Hire vs Rent vs Let - English In A Minute

Hi, everyone! We're going to talk about

three verbs with very similar meanings today:

'hire', 'rent' and 'let'. I'm mainly going to

explain how we use these verbs in British

English. But I will also mention

some American usage too.

Both 'rent' and 'hire' mean

‘to pay for the use of something'.

However, in British English

we normally use the verb 'rent' to talk about

a long-term arrangement.

For example, you can 'rent a house',

'flat' or 'TV'.

When talking about a short-term arrangement,

we normally use the verb 'hire'. For example,

you could 'hire a car', 'a bike' or 'a suit'.

The difference in American English is

that the verb 'rent' can be used for both long

and short-term arrangements.

The verb 'hire' has a completely different meaning.

It's used to mean ‘to employ somebody.'

Finally, we have the verb 'let'.

You might hear this word in the phrase

'room to let', for example,

which means that

‘the room is available to rent'.

Thanks for joining us everybody. Bye.