Like or as?

  • B2 · Upper-intermediate
  • Grammar lesson
  • 60 min

like + noun for "similar to" and as + noun for a role or a job: She works as a tour guide, and she sounds just like her father. The student reads about a Boston guide who followed her father into the job, tells real roles from likenesses, fixes like / as mistakes, and talks about who in their family is like whom.

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like a fishas a waiterlike rain

What's in the lesson

  1. 1Warm-up
  2. 2In this lesson
  3. 3Reading: like father, like daughterReading comprehension
  4. 4What does it mean?Grammar exercise
  5. 5Find like and asGrammar exercise
  6. 6like or as?Grammar rule
  7. 7Real or only similar?Grammar exercise
  8. 8The pilot in the familyGrammar exercise
  9. 9Find the mistakeGrammar exercise
  10. 10Questions for your teacherGrammar exercise
  11. 11Say it naturallySpeaking practice
  12. 12Like parent, like child?Speaking practice
  13. 13About youGrammar exercise
  14. 14Wrap-up

Homework

  1. 1Homework: like or as?Grammar exercise
  2. 2Homework: find the mistakeGrammar exercise
  3. 3Homework: build the sentencesGrammar exercise
  4. 4Homework: like father, like daughter?Discussion

Two slides from the lesson

Warm-up

A few questions about you before we start.

  1. Have you ever had a summer job or a part-time job? What did you work as, and did you enjoy it?
  2. Have you ever taken a walking tour of a city? What was the guide like?
  3. Is it common in your country for children to do the same job as their parents?

Grammar rule

like or as?

like + noun or pronounas + noun
Meaningsimilar to, in the same way as: it only looks, sounds or acts that wayin the role or job of, used for: it really is that
ExamplesHe swims like a fish. This smells like rain.He worked as a waiter in college. We used a suitcase as a table.
The same nounHe talks like a coach. (He sounds like one; he may not be one.)He spoke as a coach. (He is one: that was his role.)

Where you meet them

  • as: work / train / volunteer as + a job · come as a guest · use something as · be known as (She's known as Bea to her friends) · as a boy, as a student (= when he was a boy) · as your teacher (= because I am your teacher)
  • like: look / sound / feel / taste / smell like + noun · be like (Is he like his brother?) · What's it like? (= describe it) · just like, a lot like, nothing like · like before examples: big cities like Denver (= such as)

Watch out

  • A job is as: He works like an engineer → He works as an engineer. (He works like an engineer = he works the way engineers do; it doesn't say that he is one.)
  • After look, sound, feel, taste, smell and be, it is like: It tastes as chicken → It tastes like chicken.
  • A job after as needs a or an: as an engineer (only a one-person role can go without: as captain of the team).
  • After like, the object pronoun: like me, like him, like them.
This lesson is about like and as before a noun. Before a subject and a verb, careful English uses as (as I said, as you know); in conversation, Americans often say like (like I said).

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