A student said: “My parents took the vaccine.”

Hmmm, I wasn’t quite right about this particular combination of words. I’ve seen a lot in these at least 30 years dealing with the English language, and that’s not enough when we think of the number of possibilities we have to communicate something. There are certainly the more usual ways in which some words are often used together, but sometimes other combinations are possible. That’s when doing a bit of research comes in handy.

So should we say: take or get the vaccine?

First, check it out the lesson Get or take? to situate yourself regarding the usage of these two verbs because how to use them, is a question shared by many English learners.

Could you grasp the difference in usage between get and take? If your answer is yes, we can now go back to our question above: take or get the vaccine?

CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the national public health agency of the United States, mostly combines the word vaccine with the verbs get and receive.

To understand the getting COVID-19 above, check the Verbo “to get” lesson.

The Oxford Collocations Dictionary gives the verbs have and receive.

But yeah, to combine the word vaccine with the verb to take seems to be possible as this article from the World Economic Forum shows! And it makes sense if we think that we take medication.

Next one more example.

So, although on the one hand the word vaccine is more commonly combined with the verb to get, on the other hand, we can assume that yes, it’s possible to say:

“My parents took the vaccine.”

So I want to thank my dear students for the insights you bring to class, things that might have never crossed my mind.
This teaches me to be more careful and slow to jump to conclusions.
I know it’s a lesson I’ll forget sometimes, but I’ll keep trying.

Thank you Gi! 😉