手把手教你学口语27

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning¹ English. Today’s tip is on the difference in meaning between “remember doing something” and “remember to do something”.

Let’s take an example. What’s the difference between “I remember locking the door” and “I remember to lock the door”? Well, “remember doing something” means you recall² doing something you did in the past, and “remember to do something” means to remember to perform a responsibility, duty or task at the proper time.

So, “I remember locking the door” means in the past, I locked the door, and now, I still recall doing it. There’s still a memory in my mind. I haven’t forgotten what I did. On the other hand, “I remember to lock the door” means at the moment I leave my house, I should lock the door. At that moment, I always remember to lock the door. It’s not my habit to forget to lock the door when I leave my house. Therefore, if you are reminding someone to do something in the future, you say, “Remember to turn off the light.” “Remember to feed the dog.” “Remember to say ‘please’.” On the other hand, if you are telling someone about memory you have or don’t have, you say, for example, “I remember closing the door. Who opened it?” “I don’t remember meeting you before. Are you sure we have met?”

So pay special care when using the verb “remember”, you must choose the right form of the verb you use after it. This has been today’s daily tip on learning English. Tune³ in tomorrow for another tip.

1 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

2 recall   

n.回忆，召回，取消；vt.回想起，召回，与...相似，恢复

参考例句：

• As you may recall, he was in the army then.你可能记得当时他正在从军。
• We demand that you recall your army from our border.我们要求你们撤回在我们边境的部队。

3 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。