Spoken English

(1) Many students don't know the difference between words like Look and See.

Here are my findings!

Look at these examples first:

• I can see the Singapore Flyer from where I live.

• Look! Isn't that little girl adorable?

Can you tell the difference?

• "See" is an "inactive" verb. Our eyes are always open, so we don't have to actively think about the action of "seeing". To see means you may not have necessarily choose to put within your field of vision but your eye sends the image of its existence to your brain anyway. For example, when you wake up in the mornings, you can choose to look to the left of your bedroom but do or die, you will wake up and see that table beside you.
  
  
• "Look" is an "active" verb. You have to actively think about the action of "looking". You have to want to do it. Look means to specifically search out something that you choose to put within your field of vision. When you look at someone, you chose to, whether consciously or sub-consciously decide to it.
  
  
• "Look" is usually used when the action lasts for a short time, while "watch" is used for actions that last for a longer period of time.

So, the speaker of that sentence should have said: Look! instead of See.

In addition, he should have also said Look! The trains are coming very crowded every two minutes! The same train is not coming to the station, crowded with people every two minutes, it sounds illogical. So it would be good to say the trains(many of them) are coming to give clarity to the idea that every train that comes to the station is crowded, and the time taken for the trains to come is approx. 2 minutes.

(2) You do not need to add the "back" after the word return. It acts as redundancy.

The definition of return –verb (used with object)

1. to put, bring, take, give, or send back to the original place, position, etc.: to return a book to a shelf; to return a child to her mother; to return the switch to off position.

The correct way of saying it would be I borrowed your pencil and I need to return it to you now. We should use the "it" to refer to the object(pencil) because with the ellipsis of the word "it", it can cause ambiguity.

How can one, possibly, return you back? ;)

Just my views! Do correct me if I am wrong.

Cheers ;) Poonam

Sources:

1. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080224071529AAezj7G

2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/specials/1125_questions/page5.shtml

3. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_the_words_look_watch_and_see

4. www.dictionary.com