LET'S SEE

Good morning and welcome back to the Daily Vitamin. I hope you had a pleasant weekend.

Over the next few days we are going to look at some expressions that are very typically used in spoken English.

Today's expressions are: Let's see or let me see.

They are used: to say that you and one or more other people should find the answer to something. They are used to indicate that you need a moment to think about something. We usually pause after we say these phrases, which is a further indication that we are thinking.

NOTE: The contraction let's is let us. Us is a 1st person plural pronoun, but the expression let's see can have a singular meaning and often refers only to the person who is speaking.

Example 1:
A: Have you seen the newspaper anywhere? I can't find it.
B: Let's see. I was reading it earlier, while I was eating breakfast. It's probably still in the kitchen.

In Example 1, when Speaker B says let's see he really means to say let ME see. He is not expecting Speaker A to participate. It would be the equivalent of saying a ver in Spanish.

Example 2:
Can everybody be quiet, please? I'd like to start the meeting. Let me see... the first item on the agenda is the new billing policy.

To get some writing practice with this phrase, I encourage you to write your own sentence or dialogue and post it to one of our social media sites (Facebook or Bluesky) and we will give you feedback about your writing as soon as possible.

Have a productive day!