Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 267. The title of today's lesson is the difference between look after and look at. Yeah. Sometimes students could mix these two up. In most
cases, they're probably using a look after when they should be looking using
look at. So let's take a look at the note here. If someone looks after a person
they take care of them, help them , make sure they don't get into trouble or hurt
themselves. So if you're looking after someone maybe they're sick. Maybe they
need your aid. Maybe it's small children. Maybe it's an elderly person that has
difficulty to gett around. You might look after them to make sure they're okay.
Make sure they don't get into trouble. If someone looks after something, he or she
makes sure it is protected, not lost, not damaged , not stolen. You know, so you ask
somebody to look after something for you. You want them to mind it for you, make sure
just hold it for you. Make sure nothing bad happens to it. So
you want somebody to look after something. All right. Now if we say look
at. Let's continue here. If someone looks at something , well in this situation, they
check it to see what is wrong and try to fix it. Yeah of course you could say, look
at me and just directly look at someone too, but that's not the meaning we want here. We want this meaning.
So like if you call someone to look at something, you want them to check it out.
See if there's a problem with it. See what's wrong with it. Okay, so let's look
at the first example where it's wrong. Of course here with the X, this is wrong.
That elevator is out of order. You should call someone to look after it.
Yeah. So this would be a mistake that a student might make. It would sound
very strange, if you say call someone to look after the elevators. You know what is he going to do ? Oh are you okay ?
Do you need any help ? Is that what the mechanic is going to say to the elevator ?
So of course, you wouldn't really be looking after it
you should, the correct way to say it is would be this. That elevator is out of order. You should
call someone to look at it meaning to check it out. See what the problem is ? See why it
doesn't, why it's not running or operating correctly. What needs to be
done in order to fix it. You want him to look at it. Good. Let's look at the second one here . Again with
the X. This is wrong. The air conditioner is not working well. Can you call the
landlord to send someone to look after it ?
Again you don't want someone to like babysit or look after your air
conditioner. You want them to check it out. So of course, the correct way is to say
it, you know with the check here , would be the air conditioner is not working well, can you call
the landlord to send someone to look at it ? To check and see why it's not running
correctly or properly. What needs to be done to fix the problem. So in that case
you should say to look at it. Check it out. Okay good, and of course , we just give one example here.
Where we do want to say to look after. I asked my sister to babysit and look after my children for a couple of days when I had to have an operation. . Yes. You wanted her to
mind them. Make sure they're okay. Make sure they're healthy, make sure they
don't get into trouble, hurt themselves or something like that. You
wanted , she wanted her sister to look after her children. Yeah. Look at means
there's usually a problem that you want someone to check. We could use look at
to think if somebody has a health problem. They might go to the doctor and
you want the doctor to look at it. Maybe you had an infection or a sore or
something like that on a part of your body you want the doctor to look at it.
So you want him to check it. You want him to see what's wrong with it ? How can he
treat it to make it better ? That would also be to look at it. All right. Anyway, I hope it's clear. I hope you clearly see the difference between the two now. Thank you for your time . Bye-bye.