English Lesson: Take, Cost, & Spend

I live near the beach. It takes about 20 minutes by car. On a hot summer day, there is nothing better than spending time at the beach. I can spend a whole day at the beach. I usually pack a cooler with drinks and food for lunch, because food at the beach is overpriced. A hot dog costs around five dollars! Plus, you have to spend a lot of time waiting on line. I don’t want to take time standing on line to buy overpriced junk food!

Today, let’s look at using take, cost, and spend. Do you know how to uses these words? Have a look at the paragraph above, then check out today’s lesson:

Take

We use take to talk about using time. Here are some examples:

• It takes about 20 minutes by car
• I don’t want to take time standing on line
• Flying from New York to Seoul takes twelve hours
• How long does it take to get to Washington by train?

Cost

We use cost to talk about using money. Here are some examples:

• At the beach, a hot dog costs around five dollars.
• An iPad costs less in New York than it does in Tokyo.
• I usually compare the cost of something in different stores before I buy.
• How much does it cost to get from New York to Washington?

We can also use cost to talk about time, when we feel that we wasted our time doing something. When we want to comlain about wasting time, we can use cost, and we do so using the past tense, like this:

• That meeting cost me three hours. Now I need to work overtime.
• I missed my flight, so it cost me a whole day.
• The traffic jam cost me an extra half an hour this morning.

Spend

We use spend to talk about using both money and time. Here are some examples:

• I can spend the whole day at the beach.
• I spent an hour in traffic this morning
• Bob spent a lot of money on that watch.
• We spend three hundred dollars a month on groceries.

So there you have it. I hop you can spend a lot of time studying English! Thanks for studying today. Feel free to suggest a topic for a one-point lesson anytime!

Comments

comments