Welcome to this video. Today you're going to learn the difference between compare two and compare with. Notice that different preposition. This is a question that a student had submitted. It's a great question. I'm happy to answer it for you. Of course, I'm Jennifer from j4senglish.com and this channel is dedicated to helping you feel confident speaking English and public so you can take your career and your life to the next level. Now before we go any further, make sure you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. Now let's dive in with this video. Let's talk about the difference between compare two and compare with. Now first let's talk about the verb compare to compare. As a verb, this means to identify the similarities and or different differences between two things. There are two prepositions that you can use compare to or compare with. So let's start with compare to. As for sentence structure, you compare something to something. Remember compare is a verb so you need to conjugate it with your subject and time reference. When you compare something to something, it means that you're examining two things to identify their similarities. You're focusing on how A is similar to B. You're looking at A and B and you're trying to see how are they alike? What are the similarities? That's how we use compare to. So for example, I could say many people are comparing this election to the one in 1968. So we have the election in 2020 and the election in 1968. So you're putting them side by side and you're doing that so you can see how are these similar? What are the commonalities? What is the likeness between these two? Now let's talk about compare with. The sentence structure is exactly the same. We're just changing the preposition so you compare something with something. In this case, you have your two things A and B and you put them side by side to look at their similarities and or differences but with a focus on the differences. So you're trying to see how are they different? What does A have that's different from B? Hmm. So that's more what you're doing when you compare something with something. So I could also say thinking about our last example I could say let's compare this candidate with this candidate. Okay, so we have candidate A, candidate B. I'm going to put them side by side but this time I want to see how they're different. What is this one doing that this one isn't doing? Hmm. How are they different? So that's all you need to know. Compare two focus on similarities. Compare with focus on differences. Now here's the native speakers generally don't follow this rule. I'll be honest I don't follow this rule, okay? And when native speakers don't follow this rule, we just use them interchangeably. So I don't think about whether I'm comparing similarities or differences and compare two is the more common preposition. Interestingly in the past like many many years ago with was the more common preposition and they used it for both but now in modern usage of English I don't know why but it's more common just to use two and there's most native speakers don't use a difference between it. Okay, I don't like I said so whether or not you actually want to follow this rule, I'll leave it up to you but I don't and most of the people that I know don't either. In fact, I don't really know anybody that does follow this rule but since it was a question I wanted you to know by definition in a textbook what the answer is and this is a great example of how we have textbook English which is quite rigid and very strict about usage of words and language but then we have real English every day English which is a lot more flexible and I use every day English. I don't use textbook English and I always encourage my students to use every day English as well. So ultimately the choice is yours but regardless why don't you try two examples in the comments below one with compare two you can focus on similarities one with compare with you can focus on differences and then why don't you just do a third example where you're using them interchangeably and I recommend using compare two because that's the more common choice. If you found this video helpful please hit the like button share it with your friends and of course subscribe and if you're a busy professional who's serious about taking your English and your career to the next level then I want you to go to my website j4senglish.com there you'll find a free case study where you'll learn how to feel confident speaking English in public so you can impress your boss and your clients with your message in only 30 days to get your free case study simply click the button enter your name and email and you'll get instant access to your case study and until next time happy studying awesome job with this video and honestly I wouldn't let it confuse you I would just use compare two that's what I do and it works for me so I'll see you in my next video bye