ACCEPT vs EXCEPT Meaning, Pronunciation, and Difference | Learn with Example English Sentences

Hi, everyone. I’m Esther.

In this video, I’m going to talk about two similar sounding and confusing English words

‘accept’ and ‘except’.

We will work on pronunciation and usage to help you master these words.

Let’s get started.

First, let’s start with ‘accept’.

Listen carefully to how I say it.

‘accept’

‘accept’

It's a verb.

The main meaning of ‘accept’ is to agree or receive something that is offered to you.

Someone wants to give you something and you accept.

We accept things.

Let’s look at some examples.

The first sentence says,

‘I can accept a gift from my friend.’

So if a friend offers a gift to you,

you can take it or accept it.

The second sentence says,

‘When Tony asked Leslie to marry him,

she happily accepted.’

So Tony asked Leslie to marry him and she agreed.

She accepted this offer.

Now, I will talk about ‘except’.

Listen to how I say it.

‘except’

‘except’

It is often a preposition.

It means to not include something.

Let’s look at some example sentences.

The first sentence says,

‘I like all fruit except grapes.’

So out of all the fruits,

I like them all,

but I don't like grapes.

I am showing that I don't want to include grapes in this sentence.

The next sentence says,

‘Everyone passed the exam except for Robin.’

So again, there's a group and everybody is included

except for Robin.

Robin is not included in the group that passed the exam.

Now, let's do a checkup.

In this conversation, there are two sentences.

In one of the sentences, we should use the word ‘accept’.

In the other, we should use ‘except’.

Take a moment to think about where we use ‘accept’ and ‘except’.

‘A’ says,

‘Did you _blank_ the new company position?’

A new company position is an offer

and someone can choose to take it.

In that case, you say ‘accept’.

‘Did you accept the new company position?’

‘B’ says, ‘Yes, I now have to work every day _blank_ Sundays.’

This person now has to work almost every day of the week but Sundays.

So we're not including one of the days of the week.

And so we use ‘except’.

Again ‘B’ says, ‘Yes, I now have to work every day except Sundays.’

Now, let's take a look at this as a whole.

‘A’ says,

‘Did you accept the new company position?’

And ‘B’ says, ‘Yes, I now have to work every day except Sundays.’

Now you know the difference between ‘accept’ and ‘except’.

Be sure to practice these two words.

Thank you guys for watching this video and I’ll see you in the next video.