accept/except
accept: To take willingly something that has been offered (it is with great pleasure that I accept your invitation to present the prizes at the graduation ceremony); to agree to or admit responsibility (we will accept the student’s version of events when we receive confirmation; we accept that we have a duty to ensure that our employees are paid); to concede (I will have to accept that you are a better sportsman than I am)
except: To exclude or leave out (we can all go to the movies except Jeremy, as he has the measles)
adverse/averse
adverse: Contrary or antagonistic (the adverse weather made us reconsider our plans for a picnic; they could never agree, because their opinions were so adverse)
averse: To be disinclined (she was averse to leaving the party so early)
advice/advise
advice: A recommendation or opinion (I will take your advice and walk the scenic route)
advise: To offer an opinion or counsel (I advise you to go home and get some sleep)
affect/effect
affect: To act on or produce a change (cancer can affect many organs in the body); to pretend or imitate (to affect an upper-class accent)
effect: A result or accomplishment (our relationship should have no effect on my family; the ruling had no effect in reducing the disturbances)
afflicted/inflicted
afflicted: Distress with mental or bodily pain (he was afflicted by polio at a very young age)
inflicted: Imposed punishment, additional duties, or similar (the father inflicted punishment on the child for refusing to eat his dinner)
aggravate/irritate (now widely used interchangeably)
aggravate: To make worse or intensify (you will only aggravate the wound if you continue to pull at the bandage)
irritate: To anger or annoy (Paul’s continual interruptions were a deliberate attempt to irritate the speaker)
allegiance/alliance
allegiance: Loyalty to a sovereign, country, or government, or to a cause (he pledged his allegiance to the flag and his country)
alliance: A union of countries, businesses, trade associations, etc. for mutual benefit (the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy was formed in 1882 for mutual support against other European powers; trade unions formed an alliance to protest against the government’s wage cuts)
all together/altogether
all together: As a group (when we are all together, we usually have a great time)
altogether: Entirely or completely (that was altogether the worst experience I have ever had); on the whole (altogether, we were lucky to escape the storm); in all (the restaurant bill altogether came to $100)
allude/elude
allude: To refer to casually (notice how many times Sarah will allude to her successful parents); to contain an indirect reference to something already known (this report alludes to the lack of input from the public)
elude: To escape skillfully or avoid (he was able to elude the police by posing as a paramedic); to forget (his name is one of those names that always seems to elude me)
alternate/alternative
alternate: To do things in turn (we will alternate the position of deputy mayor every two months); to follow (day and night alternate with each other)
alternative: The offering of a choice (the alternative to going to bed without your dinner is to eat everything that is on your plate; you have an alternative: either agree with what is being said or vote with the opposition)
ambiguous/ambivalent
ambiguous: Obscure, vague, capable of different interpretations (in the interview, Jennifer queried the question asked, as it was ambiguous)
ambivalent: To hold two conflicting opinions or emotions at the same time (Peter was ambivalent about the boat refugees’ situation)
Extracts taken from: “The Right Word ~ Correcting Commonly Confused, Misspelled, and Misused Words” by Elizabeth Morrison.
I used to confuse and dizzy when I heard the word as written down below when I having a conversation with people who uses English as their daily language; as dizzy as when I drink 20 packs of OBH Komix followed by a bottle of a local Indonesian red wine. This article really helps me to understand more and more about this international language that maybe in the future will be replaced by any other language. Maybe the admin should post about this kind of article more often than usual. I have a really stupid and embarrassing experience when I miss heard what other people said. But I believe that if we practice more and more and try to use English language as a daily language in our life, we eventually will master this language and who knows we can also conquer the country (no offense sir). I don’t know, any possibilities can be happened. Let’s just hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteIt is rather fun seeing these similar words that actually have different meaning towards each other. The fact that there are these similar words really explains on the vastness of English vocabulary. The most common words that I used a lot from the list above are the words ‘affect’ and ‘effect’. I remember knowing the difference between the word ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ back in school and I also remember the relieved feeling when you try out new vocabularies in an essay or in an English exercises. It really brings back memories. The words from the above list that I rarely hear or read are the words ‘allude’ and ‘elude’. I personally believe that by broadening my English vocabularies I could gradually improve myself in talking to a person using English especially to native English speakers, because talking English to an Indonesian people is totally different compared to talking English to a native English speaker.
ReplyDeleteSince English is not my first language, I tend to make quite some mistakes. Actually I have the feeling that ever since I moved to Indonesia both my English and Dutch worsened. They’re both getting worse in a different way. For my Dutch it’s not about the grammar or about knowing how to write difficult words, it just takes me much more to find the right words in cases when nuance is needed. This causes quite some awkward situations when I am calling or meeting with other native speakers: sometimes it takes me half a minute to come up with a specific word.
ReplyDeleteAfter 10 months of speaking English every day, you would expect that my skills became better, but in fact the opposite is the truth. I have the feeling that my brain is just tired of thinking in English. It takes a lot of energy for me to translate everything in my head first, before speaking it out loud. This causes unnecessary mistakes.
English language is very complex, there are lots of grammars used, vocabulary and etc. Even though I had been studying English for years now, I personally think that my skills are still very low when it comes to vocabulary. In the article it clearly showed that just by a change of a single letter in the word, the meaning of the word could differ. Just like the word “advice” which means a recommendation or opinion and the word “advise” which means to offer an opinion. Same like the word “affect” and “effect”. Same like other language, to be able to increase your skills in a particular language, you should have practices, you should use it as regularly as possible whether it’s in conversations or writings. My teacher used to mention that to be able to increase vocabulary and your level of writing essays, you should read as much books or article as possible.
ReplyDeleteFor me, english has never been an easy language to learn. The spelling and pronouciation of every word can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and complicated. One letter that really got me confused is the letter W. In alphabetic we say it's double u's but when it is put into words like "whale" or "wash" we say it differently than how we say it in the alphabet. And then the letter O, we say it's o but in the word "do" we pronounce the "o" like a "u" in "queen". Same with the U, in some words it's like the word A, like in "upset" or "shut" and in other words we say it "truly". And there are still many words and letters that often got me confused if spelling it. The only way to master it is by studies and practices. One way that always works for me is by listening to songs and movies, so I know how to pronounce it correctly. As for the spelling prooblem, I think playing games like spelling bees and scrabbles are a great way to train your spelling skills.
ReplyDeleteEnglish have had a magnificent change through these times in which English can be said as being much more simple than it was before. Of course these happenings are not weird to use because it happens all the time in our society. But what I would like to argue is that these mix ups happen overseas as well. I can say this statement because of the realization when I can see YouTube videos explaining to people differences between the words. The most common words that I can experience from other people’s mistakes is “your” and “you’re”. This is probably the most common mistake in which is very simple once you know the answer but without knowing it, you’ll be in a maze with no way out. “Effect” and “affect” I reckon disturbs some people as well. But I mean what surprises me is the fact that it has such a difference in meaning even though it spells commonly. I mean, who made these words in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very useful article for a lot of people. In Indonesia, there are not really many words with similar spellings or pronunciation and I can guarantee that people who speaks English natively can learn the Indonesian language faster than Indonesian who is trying to learn English. The grammar in English is also very hard compared to the one in Indonesian language. In English there are these tenses for each word and every word affects a sentence where as in Indonesia, we do not have different tenses and understanding people is easy. The word that I got confused the most is the advice/advise one. I sometimes think that advice is actually the one that has a definition to offer an opinion and advise is an opinion. This article is very helpful for me to reduce my confusion on some words and hopefully I can be better in understanding the language.
ReplyDeleteLearning languages is a difficult thing for me. It's the same as learning English. The time needed to learn this language is long enough, and we must also continue to develop the capabilities that we already have. I am often wrong in English spelling and pronunciation, but this mistake reminds me to continue to practice and learn from those mistakes. This article is one of the most useful articles in this blog, in this article we become aware of words that are often misspelled or pronounced wrongly. In my opinion, what I often catch wrong is the words 'accept' and 'except'. These two words often sound similar, and I often misinterpret them. This article also adds to our insight, because in this article included an understanding of English words that are often confusing. Hopefully, with articles like this, it can help us all, especially those who are learning English, so that in the future we can be more expert.
ReplyDeleteEnglish absolutely is not my mother tongue, although I studied english almost my whole life, yet I am still confused on putting a right english words in the right situations. It is all because of in Indonesian language from one language to another either it is synonyms or antonyms and it is pretty distinguishable because it is pretty clear in terms of the definition and also it sound different when you said it if it isIndonesian language or we often called it as Bahasa. On the other hand, english is a whole different thing as the definition are pretty similar yet its not the same as the usage of those words are situational. For me personally, the words that makes me confused the most is the situation where to use affect and effect and it takes time to understand it perfectly. It honestly took me most of my time learning english to understand how to use words properly in a certain situation.
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ReplyDeleteYes, English isn’t my first language but I do exposed to it throughout my life, and it’s quite a weird and funny fact that my voice changes when I speak English and when I speak Bahasa Indonesia, some people noticed that when I speak English, my voice becomes like deeper and when I speak bahasa, my voice suddenly change, I don’t exactly know why and how I started this habit or I should say this unique behaviour of mine, and sometimes people do complain for no exact reason which I found it quite weird since I don’t know why it’s annoying for them or what? I got complained sometimes by some random guy which I used to know. But then, to be honest I don’t give any damn about that complaints since even my closest mates and even my parents didn’t complain much so, there’s nothing wrong. To be honest, my daily language is I can say a mix between Indonesian and English since sometimes I don’t know what that means in English and vice versa.
Speaking of these words, sometimes I do mixed up when people say advise and advice since it sounded quite similar to be honest and luckily, the meanings for both are quite similar as well so it won’t affect much of the words chosen on a spoken statement, since both means similarly giving recommendations to people and offering choices. To be brutally honest, I’ve rarely heard people saying allude as well as elude. It’s just me or it’s not being frequently used by people for their daily needs for conversation between their mates. Speaking of language, learning English vocabs for me in which to enrich them are not from teachers or from lessons, I do learn lots of vocabularies from games, music, specifically raps since it enrich your listening skills as well as your vocab due to the high number of words used per verse as well as the speed of those words spoken are helping me quite a lot in terms of listening in which it improves my English listening skills.
ReplyDeleteEnglish has always been a complex language which includes lots of details in its grammar which you should really understand. I studied English since I was in middle school, but even until now there are still some words that I don’t know and never heard of it before because English words are just so many. Each day, I always find a new English word that I never knew existed before. Looking at the words above, there are some words that I already know and lots of words that I didn’t know too. I often forget the difference between affect and effect. Therefore, I always have to google what’s the difference between those two words before I want to use one of them. Another word that I often get confused is advice and advise. Because first, it’s pronounced the same and second, the meaning of both words always confuses me as it both included the word ‘opinion’ in their definition. However, when I read the meaning of both words in the article repeatedly, I finally get it. This section really helped me to know more of English words than before.
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