Commonly confused verbs: join and attend

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Key collocations

When you join something, you start to be part of it.

When you join a club or group, you start to be a member:

When you join a company, you start working there and become a member of staff:

When you join a conversation, you start to take part in it:

When you attend something, you are present and take part, usually for a period of time.

When you attend a particular meeting or event, you take part in it:

When you attend a place, such as a school or university, you go there regularly:

When you attend a ceremony, you go to it:

Remember that attend is quite a formal verb. It’s appropriate in an IELTS Writing task, but in conversation, you’d more likely say go to (a meeting, workshop, wedding, etc.).

• I went to my cousin’s wedding last weekend.
• Naomi goes to college 3 days a week.

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Online meetings and events

In the online world, we also use join and attend. When someone clicks on a link or logs in to start taking part in an online meeting or webinar, they join the meeting or webinar:

• After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

When you stay online and take part in a whole meeting, class or webinar, you say that you attend it:

• I attended a webinar about using online dictionaries.

The grammar

Both join and attend are transitive verbs and they’re always followed by a direct object.

• You attend + something: Everyone attends a 2-week training course.
• You join + something: She joined the school football team.

You can also join + someone, when you start to do something or take part in something with them:

• Several of us go for a run at lunchtime – why don’t you join us?
• I hope others will join us in our campaign.

Used in their main meaning, join and attend aren’t followed by a preposition:

• A new designer is going to join to our team.
• Chinh is busy this morning, but she’ll join with us after lunch.
• Students from across the country attended on the event.

Phrasal verbs

However, join and attend do form part of phrasal verbs with different meanings:

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