Care for or care about?

Breathe. Deeply. Relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw. It’s ok. You can relax here for a few minutes, and it will be easy, I promise.

Hello again everyone. Nice to have you for another episode of English Airs, the podcast that will give you effortless accuracy. My name is Parya, and as most of you know, I am an English instructor currently based in Tokyo. I don’t care for the way English is taught at schools (as far as I have seen of course, and until now), so I decided to make this troubleshooting podcast to help you understand this language better. If you have a problem. Because I care about your progress. And today’s episode is the request of Anichka, from Ukraine. I’m quite interested in the meaning of names, so I looked it up. It means “Grace”, or “Graceful”. Lovely name, isn’t it? So, Anichka, I hope this helps, and if I’m wrong about the meaning, please let me know.

So, what was the question again? Is it “care for” or “care about”? Let’s look at how I used them just now:

“I don’t care for the way English is taught at schools.” and “I care about your progress”. I think everyone knows the meaning of “care about something”, right? Can you give me an example? What do you care about most in life?

Yeah, almost everyone cares most about happiness. And what does it mean? Exactly: it means happiness is important in life. Happiness in life is very general. Why don’t you give me a bit more details? Like, do you care about keeping your desk tidy? Do you care about doing sports? Who do you care about the most? I’m going to give you some time, and while we are sitting around the fire, let’s share a bit about our priorities. I’m all ears!

Well done! I especially liked that some of you added more details and explanations. Fantastic! Oh, and “I’m all ears” is an expression, It means I’m listening very carefully. Maybe you can also tell me a few things you don’t care about? Me? Well, I don’t care about fashion trends. I want to look nice, but comfort is my priority. And, I don’t really care about sports teams. I know they are really important for a lot of people, but, well, not for me. Also, I don’t care how old you are or what background you have; you can definitely, 100%, learn to speak English correctly and beautifully. Trust me! Will you tell me a few things you don’t care about? It’s ok, I’ll keep it a secret if you want. Tell me!

Great! And yeah, I don’t care about what other people think, either. As long as you know you are doing the right thing, nothing else matters, right?

Now, before we move on, I want to go over a few other things:

First, when you say “I don’t care”, it means “it’s not important to me”. But be careful how you say it! “I don’t care” can give your listener a feeling of “Whatever. Don’t waste my time.” If you want to say something is not a problem for you, you should say something else, right? Do you know what? Correct: you should say “I don’t mind”.

Second, imagine that unfortunately someone in your family, or maybe your pet, is sick. You have to stay home because they need you. Can you say “I have to care about them”? No, you can’t. What is the right thing to say? Yes, yes! “I have to take care of them”. And I hope they get well really, really soon.

Moving on. Actually, care has a lot of usages and can mean different things. If you try to learn all of them at once, it will just confuse you. That is why we are going to look at only one more thing today. Remember what I said about teaching English at schools? “I don’t care for their systems.” Here, the question is not the importance. I don’t like their systems. What are some of the things you don’t care for? If you are a coffee drinker like me, you probably don’t care for instant coffee, do you? What else? Tell me a few other things.

All right. That was good to know. By the way, did you notice we only talked about things we don’t like? Yeah, as I said, care has a lot of usages. For now, let’s just focus on what we don’t care for. If you do like something, there are so many other ways to say it, aren’t there? Use those, and we will talk about “care” in another episode. Maybe!

Well, Anichka, I hope that answered your question, and I hope everyone who is listening learned something, got some practice, and/or enjoyed this episode. Remember to listen to it a few times and try to give new answers to my questions. You can read the transcript on my website, or better, watch it on YouTube. By the way, I’m preparing more explanatory videos. Make sure you subscribe to the channel so that you won’t miss them.

Please let me know if you have any questions. You can do that on my Instagram, YouTube channel, or on my website. I would also like to hear your ideas and comments, so go ahead and drop me a line! And please keep introducing this podcast to anyone who might need it or enjoy it. I would like to help anyone I can, with your help.

Parya out!