Don’t Forget About Grammar! Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2636. Don't forget about grammar. Transitive versus intransitive verbs. [♪ Music playing

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast. Downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection.

with your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

How do you know if a verb is transitive or intransitive? And more importantly, how can this affect connection? Learn all of this and more today. If your English sounds correct, but not quite right, you're not alone.

Sometimes it's not grammar. It's word choice, tone, timing. You might rely on safe phrases, not because you want to, but because nuance feels risky. But without nuance, it's harder to build connection.

a two-minute fluency quiz helps you see where your English is playing it safe and where it can grow by knowing your current English level. Are you a B1, B2, or C1 speaker? Find out now.

Get your level at allearsenglish.com. One more time, go to allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Aubrey. How's it going today?

I am great, Lindsay. How are you? Good, but I have a question. Are you a forgetful person, would you say?

I didn't used to be, but more and more I am. I'm not sure I've got some brain fog going on. The other day, this was funny. So I was out of town.

I was in Sea Island, Georgia, which is a beautiful area of the South, right on the coast, just south of Savannah. And they had a spa there at this resort. And I was already, I was planning to go to the pools

or the hot tub and do like the steam room, the sauna. And I got all packed, everything. And it was sort of far. The grounds were quite expansive.

And I had to walk at least a half a mile to get to where I was going, got already got my locker. Everything's ready. And I realized I hadn't brought a swimsuit.

I had forgotten to pack a swimsuit. And this is all public. Everything's public. So it's not, you know, you definitely would need, I would need a swimsuit for all of

this. So I just had to pack it back up, go back to the room, get a swimsuit, walk by. So frustrating. You just need to have a sense of humor about these things, I think, right?

Is the key? Because it's going to happen. What are you going to do? I'm sorry to hear that.

Well, at least you were on vacation. So you had the time maybe a little extra time to do it. That's true. But it does have, often I'm forgetful when I don't have the time

and you know, things are, they're higher stakes and it can be extremely frustrating. So I took my dog out this morning and I put his gentle leader on his,

it's like, it's kind of, it's not a muzzle. It looks like a muzzle so people get confused but it keeps him from pulling. It's just this thing that goes around his nose

and that's why I can pull him back easy. But then I forgot to put his collar on. So if he ever got off, like he needs a collar people know his name and that kind of thing.

So, right. You do not want to lose a pet without their color. Oh my gosh. No, yeah.

Really bad. So we all do this. I think our listeners are going to resonate right away. They'll have their own stories.

And this leads us into a great question for today from Kaya, one of our long time students. Right. Yeah.

She noticed something interesting about how we use the word forget. Do you want to read the question for us? Yes. All right.

Hello, Aubrey and Lindsay. I was actually listening to the Allers English podcast for nearly two hours on my commute the other day. Awesome. It's amazing. I really appreciate you creating such awesome podcasts and it makes my day.

Learning English as well as learning American history has been such an incredible experience for me. Well, thank you, Kyo. And we appreciate you as well as a member of our community. Shout out to Kyo. She is awesome. And this is a great question. So I'm a curious mind and it'd be fantastic if you could explain some of the transitive

verbs. I recently learned that the verb discuss is not followed by about. So I looked up other transitive verbs and the verb forget was one that caught my attention as I frequently hear forget about it or I forgot about it. It might be an idiomatic expression, but this is the only exception. Is this the only exception or are there any transitive verbs that can be idiomatic

that doesn't follow the grammar rules, right? Looking forward to talking with you. It's just fascinating for me to learn your language as well as culture. I really love the podcast episode about Native Americans and not saying reservation and so on. All right, good question, Kyle. Yeah, and I love that. Shout out back to that episode. I thought that was really interesting.

I learned a lot as well about American culture. Yes. And I love this that students recognize this. It's not just about the language. It's also interesting cultural pieces that there's so much to learn. And I love that we are able to share all of that. And that Kyle and listeners out there, appreciate it.

Exactly. Exactly. And I love that Kaio is just observing and taking in the language and then asking good questions.

So guys, if you have a good question, send it into support at allersenglish.com. We want to feature your question on the show, especially if it's very specific like this one. Exactly.

And this is such a great observation. Kaio is spot on. Discuss is not followed by about, but forget can be. So why is that, Lindsay?

Oh, my gosh. it's not an idiomatic expression, it's a grammar rule. Let's talk about it a little bit. Yes, it all comes down to whether a verb is transitive, intransitive, or can be both. So we're going to break down each type of verb so that you can understand and use them

correctly. And we'll discuss words like forget that can actually be both depending on how