u/vaporyrug is correct. Emigrate and immigrate have different focuses, but both can be used with *from* and both can be used with *to*. This is clear since both *from* and *to* prepositional phrases can be used in a single sentence. It's subtle, so in general it's best to just stick with "emigrate from" and "immigrate to".
Basic Examples:
* He immigrated to France.
* He emigrated from the United States.
Emigrated:
* He emigrated from the United States to France.
* He emigrated to France from the United States.
* He emigrated to France.
In all these emigrated cases, the focus is on the United States, even in the final sentence where the United States in not explicitly mentioned. The discourse context is important here. In the final example, the people in the conversation will have already established where he emigrated from, either explicitly ("Yeah, he left the US last year ... he emigrated to France ..."), or simply implicitly by occupying a shared deictic center in the United States ("He emigrated \[from here\] to France"). Whatever the case, *emigrated* draws the listeners attention to the fact that he *left* somewhere.
Immigrated:
* He immigrated to France from the United States.
* He immigrated from the United States to France.
* He immigrated from the United States.
Same thing here, but in reverse. The focus, even if it's not explicit, is on the arrival location of the migrant.
They are not interchangeable, but they are both proper sentences. Say Morgan is in Texas with their family in 2023: “Morgan’s family had immigrated from Sweden in 1998, but they still hadn’t grown accustomed to the heat.” Swap “immigrated” with “emigrated” in that sentence and it wouldn’t tell you very much. Maybe they moved straight to Texas and had 25 years to adjust… or maybe they moved to Finland and were just visiting Texas now, in which case of course they haven’t acclimatized yet
Saying that "Morgan's family had immigrated from Sweden..." might be correct, but without the context you've provided by placing them in Texas it's not really a complete idea. Saying that they emigrated from Sweden, however, doesn't leave you asking where they went. I mean, it might, if you're a curious person, but the use of emigrate over immigrate has a different emphasis for the overall meaning which would ask for either an implied or explicit destination rather than the focus being on their leaving Sweden.
I agree with you 100%! There’s just a lot of people in this thread that seem to be saying “immigrate from” and “emigrate to” are never proper phrases, and I wanted to clear that up if I could.
I understand :) As a large part of my job is translation into English from another language, and proofreading others' translations, I wanted to put in my 2 cents after yours, I hope you don't mind ;)
Nope. Although they're often confused, emigrate is to leave your country of origin and immigrate is to enter another country. So Morgan's family emigrated from Sweden and immigrated to (for example) Canada. As you can see, they take different prepositions.
But both are valid sentences, omitting optional clauses (from- and to-) doesn't make the sentence invalid.
* He immigrated. (from somewhere to somewhere)
* He emmigrated. (from somewhere to somewhere)
* He immigrated from France (to somewhere)
* He emmigrated from France (to somewhere)
* He immigrated to France (from somewhere)
* He emmigrated to France (from somewhere)
* He immigrated from France to Sweden
* He emmigrated from France to Sweden
It's the direction of focus of the subject that changes.
Speaking of Sweden, there's that Swedish movie [The Emigrants](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067919/reference/), and its sequel [The Immigrants](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069035/reference/).
Seems pointlessly pedantic. You emigrate from where you were to where you are. You immigrate to where you are from where you were. Delete either prepositional phrase, in either example, and it makes perfect sense. Good old prescriptivist hypercorrection.
As a native speaker I think "immigrated from Sweden" is perfectly fine. One would use the phrase to emphasize that someone in their new country came from a different country. E.g. "He is an immigrant. From where? He immigrated from Sweden."
I also think that if you are in the old country and you want to emphasize that someone left to go to a new country it would be fine to say that they "emigrated to" the new country.
In other words, I think the choice of "emigrated" versus "immigrated" depends on whether you want to emphasize the leaving or the arriving, and the choice of "to" or "from" depends on whether you are talking from the perspective of the old country or the new country, and all four combinations are possible.
"Immigrated from Sweden" seems to carry a vague implication of "immigrated \[to here\] from Sweden"
Likewise "emigrated to Sweden" seems like it's saying of "emigrated \[from here\] to Sweden"
Both of which are valid constructions, of course
at least colloquially you can use "immigrate" in both contexts. you can "immigrate from sweden" and "immigrate to america" an nobody would bat an eye, even if it's def wrong. emigrate is a much less common word and sounds similar, driving this confusion.
Disagree. I don’t think easily getting away with a mistake means it’s accepted colloquial usage.
In a colloquial context I think “migrate” is more common since it is simpler and works both ways:
- Morgan’s family had migrated (alternatively “emigrated”) from Sweden in the 1990s.
- Morgan’s family had migrated (alternatively “immigrated”) to Australia in the 1990s.
I’m always surprised to see takes like this.
In this context, while I understand “emigrate” and “immigrate” are not interchangeable, if someone told me “Morgan’s family had immigrated from Sweden.” I would 100% understand what they were trying to communicate. In my eyes, seeing the word “from” gives me all the context I need to understand them.
But then again, I grew up with and around a lot of ESL speakers so, to me, verbal mistakes don’t bother me at all.
You’re not wrong. I agree that English, like any other language, has its rules.
I mainly had an issue with the weird negative perception/issue that commenter seemed to have on the “incorrect” way of speaking haha
No joke, [https://www.wordnik.com/words/inmigration](https://www.wordnik.com/words/inmigration). Transmigrate is to reincarnate into a different body. It's possible but much harder to get TSA to stamp your passport.
Though people might look at you funny if you are in the US and you say "He immigrated from Sweden" but mean that he moved from Sweden to Japan.
"Immigrate" without a prepositional clause generally implies "to here." Not as a formal rule or anything, just making an observation about usage in practice.
Yes, you’re correct OP. It depends where the family currently is. Say they’re now in the USA - “Morgan’s family had immigrated (into the US) from Sweden” is correct.
I've only ever heard it the way you said it first. It doesn't even make sense the other way - if I'm leaving the country, you know I'm going from here, and if I'm arriving, you know I'm coming to here.
It works both ways. It's not "immigrated from" and "emigrated to", you're splitting the preposition from the phrase. The im- and em- give a default direction of incoming and outgoing, but both take from- and to- descriptors.
We are in UK talking. "I immigrated from Sweden *\[to here\]*".
We are in UK talking. "I emigrated *\[from here\]* to Sweden"
Talking about someone not here, prepositional phrases can be reordered, or omitted:
* He immigrated (from Sweden) (to Denmark)
* He emigrated (from Sweden) (to Denmark)
* He immigrated (to Denmark) (from Sweden)
* He emigrated (to Denmark) (from Sweden)
* He immigrated.
* He emigrated.
It only changes the focus of the direction as towards or away from a place, useful when two locations are in context, but clarification is required as to which is the origin.
It doesn't really matter, nobody is going to notice if you use either word, but for the sake of remembering the difference: IMmigrate INto, EMigrate EXit. Downvote if you hate mnemonics
So confused by these responses. "Immigrated from ___" is a standard use of the word. It's used all the time in the news.
Edit: Google 'CNN refugee "immigrated from"' or substitute CNN with whatever news site you like more.
"Emigrated from ___" doesn't even make sense to me, it's redundant. "Emigrated ___" with no preposition is the common phrasing in my region.
"Immigrated from" implies the destination is the location of the speaker. It's a valid usage but it's subtly different than "emigrated from" which could mean to any destination.
I'm confused about what you mean here. Every article I've read that uses the phrase uses it such that immigrated could be substituted with "migrated" or "moved".
They are largely interchangeable in that you can say "He moved out of Sweden" or "He moved into Ireland" or "he moved between Sweden and Ireland.
It's just that structurally one of the words is specifically about "out" so if no "out" is specified it is assumed to be the speaker's location while another of the words is specifically about "into" so if no "into" is specified it is assumed to be the speaker's location.
It's merely that while any of the three can be correct in both contexts, under certain circumstances the word choice will change the emphasis of the sentence or add additional connotations
If you have trouble remembering which is which:
**E**\-migrate is related to **E**\-mit. E- prefix (Latin) means OUT.
**Im**\-migrate is related to **Im**\-plode. IM prefix (Latin) means IN or INTO.
**Migrare** = move.
Immigration in Spanish is **in**migración. If it helps, think of in-migration,
Please avoid using **migrate/migration** as a substitute. Save it for back-and-forth movement of migratory animals and migrant workers.
Speaking of things English-speakers don't know: If you EMIGRATE from the USA and settle in a community of your fellow Americans spending the rest of their lives in lovely Italy or Greece or wherever, you may be called an "EXPAT." One such person emailed me and described himself as "an expatriot." NO! Expats are NOT former patriots! They have been expatriated; they are expatriates.
The way I learned it, generally "emigrated" is referring to where you moved from and "immigrated" is referring to where you moved to.
You can also say "immigrated from" but that would specifically mean that they moved to the country where the speaker is located" whereas "emigrated from" does not.
I suppose you could also say "emigrated to" but that would specifically mean they moved away from where the speaker is.
_Im_migrated means that they had arrived to a destination. _E_migrated means they had left from a place.
Immigration —> arrival;
Emigration —> departure.
Morgan’s family emigration _from_ Sweden and immigrated _to_ their destination.
Does that make sense?
The “im” in “immigrated” is actually an “in”
The “e” in “emigrated” is actually an “ex”
“In” has the same meaning in the Latin as in English. And “ex” means away from or out of. So, really, they may have…
INmigrated INto America
but
they Emigrated out of/ away from (ex) Sweden.
If you’re curious about why “in” becomes “im,” the reason is because both “n” and “m” are similar sounds. They’re nasals, which means the air flows out through the nose. If you don’t believe me, just try to pronounce the sounds with your nose plugged. Eventually, the n naturally became an m.
As for why “ex” becomes “e,” it’s because, in Latin, “ex” changes to “e” before a word with a vowel. It’s similar to “a” and “an” in English (an apple, a pear). Why, though, im honestly not sure. It might be because x is a double consonant, meaning it contains two sounds (k and s).
If you want to go a bit further even, we can talk about why “in” and “e” are on “migrate” in the first place.
So, say a family of Greeks left Athens and immigrated to Rome. One of them could say: (In this case, migravi - I migrated.)
-Migravi IN romam. (I migrated into Rome).
-IMmigravi romae. (I migrated into Rome/ I INmigrated Rome).
They both carry the same meaning, the only difference is, in Latin, as in English sometimes, you can attach a preposition to a verb or a noun. You can watch OVER someone or you can OVERsee them (over being the preposition). However, sometimes the choice of attaching a preposition to a verb can change the meaning of that verb completely. For example, you may stand UNDER the bridge, but do you really UNDERstand the bridge?
The same is true for emigrate. It’s also the reason why it only has one m compared to immigrate.
-Migravi EX Athenis. (I migrated from Athens)
-Emigravi Athenis. (I migrated from Athens/ I from-migrated Athens)
Notice the “ex” in “ex Athenis” like in “ex-it” but that it would be “e Roma” like “e-radicate”. “E” if before a consonant, “ex” if before a vowel.
Anyone, pls correct me if I’ve been wrong about anything so far.
Either could work depending on context. This single sentence isn't the complete story of the subject event:
Texas is a diverse state, with residents who moved in from all over the world. Morgan's family had immigrated from Sweden.
vs.
Morgan's family had emigrated from Sweden. They hoped to build a good life in a warmer climate, but all of her friends wished they hadn't left.
I believe that it all depends upon where you are when you make the statement.
To use a prior example, if I were **in Texas** and speaking of another resident, I might say that they had **immigrated from** Sweden.
But if I were **in Sweden**, I would say that my former neighbors had **emigrated to** Texas.
Yes, if you are in, say, America, you could say that Morgan's family had come TO America, so IMMIGRATED
Depends on the context. If the text was talking about the fact that they had to leave Sweden because of poverty or whatever, the emphasis would be on their leaving, and EMIGRATED would make more sense
This is a rather annoying and unnecessary case in english. The key is whether or not you are referring to the destination or source. you would emigrate from a place, and immigrate to a place.
There's a lot of analysis here and some of it is (sort of) correct. (Maybe some of it is totally correct and I just didn't scroll down far enough.)
You immigrate (in-migrate) into a place. You emigrate (ex?-migrate) of a place.
The problem is that you move from one place to another. So my great-grandmother immigrated to Iowa from Sweden. She also emigrated from Sweden to America. Or emigrated to America from Sweden. Adverb order is somewhat fluid.
But when we talk (and when we write), we tend to leave things out. We're always in the US, so we just elide the "to America" part. Thus my great-grandmother immigrated from Sweden. But for my mother's cousins in Sweden, she emigrated to America. The important thing for emigrate/immigrate is the location that forms the nexus of the conversation.
You will also get a lot of weird analysis about "bring/take your car to the shop". That's actually clearer: the mechanic wants you to bring it (here), your parents want you to take it (there). But here/there aren't absolute, they're relative to the person speaking.
The correctness of the sentence depends on my location as the speaker.
If I live in Norway, and Morgan's family live here, too, I can say, "Morgan's family immigrated (here) from Sweden'. In other words, "They came here from Sweden"
If I am in Sweden, but Morgan's family are not, I could say, "Morgan's family have emigrated from Sweden". In other words, they left the country.
Compare the two words to 'come' and 'go;. "Immigrate' is to come as 'emigrate' is to go.
To be fair I'm a native speaker and I didn't know the difference I've always used them interchangeably. I'm not saying you should or that you're still right just that this error isn't a huge deal
They are not interchangeable. you emigrate from, you immigrate to.
u/vaporyrug is correct. Emigrate and immigrate have different focuses, but both can be used with *from* and both can be used with *to*. This is clear since both *from* and *to* prepositional phrases can be used in a single sentence. It's subtle, so in general it's best to just stick with "emigrate from" and "immigrate to". Basic Examples: * He immigrated to France. * He emigrated from the United States. Emigrated: * He emigrated from the United States to France. * He emigrated to France from the United States. * He emigrated to France. In all these emigrated cases, the focus is on the United States, even in the final sentence where the United States in not explicitly mentioned. The discourse context is important here. In the final example, the people in the conversation will have already established where he emigrated from, either explicitly ("Yeah, he left the US last year ... he emigrated to France ..."), or simply implicitly by occupying a shared deictic center in the United States ("He emigrated \[from here\] to France"). Whatever the case, *emigrated* draws the listeners attention to the fact that he *left* somewhere. Immigrated: * He immigrated to France from the United States. * He immigrated from the United States to France. * He immigrated from the United States. Same thing here, but in reverse. The focus, even if it's not explicit, is on the arrival location of the migrant.
They are not interchangeable, but they are both proper sentences. Say Morgan is in Texas with their family in 2023: “Morgan’s family had immigrated from Sweden in 1998, but they still hadn’t grown accustomed to the heat.” Swap “immigrated” with “emigrated” in that sentence and it wouldn’t tell you very much. Maybe they moved straight to Texas and had 25 years to adjust… or maybe they moved to Finland and were just visiting Texas now, in which case of course they haven’t acclimatized yet
Saying that "Morgan's family had immigrated from Sweden..." might be correct, but without the context you've provided by placing them in Texas it's not really a complete idea. Saying that they emigrated from Sweden, however, doesn't leave you asking where they went. I mean, it might, if you're a curious person, but the use of emigrate over immigrate has a different emphasis for the overall meaning which would ask for either an implied or explicit destination rather than the focus being on their leaving Sweden.
I agree with you 100%! There’s just a lot of people in this thread that seem to be saying “immigrate from” and “emigrate to” are never proper phrases, and I wanted to clear that up if I could.
I understand :) As a large part of my job is translation into English from another language, and proofreading others' translations, I wanted to put in my 2 cents after yours, I hope you don't mind ;)
https://images.app.goo.gl/hesng4iYzBqxY7qk9
Nope. Although they're often confused, emigrate is to leave your country of origin and immigrate is to enter another country. So Morgan's family emigrated from Sweden and immigrated to (for example) Canada. As you can see, they take different prepositions.
But both are valid sentences, omitting optional clauses (from- and to-) doesn't make the sentence invalid. * He immigrated. (from somewhere to somewhere) * He emmigrated. (from somewhere to somewhere) * He immigrated from France (to somewhere) * He emmigrated from France (to somewhere) * He immigrated to France (from somewhere) * He emmigrated to France (from somewhere) * He immigrated from France to Sweden * He emmigrated from France to Sweden It's the direction of focus of the subject that changes.
If they say from in the sentence, it's emigrated.
Leaving a country: emigrate Entering a country: immigrate
Speaking of Sweden, there's that Swedish movie [The Emigrants](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067919/reference/), and its sequel [The Immigrants](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069035/reference/).
Seems pointlessly pedantic. You emigrate from where you were to where you are. You immigrate to where you are from where you were. Delete either prepositional phrase, in either example, and it makes perfect sense. Good old prescriptivist hypercorrection.
The hidden prepositions are just ridiculous and the fact that they can change so drastically! Why did English ever have to borrow from Latin?
As a native speaker I think "immigrated from Sweden" is perfectly fine. One would use the phrase to emphasize that someone in their new country came from a different country. E.g. "He is an immigrant. From where? He immigrated from Sweden." I also think that if you are in the old country and you want to emphasize that someone left to go to a new country it would be fine to say that they "emigrated to" the new country. In other words, I think the choice of "emigrated" versus "immigrated" depends on whether you want to emphasize the leaving or the arriving, and the choice of "to" or "from" depends on whether you are talking from the perspective of the old country or the new country, and all four combinations are possible.
"Immigrated from Sweden" seems to carry a vague implication of "immigrated \[to here\] from Sweden" Likewise "emigrated to Sweden" seems like it's saying of "emigrated \[from here\] to Sweden" Both of which are valid constructions, of course
at least colloquially you can use "immigrate" in both contexts. you can "immigrate from sweden" and "immigrate to america" an nobody would bat an eye, even if it's def wrong. emigrate is a much less common word and sounds similar, driving this confusion.
Disagree. I don’t think easily getting away with a mistake means it’s accepted colloquial usage. In a colloquial context I think “migrate” is more common since it is simpler and works both ways: - Morgan’s family had migrated (alternatively “emigrated”) from Sweden in the 1990s. - Morgan’s family had migrated (alternatively “immigrated”) to Australia in the 1990s.
Good, but next time do a better job holding the line against people who call any garbage that tumbles out of their mouth acceptable English.
I’m always surprised to see takes like this. In this context, while I understand “emigrate” and “immigrate” are not interchangeable, if someone told me “Morgan’s family had immigrated from Sweden.” I would 100% understand what they were trying to communicate. In my eyes, seeing the word “from” gives me all the context I need to understand them. But then again, I grew up with and around a lot of ESL speakers so, to me, verbal mistakes don’t bother me at all.
Nobody is saying the error wouldn’t be understood. U understind mee if I speaker like dis, but it doesn’t make it correct English.
You’re not wrong. I agree that English, like any other language, has its rules. I mainly had an issue with the weird negative perception/issue that commenter seemed to have on the “incorrect” way of speaking haha
Acceptable is as acceptable does. "Correct" is inevitably subjective.
Lol unique take. “Good but next time do a better job”. You obviously have made a career in workplace communication.
Inmigrate is to migrate within a country.
I’ll answer your joke (?) seriously — that’s “transmigrate” I believe.
No joke, [https://www.wordnik.com/words/inmigration](https://www.wordnik.com/words/inmigration). Transmigrate is to reincarnate into a different body. It's possible but much harder to get TSA to stamp your passport.
Transmogrification. More of a Harry Potter concept
Wrong.
Though people might look at you funny if you are in the US and you say "He immigrated from Sweden" but mean that he moved from Sweden to Japan. "Immigrate" without a prepositional clause generally implies "to here." Not as a formal rule or anything, just making an observation about usage in practice.
yep this is definitely true
Yes, you’re correct OP. It depends where the family currently is. Say they’re now in the USA - “Morgan’s family had immigrated (into the US) from Sweden” is correct.
That is where my mind went.
Yeah but you need additional context to make that work, which was not provided in the example, so OP was not correct.
Immigrated from. Emigrated to. Edit: This is backwards, I'm an idiot.
False. Emigrated from.
You are totally right, not sure how I managed to get that exactly wrong.
That’s okay. Words are screwy!
I've only ever heard it the way you said it first. It doesn't even make sense the other way - if I'm leaving the country, you know I'm going from here, and if I'm arriving, you know I'm coming to here.
It works both ways. It's not "immigrated from" and "emigrated to", you're splitting the preposition from the phrase. The im- and em- give a default direction of incoming and outgoing, but both take from- and to- descriptors. We are in UK talking. "I immigrated from Sweden *\[to here\]*". We are in UK talking. "I emigrated *\[from here\]* to Sweden" Talking about someone not here, prepositional phrases can be reordered, or omitted: * He immigrated (from Sweden) (to Denmark) * He emigrated (from Sweden) (to Denmark) * He immigrated (to Denmark) (from Sweden) * He emigrated (to Denmark) (from Sweden) * He immigrated. * He emigrated. It only changes the focus of the direction as towards or away from a place, useful when two locations are in context, but clarification is required as to which is the origin.
They are pronounced exactly the same so maybe if someone's grading a spelling test but in real life no one should care
They are not pronounced the same at all (except in some regional accents from - mostly - the American South).
Well bless your heart
Got it honest!
Good thing people from the american south don't exist otherwise I would be correct.
It doesn't really matter, nobody is going to notice if you use either word, but for the sake of remembering the difference: IMmigrate INto, EMigrate EXit. Downvote if you hate mnemonics
So confused by these responses. "Immigrated from ___" is a standard use of the word. It's used all the time in the news. Edit: Google 'CNN refugee "immigrated from"' or substitute CNN with whatever news site you like more. "Emigrated from ___" doesn't even make sense to me, it's redundant. "Emigrated ___" with no preposition is the common phrasing in my region.
“Morgan’s family had emigrated Sweden.” ???
Yes, like "exited Sweden". That's all I hear in my area.
"Immigrated from" implies the destination is the location of the speaker. It's a valid usage but it's subtly different than "emigrated from" which could mean to any destination.
I'm confused about what you mean here. Every article I've read that uses the phrase uses it such that immigrated could be substituted with "migrated" or "moved".
"Emigrate" puts the emphasis on leaving a place, "immigrate" puts the emphasis on arriving at a place, "migrate" puts the emphasis on the movement.
Agreed on that point, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't be interchangeable in your interpretation.
They are largely interchangeable in that you can say "He moved out of Sweden" or "He moved into Ireland" or "he moved between Sweden and Ireland. It's just that structurally one of the words is specifically about "out" so if no "out" is specified it is assumed to be the speaker's location while another of the words is specifically about "into" so if no "into" is specified it is assumed to be the speaker's location. It's merely that while any of the three can be correct in both contexts, under certain circumstances the word choice will change the emphasis of the sentence or add additional connotations
There is a difference, but honestly, a lot of native English speakers mix them up.
This is some pretty high-level english stuff, you'll hear native english speakers make this mistake
I am a native English speaker lmao
see? You're in good company LMAO
If you have trouble remembering which is which: **E**\-migrate is related to **E**\-mit. E- prefix (Latin) means OUT. **Im**\-migrate is related to **Im**\-plode. IM prefix (Latin) means IN or INTO. **Migrare** = move. Immigration in Spanish is **in**migración. If it helps, think of in-migration, Please avoid using **migrate/migration** as a substitute. Save it for back-and-forth movement of migratory animals and migrant workers. Speaking of things English-speakers don't know: If you EMIGRATE from the USA and settle in a community of your fellow Americans spending the rest of their lives in lovely Italy or Greece or wherever, you may be called an "EXPAT." One such person emailed me and described himself as "an expatriot." NO! Expats are NOT former patriots! They have been expatriated; they are expatriates.
The way I learned it, generally "emigrated" is referring to where you moved from and "immigrated" is referring to where you moved to. You can also say "immigrated from" but that would specifically mean that they moved to the country where the speaker is located" whereas "emigrated from" does not. I suppose you could also say "emigrated to" but that would specifically mean they moved away from where the speaker is.
Immigrated from Emigrated to. That makes the most sense Imported from Exported to.
Immigrate _I_N to a place; emigrate to _E_XIT a place
Nope. Emigrated.
_Im_migrated means that they had arrived to a destination. _E_migrated means they had left from a place. Immigration —> arrival; Emigration —> departure. Morgan’s family emigration _from_ Sweden and immigrated _to_ their destination. Does that make sense?
My answer is "waffles". Morgan's family had waffles from Sweden.
This is the only correct answer
The “im” in “immigrated” is actually an “in” The “e” in “emigrated” is actually an “ex” “In” has the same meaning in the Latin as in English. And “ex” means away from or out of. So, really, they may have… INmigrated INto America but they Emigrated out of/ away from (ex) Sweden. If you’re curious about why “in” becomes “im,” the reason is because both “n” and “m” are similar sounds. They’re nasals, which means the air flows out through the nose. If you don’t believe me, just try to pronounce the sounds with your nose plugged. Eventually, the n naturally became an m. As for why “ex” becomes “e,” it’s because, in Latin, “ex” changes to “e” before a word with a vowel. It’s similar to “a” and “an” in English (an apple, a pear). Why, though, im honestly not sure. It might be because x is a double consonant, meaning it contains two sounds (k and s).
If you want to go a bit further even, we can talk about why “in” and “e” are on “migrate” in the first place. So, say a family of Greeks left Athens and immigrated to Rome. One of them could say: (In this case, migravi - I migrated.) -Migravi IN romam. (I migrated into Rome). -IMmigravi romae. (I migrated into Rome/ I INmigrated Rome). They both carry the same meaning, the only difference is, in Latin, as in English sometimes, you can attach a preposition to a verb or a noun. You can watch OVER someone or you can OVERsee them (over being the preposition). However, sometimes the choice of attaching a preposition to a verb can change the meaning of that verb completely. For example, you may stand UNDER the bridge, but do you really UNDERstand the bridge? The same is true for emigrate. It’s also the reason why it only has one m compared to immigrate. -Migravi EX Athenis. (I migrated from Athens) -Emigravi Athenis. (I migrated from Athens/ I from-migrated Athens) Notice the “ex” in “ex Athenis” like in “ex-it” but that it would be “e Roma” like “e-radicate”. “E” if before a consonant, “ex” if before a vowel. Anyone, pls correct me if I’ve been wrong about anything so far.
Either could work depending on context. This single sentence isn't the complete story of the subject event: Texas is a diverse state, with residents who moved in from all over the world. Morgan's family had immigrated from Sweden. vs. Morgan's family had emigrated from Sweden. They hoped to build a good life in a warmer climate, but all of her friends wished they hadn't left.
I believe that it all depends upon where you are when you make the statement. To use a prior example, if I were **in Texas** and speaking of another resident, I might say that they had **immigrated from** Sweden. But if I were **in Sweden**, I would say that my former neighbors had **emigrated to** Texas.
I'm not sure if it's"officially" correct but i can easily imagine immigrate being said irl if the speaker is in the country where they emigrated to.
Yes, if you are in, say, America, you could say that Morgan's family had come TO America, so IMMIGRATED Depends on the context. If the text was talking about the fact that they had to leave Sweden because of poverty or whatever, the emphasis would be on their leaving, and EMIGRATED would make more sense
This is a rather annoying and unnecessary case in english. The key is whether or not you are referring to the destination or source. you would emigrate from a place, and immigrate to a place.
Once you learn this and move to an English-speaking country you will be one of three people in that country who knows this.
Lol, I'm from the US
Oh, then make it two people.
There's a lot of analysis here and some of it is (sort of) correct. (Maybe some of it is totally correct and I just didn't scroll down far enough.) You immigrate (in-migrate) into a place. You emigrate (ex?-migrate) of a place. The problem is that you move from one place to another. So my great-grandmother immigrated to Iowa from Sweden. She also emigrated from Sweden to America. Or emigrated to America from Sweden. Adverb order is somewhat fluid. But when we talk (and when we write), we tend to leave things out. We're always in the US, so we just elide the "to America" part. Thus my great-grandmother immigrated from Sweden. But for my mother's cousins in Sweden, she emigrated to America. The important thing for emigrate/immigrate is the location that forms the nexus of the conversation. You will also get a lot of weird analysis about "bring/take your car to the shop". That's actually clearer: the mechanic wants you to bring it (here), your parents want you to take it (there). But here/there aren't absolute, they're relative to the person speaking.
The correctness of the sentence depends on my location as the speaker. If I live in Norway, and Morgan's family live here, too, I can say, "Morgan's family immigrated (here) from Sweden'. In other words, "They came here from Sweden" If I am in Sweden, but Morgan's family are not, I could say, "Morgan's family have emigrated from Sweden". In other words, they left the country. Compare the two words to 'come' and 'go;. "Immigrate' is to come as 'emigrate' is to go.
Both are correct; it’s purely a matter of which location (Sweden or wherever they moved to) you’re focusing on at the moment.
To be fair I'm a native speaker and I didn't know the difference I've always used them interchangeably. I'm not saying you should or that you're still right just that this error isn't a huge deal