What is Spend? Detailed Usage of the Spend Structure in English!

II. How to use the Spend structure

1. Spend structure with a noun

The Spend structure with a noun means allocating something to something else: Structure:

S + spend + Something + on + N

For example:

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  • She spends a lot of money on jewels (Cô ấy dành rất nhiều tiền cho trang sức)
  • How long does his Son spend on his homework? (Con trai anh ấy dành bao nhiêu thời gian cho bài tập về nhà?)

2. Spend structure with a verb

The Spend structure with a verb means allocating how much of something to doing something. Structure:

S + spend + Something + Ving

For example:

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  • Nam spends a lot of time cleaning his classroom (Nam dành rất nhiều tiền để dọn dẹp phòng học của mình)
  • Lan has spent all her money shopping already (Lan đã tiêu hết sạch tiền của cố ấy cho việc mua sắm)

III. Distinguishing the Spend structure from equivalent structures (It take, Waste)

1. It take structure

It take is used to indicate the amount of time needed for a certain object to complete a specific task. Structure:

It take/took (Somebody) + time + to do something

(Ai đó mất bao nhiêu thời gian để làm việc gì đó)

For example: 

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  • It take me year to learn play piano (Nó tốn 1 năm để tôi chơi piano)
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  • It takes us twenty minutes to walk to the school (Nó tốn 20 phút để chúng tôi đến trường học)

2. Waste structure

The Waste structure is quite similar to Spend but it conveys a different meaning. The Waste structure is used to denote wastefulness.

Structure with a noun:

S + waste(s) + something + 'on' + N

 (Ai đó lãng phí cái gì đó vào việc gì.)

For example:

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  • Lan wates 100$ on a new dress (Lan lãng phí 100 đô vào chiếc váy mới của cô ấy)

Structure with a verb:

S + waste(s) + something + ('on') + V-ing

(Lãng phí thời gian tiền bạc để làm gì)

For example:

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  • You shouldn't waste too much time playing computer games (Bạn không nên lãng phí quá nhiều thời gian để chơi điện tử)

3. Rewriting Sentences with the Spend Structure

Because the Spend structure and It Takes have equivalent meanings, we can rewrite sentences between these structures. This is an extremely common exercise when learning English. We can interchange between the two structures as follows:

S + Spend + something + Ving/N…

➡ It takes + somebody + something + to Vinf…

For example:

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  • Dat spent hours trying to repair the car ➡ It took Dat hours to try to repair the car (Đạt dành nhiều giờ để sửa chữa chiếc xe).