Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE A STAND and TO HAVE A STANCE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to take a stand. When you take a stand on something, it means you say your opinion out loud and publicly. Maybe in your town, they're going to build a new bridge, and you don't like where they're going to put the bridge, so you might take a stand. You might go to a city council meeting and read a list of reasons why they shouldn't build a bridge there. You're going to take a stand. You're going to express your opinion publicly so that people know what you think. When you take a stand, it usually has to do with something that's happening in the world, some sort of issue or some sort of something that's going on that you oppose or you agree with, and then you take a stand if you disagree with it.

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Which is different than the phrase to have a stance, slightly. When you take a stand, you have a stance. Let me clarify. Someone could say to you, "What's your stance on this new bridge they're gonna build?" and you could say, "You know what? I don't like it, and I'm going to take a stand." So I'm kind of confusing you a bit here. You have a stance on something. What's your stance on the new bridge they want to build? You know what? I don't like it. That's my stance on the new bridge, and you know what? I think I'm going to go to a meeting and oppose the new bridge. I'm going to have a stance, and my stance is that I'm against it and I'm going to take a stand by expressing that. But hey, to review, when you take a stand, sorry, I got distracted, because there's a vehicle coming towards me. I'm not on the road.

But to review, when you take a stand, it means that you have an opinion on something and you express it to people, and when you have a stance, it simply means that you have an opinion on something. So I picked this road because I thought it would be very quiet and different from my previous videos where I'm in town, but yep, there's still people out here.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Dhiraj. "Teacher Bob, recently I came across this phrase, take a stance, but there is also another phrase, take a stand. They both sound alike to me. Would you mind making a video on this, too? I'm eagerly looking forward to it." So yes, and my reply, "I'll do it in the next video."

So you can see there's a slight correction there, Dhiraj. You would have a stance on something, but you would take a stand on something. That would be the difference between the two. So yes, slight difference. And by the way, for those of you that sometimes submit comments asking me to do lessons, you can do that, and I will usually try to make a lesson about it if it's a good suggestion. So Dhiraj, that was a great suggestion.

So yes, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere. I'm out here by the woods. We might call this a forest, but I would just call it the woods. We might actually just call it the bush in Canadian English. I thought I would come out here so that there would be a bit of a juxtaposition between my previous video and this one. A juxtaposition is when something is completely different. So the last few videos I made in town, and I do plan to do more of those, and this video I'm making out here in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it's kind of funny, because even though I'm in the middle of nowhere, one of my neighbors is way there in the distance, walking towards me.

I was trying to make a video where no one would see me, where I could say, look at this wilderness that I live clo

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Learn the English Phrases "take a stand" and "have a stance" 04:13 Share

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Learn the English Phrases "take a stand" and "have a stance"