Immigrate

Hello

As the verb, 'emigrate' is 'go out of a country (to settle in another country)' The word focuses its sense on 'leaving a country'. 'Immigrate' is 'come into a country to settle down there'. The word focuses its sense on 'coming into a country'.

Suppose you have a friend who was born in Japan and he moved from Japan to USA to settle down. Then you can say 'My friend emi

So what I would say depends on my location only?

For example, in a newspaper i read today an article that talked about one minister which came to Israel. The newspaper is produced in USA\the UK (i don't know) so their attitude is neutral. Anyway they say that he 'emigrated TO Israel'. The context implies about sense of coming to Israel ('alliyah' = term is hebrew (was used in english ne

Hello Mav again

I think it would be possible a newspaper writer uses such a phrase (emigrated to Israel) when he describes the incidents occurring in the life of a person in a systematic way from his birth to the arrival to Israel. The description suggests the writer would write it feeling as if he had been looking the person at the moment of the person's departure from Soviet Union. Wh

Or the newspaper writer could have confused the two words.

With your earlier sentences, Paco, I think the verb should relate to the nearer location:

'My friend emigrated from Japan to the USA'
'My friend immigrated to the USA from Japan.'

The speaker's location I do not think is very relevant. These words do not have the deictic quality of 'come' a

Good morning Mr Mic!

With your earlier sentences, Paco, I think the verb should relate to the nearer location:
'My friend emigrated from Japan to the USA'
'My friend immigrated to the USA from Japan.'

I haven't known we should write place prepositions in this way of order. THANK you for the advice.

The speaker's lo

I think the distinction is more obvious if you are talking about many people who emigrated from the same place, (say, Ireland during the Potato Famine) and ended up in many different places, or many people who immigrated to the same place (say, Israel) from various parts of the world.

If you are talking about a single person making a single move, you can use either emigrated or immigrat

We need the two words for the cases in which we do not know or care where the immigrant came from or where the emigrant is going:

America has accepted many immigrants from all over the world.
Vietnamese emigrants have often found more lucrative work abroad.

Hello Khoff and Mr Micawber

Thank you for your messages. I myself still feel speaker's position has some influence on the choice between the two. But this notion of mine about the two words might come from my mother tongue and the circumstance I got brought up; when I was a boy many classmates emigrated with their family to South America and when I stayed in USA I got many friends who i