Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That’s English! The Spanish Ministry of Education’s official distance learning English course. To find out more about That’s English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. This podcast is about a set of confusing verbs. They are the verbs rob and steal. We will also deal later with the verb burgle which has a similar meaning, but our main focus is on the verbs rob and steal. As both these verbs mean ‘to take something from someone or somewhere without permission’, llevarse algo de alguien o de un lugar sin permiso, it is sometimes difficult to know which one to use in a sentence. In addition to this, in Spanish there is only one translation, which is the verb robar, so for Spanish learners of English, this simply adds to the confusion. Rob is a regular verb, so its past and participle form is robbed. Steal, on the other hand, is an irregular verb. Its past simple form is stole and its participle form is stolen. So, let’s understand the difference between them. When we use the verb to steal, we are focusing on the object that is taken, NOT the person or the place. Listen to these sentences using steal: · Someone has stolen our car! · He stole my wallet. · He is a known pickpocket [MMP1] and steals people’s money on a regular basis. · The thieves stole the paintings from the museum. The focus in these sentences has been the car, the wallet, the money and the paintings. The verb to rob is slightly different. With this verb the focus is on the person or the place where the object or objects are stolen. Listen to these examples: · An old lady was attacked and robbed in the street yesterday. · The gang robbed the local post office on Tuesday morning. · Our bank was robbed three times last year. In these sentences the focus has been on the old lady, the post office and the bank. We hope that has made it a little clearer for you. Remember, steal is about the object or objects that are taken, whereas rob is about the person or the place. Now let’s touch on nouns that are created from these verbs. The person or people that rob and steal are either called a robber (in plural, robbers) or a thief (thieves in plural, with the ending spelled v e s; it’s an irregular plural, remember). Both translate into Spanish as ladrones. The crime of stealing is called a robbery or theft, un robo. If you remember, we said in the beginning that there was a third verb, burgle. Burgle is a regular verb so its past and participle form is burgled. This verb is used if the theft, el robo, has been from a house. Listen to this sentence: · The house was burgled while the owners were on holiday. The people that burgle are known as burglars and they commit a burglary. We’re almost at the end of this podcast, but before we go, let’s do a final recap on the verbs rob and steal. Listen to these similar sentences using both verbs, so you can distinguish between them: · I was robbed at the nightclub. (the focus is I) · Someone stole my mobile phone. (the focus is the mobile phone) · That poor man has just been robbed. A thief has stolen his bike. (in the first sentence, the focus is the man and in the second, his bike). That’s the end of this podcast. We hope that these verbs are now less confusing for you. Thanks for listening! We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on social media. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now! [MMP1]Pickpocket?