8 Confusing English Verbs 台灣人最常搞混的英文動詞

In Mandarin, 借 means both “borrow” and “lend.” One word, one direction of politeness, and your brain never has to choose. English splits that single idea into two separate verbs, and that split is exactly where sentences fall apart in a job interview or a work email. These aren’t rare words either — borrow, lend, bring, take, and lie all sit in the 2,000 most common English words, so the mistakes show up daily. Below are eight of the verbs Taiwanese learners mix up most, grouped by the reason they trip you up, with a plain rule and a memory hook for each.

為什麼一個中文字會變成兩個英文動詞 (Why one Chinese word becomes two English verbs)

Most of these mistakes are not vocabulary gaps — you already know the words. They come from a mismatch between how Mandarin and English package meaning. Mandarin often leaves direction and grammar to context, so 借 works whether you are giving or receiving. English bakes that information into the verb itself, which means the wrong verb produces a sentence that is grammatically broken, not just slightly off.

Two questions solve most of them. First, direction: is the action moving from me to someone else, or from someone else to me? That single question sorts out borrow/lend, bring/take, and come/go. Second, transitivity — a fancy word for “does the verb need an object?” Rise, lie, and their partners raise and lay live or die on that one distinction. Keep those two questions in your pocket and the list below gets a lot shorter.

1. Borrow vs Lend (借:誰給誰?)

Lend means to give something temporarily; borrow means to receive something temporarily. Same event, opposite ends. If the thing is leaving your hands, you lend it. If it is coming into your hands, you borrow it. The direction is the whole game.

Compare these two sentences describing the identical action: “My colleague lent me her charger” and “I borrowed my colleague’s charger.” Both are correct because the subject changed. The classic Taiwanese slip is “Can you borrow me your pen?” — grammatically it says you want to receive on someone else’s behalf, which makes no sense. Say “Can you lend me your pen?” or “Can I borrow your pen?” Cambridge Dictionary lays this out cleanly if you want the reference (linked in Sources).

Lend flows out of your hands; borrow flows in.

2. Bring vs Take (帶過來 vs 帶過去)

Bring means to carry something toward the speaker or the place you are talking about; take means to carry it away from there. Point the verb at yourself and it is bring; point it away and it is take. Mandarin’s 帶 doesn’t force the choice, so English speakers hear the error instantly while it feels invisible to you.

“Bring your laptop to my office” — the laptop moves toward me. “Take these documents to the client” — they move away from me. A quick test: if you can add “here,” use bring; if you can add “there,” use take. “Bring it here,” “take it there.” Waiters in Taipei often ask “Can I take your order?” correctly, then say “I will bring you a fork” — same speaker, two directions, two verbs.

Toward the speaker is bring; away from the speaker is take.

3. Rise vs Raise (自己升 vs 舉起某物)

Rise happens on its own and takes no object; raise happens to something and always needs an object. The sun rises — nobody lifts it. You raise your hand — your hand is the object you lift. If there is a “thing” being lifted right after the verb, you need raise.

“Prices rise every summer” (prices go up by themselves) versus “The landlord raised the rent” (the landlord lifted something — the rent). Rise is also irregular: rise, rose, risen. Raise is regular: raise, raised, raised. One more that hides in business English: “sales rose 12%” is correct, but “we raised sales by 12%” needs the object. When in doubt, ask what is being lifted. No object, no raise.

The sun rises by itself — rise never takes an object.

4. Lie vs Lay (躺 vs 放)

Lie means to rest or recline and takes no object; lay means to put something down and needs an object. This is the same transitivity rule as rise and raise, which is why learning them together saves time. You lie on the bed. You lay the baby on the bed. The baby is the object.

Here is the part that trips up native speakers too, so don’t feel bad: the past tense of “lie” is “lay.” “Yesterday I lay on the sofa all afternoon” is correct, even though it looks like the other verb. Full forms — lie: lie, lay, lain; lay: lay, laid, laid. For everyday speech, just hold the present tense straight: if nothing is being put down, it’s lie. “I need to lie down” is right; “I need to lay down” is the mistake you’ll hear in half the pop songs ever written.

She lies on the sofa — lie needs no object.

5. Win vs Beat (贏了比賽 vs 贏了對手)

You win a game, a prize, or a match; you beat a person or a team. The object decides the verb: a thing or event goes with win, an opponent goes with beat. In Mandarin, 贏 covers both, so “I won you” slips out — but in English that sentence sounds like you collected a person as a prize.

“Taiwan won the baseball game” and “Taiwan beat Japan” describe the same night from two angles. You cannot say “Taiwan won Japan” or “Taiwan beat the game.” Quick check: if the word after the verb is a rival, use beat; if it’s the contest or the reward, use win. Both are irregular — win: win, won, won; beat: beat, beat, beaten.

You win the trophy, but you beat the other team.

6. Remember vs Remind (自己記得 vs 提醒別人)

Remember is something you do inside your own head; remind is something one person (or a note) does to another. If the memory comes from you, it’s remember. If something external triggers it, it’s remind. Mandarin splits these more clearly than the others, but the grammar pattern after “remind” still causes trouble.

“Please remember to send the invoice” (you hold the memory) versus “Please remind me to send the invoice” (you trigger my memory). Remind almost always needs a person plus “to” or “of”: “remind me to call,” “this song reminds me of high school.” A calendar alert reminds you; you remember on your own. Mix them up and “Remember me to buy milk” turns a shopping list into a strange request to be introduced to milk.

A note reminds you; you remember on your own.

7. Come vs Go (來 vs 去)

Come moves toward the speaker or listener; go moves away from both. It’s the same direction logic as bring and take, just for people instead of objects. The tricky case is answering an invitation: in English you “come” to where the other person is, even though in Mandarin your instinct might be 去 (go).

If your friend asks “Do you want to come to my party?”, the natural reply is “Yes, I’ll come” — not “I’ll go” — because you are moving toward them. You say “go” when the destination is away from everyone in the conversation: “Let’s go to the night market.” This one is less about grammar breaking and more about sounding natural, but native ears do notice.

8. Hear vs Listen (聽到 vs 專心聽)

Hear is passive — sound reaches your ears whether you want it or not; listen is active — you choose to pay attention. Both map to 聽 in Mandarin, so learners reach for whichever comes first. The difference is effort. You hear traffic outside; you listen to a podcast on purpose.

“I heard a strange noise last night” (it just happened) versus “I listen to English podcasts every morning” (a deliberate habit). Listen also takes “to” before its object — “listen to music,” never “listen music,” which is one of the most common errors I mark. If attention and choice are involved, it’s listen. If the sound simply arrived, it’s hear.

課堂上我最常聽到的錯誤 (The mistakes I hear most in class)

After twenty years teaching in Taipei, I’d argue the borrow/lend swap is the single most common one — and it’s also the easiest to fix, because it never depends on tense or spelling, only on direction. “Can you borrow me money?” comes up almost weekly, and the moment a student pictures the money physically leaving or entering their hands, they never make it again.

The sneakier problem is “listen music.” It sounds fine to a Mandarin ear because 聽音樂 has no preposition, so the missing “to” feels like extra baggage. But dropping it marks you as a learner instantly. My honest take: don’t try to memorise all eight pairs in one sitting. Pick the two you personally get wrong, drill those in real sentences for a week, then move on. Trying to fix everything at once is why most grammar lists get forgotten by Friday.

快速對照表 (Quick reference table)

怎麼永久記住這些容易搞混的英文動詞 (How to stop mixing up these confusing English verbs)

Rules fade fast; sentences stick. The fastest way to lock these in is to write one true sentence about your own life for each verb — “I lent my brother 500 NT last week” beats re-reading a grammar table ten times. Your brain remembers the story, and the grammar rides along with it.

Two more habits that work. Say the sentence out loud, because these verbs live in speech more than writing, and your mouth needs the reps. And when you catch an error, fix the whole sentence rather than just the word — repair the pattern, not the symptom. The video below from English with Lucy walks through several of these pairs with native pronunciation, which is worth a watch for the ones that involve “to” (listen to, remind to).

Write one true sentence per verb — stories stick where rules slip.

Confusing English verbs aren’t a sign you’re bad at English — they’re a sign your Mandarin brain is efficient and English is being fussy. Master the two questions (which direction? is there an object?) and you’ve solved most of them for good. If you want to keep untangling the words Taiwanese learners mix up most, our guide to say, tell, speak and talk tackles four more, and the make vs do breakdown covers another pair you probably second-guess. Pick one, write your five sentences, and get it wrong on paper today so you don’t get it wrong in your next meeting. For more everyday slip-ups, see our roundup of common Chinglish mistakes.

Sources

1. Cambridge Dictionary — Lend or borrow? — Grammar reference on the direction rule for the two verbs.
2. Cambridge Dictionary — Lay or lie? — Transitivity and irregular past forms explained.
3. Merriam-Webster — Bring vs. Take — Usage notes on direction toward or away from the speaker.