Fewer or Less? Bored or Boring? An English Lesson on Confusing Word Pairs!

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

Welcome to this English lesson about confusing word pairs.

When you are learning English, sometimes you will learn

two words that maybe have slightly different meanings.

Maybe they have slightly different pronunciations,

but you kind of get confused sometimes.

You're not sure when to use one word,

and when to use the other.

So in this English lesson, I'll go over a number

of confusing English word pairs.

The first pair I want to start with is the word shade

and the word shadow.

So I am standing under a tree right now,

because it is a sunny day, I am in the shade of the tree.

So the sun hits the tree and it creates this beautiful area

under the tree where there's lots of shade.

If you stand beside a building on a sunny day,

you can also stand in the shade of a building.

But a shadow is something like this.

It's very similar.

If you look on the ground behind me, you can see

that I have a shadow.

You can even see the shadow of the camera a little bit

if I point down a little further.

So again, the difference between the first two

confusing words, shade is something that you find

underneath a tree or beside a building on a sunny day.

And a shadow is what the sun creates on the ground

when you walk outside on a sunny day.

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So the next two words I wanted to talk about

are the words collar, and color.

You'll notice we actually spell the word color

with a u here in Canada.

But collar and color can be hard for people to pronounce.

They have a slightly different pronunciation.

You'll notice that Oscar is wearing a collar.

I'm not sure he's too happy to show you his collar,

but dogs and cats often wear collars.

The color of my shirt is blue.

Oscar is wearing a collar, I am wearing a shirt

and the color of my shirt is blue.

And just to confuse things a little bit, my shirt also

has a collar.

So the next two words I wanted to talk to you about

are the words word and world.

Sometimes when you're listening to a native English speaker,

they'll speak so quickly that you won't be sure if they said

word or world and sometimes when you are speaking English,

it's hard to pronounce each word properly,

and to pronounce them in a way where they sound different

because they do sound different.

So I think I'll just say each word a few times.

In fact, this bike has a word on the front it says magic.

Apparently it's a magic bike.

And we all live in the world.

So this bike has a word on the front and we all live

in the world.

So the next two words are the words brake and break.

You could see that I was just driving my van

and in order to stop my van, I need to push the brake pedal.

A brake is something that will stop a vehicle

from going forward.

But if I had a stick and I wanted to make the stick smaller,

I would break the stick.

Hopefully I'm strong enough to do this.

There we go.

So I was able to break the stick.

If I wanted to make it smaller again,

I could break it again.

So when you drive a vehicle and you want to stop,

you need something called a brake.

And when you have a stick or something else

and you want to make it smaller, you can break it.

I want almost didn't break.

There we go.

The next two words I want to talk about

are the words give and take.

And I thought I would use this basketball

in order to demonstrate their meaning.

I have the basketball I can give the basketball to someone.

And if I don't want them to have it anymore,

I can take it from them.

So once again, give and take, if I have a basketball,

I can give it to someone.

And then if I don't want them to have it anymore,

I can take it away from them again.

The next two words are the words high and tall.

When you climb a ladder, you climb a ladder

because you want to go somewhere high in the air.

So when you use the word high, you're talking about

a location that's far above the ground.

If you use the word tall, though, you're simply talking

about how tall someone is.

So I am five foot 11 inches tall.

I know it's kind of weird we use metric in Canada,

but when we talk about height, we still use feet and inches.

So I'm five foot 11 inches tall, but if I climb this ladder,

I can go somewhere high in the air.

The next two words that you might find confusing,

are the words loose and lose.

The best way for me to demonstrate that is with my belt.

My belt is actually loose, I need to tighten my belt.

Because it's a little bit loose.

You can see I can do this my belt is loose.

My belt is loose because I walk a lot

and I'm starting to lose weight.

So notice the difference in meaning

and pronunciation between the two.

My belt is loose, because I exercise a lot

and I am getting thinner I am starting to lose weight.

The next two words I wanted to talk about

are the words different and difference.

I've noticed that sometimes when people

are learning English, they will confuse these two words

and use them improperly.

These wrenches are different, these wrenches

are not the same.

So when I want to describe the fact that they do not

look alike, I would say that these wrenches are different.

If I wanted to talk about it in detail, though, I could say

the difference between these two wrenches

is that this wrench is black, and this wrench is silver.

Another difference between these two wrenches

is that this wrench is small, and this wrench is big.

So these wrenches are different.

And you'll notice they have a lot of differences.

So the next two words I wanted to talk about

are the words fewer and less.

You can see that I have two stacks of pails here.

But this stack of pails has fewer pails than this stack.

Because we can count the number of pails because pails

are countable, we would use the word fewer.

So there are fewer pails in this stack

than there are in this deck.

But oops.

If I show you these two pails, this pail is heavier

than this pail because this pail has less water in it.

Sorry I can hardly hold this pail up

this pail has more water and this pail has less water

so it's lighter.

So because water is not countable,

we would use the word less.

So there were fewer pails in one stack,

but there is less water in this pail

compared to the other pail.

The next two words are the words passed and past.

You can see that they are spelled differently,

but they sound almost exactly the same.

In fact, when we speak English quickly,

they sound identical.

Do you want the ball? Okay?

You can see that I just passed the ball to someone.

Someone over there wanted the ball,

so I passed the ball to them.

But if I was talking about something I did yesterday,

I would say that I did it in the past.

I might start a sentence by saying in the past,

I used to be a lot funnier, and now as I get older,

I'm a little more serious.

That's not true, by the way, but it was a good example

sentence between talking about today

and talking about the past.

The next two words are the words man and men.

Man is singular, men is plural.

But I have to apologize because native English speakers

sometimes speak so quickly.

It's hard to tell whether we said man or men.

But I am a man, my brothers are men.

So notice the singular form, I am a man,

and my brothers are men.

So I know you understand the difference between

man being singular meaning one person, and men being plural,

meaning two or more men.

But I just know that sometimes even when I speak quickly,

people who are listening to me can't understand

whether I said man, or men.

The next two words are the words come and go.

So let's imagine you and I are having

an actual conversation.

You're standing or sitting right there and I am right here.

The simplest explanation that I can give you is this.

You are there I am here and now I am going to leave

I am going to go that direction.

So it's important that you think about the fact

that we are in the same place.

And now I'm going to go.

Now that I'm over here and you are over there,

I am now going to come towards you.

So I am going to come towards the camera,

and I'm going to come towards you and now we are both

in the same place again.

So hopefully, that helped you understand a little bit

the difference between come and go.

I do have to apologize again though, because in English

we do use these in a variety of ways.

But that is the most basic and clearest explanation

that I can give you.

The next two words are the words fun and funny.

When you describe someone, or when you describe an event

or something and you use the word fun, it means one thing

and if you use the word funny, it means something different.

So here's the best way to remember

if you say that Bob the Canadian is fun, you would smile.

Okay, that would mean that Bob the Canadian

is a nice person.

When you are hanging out with Bob the Canadian

you have a good time, you enjoy yourself, you smile a lot.

So when you say that someone is fun, or when you say that

something is fun, it means that you enjoy it,

it means that you smile a lot.

If you say a person is funny, it means you laugh a lot.

So if you say Bob, the Canadian is funny,

it means you're like, you're just always laughing,

whenever you are talking to me.

It would mean that I tell a lot of jokes.

And it would mean that I make you laugh.

If you say that you went and did something and it was funny,

it also means that it made you laugh.

So think about it this way, a smile is smaller than a laugh

and the word fun is smaller than the word funny.

So if you say something is fun, or if you say

someone is fun, you smile.

And if you say something is funny, or you say someone

is funny, it makes you laugh.

That was a really fake laugh.

Sorry about that but it's hard to laugh on cue, isn't it?

The next two words are the words interesting and interested.

And I need to confess that when I speak French,

I usually get these words mixed up.

And I usually use the wrong one.

But I could say that this tree is interesting.

When you say that something is interesting,

it means that there's something cool about it.

You could say, that person is interesting,

that tree is interesting.

But when you start to talk about yourself, and the things

that you think are interesting,

you can then use the word interested.

So I could say, I am interested in studying trees.

I am interested in taking classes.

So a person or a thing can be interesting.

But you yourself can be interested if you like those things

and want to study about them more, or read about them more.

So I would say, this tree is interesting.

But if I really like trees, I could say I'm interested

in trees and I'm interested in studying trees.

The next two words are the words boring and bored.

The best way to describe this would be what happens to you

if you think I am boring?

So you would use the word boring to describe someone

or something or an event.

You could say, Bob, the Canadian is boring.

So you are describing me.

Now let's talk about what happens if I'm boring.

If I am boring, you might be bored.

Okay, so get the difference.

If I am boring, you might be bored.

If you go and do something fun with someone,

and you don't find it that exciting, you might say,

this is boring.

I really don't like doing this.

This is boring.

So you are describing the activity as being boring.

You yourself though, would say I'm bored.

Okay, so the activity is boring.

And it makes you bored.

Well, hey, thanks for watching this little English lesson

about confusing word pairs.

I hope I was able to clarify some things for you.

I'm Bob the Canadian.

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