Come vs Go

 

Many of my students get confused when to use verbs Come and Go, especially when we use phrasal verbs: Come Back and Go Back. In this episode, I will give you a tip, so you don’t ever have to be tongue tied next time you want to use Come or Go. Let’s simplify this once and for all! Enjoy :)

Transcriptions

Psst What’s that?…What’s that behind you?…What is it?
Oh my god!.. it’s a shark!!

Doesn’t this send a chill down your spine? Scary right?

Hey guys you are listening to English Made Simple and this is episode 42 número cuarenta y dos.
Hey thank you for joining me guys once again, my name is Milena and you guys are just awesome, you are my awesome listeners

Did you enjoy the last episode? Did you like the title of the last episode? When animals attack!!
Scary, only in Australia. This was one of the most popular episodes actually for English Made Simple.

I guess people are really curious about dangerous animals, the predators living here in Australia.
By the way, that introduction in the beginning was a soundtrack from the movie Jaws, and it was a nineteen seventy’s (1970’s) movie about sharks, movie made by Steven Spielberg I think he directed that movie…but enough about sharks ok? Enough about sharks.

How is your weekend going so far?. My weekend has been quite busy. We had a public holiday here, it was on Friday. Public holiday is “Feriado” in Spanish and this morning, early Sunday morning, we had something called daylight savings time, daylight savings is a term used to describe when we adjust our clock, when we change the time on the wrist watch.

This morning we moved the clock one hour forward, so this is called daylight savings in English. The days should be longer now.

I think in Spanish it’s called “cambio de hora o cambio de hora por horario de verano”. Actually I really don’t like moving the clock because it stuffs up my sleep cycle. It just makes me more tired and sleepy. It will take me about a week to adjust to my new routine. You know, I get the same feeling when I fly and you know, you change time zones, the same feeling, feeling of jet lag.

Right so, we had a public holiday on Friday because the AFL, stands for Australian Football League. The Australian Football League is an Australian sport, I don’t think anyone in the world, anyone else in the world, plays it and I still don’t understand the rules of the game. It’s a bit complicated for me to understand it. It seems like the sport doesn’t have any rules. I just see a lot of guys running around, that’s it. But the sport is quite popular here in Australia people here are very passionate about it and the sport is very popular here.

Now that we got that out of the way, I would like to get on with this show.

In this episode I would like to talk about two verbs that can be slightly confusing to English learners. People often get confused when they think about using the verbs “come” and “go”. Guess what, both are irregular verbs, so the verb “come”, “venir” in Spanish, past tense is “came” participle “come”. The verb “go” or “ir” in Spanish, past tense is “went” and participle is “gone”. Both are irregular verbs.

What is the main difference between “come” and “go”? Well, my students often get confused when to use “come” and when to use “go” in their sentences. Whether we use go or come it all has to do with perspective and position.
The main difference is that “go” is used to show movement away from the place of the speaker, and “come” is used to show movement toward or in the direction of the speaker or a listener.
Let’s keep it simple, think about here “aqui” and there “ahi”. Go is often used together with “there” “ahi”, to indicate a location away from the speaker. And come is often used together with “here” “aqui”, to indicate a location close to the speaker. “Go” means “there”, “Come” means “here”, right here.

We use the word “come” when we are talking about joining the speaker wherever the speaker may be.

Let’s say Julio is the speaker, and Julio is organizing a party. Julio is inviting his friends to his party. He says: Hey guys I’m organizing a party this Friday, Can you guys come to my party? Julio is the speaker and he is inviting his friend to come to his party.

Another example: I am going to London for a few weeks. Would you like to come and visit me?. In this case I am the speaker and I’m inviting you to come and visit me. So my example was: I am going to London for a few weeks, would you like to come and visit me?

Does that make sense so far guys? Hopefully…

From my personal example, when I came to Melbourne, I didn’t have many friends here. Most of them decided to stay in New Zealand or they had decided to move to Sydney, another city in Australia. So what I had to do was to go out meet people and socialize, make friends right?
So I came to Melbourne and my friends went to Sydney. My friends didn’t come with me they didn’t follow me, they decided to go to Sydney, somewhere else.

What I also want to mention is the difference between “come back” and “go back” and this is one of the hardest thing to understand I guess in English. You know what, at the end of the day if you keep getting yourself confused when to use “come back” and “go back”. I recommend you just to use the verb “return” for both go back and come back. “Return” is a regular verb and past tense is “returned” so I guess is simple to use.

I’ll give you an example: You came back home late last night or You returned home late last night.

Juan went back to Mexico after he had finished his studies in Australia or Juan returned to Mexico after he had finished his studies in Australia.
See? We can use “returned” instead of “went back” or “came back”. This is a phrasal verb to “come back” and “go back”. So that’s my tip for keeping it simple if you are not sure when to use “come back” and when to use “go back” simply use “return”.

Let’s look at some interesting expressions with both of these verbs, “come” and “go”.

Let’s start with “come”, there is not many expressions with “come”. We learnt the phrase “come from” before in my previous episodes. Now, I can’t remember which one, my memory fails me sometimes. I think it was episode twenty-six (26) where I introduced meetup.com, I introduced this website.
So, in the episode twenty-six (26) we learnt about the phrase come from, when used in the present tense. The expression “come from” refers to your hometown. Where do you come from? I come from New Zealand, I come from Australia, or I come from Serbia right?
That is a popular expression, people use this very often so I would advise you to practise that one Where do you come from? I come from and say your country.
oki doki, let’s continue.

The verb “go. “Go” is a very versatile word. In my opinion it’s used more often than the verb “come”. “Go” is often used with prepositions, with adverbs, and it’s also used with verbs, like, that end with “ing” or verbing.

For example, “go” is often used with the preposition “to”: go to bed, go to the cinema, go to sleep, go to a concert, go to church.
Well there is an exception with this phrase. The exception is when we talk about home We don’t say go to home, we say go home, go home, I’m going home, we don’t say I am going to home.
That’s the only exception here. So “go” is also use with adverbs of place and direction. It is also a phrasal verb, “Go”, for example, please leave me alone “go away”
“Go away”, two words “go away” “leave”, what else… The rollercoaster let’s say imagine a rollercoaster, rollercoaster goes up and it goes down, it goes up and it goes down.

Another useful phrasal verb is “go over”. In business environment in, business situations you would use this a lot, for example: let’s go over the presentation one more time, let’s go over let’s review let’s talk about it again okay? To “go over” it’s quite a popular phrasal verb so I would suggest you to practice that one, “to go over” something. Let’s go over the presentation let’s go over the last episode what did we talk about in the last episode? let’s go over, let’s review.

What’s another phrasal verb?: “go around”, sometimes  in crowded places, you have to “go around” the people if there is like a queue in front of you, you have to go around the people.

Anyway does it makes sense? there are many different variations of the verb “go” and phrasal verbs but I’m just talking about the most common ones here. So as I mentioned just before, “go” it’s also used with many ING verbs, ING verbs. When we use it with ING verbs, ING type of words
Then these types of expressions usually indicate like leisure activities, like hobbies (pasa tiempos), hobbies, for example, I go cycling on the weekends I go camping on the weekends. We use go plus a verb with ING. I go cycling I go camping I go dancing I go drinking.
I’ll give you an example: I go dancing every Saturday with my friends, I also go drinking with my friends, then when I wake up the next day, I can’t go anywhere, I can’t go Shopping, I can’t go walking and I can’t go jogging because I drank too much.

Does that make sense so far?

Now, let me ask you this question: What do you like to go on the weekends? Do you like to go swimming on the weekends? Do you like to go shopping? Do you like to go running?
Okay guys!, here it is a little twist. Sometimes “come” and “go” could mean the same thing: “come in” or “go in”. That’s also a phrasal verb, “come” in or “go in”, two words here, “go in”, both mean to enter. You may come in now, you know, you are at the dentist appointment it’s your turn and the receptionist says you may come in now, you may go in now. They both mean the same thing: you may enter.

The other example when they mean the same thing is when you say “come with” me or “go with” me they mean the same thing. I’ll go with you to the party or I’ll come with you to the party, I will come with you to the party, I will go with you to the party, mean the same thing ok?
Ok, this is an exception here. Hopefully we are not confused. I don’t want to overwhelm you guys. I don’t want to confuse.

I want to finish with the last expression when we talk about come and go

There is saying here in English, I guess there is a saying in English, people always say: “money comes and goes”, money is here and money is not here, ok? Money is there, Money comes and goes, it’s like a saying.
Anyway, I hope that made sense. I just wanted to this episode because some of my students get confused when to use “come” and when to use “go”
Ok, so, we’re approaching the end of this episode guys.

I just wanted to say that the last couple of episodes were quite popular talking about Australia and about these scary animals that live here. I want to talk more about what it is like living in Australia and specifically about the cities Sydney and Melbourne, and the city of Melbourne where I live. I want to compare it with Sydney.
There is always a friendly rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. So in the next short and sweet episode I want to talk about Melbourne and Sydney, and I will answer the question from Carlos who posted a question in my Facebook group.
All right guys, until then my little munchkins, have an awesome start of the week and shall see you on Wednesday.
Hasta la próxima!

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