LET - Basic Verbs - Learn English Grammar

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“Let us” is a salad ingredient.

Ah!

Lettuce.

Hi, everybody, my name is Alisha.

Welcome back to Know Your Verbs.

In this episode, we're going to talk about the verb “let.”

Lets go.

The basic definition of the verb, “let” is to allow or to permit something.

So, allow or permit the conjugations of this verb present tense, “let,” “let's.”

Past tense, “let,” past participle tense, “let,” progressive tense, “letting.”

Now, let's talk about some additional meanings of the verb, “let.”

The first additional meaning of this verb for this lesson is to allow to enter or leave

a situation.

So, let's look at some examples.

“Please let us in, it's cold.”

When talking to a police officer, for example, the police might say, “I'll let you go with

a warning.

I'll let you go.”

So, in the first example, “Please let us in, please let us in.”

means please allow us to enter.

It's cold outside so allow us to enter a building.

In the second example, the police officer says, “I'll let you go with a warning.”

“I'll let you go with the warning,” means “I'll allow you to leave but I'll give you

a warning, not a ticket.”

So, to allow to enter or to leave something.

The next additional meaning for this lesson is used as an imperative.

So, imperative in it's like to propose something or to request something.

So, for example, “Let us see.”

Or, “Let us consider these options.”

Here, I'm not using the contracted, “let's see,” or “let's consider,” it sounds

more formal to use, “let us see” or “let us consider” but these are very common ways

to like to make a request or to make a proposal to a group of people like, “Let's see.”

“Let's see what he does.”

It's like, “This is my proposal, I request we see something,” “I request we consider

something,” “Let us see,” “Let us consider these options.”

The next additional meaning comes from British English.

We do not use this in American English but “to let” can mean to rent a room.

So, again we do not use this in American English but this is common in British English.

“To let” in a sentence.

“He let a room to a young woman from another city.”

Another one, “I'm letting a room from a wealthy couple.”

Let's talk about some variations of the verb, “let.”

First one, “to let go.”

Actually, there are a few meanings of “to let go.”

I'll talk about two of them here.

One means, to dismiss someone from a job.

“To dismiss someone” means to fire someone from their job, from their employment.

Examples.

“Management decided to let half of us go this month.”

So, “Let half of us go.”

“Half of us” means half of the employees go.

So, let go is split by the people affected by the verb.

So, “Management decided to let half of us go this month.”

Okay, another example.

“I'm sorry but we have to let you go.”

Again, the phrasal verb” let go” is separated by the person affected by the action, “let

you go.”

In other words, “I'm sorry we have to fire you,” “I'm sorry we have to dismiss you

from your employment.”

Okay, so “to let go” is another expression to mean, to remove someone from their job.

It's a nicer way to say, “You're fired!”

To let someone go.

To go on to the second meaning of “to let go,” we use this quite broadly to mean “to

relax” or “to release something.”

So, it can mean to release stress, for example.

In a sentence, “Try to let go of your stress.”

♪ Let it go ♪ Oh, God.

[unintelligible 0:04:51].

Okay.

Another example, “Let go of me!”

So, you can use this if someone is holding you for some reason.

So, “Let go of me,” means release me, “Let go of me! or, “Let go of her!”

“Let go of him,” means release her, release him.

This is similar to the next variation of “let” which is “let out.”

“To let out,” we use the word, “let out” to free something, to release something,

usually though, something has been confined, something has been kept.

An example of this is “Let me out of this room.”

So, “let” and “out” are separated by “me” so I am the person affected here

I am asking to be released from the room.

“Let me out of this room.”

Another example, “She let out a terrifying scream.”

So, maybe inside her, there was this frightened emotion she felt scared so she released that

emotion with a scream.

So, “She let out a terrifying scream.”

It was freed from her body.

The next variation is, “to let someone have it.”

To let someone have it so this means like to attack someone either physically or verbally.

Verbally means attacking someone with words, to have an argument.

So, physically or verbally attack someone.

In a sentence, “My boss let me have it this morning.

I made a huge mistake this week.”

So, in this sentence my boss let me have it, probably means my boss shouted at me.

So, my boss attacked me verbally and there's a very low chance that someone's boss will

physically attack them at work?

I don't know what it's like in your company, but in our company, it's probably not that

meaning.

So, in most cases, like, “My mother let me have it.

I totally wrecked the car,” for example.

It's like I was attacked verbally by someone.

So, “My boss let me have it this morning.

I made a mistake.”

So, in another example sentence, “Did you see that fight? the smaller guy really let

the bigger guy have it.”

So, here, I said, “The smaller guy really let the bigger guy have it.”

So, again in this example, the person affected by the action, the person receiving the attack,

in this case, the bigger guy is the one who is inserted into the verb phrase.

So, “The smaller guy really let the bigger guy have it.”

So, the bigger guy was the one who was attacked in this case.

So, to let someone have it means to attack someone with words or with physical force.

I hope that helped you learn a little bit more about the verb, “let.”

If you have any questions, if you know some other meanings, if you have some other variations

you want to mention please feel free to leave them in the comments along with any questions

you might have.

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Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs.

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Bye.