Hi everybody! Today we wanted to look at a couple of words that tend to get
confused in English: listen and hear.
We use "listen" when we are being active. We are being intentional. We are trying.
There are a few different ways we can use listen. We can use it by itself.
For example, she listened. That's it. She listened.
We also used listened with the preposition TO and an object.
She listened to music. I listened to a podcast. I like to listen to the radio.
We can also use listen with -ing, so it can be used in any of the continuous tenses.
So I could say I am listening to you, or you know
yesterday in the morning, I was listening to this cool podcast.
Another way we can use listen is as an imperative or command
Hey, listen! Teachers need to use that sometimes. Listen up, guys!
Parents need to use it too. It's true. Listen, guys!
So we're going to give you some examples of situations in which we would use the
word listen. Here it goes.
[weird sound] Misha, do you hear that weird sound? Listen!
[Weird sound] Yeah, what is that? I don't know.
Hey Misha, what are you listening to? Oh I'm listening to this awesome new song. Cool.
Hey Larissa, so the other day, I was hanging out with my friends and --hey, are you listening?
Oh yeah, yeah. ...and one of my friends was like, "Hey Misha..." --Listen!
I'm listening, I'm listening. ...and I was like, "What?", and they were like, "Hey where did you put that
book that I need and then..."--Listen to me! I'm telling you a good story. Oh okay, I'm listening. Okay.
The other word is "hear". This is very different from listen.
Hear is a passive activity, so it's unintentional and it's constant. As soon
as I wake up in the morning- and even while I'm sleeping probably - I'm hearing things.
I'm not trying; it's just happening.
We can use hear with an object also:
Did you hear that? I heard a noise.
A third way to use hear is with the preposition FROM, so I heard from my friend.
We wouldn't use here with -ing, though.
We don't say I am hearing - no. Not an option. We also don't use it as an imperative.
"Hear!" No. It sounds silly. So this one has grammatically fewer ways we can use it.
...but it has more uses. One way we use hear is to talk about ability and we often
use hear with can. So, oh, yeah I can hear you! Or sorry, I can't hear you. Or I couldn't hear you.
You're not able to...hear. Here's an example
Hey Larissa. Larissa! I don't think she can hear me.
Oh hey Misha! How's it going? Good. I was shouting your name.
Oh sorry, I couldn't hear. No problem.
Another way we use hear is if we're
talking about some news that has reached us. So there's some information that came
to us and now we know it too. For example:
Hey Larissa, did you hear about that new Thai restaurant? I did, but I heard the food
wasn't very great. Oh no.
A third way to use hear is with the preposition from,
so if you hear from someone it means someone called you or wrote to you.
They contacted you and you had some kind of conversation with them. Here's an example:
Hey I thought we were getting together with Julia, but I haven't heard from her.
Oh I haven't heard from her either. I wonder if she's okay.
I wonder if she's waiting to hear from us.
The last way we use hear is if we're
talking about something we either heard or listened to in the past. So if it's
something, maybe music I I listened to on the weekend, I would say I heard that. For example:
Larissa, I heard this really great new song on the weekend. Oh really?
How does it go? It's like [Misha sings]. Have you heard it? No, but could you sing a little more? (no.)
[Larissa talking very quietly.]
Larissa, speak up. No one can can hear you. Oh well, maybe they could just listen a little harder.
Hey [nonsense words]
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