Wondering about the difference between emigrate vs immigrate? Let’s get right into it.
Emigrate means to leave your country to live in another. Immigrate means to come to another country to live.
An easy way to remember the difference between emigrate vs immigrate is to associate emigrate with “from” and immigrate with “to”. You always emigrate from somewhere and immigrate to somewhere else.
Emigrate vs Immigrate
When talking about emigrate vs immigrate, keep in mind the perspective. Emigrate takes the perspective of the place of departure while immigrate is from the point of view of the destination.
| Emigrate | Immigrate |
|---|---|
| Move from your country | Move into another country |
| Exit one’s home country permanently | Enter a foreign country to live |
You alway emigrate from and immigrate to. Conversely, you never emigrate to or immigrate from. For example, it is wrong to say that Joe emigrated to Fiji. Instead, you must say Joe immigrated to Fiji.
Because these two words are similar, it’s easy to get confused. As long as you associate immigrating with arrival and emigrating with departure, you’ll be set.
Emigrate in a Sentence
To help better understand the meaning of emigrate, let’s use it in a sentence.
Marc and his family emigrated from China.
Here you can see that Marc and his family left their home country of China. In this sentence, emigrate is the correct word to use because they are moving from their home country.
Immigrate in a Sentence
Let’s use immigrate in a sentence.
Tom immigrated to Japan in 1913.
In this example, Tom came to Japan. Here, we use the word immigrate to describe Tom’s movement into a foreign country.
Do You Know the Difference Between Emigrate and Immigrate?
Let’s see if you understand the difference between emigrate and immigrate.
If a Cuban living in Cuba moves to France, has he emigrated or immigrated? Think about it…
Well, he has both emigrated from Cuba and immigrated to France.
Did you get it right?