ASKING & GIVING ADVICE. [CONFUSING 'ADVICE' vs 'ADVISE']

CONFUSING WORDS: DURING, FOR & WHILE

See the difference between 'DURING', 'FOR' & 'WHILE', so you don't confuse them.

CONFUSING: 'EVERY DAY' vs 'EVERYDAY'

Explanation by Laura Baker. The difference is in the part of speech.

Everyday is an adjective. It is used to describe that something always happens each day or the quality of being normal or usual.

Examples:

This is an everyday occurrence.

–Everyday is an adjective used to modify occurrence. The sentence means that this happens each day.

We are just your average, everyday people.

–Everyday is an adjective to modify people. The sentence means that we are average, normal people.

Every day is an adverb and noun. It is used adverbially to talk about time.

Examples:

This happens every day.

–Every is an adverb to modify day. It is not just some days that it happens, but every day.

I go to work every weekday.

–Every modifies weekday. This means that I don’t go to work on the weekends, just every weekday.

CONFUSING: 'HEAR' vs 'LISTEN'

CONFUSING: 'PERSON', 'PERSONS' OR 'PEOPLE'

This post helps you to distinguish when to use each of these words correctly:

- PERSON (singular): to refer to any person.

Joel is such a nice person.     She’s a person I have a lot of respect for

- PERSONS (plural): it's a formal word, mainly used in legal contexts:

Any person or persons found in possession of illegal substances will be prosecuted. 

- PEOPLE (plural): to refer to groups of people or human beings in general:

I saw three people standing on the corner.   Not: I saw three persons …

People are generally very selfish.

Three people were interviewed for the job, but only one person had the right qualifications and experience.

[Examples from Cambridge University Press]

PHRASAL VERBS: SLEEPING (CONFUSING 'WAKE UP' vs 'GET UP')

A post devoted to phrasal verbs related to sleeping and the difference between confusing WAKE UP & GET UP:

CONFUSED WORDS

'LIE' vs 'LAY'

Chart to distinguish the use of two confusing verbs LIE & LAY.

Remember that LIE has yet another meaning as verb and noun, meaning "to say something that isn't true".

THE 'D CONTRACTION

Explaining about the confusing contraction 'D, which can stand for WOULD or HAD. Here we explain what to expect after it depending on what case it is.

'TO' vs 'FOR'

Clarifying the confusing uses of 'TO' and 'FOR'.

'ON TIME' vs 'IN TIME'

USE OF ARTICLES A(N), THE

A and An =  indefinite articles (not a specific object; not everyone knows what you’re talking about)

• Eric has a dog.
• I’d like an apple.
• She works at a school.

The= definite article (a specific object that both the person speaking AND the listener know)

• The dog that lives next door is nice.
• I’d like the apple that is sitting on the table.
• She works at the school where my children go.

More on the use of article 'THE', HERE.

A few basic rules:

• The first time you speak of something, use  A or An.  The next time you repeat that object, use The.

I saw a mouse in my house.  The mouse was trying to run behind my refrigerator. 

We saw a movie last night.  We invited my friend to the movie, but she couldn’t join us. 

• DO NOT use an article with names of countries, states, cities, counties, lakes, sounds, falls, or mountains, EXCEPT when it’s a collection of states (such as the United States) or collection of mountains/lakes (the Cascade Mountains, the Great Lakes)

               I live in Bellevue, near Lake Washington. (NO articles)

               She lives in Issaquah, near the Cascade Mountains, close to Lake Sammamish.

               My son hiked Mt. Rainier last summer. (NO article)

• DO use a definite article with oceans, seas, and rivers.

               He lives near the Baltic Sea.

               We visited the Snoqualmie River.

• DO NOT use an article when speaking about things in general.

               I like Turkish tea.

              Jonny likes reading books about whales.

• When talking about schools or colleges, we generally DO NOT use an article (Bellevue College, Seattle University, Clyde Hill Elementary)  EXCEPT when the word College, University, or School comes FIRST (The University of Washington, The College of Connecticut, The School of Teaching ESL).

• We generally DO use a definite article for places/building that we generally know, such as the library, the mall, the grocery store, the bank, the post office.

• DO use a definite article when talking about superlatives (the most delicious cake, the longest road)

Exercise: Check this text for the correct use of articles:

CONFUSING: "AGENDA", "DIARY", "SCHEDULE" & "TIMETABLE"

Here a chart with a group of confusing words you must distinguish. Now that we're about to start a new course, we'll be having new timetables, starting a new diary and have lots of things in schedule. So if you want to distinguish these words well, look at the chart above.

'TRAVEL' vs 'TRIP' vs 'TOUR'

About to go on holiday... Here's a post to distinguish two confusing words: travel & trip, so that you can use them correctly.

CONFUSING: EACH / EVERY / EITHER / NEITHER

Take a look at this chart to distinguish the confusing uses of these words: EACH, EVERY, EITHER, NEITHER.

CONFUSING: 'LESS', 'FEWER', 'LAST', 'LATTER' & 'LATEST'

AGREEING: 'ALSO', 'AS WELL', 'SO' & 'TOO'

Take a look on how to use these different ways of agreeing which can be confusing.

+ about 'SO' & 'TOO' @ a previous post HERE.

EXPRESSING THE NEGATIVE: NO, NONE, NONE OF

The word no never precedes: a, an, the, any, much, many, enough. 

No is used:

• as an exclamation.
• as an adjective before singular and plural nouns.

Not is used:

• as an adverb to make a sentence negative. 
• to make an adjective or adverb negative.
• in short replies with a number of verbs.

Examples:

• We have no money in the bank now.
• We do not have any money in the bank now.

• There are no books in the bookcase.
• There are no English books in the bookcae.
• There are not any books in the bookcase.

• Do you like coffe? No, I don't.
• Didn't you finish it? No, I didn't.

• Don't you want this?               Not at all.
• Won't you be mad at us?        Not in the least.
• Aren't you going to go?          Not right now.
• Who took my book?                Not I.

IF YOU CAN SAY EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU SPEAK BETTER ENGLISH THAN 90% OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS

If you can pronounce this complete poem well, it's said that you speak better than 90% of the British population. The poem is called "THE CHAOS", written by Gerald Nolst Trenité in 1922 and shows the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation. Have a try, below there's a video where you can listen to it being read if you need help.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Video "THE CHAOS":

A / AN / SOME / ANY