's fun when we have these little jokes, these contrasts, we can really understand the meanings. Exactly. Yeah. So when it comes to see versus watch, we als we often use them in the same conversation, in the same sentences. So for example, we'll do a couple little mini role plays here. Um, did you see that gorgeous bird earlier? Yeah, I was watching it fly around the garden all morning. So that's a very clear differentiator there. We see the difference. Exactly. If that didn't happen, if it just flew past, you'd be like, "Oh, yeah. I saw it. It was so pretty." Yes. But if it's in your yard for a while and there's time and you stop to watch it, that's when you'd use watch. Exactly. Or what about this one? Did you see that stop sign back there? Uh, no. I wasn't watching the road. I'm so sorry. That's dangerous.

I was definitely known for rolling through stop signs or kind of like just not stopping where you're supposed to stop for a stop sign. It happens. It for sure happens. But yeah, this is a good point where someone would be like, "Oh, did you not see that stop sign?" Yeah. Right.

And be like, "I wasn't watching the road." Right. We're using these two ver because you wouldn't say I'm not seeing the road. Clearly, you're singing it. But we use watch in this way of also being careful. Watch out. Watch the road. That's more like focus on what you're doing and be careful.

Yes. Love it. Hey, quick question. Do you want to feel more confident when you speak English? If so, we made a free guide for you. It'll help you avoid those common mistakes and start speaking more naturally in real conversations. Go grab it in the description below. And if this is helpful for you, make sure that you like and subscribe. We are here five times a week to help you connect in English. All right, Aubrey, we are back from break. So, we've talked about the main differences between see and watch, but then there are of course situations where you could use both.

All right. Yeah. So, movies are a good example. Someone might say, "Did you see that movie?

Did you watch that movie?" It means the same thing. And it's interesting how sometimes they are interchangeable. That's true. Performances would be another one. Uh like a Broadway play or something. Did you see the play? Did you watch the play? Really, it doesn't matter in this case which one. Exactly. Sports events. I saw a game. I watched a game. I went to a game. These all mean the same thing. or online content like did you see that meme on Instagram? Right? That kind of thing.

Oh, that's a really good point though because we wouldn't say did you watch that meme if it's a picture. If it's a still picture, we would only say did you see it? If it's a video, a movie, something with time to it, then we'd say, "Watch, did you watch that Tik Tok video?" Yes. It has to be like live action kind of, right? Exactly. If it's just a picture or a meme, then we would say, "Did you see it? Did you see it?" That's a good That's a good uh differentiator there, Aubrey.

Um but the meaning is slightly different. So let's go into this next piece here. What do we need to know? Yeah. So when we're asking see did you see the movie? Did you see the show? You attended, experienced or noticed something. And then watch is more about you stopped and paid attention. So it's interesting how for some of these they are interchangeable, but for a lot of life we use one or the other. Yeah. Like for example, last night um we we saw a basketball game. I went to a basketball game. I saw a game, but I didn't really watch the game to be honest. Oh, that's funny. You attended, but you didn't really pay attention. No, no, not really. I was actually just uh sort of trying to read the New York Times on my phone. That's so funny. Yeah, that's a good point. Right. So, we would say like, "Oh, yeah. I saw the game. I went to the game." But if you say, "I watched the game." That means you were focused on it. You weren't just on your phone the whole time. Exactly. Exactly. Or see a movie. So, did you have the experience of attending the movie? Right. We saw a movie last Friday. Really, that just means we experienced it. We attended. But if someone says, "Did you watch that movie?" Like, it means you sat down and focused. Did you pay attention to it? Exactly. Um, so what's another sample sentence, Aubrey, here? Yeah. So, you could say, "I saw Julia posted an Instagram story, but I haven't watched it yet." And that's interesting because sometimes a story is a picture. Then you would just say, "I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it." But if it's a video, yeah, I haven't watched it. Right.

And we could also insert that. I saw that Julia posted an Instagram story. I s I noticed here.

We're using see as notice something. I noticed the fact that Julia posted a story. I'm aware of it, but I haven't watched it. Yes. This actually, this is a really interesting um note for a future episode because today in the Q&A, a student asked, "Why do native speakers sometimes drop that and why do they leave it? Why is sometimes, you know, I saw that Julia posted or I saw Julia posted this. We had a great discussion about it and I'm going to plan an episode. So, be sure to hit follow so you can get that episode in the future. Love that idea. Really looking forward to that episode. Awesome. So, what can we not say, Aubrey? What's the not what not to do advice? Yeah, we're give you some not to do. So, for example, she saw the TV show all night. There's duration here, right? There's time. So, you could only say watch. She watched the TV show all night. And also, we watched the mountain. Well, mountains don't move, right? Um, this So, it's a still object, a mountain. So, to see a mountain, you can see a mountain. Can't really watch a mountain because the mountain's not going anywhere. It doesn't require that your eyes track it, right? This is such a good point, right? You could watch animals climbing up the mountain. You can watch the sunset because something's going to change. Watch the snowfall. But just something that a building, a mountain, we wouldn't say we watch it. We might watch for people to come out of it or climb it. But if it's something stationary, we would say, "We see it. I see the mountain. I see the building." Really important nuance there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Or you watch your friends at the store. So don't say, "I watched my friends at the store." It kind of sounds like you're creepy and spying, right? Right. It sounds like you're stalking them, right? We would say, "I saw I saw my friends at the store. I bumped into my friends at the store." It's true. This is such a good point. We don't really say we watch people. We can say like I watch the kids playing. Yeah. Because safety, right? We watch my kids or we watch my dog. You're indicating like safety like take. That's more about supervision. We will say like I watch someone that we're like supervising for safety. But anyone else, we wouldn't say we watch them or it's weird.

It's weird. Don't be weird. Anyone you don't you shouldn't be supervising for safety. You should not be watching. Exactly. All right. So, let's do a role play. So, you and I are on vacation in South Africa. I would love to go to South Africa. Yes, me too. We're on a safari tour here spotting wild animals. Okay. Did you see those elephants near the trees? Yes, I saw them when they first when we first drove up. I've been watching the baby play in the mud.

He's so cute. That's adorable. Honestly, I could watch them all day. Wait, do you see that grass moving? It could be another animal. Let's watch quietly so we don't scare it away. Oh gosh, that would be that would be kind of intense. Um, yeah, you're out there. I'm like, I'm imagining myself from like a jeep watching the animals. They can come for you. They can jeep for sure.

That's why they don't let little kids on safari from what I understand, right? They'll just run away and get eaten by a lion. Pretty much. Y. So, these are some great examples. So, did you see those elephants near the trees? So, it's more passive. Like, did you happen to see them? Did they cross your field? Notice them. Exactly. Right. So, then I'm saying like, "Oh, yeah. I saw them when we first drove up. And now we're going to switch to watch because you there was some time here. You focused on this baby. I've been watching the baby play in the mud. So now I'm focusing and I'm intentionally putting my eyes on the baby elephant. Right. How cute. Oh my gosh.

Yes. Right. And this is interesting because you could say, "Oh, I saw the baby was playing in the mud." So it all sort of is how much you want to um emphasize the time and focus. Right. Yep. How much of your energy is going to this object? Exactly. Um, and I said, "That's adorable." Honestly, I could watch them all day. Sorry. Keeper makes wants to be on the microphone. Keeper wanted to make an appearance on the podcast. Every once in a while, he likes to make an appearance. Yeah. Um, I could watch them all day. So, that's also indicating more intention, right? Exactly.

Right. You You could not say I could see them all day because there's time. This is something that whenever there's time, it's got to be watch. I could watch them all day. Yes. And then I said, "Wait, do you see that grass moving?" So, I didn't ask, "Do you watch that gr?" That would be weird because Yeah. Why would I watch grass moving? But you're asking, "Did you notice it? Did you see that grass moving?" And more passive. Did you passively notice it? Right.

Exactly. And then I say, "Let's watch quietly so we don't scare it away." So now we're going to watch for that movement. And because there's time there, we wouldn't use C. We'd use watch.

Yeah. So it seems like boiling it down, you know, just to get a final takeaway. I mean, it seems like we're we're really looking at active versus passive a lot of times with these two, right? Exactly. Seeing is something that enters our vision, you know, happened as an experience and then watch. It's more something we're focusing on intentionally and there's usually time, a duration of time. Yeah. But I do think, you know, just to keep in mind to finish up the episode, guys, this is worth your time figuring out because again, like we said at the top of the episode, it's about taking in the world, right? Definitely. and then reporting back and and and interacting with people in terms of what you're seeing which is a huge connection skill.

So it matters. Absolutely. Yes. We talk about this all the time whether we're w asking someone what they watched on TV or if we're connecting about things we've seen in the world and observed. We use these verbs a lot to connect. So it is worth the time to get them straight. Yes. Love it. Guys, if you are looking for your next next adventure with Allers English right now, that could be episode 2573. Is this episode a slap on the wrist? Go and check that out and you will enjoy it. We guarantee it. Yes, definitely. Scroll up if you missed that one. And Lindsay, this is really fun.

I'm excited for all of you to connect about what you're watching. Recommend a new show to somebody.

Spark that conversation. Yes. Use what you've just learned and you'll see it's immediately useful and you can apply it to your own life right away. Okay. Absolutely. All right, Aubrey. Talk soon.