These verbs can be false friends in some languages. Check you know how to use them with this video.

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Wear Put on Get Dressed Carry Video Script

You get up in the morning and get dressed – put on your clothes and after that you’re wearing them. Easy huh? No. These words are tricky and it’s easy to make mistakes. In this video you’re going to learn how to use them correctly.
‘Put on’ means place on our body. First we put clothes on, and then after that, we’re wearing them – we have them on our body. So Jay is putting on his hat, placing it on his head, and now that action is completed and he’s wearing it.

Vicki, what’s Jay wearing?
It’s a tin foil helmet. He says he doesn’t want aliens to read his mind.

When we wear something we have it on our body. I’m wearing a black jacket today
Wear is an irregular verb. Wear, wore, worn.
And ‘wear’ is a transitive verb so we always wear something.
We can wear things like glasses, hats, name tags, jewelry, wigs and makeup.

Are you wearing my hairspray again?
It was windy today.

Now be careful because in some languages it’s easy to confuse the verb ‘wear’ with the verb ‘carry’. There’s just one word that covers both these actions but in English there are two.
We use ‘carry’ when we’re talking about holding something.

Oh do you need some help?
Absolutely
I’ll carry this one.
Thanks a lot.

So carry is about supporting the weight of something while we take it from one place to another place. Wear is different.

I’m carrying an umbrella and wearing a hat.
I’m carrying an umbrella and wearing a hat.

Great! Now let’s look at the word ‘dress’. ‘Dress’ can be a noun – a thing. A dress is a piece of clothing that women wear. For example, a wedding dress.
You’ll often hear the adjective: ‘dressed.’ If someone is dressed it means they’re wearing clothes. And if they’re not dressed, they’re not wearing them.

Aren’t you dressed yet?
Do I appear to be dressed?
Do dress, do hurry. It’s the most wonderful day.
Aren’t you dressed yet?
Do I appear to be dressed?
Do dress, do hurry.
It’s the most wonderful day.

Now here’s a question. Dress is the noun, and dressed is the adjective. Is the word ‘dress’ also a verb – an action? Yes. We don’t use much, but we can. It means putting clothes on our bodies and wearing them.

I like to dress smartly for the office.
And I like to dress in black.

We can dress ourselves, we can dress children, and we can dress our pets.
We can also dress up for special occasions – dress up means wear formal clothes that are nicer than our normal clothes.
We also dress up for a Halloween and wear fancy dress or costumes.
In British English we say fancy dress parties and in American, costume parties.
But when we’re talking about putting on clothes, we don’t usually use the verb dress. We use the adjective and get. So we say get dressed.

You’re not dressed yet?
No
We’re leaving in five minutes.
OK, I’ll get dressed now.

Notice Jay said ‘get dressed’. This is the common expression so you want to learn it.
Get dressed means put clothes on your body, but what about taking them off? What’s the opposite of get dressed?

OK I need you to get undressed. You can put your clothes in this bag.
OK, doctor.

The opposite of get dressed is get undressed – it means take off your clothes.
Great! So we’ve looked at dress, put on, wear and carry. Are you ready for a quiz? Let’s see what you can remember.
Look at these 4 phrases. Two have the same meaning and the others are different. Which two are the same?
These two. When you get dressed you put on your clothes.
Look at the picture? Which sentence is correct and which one is wrong?
This one’s correct. He has the hat on his head. Good.
Another one. Which sentence goes with this picture? This one. He’s holding it – taking it with him.
Look at what B says here. Is it right or wrong? Wrong! They need to say ‘I’ll wear it’. We always wear something.
We could also say I’ll put it on. Click here to see another video we’ve made about how we use the verb ‘put on’.
OK, one more. Which sentence is most natural?
This one.
Dress is also correct grammatically, but get dressed is what we normally say.
OK!
Well done! So what’s next? We have lots more videos that explain useful words and expressions, so check them out and share them with your friends. And don’t forget to subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss our future videos.
Happy studying!

Click here to learn about the verb ‘grow’ and the phrasal verb ‘grow up’.
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