teach
part of speech
verb (teach, teaches, taught, teaching)
meaning for a pupil
1) To teach means to help someone learn something by showing or explaining it. tree →
2) To teach can mean to give lessons as a job. tree →
3) Something can teach you a lesson when you learn from it, often from a mistake. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school teachers teach subjects like maths, reading and science, and pupils can teach each other. In everyday life parents teach children to ride a bike, swim and cross the road safely. Experiences teach too: «That will teach you to leave your bike outside!» means you learned the hard way. In stories a wise character teaches the hero.
examples
- Mr Lee teaches maths. tree →
- Can you teach me how to tie my shoes? tree →
- Grandma taught me to bake bread. tree →
- My aunt teaches at a high school. tree →
- Losing my phone taught me to be careful. tree →
- The lifeguard taught us water safety. tree →
- She is teaching her dog to sit. tree →
- I’m going to teach you now. tree →
note
Irregular: teach, taught, taught (not «teached»). «Taught» sounds like «taut». Teach someone something / teach someone to do something. Do not mix up «teach» and «learn»: the teacher teaches, the pupil learns («He learned me» is wrong; say «He taught me»).
In the corpora
- Banks offer children's accounts to keep savings safe and teach how banks work.
- Shouting would only teach a child to hide things, so good parents try hard not to.
- Use what they taught you to help people understand, check and learn, honestly.
- Jane Goodall spent her life protecting chimps and teaching children about nature, until she died in 2025.
- And I'll teach you to row, and to swim». («stop with me» = stay with me)
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «teach» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.