1.spend和take表达完全不同的意义

目前中国英语教学界盛行的说法是：这两个词都可用于表示“花时间做……”，意义相同，只是句式不同。换言之，人们普遍认为spend用于somebody spends time（in）doing something，而take的主语是it。这种错误的理解抹杀了两个词在意义上的根本区别，而且这种解释出现在各种参考书中。结果是：绝大多数学生不仅混淆两者的区别，而且不了解take的其他相关用法，使用方法单一。实际上，take与spend的意义和使用范围泾渭分明，无法表达相同的意义，也就不存在替换的可能性。正确的解释是：spend的主要意义是“把时间花在……上”；表示“花钱”时可接不定式。有时其意义近似“do...for…time”，不能表示完成某事所需的时间。take与时间词连用时主要表示完成一个动作需多少时间，句子的主语以it为主，但也可以是somebody或something，甚至是doing。take还可以接表示时间以外的词，表示“做……需要……”。首先看spend的用法：

（一）spend表示“把时间花在……上”或“度过时间的方式”，与是否完成无关，有时表示一个动作持续的时间：

1.At times,to make a few miles,we had to spend a day traveling in the opposite direction.

2.They spent all their spare time doing chores on the farm….

3.Charlotte smiled as she recalled their girlhood,the long hours spent talking of the futures they planned.

4.For instance,the typical American is a person who spends a lot of time wondering who he or she is.

5.In 1900s,women spent most of their adult life in having and bringing up children.

6.…and she spent most of her childhood trying to recover from various ailments.

7.People with good self-images do not spend their lives trying to live up to what they think others expect of them.

8.…he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years earlier and that he now spent his days reading newspapers in his room,afraid to leave his house.

（二）表示“花钱做……”时可接不定式：

1.The Hilton spent 40 million dollars to build this and two adjacent villas.

2.The Pentagon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to develop small unmanned tanks.

3.And companies spend billions of dollars each and every year to advertise their products and services for reasons other than attracting new customers and clients.

4.To cope with such problem,NASA is spending 2.1 million dollars to develop a repair kit that will enable spacesuited astronauts to install replacement tiles while in orbit.

5.Manufacturers spend much money to develop new products.

6.In 1975,the city government in one of this country’s largest cities spent $47 million to turn a run-down,dilapidated slum into a beautiful housing project for its residents.

也有人使用on doing，如：

…pile up vast reserves,part of which are spent on modernizing its military hardware through the purchase of….

（三）take所需句型十分灵活，表达的意义与spend完全不同，表示动作完成所需时间，有时不必接不定式，句型包括：

（1）something takes…time（to do something）

1.A balloon carrying telescopes that took years to build goes down just seconds after takeoff.

2.Fixed assets are assets that take more than a year to be converted to cash.

3.Even an enormous number of abnormal proteins take a long time to produce disease in recipient mice.

4.Since I do not know where I am going to be,or when,or how long letters will take to reach me,I cannot send you an address so that you may write to me.

5.They must think of it as planting trees.A tree takes a generation to reach maturity.

6.The project took five years to complete,as well as the lives of several hundred imported Indian workers.

7.She was told that the results would take another two weeks to produce.

8.The construction,begun in 1174,nearly took 200 years.（没接不定式）

（2）somebody takes…time to do（something）

1.For example,the Eskimos probably took a very long time to develop the physical traits that may help them to adapt to the Arctic cold.

2.The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts,but he took a long time to send them.

3.The chief house officer,who had declared he would appear…an hour after his cryptic telephone call,actually took twice that time.（没接不定式）

4.Some of the men had taken a long time to believe what they had actually seen;they were the worst affected when they did understand.

5.She could then pay about$10 a month and take a number of months to finish paying the bill.

6.Western societies took more than a century to reach zero population growth and adjust to the rapid expansion of population that accompanied their industrialization.

7.He did not know that he had taken nearly ten years to arrive,for it never occurred to him that his neighbors had eyed him askance at first.

8.After all,last year Delany's clients took an average of six months to find jobs,whereas Walsh's clients took nine.

（3）it takes…time for somebody（something）to do something（该句型日益流行）

1.…so it took a little time for the Mormons and us to get used to one another.

2.It takes longer than usual for the heart to slow down after taking exercise.

3.….only because he was premature,it would take some time for Mike to catch up.

4.Have you any idea how long it’s going take for you to find out the final details?

5.It takes about a year for the young elephant to learn to use its trunk properly and keep it under control.

6.The heartbeat group dropped off in half the time it took for any of the other groups.

7....that it would take at least 45 minutes for a sizable police force to be assembled,if there were an attack.

8.…it would take at least two years for the country to be restored to a condition in which elections would be possible.

（4）it takes somebody…time to do…（这是中国学生最熟悉、最接受的）

1.It has also taken me a little time to become used to the food,and I am terribly tired of the same clothes all the time,but I can pack and carry only so much.

2.It often took 10 or 15 minutes to clean and stabilize a single square inch.

3.It took him forty minutes just to calm her down so that she could tell him what was wrong.

（5）take还可以接非时间类名词，表示“做……需要……”：

1.The diversity of species on Nunataks takes patience to grasp.

2.Remember:it takes money to make money.

3.Do you agree that it takes a thief to catch a thief?

4.The catch is that it takes a lot of energy to produce a baby.It also takes energy to make a tree.

5.It had taken over an hour’s persuasion and finally a downright bribe–to convince him that he was going to wear this.

6.It took her an hour and several unsuccessful attempts to dress,curl,and pin it exactly as she wished.

7.It would take a strong man to walk alone across Westminster Bridge tonight.

8.It took a lot of work to bring this book together,and….

9.It took me with my collaborators more than 10 years of work and handling of many tons of brain tissue from farm animals eventually to isolate 1 mg of the first of the“brain hormones”.

10.It would take an extraordinary reason to bring Zenobia to call upon her unnoticed.

但接动名词时用involve表示“涉及到”或“需要”：

1.Understanding God’s plan for marriage involves understanding that your spouse is the other half of you.

2.We could not agree to the latest American proposal which appeared to involve excluding British technicians from Iran and handing over a very valuable British asset.

3.On the spot he offered me the job,which involved organizing conferences on drugs,unemployment,housing.

4.Three-minute burglary involves attacking a glass front door or a window at night,smashing a display case,and stealing merchandise left out of safes.

中国学生过多使用need，忽视了require,demand和call for的用法，如：

1.To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone,no superhuman genius is required.

2.The success of this anti-terrorist campaign calls for worldwide cooperation.

3.Contributions to American art require more detailed treatment.

4.The sun…demanded attention in a manner that would take no denial.

5.The duty of self-preservation requires us to be mentally as well-equipped as the French….

6.Classes like this require energy,imagination,and commitment from professors,all of which can be exhausting.

（6）用动名词作主语：

1.Today,bringing a drug from concept to market takes 10-15 years.

2.Organizing the first meeting took months,because of resistance from officials in each of our countries.

3.The writing of the biography took Carl Sandburg fifteen years,one of the longest periods of time given by an author to a single work.

4.Mapping the Theban necropolis entirely from the ground would take my team decades.

（7）还有直接用不定式作主语的：

To go by railroad would take almost three days,and to go by automobile would take about a week.

（8）抽时间……

1.Take one day a week to disconnect from anything digital.

2.If you have any doubts,take some time to watch the crowds in a busy shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon.

3.I took the next day off,and we spent the day together,visiting the Art institute.

4.Of all the celebrities,Mr.Reeve was the only one who took the time to respond.

（9）take用于what it takes to do something句型时，表示“如何才能”或“做……需要哪些因素”：

1.Your self-image is your opinion of who you are divided by your opinion of what it takes to do your job.

2.Why won’t people do what it takes to be successful?

（10）take接before:

1.How long does it take before the bowl is empty?

2.It took nearly two months before the hospital decided to close the nursery….

3.It had taken a couple of years before I saw fates were beginning to play themselves out.

（11）用于比较所用时间或定语从句：

1.It will usually take up to five times as long to return along the same route against the wind as it took to make the original trip with the wind.（逆风航行所需的时间是顺风时的5倍）

2.Jason Williams hits two three-pointers in less time than it takes to read this sentence.（Williams在2秒内连投两个三分球，而读此句子需2秒以上时间）

3.Computers have much better memories and can store huge amounts of information,and they can do calculations in a fraction of the time taken by a human mathematician.（计算机完成计算所需时间是人类数学家所需时间的很小一部分）

4.Except for the few minutes that it takes to vote,my colleagues and I don’t spend much time on the Senate floor.（除了投票需要的几分钟之外）

5.For example,a detective on a stolen car case may have to check through long lists of information,and in the time it takes him to do this the thief may well escape.（在……过程中）

6.The heart-beat group dropped off in half the time it took for any of the other groups.（听心跳声音的一组婴儿入睡所需的时间是其他组的一半）

7.…while the dictionary is taking longer to record linguistic events than they take to happen.

字典记录语言事件所需的时间比事件发生所需的时间要长。

试翻译两个汉语句子：

1.他把整个周末用在写论文上了。

2.他用了近一周时间才写完论文。

第一句的翻译是：He spent all the weekend writing his essay.（该句没明确说明是否写完）

第二句的翻译方式很多，最流行的是：It took him nearly a week to write his essay.（该句绝不能使用spend来翻译）

下面几个句子很说明问题：

1.Since it usually took 90 minutes to get everything ready,we often spent the last half-hour opening,eating our breakfast,reading the paper and talking.

通常把一切准备好需要90分钟，所以我们经常把最后半小时用于吃早饭、读论文和闲聊上。（take和spend同时出现）

2.Everything was hard,and took so long.Mira remembered writing papers in school,spending months reading,thinking hard,coming up with a conclusion that….（同上）

3.It took us 15 years to get into this situation,and it will take us at least a decade to get out of it.Even bringing the core inflation rate down from 10 percent to 7 percent would take more than five years….（take的主语分别是it和bringing…down）

4.This book may not have taken a village to write,but it certainly took a superb team.....The smartest decision I made was to ask Lissa Muscatine,Maryanne Vollers and Ruby Shamir to spend two years of their lives working with me.

take接的词不是时间，而是village和team，表示“需要由……来做”。spend two years of their lives working with me表示“为我工作两年”。

5.Things usually take much longer to happen than you expect them to.Once you have worked out what is possible and figured out what you can do,you think that everyone else will start to do it.However,it often takes much longer for the obvious to happen.（take的主语分别是things和it）

类似的句子还有：

6.A man flown to a time zone different by 10 hours will take eight days to readjust his palm sweat.Blood pressure,which is also rhythmical,takes four days to readjust.（take的主语分别是a man和blood pressure）

案例分析：

▲To attain this goal,China spent fifteen years.

此句话摘自于国内一家英文报纸，是错上加错。一是因为句式太汉语化了，二是应使用take代替spend.

▲下面两句话摘自北京某著名中学网校的高考练习题：

（a）Waiting for her______me three hours.

（b）We’ll______three days in finishing the work.

A.took

B.cost

C.pay

D.spend

（a）所给的答案是A，（b）的答案是D。出题人不确切了解两词的区别，结果是两句话貌似英语，实际上是用词质量很差的句子。

▲《A2英语活用图解高考词汇详解手册》第529页有下面两句话和解释：

1.He spent half a year（in）writing a short play.他花了半年时间写了一个短剧。

2.He spent half a year on writing a short play.他把半年时间用在写一个短剧上。（不强调写完）

实际上，这种解释毫无道理。其一，spend time on doing…结构很少使用；其二，即使例句2正确，两句话的含义也是相同的，都是“花半年时间写剧本”之意，根本没有表达完成的含义。

▲《高中总复习优化设计》第13页有说明：

It took him three years to write the book=he spent three years in writing the book.

这是一种错误的解释。

北京统考题（2009年1月）有句子翻译“中国学生在英语上花的时间比其他学科多得多……”。参考译文是Students in China spend far more time on English than on other courses….

北京统考题（2009年6月）有句子翻译“在中国，拿硕士学位通常需要三年时间”。参考译文是In China,it usually takes three years to get a master’s degree或A master’s degree usually takes three years.

这两句中spend和take句型不能互换。

同时，词汇部分也考查了这两个词的用法。原题是：

The journalist who had set out to obtain these important facts______a long time to send them.

A.spent

B.took

C.passed

D.consumed

正确的选项是B。