DON'T Get These Words Mixed Up | Confusingly Similar Words

An enemy, anemone. What? Okay, these  English words are confusing. Stick with me,  

you're going to improve your  pronunciation and learn some new words.

Today we’re going over words that are confusingly  

similar in English. This video is dedicated to my  English language learners but everyone is welcome.

Yesterday, I was reading a book  with my son. It was this book  

and in it, we were reading about sea creatures.  Specifically this sea creature. And I read “The  

sea anemone looks like a flower.”  He stopped me and said, “An enemy?”

You see, and anemone and an enemy are very  similar. Just one switch sound. An enemy is  

bad, someone who’s hostile. Opposed to someone or  something. So my son was kind of concerned that  

enemies were in this book. I hope in your life  you only have friends and allies, no enemies.

Anemone on the other hand is this thing. And  I got to see some once of the coast of Oregon.  

This is my husband. I’m behind the camera.

Hey! He grabbed me a little bit.

He did?

He thought I was food.

Oh wow. Weird.

Let’s make a little tongue twister. An enemy,  anemone. An enemy, anemone. An enemy, anemone. An  

enemy, anemone. An enemy, anemone. Slow it down  if you need to but this will be a great way to  

practice relaxation with the N sound. See, N is  made just with the front part of the tongue. N.  

And some of my students use the  back of their tongue which makes it  

sound more like and NG. Ng, ng. They put  tension there. We want the back relaxed,  

the tongue nice and wide, n, nananana.  Anemone, an enemy, anemone. Okay. Moving on.

Now this one, my niece messed up in a  job interview. She was pretty embarrassed.  

I asked her about it.

Emily, tell me about your job interview.

I was in a job interview and they asked me,  “When you encounter a problem that you can’t fix,  

what do you do?” And I said, “Sometimes you just  need to twerk it until you find a solution.”

(Laughing)

And you meant

And I meant sometimes you just need  to tweak it until you find a solution.

And they looked at me like  “What is she talking about?”

So did you not feel totally solid on either of  

those words or you did and just  was like oops, it just happened?

I knew I shouldn’t say tweak,  

I knew I shouldn’t say twerk but tweak  and twerk got confused in my brain.

Yeah.

I knew that twerk was wrong but it just  

came out and I mixed them up at  that moment under the stress.

Did they say anything?

They sort of looked at each other but,  sort of, just kept on going and ignored it.

Did you get the job?

I did get a job offer but I said no to it.

Okay. So even though you said twerk it in  the job interview you still got the job?

I still got the job.

Tweak versus twerk. Tweak means to improve  something by making an adjustment to it. For  

example, if I’m in my studio trying to get  a shot and the lighting isn’t quite right,  

I might say, “We need to tweak the lighting.”  Make minor adjustments. Turn this one up,  

move this one a little bit. It’s not a major  change. Just a little something. A tweak!

Twerk on the other hand is a dance  that involves jiggling your butt.  

I’m going to put a link right here to a video  that has a lot of good examples of twerking.  

It’s explicit and you will see a lot of  butts in it. Behind, rear-ends. But you can  

see why you wouldn’t want to talk about  twerking something in a job interview.

Hopefully, they understood what my niece meant  when she said twerk understood that she meant  

tweak. Make a little change. Nothing to do  with your behind. By the way, if you've ever  

mixed up a word or you find two words really  confusing, put them in the comments below.

Have you ever wondered about the difference  between wonder and wander? Wonder with an o  

has the uh as in butter vowel. Wonder, wonder. It  means to think. To speculate, to be curious. Hmm,  

I wonder what David is going to make for dinner.  To wander means to go aimlessly, casually.  

We wandered around the farmer’s market for a  while. It can also be something you do with  

your mind. Rachel, are you paying attention?  Sorry, I let my thoughts wander. This means  

I let my thoughts aimlessly take their own  path. My mind wandered. I wasn’t focused.  

If I wonder what David is making for dinner, I  might wander downstairs to see what he’s cooking.  

I’m going to wander down. I’m not going to rush  down. If I see one of the boys playing in their  

room or the living room, I might stop and play  a while. Remember, wandering is to go somewhere  

without rushing, without great purpose. I want to  see what David is cooking but I’m open to being  

distracted along the way. Wander spelled with  an A, the ah as in father vowel.

Wander, wonder.

Some example sentences with wander and wonder.

I wonder if she saw my email.

It’s now wonder you’re hungry, you haven’t eaten all day.

Do you have any plans today? No, I’m just  going to wander about and explore the town.

I wonder if you can pass this 5-question quiz.  

It’s a lot easier than the quiz that’s coming  later in this video. I’m going to play some  

clips. Tell me based on the pronunciation and  the context if you’re hearing wonder or wander.

Do you w*nder what your opponent might be wearing?  

Do you speculate about it? Think about it? Are  you curious about it? That’s wonder with an O.

Ed Koch used to w*nder around New York City.

W*nder around.

Now, that’s a clue. If the next word is around,  this is probably going to be wander with an A.  

Walk around without a clear direction.

Which made me w*nder, how  often do I really rest at home?

Made me w*nder. Made me think about this.

Wonder with an O.

Visitors can w*nder through  the centuries-old temples.

W*nder through. Walk through slowly,  experience, move about casually, not rushing.

Wander with an a.

Relax and let your mind w*nder gives your  subconscious mind time to take up ideas.

Mind. But we’re not talking about thinking.  We’re talking about letting your mind move  

without direction or objective.  Just letting your mind w*nder.

That’s wander with an a.

Okay, this next one, I messed  up recently in writing. Oops.

I mixed up imminent and eminent.

And there’s also immanent pronounced just  like imminent but with a different spelling  

and a totally different meaning. How cruel is  that? Pronounced the same, spelled differently,  

totally different meanings.

First, let’s talk about the first two.

Imminent with the letter I. Starts with  an ih as in sit vowel. Ih, imminent.  

And everything else about the  pronunciation is the same as  

eminent with an e. Imminent means  lightly to occur at any moment.

I haven’t gotten the Covid vaccine yet, but Philly  has opened it up to anybody, so it’s imminent.

I think I’ll be getting my phone  call saying it’s my turn any day now.

We haven’t quite finished the project yet but  the delivery is imminent. It’s almost done.  

Imminent. About to happen.

Eminent with an e, totally different  meaning. We have the e as in bed vowel.  

Eminent. It means distinguished, prominent,  high in station, in other words, important.

She’s an eminent local artist.  

People around town know her. Know her  work. She’s important and respected.

Okay now, Immanent. Spelled differently than  our first word but pronounced the same. I admit,  

the first two words I’ve used. This one, I’ve  never used. It’s pretty advanced vocabulary.  

It means inherent. Existing within something.  Respect is immanent in my marriage. Respect  

lives within that relationship.  This is a sentence I got online.

The protection of liberties  is imminent in constitutional  

arrangements. Protection of liberties.  Rights exist within the constitution.

Okay, this quiz is going to be a lot  harder than the wander, wonder quiz.

I feel very honored to be with _______  panelists to talk about South Korea.

An ________ panelists will be  discussing South Korea.

If it’s a person, it can’t be this imminent, that  means about to happen. That doesn’t really work  

with people. But this person is someone respected  and known for his or her knowledge of South Korea.

Eminent with an e.

You can’t separate _________ and transcendent  nor can you separate mundane and divine.

Okay, this is the third word, immanent and  its most common use is like this. Related to  

religion and philosophy. You can’t separate  something that lives within something else.

And instead of the _________ destruction of the  planet, it’s a gradual warming over decades.

Comparing ___________ destruction,  something’s that about to happen  

with something that will happen slowly over time.

This is our first word. Imminent.

Two more questions.

Pre-emptive meaning that you see that an attack  is in the works. It’s __________ it’s mobilized  

and you try to strike before  your enemy can strike you.

If something is in the works,  that means it’s a process that  

started. The first steps of  the process are already done.  

Therefore, the attack is imminent. It’s about  to happen. This is our first word again.

Robert Cialdini, a great _________  researcher from Arizona state University.

Describing a person here. Important in his  field of study. This one is our second word,  

eminent with an e. Let’s go over  our three pronunciations again.

Imminent, eminent, immanent. Say them with me now.

Imminent.

Eminent.

Immanent.

Preeminent is word related to our second  word. It means surpassing all others  

very distinguished in some way.

He is the preeminent demographer for Florida.

No one in the world knows more about  the population of Florida than he does.

Okay. I wonder if your mind wandered in that  last quiz. If something is hard to understand  

or you find it boring, we sometimes tune  out, stop listening and let our minds wonder.

If your pronunciation of these words isn’t  perfect, just twerk them.

Wait, I mean tweak them.  

Goodness!

These words are confusing.  What word pairs confuse you?  

Put them in the comments and keep your learning  going right now with this great video. I make  

new videos on the English language every Tuesday  and I’d love to have you back. Don’t forget to  

subscribe and click the notification bell. That’s  it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.