hi this is tutor Nick P and this is lesson 3 today we're going to go over
the difference between cooperate and collaborate so to cooperate versus
collaborate the different uses this is one that sometimes come up and comes up
in class not so much going over cooperate as cooperate is very very
common very very common word and I'm most students kind of understand it the
problem is when we come across collaborate it's difficult for them to
see the difference so collaborate little bit more formal word you'll come across
it a little less cooperate it's very common you will come across it all time but you can
understand I know I teach a lot of a Chinese student and I know the
translation in Chinese is almost the same so they can hardly see a difference
between these two and this is one though even when you look at the definition in
English I can even see some native speakers might have a slight problem of
this and there might be sometimes where it could overlap where you could you see
to cooperate or collaborate so I'm going to try to distinguish it as much as I
can again first let's just look at the basic
definition cooperate means to work together on a shared project to do what
somebody has requested of you especially by providing information or to not
obstruct or interfere with unless the first definition is the one I really
want to look at first off to work together on a shared project if you look
at the general definition of collaborate to work with somebody else for a special
purpose that does sound very similar so you
could understand how there could be some up some confusion all right now let's
try to get into seeing where we can find some distinctions about how you would
use one more than the other Let's look at the first example here for
cooperate you could say those two companies cooperated on a business
venture yeah so think you should probably think of cooperate as more
like you're going along with someone you are helping them uh you know just to try
to get something done I think of collaborate is more like a more enthusiastic
or a more exciting team of people team of people groups that's more excited
about their job and it tends to be more creative too so looking at the first
example again if you set those two companies cooperate on a business
venture this is one of the cases where you could have possibly said those two
companies collaborated on a business venture so there is some overlapping but
I still think there's a little bit of a different feel to it if you say two
companies cooperate on a business venture now they may be working together
it may be mutually beneficial maybe it's good for both sides and maybe they're
working together because you know maybe one company has something the other
company doesn't have maybe they have some special skill sets or maybe they
have some resources that the other company doesn't have so it does work out
better but there's still a little bit of a feeling you know sometimes we say
that words have connotations there's still a little bit of a feeling that you know
maybe those companies kind of wish they didn't have to work with the other
company maybe they wish that they could have done it all on their own they could
get more profit but in this case you know they figure it's just better it's
easier it makes business sense to work together so that's more like cooperate
uh if it's collaborate it again it sounds like they're both excited and
trying to reach the end all right okay before we go on let's let's let's finish
with cooperate first so the second example of cooperate is their company is
cooperating with the police on the investigation of one of its employees
all right now this is an example where you would just use cooperate and not use
collaborate uh this goes more to where we're showing you with the definition to
like provide information to not obstruct or interfere with maybe your company
likes the ex employee or the employee that's under investigation maybe they
don't really want to help the police but they don't want to get in trouble they
want to do everything that's legal so they will cooperate with
whatever the police wants so it not really it may not have enthusiasm about it they may
not be happy about it but but they're doing it anyway they're going along
they're not going to obstruct they're not going to block they're not going to
make it difficult for the police they're not trying to interfere so again this is
a case where only cooperate would be used getting so the company is cooperating
with the police or cooperating with authorities that's a clear distinction
between the two all right here's another example number three the minority party
I'm talking about politics now the minority party doesn't want to cooperate
with the majority parties well the majority I should be majority party on
its bills what do they mean like this like in this case in the U.S.. now right
now you have Democrats and Republicans and Democrats are the minority right now
so maybe if they they don't want to cooperate they don't want things to pass
but this happens both ways Republicans might do this to Democrats when the
Democrats are the majority party so it's actually pretty common behavior and they
don't want to go along with it this again gets into the idea of kind of
trying to partially obstruct or partially block they don't want the
other side to be successful so this is another case where cooperate is really
more you know should be used not collaborate okay let's look at collaborate
collaborate means to work with somebody else for a special purpose to
collaborate is often used with two people of groups that work together
enthusiastically on a creative project or to discover something important all
right an example I hear a lot is maybe two songwriters working on a particular
song and I remember the example like in the 1980s of Paul McCartney and Michael
Jackson collaborated on several songs in
the 1980s yeah I think if I remember correctly I think Michael Jackson
actually kind of admired the Beatles you know they were before him and I think he
liked the idea of working with Paul McCartney I mean it's possible that
either one of these songwriters could have wrote a similar song without the
other both of them were talented but but again they they kind of liked the idea
of collaborating and they're kind of working off of each other's fame or
popularity so they so they collaborated on a song and I think three songs
actually if I remember correctly all right or here we could say those two
scientists are trying to find a cure for cancer so in this case you could say
those two scientists are collaborating together to find the cure for cancer
again this would be to discover something and you know maybe the the end
goal is really more important here they're kind of enthusiastic they would
love to be able to be the ones to to find a cure and to become famous all right
and before I finish up I just want to note that there is there is one negative
use of collaborate to usually like as a traitor so I gave this example he was
accused of collaborating with a terrorist group so that's one that's
more just with collaborate and it's one special sort of negative meaning and use
it that collaborate has and you know that's different than when you looking at the
difference between collaborate and cooperate all right and I just wanted to note this
other point it may be one last point to try to help you clearly see the
difference it is also possible to technically be collaborating but not
cooperating with each other at the same time maybe the boss chose two people to
collaborate on a project you know to try to use their creative talents to to to
finish a project or come up with a project but maybe these two co-workers
maybe they don't know maybe the boss didn't realize that maybe they have some
personal issues between them and maybe each one is not real
enthusiastically helping the other one if then we could say that they are not
really cooperating all right well I hope that helps you to distinguish and get a
better feel of how to use these two words so so the difference between cooperating
and collaborate so again cooperate is more like going along with to try to get
it done and collaborate really has the feeling of trying to work
together it's more like a real team and like I said has more enthusiasm - okay
thank you very much