Come/Go
Just here for the exercises? Click here.What’s the difference between come and go?
Come and go can be confusing. While both verbs express a person’s movement or travel, choosing the right verb depends on the perspective of the speaker or the listener.
Read on to take a closer look at the difference between come and go in English, then test out your knowledge in the free exercises.
Example
Megan: I’ll come to your place at 10 o’clock and the we can go to Mehmet’s birthday party together!
Andrea: That sounds like a great plan. Do you know if Eric is coming to the party?
Megan: No, I think he’s going to London with his parents this weekend.
Andrea: Lucky duck! He’s been to London 3 times already this year.
Come
Use come with movements towards the speaker/listerner.
- Example:
- I’ll come to your place at 10 o’clock.
- Is Eric coming to the party?
Use come (with) when someone joins the movement of the speaker.
- Example:
- We are going to a party tonight. Would you like to come with us?
Go
Use go for movements/travel to other places away from the speaker/listener.
- Example:
- We can go to Mehmet’s party together.
- Eric went to London with his parents last weekend.
been = come/gone
We often use been as a past participle of come and go, but only when the action is complete.
- Example:
- He’s been to London three times already this year.
- Completed action. He has visited London and since left again.
- He has come to London for a week.
- He came to London and is still in London.
For a more detailed explanation of these tricky past participles, go to our page on been to vs. gone to.
Come and go are both irregular verbs; to conjugate them and thousands of other English verbs, go to our verb conjugator.
To learn about pairs of words with similar differences in meaning, check out our pages on Take/Bring, Here/There and This/That.