I'm not native speaker.
I've heard of these expressions such as "take a look" or "have a sit."
and I always wondering why people uses like that because we can just say "look at it !" or "sit there." I mean we don't need to add another verb like "take" or "have."
Is there any difference?
Thank you :)))))
Plus, Could you recommend any expressions like above?
It's "have a seat".
These expressions are requests, not orders. Because they are requests, it is more polite to say "take a look at it" than to say "look at it". They are also also casual and friendly.
These are so-called light verbs.
Certainly I agree with James K that "take a seat" is more polite than "sit".
But there's more to it.
Light verbs often may be paraphrased by a full verb. But the sense is slightly different.
and thousands more.
I think the sense is "to [do something] a little bit and a single time".
For example, someone claims to be Elvis Presley. That means he claims it all the time, or that he regularly claims that. But if someone makes the claim that he's Elvis Presley, it means that he says so maybe once, perhaps as part of a prank or game, but does not actually live his life in pretence.
Or, after a car crash, I could make an insurance claim. That's a single event, so a light verb fits. But if I were on welfare, I would claim benefits, which is regular and ongoing. In this case a light verb wouldn't really fit.
In the same way, "take a look" would mean "have a look once" and maybe "look briefly".
It may be worth noting that light verbs are telic, which means they don't go well together with "used to" or "for x duration" and some other constructions
