Take care (of)

Posted by Pak Guru on March 25th, 2019 | 0 comments | active passive, grammar, IELTS, memperhatikan, speaking, vocabulary, writing

Animals in zoos suffer in many ways, but at least they are taken care by vets.

In a passive structure this is a fairly easy mistake to make since the object of care comes before the verb. Let’s take a look at some examples using the featured image for this post as inspiration (crossing the road).

take care (no object)

• When crossing the road you should take care.

In this case the subject – the person who is crossing the road – is looking after him or herself and nobody else.

take care of (+ object)

• When crossing the road, parents should take care of their children.

In this case the subject – parents – are looking after an object – their children. If we turn this active structure into a passive structure, then we get:

• When crossing the road, children should be taken care of by their parents.

Conclusion

It might be best to think in terms of the following synonyms:

• take care = be careful (never followed by an object)
• take care of = look after (always followed by an object)

In our opening example, which is a passive structure with BOTH subject AND an object, we need:

• Animals in zoos suffer in many ways, but at least they are taken care of by vets.

Practice