LIVE Basic Verbs Learn English Grammar
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Hi, everybody, welcome back to Know Your Verbs!
My name is Alisha.
In this episode, we’re going to talk about
the verb “live.”
Let’s go!
The basic definition of the verb, “live”
is to be alive.
Like, “I want to live!” or, “It lives!”
“It Lives,” that was a horror movie.
Conjugations of this verb.
Present, “live,” “lives.”
Past, “lived.”
Past participle, “lived.”
Progressive, “living.”
Now, let’s talk about some additional meanings
of this verb.
The first meaning is to spend your time in
your life.
Some examples of this.
“She lives to work.”
“He lives to make delicious food.”
In these sentences, were seeing the purpose
of that person’s life.
What does that person do, how does that person
spend the majority of their time in their
life?
In the first example sentence, “She lives
to work.”
So, “work” is the thing she spends the
majority of her time doing.
She lives to do that thing, she lives in order
to work.
In the second example sentence, “He lives
to make delicious food.”
That’s the purpose of his life, that’s how
he spends his time in his life, making delicious
food.
He lives to do that thing.
The second meaning I want to talk about is
to share a space with someone else, to share
your residence with someone else.
Examples.
“We’ve lived together for a year.”
“She still lives with her parents.”
So, in these example sentences, “We’ve lived
together for a year,” the first one means,
“we,” meaning the speaker and someone
else have lived together, have shared a space
together for one year.
In the second example sentence, “She still
lives with her parents,” we see that “she,”
whoever she is, still shares a space for her
home with her parents.
In the first example sentence, “We’ve lived
together for a year,” it could be the speaker
and someone else, it could be the speaker
and the listener, just depends on who “we,”
is, in that case.
The third additional meaning is to remain
in our memories or in our records.
So, examples of this.
“The musicians work will live forever.”
“Our grandfather lives on in photos.”
In these examples, we’re seeing that some
memory of a person or some memory of a person’s
work or maybe a historical event, whatever
it is, it remains in memories or it remains
like there’s some record of that thing.
That could mean written records, it could
mean photos, it could mean videos, whatever.
These refers to something that remains.
We use this a lot after a person has died,
actually, or we could say for people whose
work, especially for artists, their work is
going to live forever is another way we could
say that, meaning it’s going to remain forever,
someone like with a big impact.
We might use this verb, “live,” in this
meaning of this verb, to talk about something
they’re doing or something that they’re making.
So, “The musicians work will live forever,”
means the musicians work will remain in our
memories and in our records forever.
Like Bach, for example, or Rachmaninoff, composers
are a great example of this, classical, Baroque,
romantic music composers, those are great
examples.
Before, there was the Internet, before photo
and video, there was written work, written
pieces of music.
Their work, their musical work lives on in
their compositions.
There’s a record of the things that they did.
In the second example sentence, “My grandfather
lives on in photos,” means my grandfather
remains or the image of my grandfather, our
memories of our grandfather remain in photos.
The first variation of this verb is the expression,
“to live up to.”
This means to behave in accordance with something.
Let’s look at some examples.
“I’m not sure if I can live up to your expectations
of me.”
“He never lives up to his promises.”
“To live up to” something is to act in
accordance with something else.
In the first example sentence, “I’m not
sure if I can live up to your expectations
of me,” means that the speaker is concerned
he or she will not be able to act in accordance
with the listener’s expectation.
So, listener has some expectation for the
speaker and the speaker is worried that the
speaker cannot meet that expectation but we
say, “can’t live up to your expectation,”
in that case.
In the second example sentence, “He never
lives up to his promises,” means he never
fulfills his promises, he never acts in accordance
with his promises.
He promises A but he doesn’t complete A, there’s
no like matching behavior there.
He doesn’t meet his promises, he doesn’t fulfill,
he doesn’t live up to his promises.
Second variation is “to live with.”
“To live with” means to tolerate or to
stand or to deal with something.
Some examples.
“How much of this bad behavior can you live
with?”
“If I put my family through a scandal, I
don’t think I would be able to live with myself.”
Okay, we see here, “to live with something”
means an ability to tolerate something.
In my first example, it’s a question, “How
much of this bad behavior can you live with?”
We use this verb to mean tolerate or put up
with.
“Put up with” also, we use in the same
way as “live with” here.
“How much of this are you going to allow
to continue before you say something?” for
example.
“How much of this can you live with?”
Just like this behavior, someone else’s bad
behavior is there all the time living with
you.
So, “How much of it can you live with?
How much?”
“Not very much.”
Maybe, “I can’t live with this anymore.
Stop it!
Go away!”
So, that’s one.
In the second example of sentence about a
family scandal.
I used the expression, “I don’t think I
would be able to live with myself.”
“Live with myself” actually means I don’t
think I would be able to tolerate myself because
of my bad behavior.
So, if my family experienced a scandal because
of something I did, I wouldn’t be able to
tolerate myself meaning I would be really
upset with myself, I would be unhappy, I would
be disappointed in myself.
We use the expression, “I wouldn’t be able
to live with myself.”
I hope that those are a few new ways that
you can use the verb, “live.”
If you have any questions or comments or want
to try to make a sentence with this verb,
please feel free to do so in the comment section.
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Thanks for watching this episode of Know Your
Verbs and we’ll see you again soon.
Bye.