Rely on means to trust someone or something to do what you need, or to depend on something. In the first meaning, it's about trust: the person won't let you down. In the second, it's about need: it's hard to manage without that thing or that help.
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rely on + person/thing; rely on someone/something to + verb; rely heavily on
- You can rely on Sam to finish the report on time.
- Many students rely on online dictionaries but rarely check how a word is used.
- In our village we rely on the bus because there is no train station.
What changed
First versionI know I can always rely my sister when things go wrong.
RevisionI know I can always rely on my sister when things go wrong.
The preposition on after rely is required. It often gets lost by analogy with trust, which takes no preposition: trust my sister. Rely doesn't work that way: rely on my sister. It helps to learn rely on as a fixed pair.
Rely on and depend on are close, but not always interchangeable. Depend on can also describe simple dependence on conditions: The price depends on the season. Rely wouldn't work here, because a price doesn't trust anyone.
Your turn
The trains here are often late, so I can't ___ them to get me to work on time.
Show the answer
rely on — The question is whether you can count on the trains to get you to work on time, and that is rely on. Believe in means to have faith in someone or to believe that something exists, and it can't be used with the pattern them to get me.
Write about a person or service you rely on at work or in your studies. Name them and explain what exactly you can rely on them for.
At work I rely on our IT manager, Oleg, because he fixes any laptop problem within an hour.
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