Learn The 10 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

at englishclass101.com

hi everybody welcome back to top words

my name is alicia and today we’re going

to talk about

10 pairs of commonly confused words so

let’s go

claim complain the first pair

is claim and complain

first let’s talk about the word claim to

claim

is like to accuse someone of something

to complain is to explain a problem

in a negative manner so example

sentences

he claimed he was harassed by the police

she complained about the food effect

effect next pair is affect and effect

so this is a pair that even native

speakers make mistakes with

there are some deeper meanings to effect

with an e

when used as a verb however when used

with an a

affect although the pronunciation is the

same effect effect

when used with an a it means a verb it

means to

cause something to happen effect is a

result

you can think of it as the outcome the

result of something

so in sentences my job change is going

to affect my

salary the weather has a big effect on

my mood

except accept the next pair

is accept and accept so they have the

same pronunciation you can hear it

except

except but the spelling is different

except p a-c-c-e-p-t and

e x c e p t e x e p t s

so accept and accept to accept as a verb

means to allow

something or to permit something except

however is a word we use to

mean um to mean excluding

something else so please accept my

apologies

so please allow me to apologize he gave

me everything

except his wallet so he gave

me all of his things but not his wallet

so everything

but his wallet everything except his

wallet so same pronunciation

different spelling lead led

lead the next pair is actually three

words that i want to talk about

i say three because the first word can

be pronounced in two different ways

uh there’s lead and then there’s lead

and then

lead so let’s start with lead

and lead l-e-a-d we can read them

so we can read the word l-e-a-d

in two different ways the word that’s

spelled like that first let’s talk about

the noun

the noun form is pronounced lead lead so

the

noun form so this lead means it’s like a

type of soft metal

if you’ve ever used a pencil that’s the

material that the pencil is made from

that’s the writing material that’s

called

lead a lead pencil however

the same spelling is used for the

present tense of the verb

lead as in like the word leader for

example

so leader has that word we can also use

it as a verb

to lead something like to lead a group

to lead a

party to lead an expedition into the

mountains i don’t know

so lead as a verb in the present tense

and lead as a material have the same

spelling

you need to pay attention to the

sentence that you’re reading and the

grammar of the sentence to understand

which is the true meaning in that

sentence now though let’s talk about

l-e-d lead this is the past

tense of the verb lead so please be

careful

lead l-e-a-d the verb the past tense of

that verb

is led l-e-d l-e-d

lead has the same pronunciation as the

noun form

of l-e-a-d lead as a pencil material and

lead past tense of the verb lead it’s

very confusing i’m very sorry but that’s

just the way it is

so please be careful with lead lead

and lead okay example sentences now

my pencil is made from lead he wants to

lead the presentation

she led me to the restaurant

scary scared okay

all right next pair uh actually this is

a very common issue that i want to talk

about but i’m going to explain it with

two common words

scary and scared uh so both of these

refer

to fear scary is a word that we use to

describe

something outside us a ghost is scary a

movie is scary a monster is scary

my next door neighbor’s cooking is scary

i don’t know

something that is scary something that

causes fear

outside of you is scary with a y at the

end scary

scared however refers to a person’s

emotions

he is scared she is scared the dog looks

scared scared is referring to an emotion

scary refers to something’s quality

its characteristics so if you’re trying

to remember

like which should i use scary or scared

go with the ed one that ed

is always going to refer to an emotion

um you you’ll see similar patterns with

other

uh with other words so for example like

i don’t know like a word like shocking

and shocked so one of these two words

ends in ed

shocked in that case so shocked should

apply to you

your emotions so if you’re ever in that

situation which do i use

there’s the scary scared go with the ed

one so

example sentences that movie was really

scary

he looks really scared challenge

try the next pair is challenge

and try challenge and try so we can use

challenge both as a noun and as a verb

when we say when we use challenge

as a noun we’ll say it in a sentence

i i’m interested in a challenge this

year for example something that is

difficult but

not impossible to do the trouble with

these two words comes when people try to

use the word

challenge to mean attempt we don’t have

this

meaning for challenge in english so if

you say like i want to challenge

uh this test it’s it sounds odd we have

a word

uh we have a verb meaning of challenge

which means like to

um it’s it sounds like to initiate a

fight with someone like he challenged

his boss it’s like

it sounds like a very aggressive

situation to challenge

someone or to challenge a

verdict in a court case for example it

means like to make an appeal for

something or to try to

change the opinion of someone else to

challenge

as a verb to try on the other hand

means to make an attempt so it doesn’t

mean

it doesn’t have the nuance really of a

challenge necessarily it might be a

challenging task it might be a

challenging thing

to attempt but it doesn’t necessarily

mean

a challenge the word i’m sorry the

nuance of challenge

isn’t really always included in the word

try

try just means attempt so let’s look at

some example

sentences this recipe is going to be a

challenge

as a verb challenge yourself and then

try

i’m excited to try making this cake

every day every day okay the next pair

of words is

every day and every day so the

difference here is there’s a word with

no space

every day and then there’s two words

with a space every day

uh there is a difference between these

two words

every day with no space is used this is

adjective so it means something that is

common something that is a regular

behavior

or something that is kind of expected an

everyday behavior and everyday activity

for example

every day refers to something that

happens

regularly but it is not an adjective