Welcome back to know your verbs.

My name is Alicia, and in this lesson, we're going to talk about the verb play.

Let's begin.

Let's begin with the basic definition of this firm.

It's to engage in a game, sport or activity.

Examples.

We play soccer every week.

Let's play a board game.

No.

Now let's look at the congregations for this purpose.

Present play plays past played past participle played progressive playing.

Okay, so now let's talk about some additional meanings for this for the first additional meeting to spend time doing something fun.

This use of the verb is typically used among Children.

We use this for Children and to talk about the activities of Children.

Examples We used to play with the kids in our neighborhood.

Do you like playing with dolls?

In these example?

Sentences were talking about the activities that kids do, things that kids do like playing with their friends, playing with dolls, playing with trucks, playing with cars.

So when we use playing with, it's like there's some kind of enjoyable AC activity going on, and it has a very youthful sound to it.

It sounds like something kids do.

A mistake that I hear adult learners make.

Sometimes, as they say, I played with my friends last weekend as adults, we don't use the verb play.

We'll use it to refer to a sport or to a game.

But we do not use it to talk about spending time with friends as adults, especially American English speakers.

We can say, for example, I hung out with my friends last weekend or I got together with my friends last weekend.

That's fine.

We do not use the verb play as adults for kids.

Great.

I played with my friends when I was little.

I played with dolls when I was little.

Okay, let's go on to these second additional meeting.

The second additional meaning is to perform as a character.

This can mean theater.

It can mean movies that can mean any kind of performance.

Examples.

Janna Reeves played neo in the Matrix series.

I want to play a dramatic role someday.

So here in my first example sentence I've got Chiana Reeves is my example.

He, Ana Reeves played neo in the Matrix series, so he performed in the role of neo he performed in the role of is shortened to played there in the second example sentence.

I want to play a dramatic role someday.

Playing means perform in.

I want to perform in a dramatic role, something so this means perform to play.

Okay, let's move on to the third additional meaning for the sperm.

It is to pretend to be a certain way or to pretend to exhibit a certain behavior.

A key here is pretending, pretending examples.

He's playing dumb.

He knows the answer.

I taught my dog to play dead.

Okay, so here we see play in the first example sentence.

He's playing dumb.

That means he's pretending not to know.

That's what the sentence means.

He's playing dumb.

Playing dumb isn't quite a common phrase like Don't play dumb means Don't pretend not to know something.

Ah, in the second example sentence I talked.

My dog to play dead means I talk my dog to pretend to be dead, or I taught my dog to act like he or she is dead.

So to play means to pretend something.

So the fourth additional meaning here is to perform music to perform music Examples.

The deejay played a lot of great music last night.

Have you ever played this on piano?

So this is quite simple.

It just means to perform music like you.

You cause music to be heard by other people so a deejay can play music through a sound system.

Off course.

We can play instruments like playing the piano or playing the heart, playing the flute so we can use play to me performing music or like sharing music some way.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, let's talk about some variations for this word.

No, there are a lot of variations for the verb play these air.

Just a few that I'm going to introduce.

Of course, if you want to know more, I highly recommend checking in dictionary.

OK, let's take a look at the 1st 1 for this lesson.

To play something by ear to play something by year.

This means to do something without a plan.

It means to make decisions in the moment, so examples we have no plans for the day.

We're just gonna play it by ear.

I don't want to plan my travels too much.

I prefer to play things by year.

So both of these used the expression, play it by ear, play things by ear, meaning, I don't want to make plans like, I just want to see how things go.

If things are feeling one way, I'll do that.

If you If things were feeling another way, I'll make a different decision.

So why do we say playing by ear?

Imagine that if you play an instrument, maybe this is useful for you.

But imagine you're trying to play the piano and you're trying to play a melody.

You're trying to find a melody.

You don't know it, but you listen to each note as you play, and gradually you confined the melody you're looking for.

So we call that playing physically playing, performing a song by ear.

So using your here toe, listen to the melody and find the correct melody.

That way we use the same idea for our activities.

So playing an activity by here according to our feelings, we make decisions for the next step to play it by ear.

Let's go on to these second variation for the sperm it is to play with fire.

To play with fire means to do something dangerous or to do something that's a bit risky.

For example, examples you want to confront the CEO about her mistakes.

Don't play with fire.

He's trying to date three people at the same time.

He's playing with fire.

Okay, so both of these share maybe a risky or possibly dangerous situation in the first example sentence confronting a CEO about her mistakes.

That sounds like it could be dangerous for someone, potentially if they don't want to lose their job at the company.

So the speaker recommends, Don't play with fire.

In other words, don't do something risky.

Don't do something dangerous, suggesting that the previous point confronting the CEO is a risky or dangerous behavior.

Don't do that in the second example sentence.

We see it in the progressive tense.

He's playing with fire by dating three women at the same time, so that could be risky.

It could be dangerous.

He could cause fights.

He could cause problems.

We don't know, but we're saying he's playing with fire.

He's doing something that is risky or dangerous.

Okay, let's move on to the third variation of this burg.

The third variation is to play up to play up.

This is kind of a slang expression.

This is an expression that means to make something seen better than it actually is.

So maybe the true level is here.

But when we play something that we exaggerate it, we improve it.

But only with our words.

It's not truly here.

It's still here.

We make it sound better.

Examples.

My parents always play up my achievements.

Be careful not to play yourself up on your resume.

It might cause problems in the future.

So here we see play up being used to describe someone's life for someone's activities being exaggerated.

So in the first example, my parents always play up my achievements.

It means my parents make my achievements sound betterthan they actually are.

So maybe I had some nice achievement.

Great.

But perhaps my parents make it sound like the achievement is even better, even bigger than it truly is, like as parents do.

Fine.

But to play up something means it's not truly at that level.

In the second example sentence, be careful not to play yourself up on your resume.

It means don't make yourself sound better than you actually are on your resume, because it might cause problems in the future.

So to play up means to improve the apparent quality or the apparent value of something.

But it's not true.

Okay, so those air a few new ways to use the word play, I hope, of course, as I said, there are lots and lots of ways to use this word, so I highly recommend checking a dictionary to see all of them.

Of course, if you have any questions or comments, or if you want to practice using this firm, please feel free to do so in the comments section of this video.

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Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your verbs and We'll see you again.

That's time I might.