Bare/bear; allowed/aloud; advice/advise; break/brake | Frequently confused words | Usage | Grammar Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello amen hello today
we're going to be talking about four
sets of frequently confused words and
the one that I want to begin with is
advice and advise how do we keep these
two words straight well first of all
advice with a c' is a noun and advise
with an S is a verb and these are really
easy to screw up because they look very
similar and you'd think that they have
approximately the same sound but the C
in advice actually ends up having a
sound and s and the s in advise ends up
having a Z sound as e sound so let's use
these both InnoCentive Bertram gives
terrible advice mo Paila advised us not
to surf on a full stomach so the word
advice the noun contains another noun
the word vice which is kind of like a is
a type of clamp usually tightened by
means of like a metal screw and you turn
it with a handle and in in my context in
my experience I've used it in
woodworking projects to keep pieces of
wood still so you want to clamp
something while it's being glued
together you've got two piece of wood
let's say this little piece of Redwood
and this little piece of blue would you
want to glue them together hold them
still with a vise so if you remember
that a vise is a noun you can remember
that advice is a noun and when you
advise someone yes you are giving them
advice but this is the verb form so now
we have two other words that sound the
same but are very different
we have allowed and allowed now there
are both adjectives but they have
different spellings and different
meanings so let's start with the first
aloud which is spelled al o UD note that
it has the word loud in it which can
help us remember that this word talks
about something being spoken loudly so
let's use that in a sentence Ginny
aloud so when we say aloud al o UD we
mean it's audible it can be heard times
that word aloud cool what's this next
one aloud with two L's and a good way to
remember this is to think about the word
legal which has two else if something is
legal it is also allowed or permissible
so let's think of an example
Oliver aloud know peppers in his soup
very allergic
he's very allergic yes similarly you
might be allowed to drive at 60 miles
per hour because it is legal to drive at
that speed sweet let's move on to our
next set so over here we have break and
break so these are both nouns and verbs
right to break something is to you know
crack it in half or to split or just to
ruin or destroy something but it also
refers to the results of a crack or a
split like you could say the break in a
vase and whereas break also a noun and a
verb refers to slowing stuff down so to
slow down or the mechanism that does the
slowing so we have here both verb form
and we have here the verb form and the
noun form so how do you remember the
difference between them let's let's take
it from the decision point so I'm
writing a sentence and I'm trying to
figure out which one I want to use so
let's just kind of imagine we've got
this Unwerth Rock here now if I want to
use the the break and destroy sense in
order to do that I just have to break
the word in half and put and put that e
right in the middle I broke the word in
half I put the the e right in the center
and that means that I've cracked the
words but let's say I've got rack over
here I want to slow down its forward
momentum I'm going to put that e right
at the end it looks sort of like a
spring we want to halt its momentum by
putting that e
at the end so let's put these into a
sentence okay so Jessie breaks a vase
and how do we remember to say breaks
with EI k well we put the e in the
middle we break the word in half we put
the e in the middle let's do the other
one
Paolo slammed on the brakes and how do
we remember we want to have the e at the
end well the e is trying to slow Paolo
down we're trying to halt that momentum
by putting that spring look and E at the
end of the word this one's one of my
favorites it's the difference between
bearbie ei R and bear be ar e now the
word bear ei R can be either a verb or a
noun and when it's a when it's a noun
it's this critter but when it's a verb
it means to carry and B ar e is an
adjective meaning naked or empty when I
say bare as a verb I mean that in the
sense of bearing a burden if you've
heard that expression or if you've ever
heard somebody say I can't bear it that
literally means I can't carry it but
metaphorically it means I can't
withstand it and there is something more
like the cupboards were bare meaning
empty yeah open up the cover to fly
comes out of something like that so how
do we keep these two words separate well
all you have to remember is this simple
mnemonic EE before a take it away a
before e everyone can see that you are
naked or that your cupboard is empty so
those are just a couple of mnemonic
devices just memory aids that will
ideally assist you in keeping these sets
of words straight you can learn anything
David out
Eman Oh