#13 - Watch & Look

This is kind of an obvious one, but important none-the-less.  The French word regarder usually suffices to convey both "watching" and "looking," which means that defining either one to a French person requires some explaining.  I usually tell my students that you "watch" something that moves or changes, while you "look" at something that does not move or change.

You "look" at a painting, for example, but you "watch" TV.

"Look"

"Watch"

Of course, you could also "look at the TV," but that would be rather boring....

Unless you happen to see something like this....

Look at all those TV's!

Obviously, the difference is important in English, but since the French would use regarder in both cases, it makes certain distinctions rather hard to make:

 "Is he watching TV or just looking at the TV?"   

Il regarde la télé ou il regarde la télé ?  

If you wanted to ask this question in French, I think you'd just have to rephrase the whole thing: Est-ce qu'il comprend ce qu'il voit ?  ("Does he understand what he's seeing?")  Or Est-ce qu'il voit vraiment ce qui se passe à la télé ?  ("Does he really see what's happening on TV?")

However, there are certain situations where the difference between "watch" and "look" is more subtle: for example, "looking at a tiger in the zoo" vs. "watching a tiger in the zoo."  The tiger may or may not be moving, but whether you say "look" or "watch" depends more on what the viewer is doing or thinking. 

Merriam-Webster defines "watch" as:

: to look at (someone or something) for an amount of time and pay attention to what is happening
: to give your attention to (a situation, an event, etc.)

"Look" can actually mean a ton of different things depending on context--i.e. "look out" (faire attention/guetter), "look like" (rassembler à), "look for" (chercher) "look up" (chercher [dans une liste/un livre/sur internet, etc.]) "look after" (surveiller, s'occuper de), and so on--but in the most basic, general sense, "look" is defined as:

: to direct your eyes in a particular direction 

So generally, "looking" is more detached, while "watching" is more attentive and engaged--kind of like the difference between "listening to music" (écouter la musique) and "hearing music" (entendre la musique).

However, "looking" doesn't exclude the possibility of paying attention.  When you tell someone to "look closely" (regarder attentivement), or when you say, "Look at that tiger!" you are inviting someone to turn their attention to the tiger.  There is a fair bit of overlap between "look" and "watch," and they are sometimes interchangeable:

• "Look out!" and "Watch out!" mean exactly the same thing.
• "Look at this!" means "Turn your eyes towards this" (so the object of your attention could be active or passive).
  "Watch this!" means "Turn your eyes towards this and continue looking while something happens," (the object of your attention will definitely be active/moving/changing).

I know it's confusing but, like most things in language, it just takes some time to get the hang of it. 

There is one word in French comes close to the idea of "watch," and that is the word observer ("to observe").  For the tiger in the zoo, observer would be a perfectly good translation of what we mean by "watch."  However, for "watching TV," I'm afraid you're stuck with the ambiguous regarder la télé.