It is known that the Russian language is rich in synonyms. However, Russian-speaking students of English are often surprised and perplexed by the fact that the concept, which, at first glance, is denoted by one word, in practice can be expressed in two or three. One of the most common cases of such a lexical dilemma is the difference between work, job and career. To understand, you will have to consider the significance of each of them individually. You should start with the most general and simple.
What is career?
This word literally means what they think first of all when they hear it - a career. Here are some examples of its use:
- If you need to talk about someone's career advancement, promotion, success: he has a successful career - his career is successful.
- If you need to explain that someone ruined his professional activity: his career was ruined by alcohol and drugs - his career was destroyed by alcohol and drugs.
- About someone's great potential: he has some career prospects - he has prospects (his career is promising).
- About a promising position: he has a promising career, he has a promising career.
- About someone's greatest success: he is at the peak of his career - he is now at the peak of fame (reached the peak in his career).
These are far from all examples, but they allow us to broadly understand the meaning of the word career so that anyone can easily compose their own.
What is a job?
Job is a profession. This is the position, position, place in a company or enterprise that a person holds. This is an officially documented occupation of a person. Here are some situations where you can use this word:
| Example | Transfer |
| He is looking for a job. His job hunt has no success. | He is looking for work. His searches are unsuccessful (unsuccessful, fruitless). |
| He got a part-time job. | He got a part-time job. |
| His job seems to be annoying, but he enjoys it. | His work seems boring, but he enjoys it. |
| It is a dead-end job to be a security guard. | Being a guard is a futile job. |
| He had had three or four jobs before he found the one he likes. | He tried three or four professions before finding the one he liked. |
As you can see from the examples, job is a countable noun that can act as a subject or complement, and can also be used in the plural.
What is work?
Work is a more general concept than job, and more particular than career. It means any work, effort, physical or psychological activity that a person has to perform. Moreover, it does not matter at all whether this is due to his profession or not. Here are some examples of using this word:
- I have a lot of work at home - a lot of work awaits me at home.
- Being a doctor is my job. Treating people is my work. “The doctor is my profession.” Treating people is my job.
- We have to end this work until our boss cmes - we must finish this work before the boss arrives.
Work is not a countable noun, but the word can also be used as a verb. For instance:
- My dream is to work at this company - I dream to work in this company.
- He works a lot to have a successful career - he works hard for a successful career.
Using these examples, it is easy to trace the difference between work, job, and career. In practice, distinguishing them from each other is not at all difficult, the main thing is to understand the meaning of each word and try to independently build sentences with them.