Confusing Words – affect & effect, compliment & complement, and more!

367,954 views ・ 2015-09-29

Adam’s English Lessons


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Hi. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam, and today's lesson: "Commonly Confused Words"
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is very important for those of you trying to learn vocabulary, but especially for those
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of you who need to write better. It's very important to write the correct word that you
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mean, and sometimes, the only difference between words is one letter, and this one letter makes
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a huge difference. Okay? So we're going to look at six sets of commonly confused words.
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Now, we're going to start with "affect" and "effect", and the difference being the "a"
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or the "e". Now, this is one of those pair of words that all teachers in every ESL school,
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in every ESL class always teach students, but they don't necessarily teach it completely,
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so that's what we're going to look at today. "Affect", verb, in any situation you're looking
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at it, but it basically has two different meanings. One is to have an influence or to
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influence something, someone. It basically means to have some sort of power over something
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to make some sort of change. The noun, they go together, if something affects someone
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or something, then the result of that is the effect. Now, I'm stressing the "e" here just
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so you hear it, but in reality, in spoken and natural spoken English: "affect", "effect",
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"affect", "effect". It sounds almost the same, so you have to be very careful. You especially
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have to think about the context. Okay? Context is very important in... With all these words,
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to know which one is being used, because the situation that you hear or read the word in
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will tell you which meaning it is. So the context is everything that is around the word.
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So "affect", to influence something; "effect" is the result or what that influence has done
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to something or someone.
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"To affect" also means to move someone emotionally. So if you affect someone, it means you have
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an emotional... You create an emotional reaction in them. Okay? You can affect them to the
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point of tears, means you're making them sad, you're making them so happy that they're crying.
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Now, here's the surprising one that many people don't realize: "effect" can also be a verb.
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So most ESL teachers will tell you "affect" is a verb, "effect" is a noun, that's it.
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But "effect" can also be a verb, it means to bring about.
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Okay? I'm actually going to write this down for you.
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Now, we especially talk about change. So, for example, a new
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manager comes into a department and he wants to effect a change, a corporate culture change.
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He wants to bring about or to cause a change. Now, this is a little bit of a formal word,
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it's a big of a high-end word. If you're writing the IELTS, or TOEFL, or SAT, this is a very
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good word to use as a verb, but make sure that you know how to use it correctly before
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you try. Cause, bring about. So, that's these ones.
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Next, we have "principle" and "principal". They sound the same, but obviously, different
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endings. This "principle" is basically a fundamental truth. Something... Like, for example, if
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you're talking about a scientific principle, this is the truth, and from this truth, we
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can make other truths or we can have other investigations into other areas. It's a fundamental
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truth. Now, when a person says that he or she has principles, and something goes against
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their principles, that means that they have a very, very strong belief, and they have
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a very strong way of doing something or looking at things, and other people can't change that.
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Okay? So that is a principle.
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But if we look at "principal" like this, we have three different meanings. One meaning,
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as a noun, is the head position of an organization. The most common use is at a school. The principal
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at a school is the head of the school; he runs the school or she runs the school. Another
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noun form... Another noun use-sorry-of "principal" is the money that you invest that brings you
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interest. Or if you take out a loan from the bank and you have to pay that money back,
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you will have to pay back the principal, which is the original money that they gave you,
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plus interest. So if you have a mortgage on your house and every month you're paying a
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little bit, you're paying a little bit from the principal and a little bit of interest
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until you pay back the whole loan. As an adjective it means-sorry-primary or first. The principal
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character in a novel means the main character, or the first character, or the most important
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character. Now, keep in mind, they will sound the same, but obviously you can see the difference
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in written English, so pay attention to that. Also, again, use context. Context will tell
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you which meaning you're looking at.
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Next, we have "compliment" and "complement". Compliment, complement, they sound almost
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identical. Both can be a noun or a verb. "Compliment" means nice words said about something or someone,
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or to say nice things. So if you want to compliment me on my lovely shirt today, by all means,
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do so in the comments section at engVid. But if you don't want to compliment me, that's
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okay, too. But you can complement this lesson by giving people, your peers more examples.
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"To complement" means to complete or to add something to make the whole more complete.
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So, for example, if you go to a restaurant and you order a nice steak, the waiter will
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suggest a good wine to complement that steak. It means the wine flavour and the steak flavour
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work together to have a complete, full flavour that you can enjoy. Okay? Compliment, complement.
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Let's look at a few more.
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Okay, so let's look at our next batch of words. Now, these three, they might seem like they're
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not really problematic because you can see the differences quite clearly, you will also
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hear the differences, but surprisingly, these words are confused quite often, especially
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these two. Now, this is "moral", this is "morale", and this is "mortal". Now, you think because
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of the "t" it should be no problem, but in natural speed English, that "t" is very, very
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soft. "My mortal enemy." So that "t" is almost disappearing, and so it sounds like a little
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bit like "moral" as well. So, when you're... If you're listening to something, you might
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get that confused.
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Now, what is a "moral"? As a noun, when you talk about a fable or a little... It sounds
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like a children's story, but it has a lesson to be learned. There's a lesson to be learned
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from this story, so we call that lesson the moral. The moral of the story is: Be nice
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to your neighbours, or whatever the moral is. As an... As an adjective, we can also
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say "moral" when we're talking about the choice between good and bad. We talk about social
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values, we talk about the choice between good and bad, good and evil if you want to call
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it, then we're talking about moral, a moral choice. When we use the noun, it's usually
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"morals". We have to worry about our morals as a society; or when you go to church, they
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teach you morals; or when you're growing up, your parents teach you morals. They teach
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you what's good, what's bad, what's right, what's wrong. Okay? So that's "moral".
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"Morale", a noun, is a basic feeling or attitude that is shared by a group. It could be a personal
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thing as well. So when you're talking about an office full of workers, a good manager
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will make sure that the morale is high, that everybody's excited, everybody's passionate,
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everybody wants to be there and everybody wants to work. It's a general good feeling.
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So a high morale. If you have low morale, it means everybody's like dejected; nobody
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wants to be there, nobody wants to work, everybody feels bad. You won't get much work done.
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"Mortal" could be a noun or an adjective. A noun is basically a human being, because
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we're all going to die. Adjective "mortal" means something that can die. Okay? So my
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mortal enemy is my enemy that's going to kill me, or a mortal plant, or a mortal animal
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can kill. So "mortal" has to do with death. Okay? So these three are often confused; be
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careful about those.
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These two, they look different, they sound different, but they're often mixed, they're
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often confused. "Personal". If you're talking about "personal", you're talking about yourself,
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your private ideas, your private thoughts, your private choices or somebody else's private
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things. Right? So it's a personal decision. You shouldn't ask me if you should go or stay...
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Stay or go. It's a personal decision. I can't tell you. It's for you to make. It's private.
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Here, this is "personnel". So, here, "personal", "personnel". "Personnel" basically... Basically
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means staff. So the personnel in a company, we're talking about staff. All the employees
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are the personnel. Basically, any group of people who are involved in something is the
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personnel. It doesn't have to be in a company, but that's where you'll most commonly see
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it used. So these two, you can't mix.
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Now, before I continue, I just want to say one last... One more thing. You have to make
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sure that you know the differences between all of these, especially for tests like IELTS
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where spelling counts. So you have one letter difference. One letter will cost you a point
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on the IELTS. Okay? So it's very important to know. In tests like SAT that want to check
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your vocabulary, they will make sure that you know the differences between certain words.
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So, which brings us to the last batch: "censor", "sensor", "censure". The only difference is
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this "h" sounds like an "sh". But again, in native speed, in native speakers' English,
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you won't hear that "sh": "censure". In a sentence, it'll sound the same as "censor".
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So, what is a "censor"? It can be a noun. As a noun, it is a person who does the censoring.
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As a verb, "to censor" means to cut out or to stop from becoming publically available.
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So when you're talking about news, the news you see... Or any news, for example, about
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the military, okay? The military censors all of the information, so any information that
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they don't want the public to have, they will keep back. They will keep out of the media.
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They will censor it. They will put a block. Okay?
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A "sensor" is something that detects. Okay? So, for example, you have a smoke detector,
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it has a little sensor inside that feels the smoke and then starts making all the noise
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that a smoke alarm does. In your camera or in your phone or in your anything, there's
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a light sensor. It sensors how much light there is or isn't. So, again, it comes from
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the word "sense", to feel or to detect because machines don't really feel. Right? So...
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"Censure" is to express disappointment or anger at someone, but usually in a public
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way. So, for example, if I'm the teacher and I have a bad student in my class, I may censure
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that student in front of all the other students. I will say, you know: "You're behaving badly,
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and you shouldn't do that, and you're disturbing your peers", and not very good. So I will
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censure the student. Now, for most of you, you're not going to use this word, you're
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not going to hear it too often. If you're going to take an SAT test, for example, you
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definitely need to know words like this.
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So, if you want to practice all... Your understanding of these words,
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go to www.engvid.com, there's a quiz.
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You can also ask me any questions in the comment section.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I'll see you again soon.
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Bye.
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