在线英语听力室_免费在线英语听力学习网站

Hello! This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Anora in China about the usage¹ of three similar words.

Question

Dear teacher, I am confused by the three words "zest²," "drive," and "desire." I sincerely hope to know their differences.

Answer

Thank you for writing to us, Anora. I'm happy to answer this question.

While "drive" and "desire" can be verbs, in today's lesson we look at their use as nouns. "Zest" is also a noun.

The words "zest," "drive," and "desire" can each describe a state of having strong or positive energy. The three words differ mostly by the words we connect to them.

Prepositions

We usually put the preposition "for" directly after the word "zest." For example, we can say:

She has a zest for life.

With the nouns "drive" and "desire," we put the preposition "to" after them, as in these examples:

He really has a drive to succeed.

She has a desire to do good.

Try to memorize words and their prepositions as a unit, such as "a zest for" and "a drive to." That will help you improve how you use your vocabulary.

Noncount nouns

"Zest" is a noncount noun, so we cannot put the determiner "many" before it. Instead, we can say "so much zest," "a lot of zest," or "full of zest." We also say we can do something "with zest."

"Drive" is also a noncount noun. As with "zest," we cannot use the determiner "many" before it.

More details

"Filled with" are words we put before "desire," as in this example:

From a young age, he was filled with a desire to travel the world.

"Zest" and "drive" can differ slightly in meaning. Zest generally means having a lot of energy and enjoyment³ connected to activities you do. For example, you can have a lot of zest for playing a sport or for the work you do. But "drive" is more often used to describe a strong desire to reach a goal.

Knowing details about the words we commonly use with the nouns we have been talking about can help you use them correctly. And when you read and listen to English, pay attention to words that are commonly grouped together.

We hope this explanation helps you, Anora. We hope you have a zest for learning new things about English!

Words in This Story

preposition -n. a word that usually connects a noun or pronoun with another part of a sentence, such as with, by, for, to, and the like

unit -n. one thing

vocabulary -n. the words that a person knows how to use in a particular language

determiner -n. a group of words that includes articles, possessive adjectives, demonstratives and others