Check with/out/against and friends

[Sidle Jinks]

Hello everybody!

Could you please tell me, what is the difference between check with, check out, check through and check against? Are these words interchangeable?

For example,

The description checks with the photograph.
The description checks against the photograph.
How can you check on whether it will rain?
We must check through the pages to see if any are missing.

In all the sentences, check <prep> means the same thing in Russian, so I would like to know what the difference is in English.

Thank you in advance
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Factum non fabula

[Alan]

Hi,

Generally check has the meaning of verifying/making sure but there are particular uses when the verb is joined with various particles/prepostions. Let me give some examples:

check with is often used when you want to verify something with another person as in: Before you visit that country, check with your doctor to see if you need any vaccinations.

check out has the idea of examining different possibilities as in: If I were you, I'd check out some of the information on the internet before you buy a new printer.

check through is examine to see if there are any mistakes as in: Can you check through this article to make sure I haven't made any spelling mistakes.

check against is again examine one thing with another to see the similarities or differences as in: Check the answers he gave in the interview against what he actually wrote in his book.

Hope this helps

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Sidle Jinks]

Thank you very much for your explanation, Alan, this helped!

:)
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Factum non fabula

[Englishlover]

Thanks so much too, to both the questioner and answerer.