Top 10 Most Confusing Words for Advanced English Learners

227,129 views ・ 2017-03-21

Learn English with Rebecca


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:01
Hi.
0
1886
707
00:02
I'm Rebecca from engVid.
1
2618
1660
00:04
There are really only two ways to improve your English: Go forward and learn what's
2
4451
5914
00:10
right, and go back and correct what's wrong.
3
10390
3939
00:14
In this lesson we're going to do a little bit of both.
4
14354
4150
00:18
We're going to look at 10 confusing words and see if you know the difference.
5
18529
7215
00:25
Sometimes it's a different word form, sometimes it's actually a different verb altogether,
6
25769
5655
00:31
or a different word.
7
31449
1391
00:32
So, let's look at these.
8
32840
1690
00:34
They are confused very often, so stick with me and you'll understand the difference.
9
34530
4755
00:39
Let's get started.
10
39310
1645
00:41
The first one: "How can I succeed?"
11
41135
3993
00:45
or "How can I success?"
12
45153
2775
00:48
So obviously the pair we're talking about here is "succeed" and "success".
13
48011
5445
00:53
So, what is correct in number one?
14
53481
1959
00:55
"How can I succeed?" or "How can I success?"
15
55440
4706
01:01
The answer is:
16
61721
1859
01:06
"succeed". Okay?
17
66177
1947
01:08
All right.
18
68149
914
01:09
Number two:
19
69219
1027
01:10
"How can I achieve succeed?" or "How can I achieve success?"
20
70271
6049
01:16
What's the right answer?
21
76601
1370
01:18
Do you know?
22
78878
1107
01:20
I hope so.
23
80290
1100
01:21
It is: "How can I achieve success?"
24
81673
4875
01:26
All right?
25
86573
964
01:27
So, what happened here?
26
87562
1914
01:29
Well, "succeed" is the verb.
27
89652
3530
01:33
All right?
28
93549
995
01:34
And "success" is the noun.
29
94821
4143
01:39
That's a really important difference.
30
99105
2786
01:42
Thousands and thousands of students, probably millions make a mistake with these two words.
31
102039
6567
01:48
So make sure you are not one of those.
32
108631
3420
01:52
All right?
33
112124
704
01:52
Let's go on.
34
112853
1420
01:54
Number three:
35
114396
742
01:55
"Smoking affected her health."
36
115163
3544
01:58
or "Smoking effected her health."
37
118860
3704
02:02
All right?
38
122589
701
02:03
I hope you can hear the difference in pronunciation and also in spelling.
39
123290
5497
02:08
So, what's the correct answer here?
40
128812
2383
02:11
"Smoking affected her health." or "...effected her health."?
41
131220
5465
02:16
It should be:
42
136921
1647
02:19
"Smoking affected her health."
43
139539
3106
02:22
Very good.
44
142840
1141
02:24
And number four:
45
144218
2203
02:26
"Smoking had a bad affect on her."
46
146446
3869
02:30
or "Smoking had a bad effect on her."?
47
150340
4736
02:35
What's the difference?
48
155526
1840
02:38
Well, it should be:
49
158246
2004
02:40
"Smoking had a bad effect on her."
50
160275
5180
02:45
So the two words we were looking at here were "affect" and "effect".
51
165556
4940
02:50
And which one is the verb?
52
170521
1770
02:52
"Affect" is the verb and "effect" is a noun.
53
172470
5621
02:58
All right?
54
178214
891
02:59
Good.
55
179135
1000
03:00
Number five:
56
180160
1259
03:01
"Could you give me some advise?" or "Could you give me some advice?"
57
181555
6718
03:08
What's the correct word there?
58
188577
2360
03:11
"Could you give me some
59
191620
4955
03:16
advice?" Okay?
60
196600
2106
03:18
Good.
61
198731
938
03:19
And number six: "Could you advise me?" or "Could you advice me?"
62
199694
5778
03:26
Which is correct?
63
206400
1721
03:28
It should be: "Could you advise me?"
64
208416
5470
03:34
Two words here: "advise" and "advice".
65
214019
3644
03:37
"Advise" is the verb, and "advice" is the noun.
66
217687
8238
03:45
Now, also, "advice" is a non-count noun, so we cannot say: "advices".
67
225971
8394
03:54
All right? Sometimes people say: "advice", but then they make it "advices".
68
234390
4128
03:58
That's not correct.
69
238543
1130
03:59
You can't say that.
70
239698
1405
04:01
So, "advise" which is spelt with an "s" but sounds like a "z",
71
241128
5301
04:06
and "advice" which is the noun.
72
246454
2626
04:09
Now, don't worry.
73
249275
1507
04:10
If you got any of these wrong we have actually detailed lessons on each of these points which
74
250807
5683
04:16
I will refer you to afterwards.
75
256515
2010
04:18
Okay? Stick with me.
76
258550
1490
04:20
Number seven:
77
260278
1010
04:21
"We will choice the new Prime Minister (PM)."
78
261313
4866
04:26
or "We will choose the new Prime Minister."?
79
266485
4343
04:31
What do you think it should be?
80
271375
1934
04:33
"We will
81
273783
1927
04:38
choose the new Prime Minister."
82
278721
2769
04:41
Okay? Good.
83
281490
1379
04:43
"He was our first choice."
84
283138
3254
04:46
or "He was our first choose."
85
286470
4371
04:51
Which one is it?
86
291300
1016
04:52
Can you tell?
87
292520
1303
04:54
"He was our first
88
294404
1971
04:58
choice." Okay?
89
298324
1592
04:59
So, here again, "choose" is the verb and "choice" is the noun.
90
299941
6538
05:06
Okay?
91
306479
619
05:07
We made a choice, but we chose him.
92
307123
3921
05:11
"Choose" in the past becomes "chose".
93
311400
3194
05:14
All right?
94
314619
730
05:15
"Choose", "chose", "choice", you have to work with them-all right?-to really master those words.
95
315349
6021
05:21
And the last one: "They emigrated to Canada."
96
321370
5210
05:26
or "They immigrated to Canada."?
97
326580
4158
05:31
Which one is it?
98
331266
975
05:32
This one is confused a lot, and actually one of our other engVid teachers, Emma, has done
99
332266
7248
05:39
a great one on this one.
100
339539
1400
05:40
So if you're confused, I'm going to tell you where you can find her lesson, too.
101
340939
3667
05:44
So: "They emigrated to Canada."
102
344722
3030
05:48
or "They immigrated to Canada."?
103
348150
3350
05:51
Well, it should be: "They immigrated to Canada."
104
351500
6818
05:58
Okay?
105
358343
966
05:59
And number 10: "They emigrated from Mexico."
106
359568
4737
06:04
or "They immigrated from Mexico."?
107
364330
3790
06:08
Okay?
108
368364
1343
06:09
This time you have both verbs.
109
369914
1555
06:11
Right?
110
371494
653
06:12
So if that was "immigrated", this one is actually "emigrated".
111
372172
4543
06:16
"They emigrated from Mexico."
112
376770
2509
06:19
Now, here, it's not a question.
113
379279
2026
06:21
They're both verbs.
114
381330
1124
06:22
Okay?
115
382479
539
06:23
"Emigrate" is a verb and "immigrate" is a verb, but what's the difference?
116
383043
3972
06:27
You see that you immigrate to a place, but you emigrate from somewhere else.
117
387040
6558
06:33
All right?
118
393623
858
06:34
Now, if you got any of these wrong, don't worry, it's actually quite common to make
119
394506
6498
06:41
mistakes with these words.
120
401029
1705
06:42
But there are some steps you can take to fix this problem.
121
402759
4240
06:47
First you've taken the right step by watching this lesson.
122
407024
3400
06:50
Now you can go to our website, www.engvid.com, do a quiz on this just to reinforce that.
123
410449
7753
06:58
Also, check our lesson description because you're going to have links to detailed lessons
124
418227
6032
07:04
on each of these points.
125
424259
1706
07:05
So if you didn't get it here...
126
425990
1630
07:07
This was like a review, but if you need a detailed explanation, you can watch one of
127
427645
5827
07:13
the videos-okay?-on that topic.
128
433497
2344
07:15
And, of course, don't forget to subscribe to my channel because I keep pointing out
129
435903
4986
07:20
all kinds of things to you that will make a big difference in your English.
130
440889
4571
07:25
Thanks very much for watching.
131
445460
1691
07:27
Bye for now and good luck with your English.
132
447176
1827
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7