Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

All Ears English Podcast

AEE 2567: Make a Photo or Take a Photo?

17 Feb 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 17.532 Lindsay McMahon

This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2567. Make a photo or take a photo. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English?

0

Chapter 2: What is the focus of the episode: making a photo or taking a photo?

17.833 - 39.479 Lindsay McMahon

We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.

0

40.06 - 56.278 Lindsay McMahon

To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

0

58.739 - 69.188 Michelle Kaplan

You know that make versus do is tricky, but what about make versus take? Find out when to use these two verbs to clean up your English.

0

74.939 - 93.756 Unknown

Do you feel like you know English, but you're always using the same basic words? You can't find the precise or professional phrase when it matters. Maybe you only hear sounds when natives speak. Without subtitles, you're lost. Fast speech, similar sounds, accents, it all blends together.

0

93.796 - 103.444 Unknown

And when you do speak, you hesitate, you overthink every sentence, you worry people don't understand you or that you don't sound natural.

Chapter 3: How can I become fearless and fluent in English?

103.424 - 134.899 Unknown

It's not a confidence problem. It's a clarity problem. to allersenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.

0

144.177 - 151.749 Lindsay McMahon

Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Hey, Michelle, I'm feeling good. I am fresh off my trip to Italy and feeling refreshed, I guess.

0

152.651 - 157.298 Michelle Kaplan

Yeah, that is great. I love Italy. Did you take a lot of pictures when you went?

0

157.759 - 164.47 Lindsay McMahon

I did take a fair amount of pictures and it helps when you have the camera phones now, right? You don't need another camera anymore.

0

164.49 - 164.811 Michelle Kaplan

It's amazing.

164.831 - 198.17 Lindsay McMahon

You can create albums. Yeah, but the weather was nice. It was sunny. No complaints, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So yeah, tell us a little bit more. You went on a wine tour? Um, usually the, the language is English. The language of the tour is English. And usually the tour guides are really high, have very high level English.

198.23 - 217.249 Lindsay McMahon

And this tour guide had very high level English, a hundred percent. But for me being a linguist, I'm always listening in for, um, not so much mistakes because I don't, you know, we're not all about mistakes, mistakes, we're about connection, but I'm always interested in kind of mistranslations and what happened there. I always think, huh, I wonder what happened there. Right.

217.229 - 238.201 Lindsay McMahon

So there was a moment we were at a vineyard and the sun was just setting and it was gorgeous right outside of the vines, watching the vines. And he said, come on, everyone, get together. Let's make a picture. And I thought, oh, okay, that's not quite right. We knew exactly what he meant. We all got together. We had a beautiful photo. But it wasn't quite right, Michelle.

238.462 - 238.562

Yeah.

Chapter 4: What are common English phrases that confuse learners?

247.523 - 257.075 Michelle Kaplan

But what Lindsay is saying is like that it's interesting to analyze after and to see if we can use this to help our listeners. 100%. 100%.

0

257.135 - 270.591 Lindsay McMahon

Because there are just little things around the edges that when we're translating directly, and that's what my hunch is what was happening. that we can make some small mistakes. So, I mean, this is why we travel, right?

0

Chapter 5: What is the difference between 'make' and 'take' in English?

270.611 - 276.117 Lindsay McMahon

Because we understand connection goes so much deeper than just the choice of words. Right, Michelle?

0

276.137 - 301.407 Michelle Kaplan

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this is really interesting. And if you think about it, it's very understandable why someone would say make a picture. I mean, you're getting together to make a picture. Exactly. Yes. So it makes sense. But here is the difference. So basically, when you say take a picture, I'm thinking of physically someone is pressing the button, you're gathering together.

0

301.427 - 327.264 Michelle Kaplan

It doesn't matter who's in the picture or who's pressing it. It's just that someone is taking the picture. So the tour guide, what would have been correct would have been, let's stand together and take a picture. So the focus is on the actual posing for the camera. So that's what it would be. Or what's another example?

0

327.344 - 334.817 Lindsay McMahon

You could say, I want to take a picture of you in front of the Coliseum, right? Or in front of this museum, the Uffizi Gallery or something like that.

0

334.797 - 336.2 Michelle Kaplan

Right, right, right.

336.26 - 360.763 Lindsay McMahon

And if you think of it that way, Michelle, I mean, like logistically speaking, it's not completely wrong. It just sounds awkward because he was asking us to get together and create a scene for a photo, right? Right. And in many cases, you would use make for that. We've talked in other episodes about make versus do where make means create, right? Right? So I got exactly what it was saying.

360.803 - 371.038 Lindsay McMahon

We understood it. The picture got taken. But I think a native speaker probably would have said take because take encompasses the making of the scene of coming together.

371.459 - 400.916 Michelle Kaplan

Right? Right. I think it's really about that pressing of the button where it's a photograph, right? In this kind of context. I mean... make a picture. To me, this sounds more like, I mean, this goes what you were saying about create, right? You're like creating a picture, maybe a drawing or creation. So let's take out our watercolors. We're going to make a picture of what makes us happy, right?

400.936 - 419.54 Lindsay McMahon

Yeah. It's more like creating from scratch in a way, right? So you're going to actually draw that photo or make a picture with your crayons of what you see in front of you. You might say that to kids, right? Right. Right. So you're giving them a blank sheet of paper. But in this case, we're taking a picture, taking a photo because the people are already there.

Chapter 6: How does context affect the use of 'make' and 'take'?

619.951 - 621.834 Michelle Kaplan

What about make?

0

621.854 - 641 Lindsay McMahon

Yeah, make. So make is more like causing something to come into being or to create it, right? So, for example, make a picture, again, not snapping that photo, not lining up together in front of the vineyard. It is maybe you're going to draw something from scratch, right?

0

641.02 - 641.18 Michelle Kaplan

Right.

0

642.502 - 643.343 Lindsay McMahon

What else, Michelle?

0

643.323 - 655.605 Michelle Kaplan

Make a friend, right? Oh, I want to make some friends at the party. Or, oh, I made a new friend, right? So you caused something, something happened. Yes, yes.

656.125 - 664.42 Lindsay McMahon

Make noise would be another way of saying, like, there's a racket, right? You're just causing noise to occur. Make the bed, right?

664.4 - 670.43 Michelle Kaplan

Yeah, you wouldn't say take the bed. That means you're getting the bed and picking it up. No, totally different, right?

670.47 - 674.738 Lindsay McMahon

Here we're putting the covers back up. We're making it look nice and neat for the day.

675.199 - 676.641 Michelle Kaplan

Do you make the bed every day?

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.