Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is lesson 79. Today we're going to look at the
difference between imitate impersonate and mimic. All of these have something to do with
like copying somebody's behavior but there are some clear differences the way we may
use them and you know which situations were more likely to use one than the
other. So let's look at imitate first if someone imitates another person or
creature they try to copy the way they speak, move, behave etc especially in order to make
people laugh often imitating it's not professional so it doesn't have to be
professional. You know you might do it yourself you and your friends may do it just for
just as a joke imitate somebody or something. All right and then of course the
second meaning also to take or follow as a good example so let's look at the
example. Here's the first example James could imitate the voice of his boss
perfectly and this is probably as a joke. Hopefully he doesn't do it in front of
his boss but of course it's it's not professional it's not being paid for it
so you know we use imitate like that we use imitate all the time everything is
probably the most common of these three that are listed here. Bob imitated the sound of a howling dog yeah
so imitate does not have to be used with a person it could be used with an animal
or a thing so you know like oh..... You know he imitated a dog we wouldn't say he
impersonated a dog so definitely we would probably use imitate in this sense. she tried to imitate the
music style of our Idol. This is like the second meaning, to take or follow as a good
example so we use imitate in that way as well. Okay and we would not use
impersonate in that sort of sense we wouldn't say she impersonated the style
of her idol. We would just say she mimicked it so she just basically
copy or copied a similar style okay now let's look at impersonate now. When you
look at the definitions some do look quite similar but again there are
differences so to impersonate to copy someone's look and behavior to be funny
again and most of the time they're all funny especially professionally so
impersonate is more likely to be professional and it's more likely you're
going through a lot more effort or a lot more trouble to copy that person exactly
and then there is another second meaning that is used as well. To pretend or act like a certain type of person especially for fraudulent reasons like to cheat someone or to scam someone so
let's look at the first one. On many comedy variety shows comedians will try
to impersonate celebrities by wearing makeup clothes and copying body language
speech mannerism etc. to make people laugh. All right this is just what I'm
saying yeah comedians this week we always know
there are these late-night comedy shows or something and where especially if they
go through a lot of effort but they don't just do a voice you know maybe
they do a lot of makeup and they wear wigs and they try to get the mannerisms
down the way they move more so a lot more effort is done in it so for that
reason it's usually more likely to be professional as opposed to as opposed to
imitate which is done all the time. Okay good so that's there okay let's look at
the second one the character played in the movie 'Catch Me If You Can' by
Leonardo Di Caprio impersonated pilots doctors lawyers etc to scam money and that was
actually supposed to be based on a true story they make a movie a really long
time ago about this as well but that's what he did he tried to pretend to be
people of a certain profession in order to get things for free or to somehow get
money get people to give him money or get money from this so yeah so that's
the second meaning we use impersonate to so impersonate would only be used in that
way so impersonate is professionally copied for jokes or to really try to like scam
and cheat people and we see this in movies too some criminals try to impersonate police
officers you know maybe sometime to trick people to allow them to enter an
apartment or something like that or get somebody to go with them where they're
not really police office they're just trying to pretend like they are police
officers so again this is the way we would use impersonate. Okay let's look at
the last one we're going to look at here today mimic also means to copy
somebody's behavior and body language sometimes used in a way without thinking
more like just directly copying or let's look at the first one many parrots will
just mimic people's voices and sounds. Yeah we don't think that the parrot is
deeply thinking about what he's doing he's just it's kind of a natural
instinct for him to copy so he's probably not deeply thinking about it
and we do usually use the word mimic with parrots. We don't usually say that
parrots impersonate or not really even imitate, either mimic is the more common
one we would use with a parrot copying somebody's voice All right and number two'
We might use mimic in this sense. A professional mime you know like the
street entertainer he usually puts the powder on his face and the makeup on his
face and he just copies people that walk by you know and any hopes he will get
some somebody giving him some tips or something like that. So a professional mime
will often mimic the movements of passers-by yeah sometimes I've seen I've
seen this in Paris I've seen this in a few places where a mime will just go to
a park and you know as people walk by he'll choose a person and he'll just
copy them most people will laugh some people get annoyed and some people run away
but anyway but that's kind of more or less we often use mimic with that I
don't know if he's deeply thinking about it because he's just
um instinctly right away copying them so I don't know if he's got a lot of time
to think he's just literally copying their their movements and copying their
body language. All right so I hope that kind of clarifies it I mean there could
be some situations could you say that an impersonator you know somebody like them
use impersonate imitates a celebrity yeah you probably
could so there's a little crossover but again imitate does mean to copy
somebody often for jokes but most of the time it's not professional and it
doesn't even have to be people it could be animals. Impersonate when it is
copying somebody's behavior it's more likely to be professional you know like
on these comedy shows these really good comedians and they go through a lot more
effort to copy exactly what the person looks like and then there's also the
fraudulent use of impersonate like somebody's impersonating somebody's
profession to trick somebody to get money and then mimic is more like
copying you know just kind of automatically copying without that too
much keep thinking I hope that kind of clarifies it thank you for your