Learn The 10 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words
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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
so
um you you’ll see similar patterns with
other
uh with other words so for example like
um
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
like
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
an
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