Holiday, Holidays, Vacation, Leave, Day off – The difference.

Holiday, Holidays, Vacation, Leave, Day off – The difference.

What’s the difference between Holiday and Vacation? And what do “holidays”, “leave” and “day off”. Explained here with examples of British and American usage. This is an English lesson brought to you By LetThemTalkTV

#coursdanglais #paris

ALL PHOTOS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN except “tired” by Malias Creative commons via flickr.

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This is an English language video brought to you by LetThemTalkTV. We are a language school in Paris. For more information go to www.letthemtalk.fr

TRANSCRIPT
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Here are some pictures of my holiday in Italy, or is it my holidays or is it my vacation. Confusing isn’ it? Today we explain the difference between “holiday”, “holidays”, “vacation” and we’ll also look at “leave” and “day of”. Ok let’s get into it.

Ok so let’s get straight into it there is a difference between British and American English and I’ll return to that in a minute but from a British perspective a holiday can be a single day such as a public holiday usually called a bank holiday in the UK but a holiday can also refer to a longer period when you take time off from work or study. For example, “I’m exhausted so I’ve decided to take a holiday next week”. However, “holidays” with an “s” refer to the big holiday that you take once a year. For example We’re going to Majorca for our holidays this year. Remember “holidays” is a plural noun so it goes with a plural verb. For example “our holidays in Switzerland were amazing”. Sometimes you use the preposition “on” to say “on holiday” but never “on holidays” that’s not correct. “I was on holiday last month”. Just in the singular.

Now, in American English they also use the word “holiday” when they talk about a public holiday (what we call a bank holiday in the UK). Labor Day is a holiday, Thanksgiving is a holiday. So when we say “tomorrow is a holiday”, it has the same meaning in the US and the UK. But while I’m Britain we use the same word “holiday” (or holidays) to talk about these longer periods that you decide take off In American English it’s called a vacation. So Americans will say “I’m on vacation for two weeks” The British will say “I’m on holiday for two weeks.” It’s that simple.

Then we have the word “leave”: This is a more formal term to talk about the permission you have to be absent from your work. Paid holiday from your work is called “annual leave”. At work you might here someone say “Mr Smith is on leave this week” for example. This type of paid leave can be called informally “a day” or “days off”. For example “I’m taking a day off tomorrow to go for a drive”. There are other types of leave too. Maternity leave, for a mother with a new baby or paternity leave for the father and sick leave if you can’t go to work because you’re sick.

Ok that’s it I hope you found that useful More English language videos coming soon.