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Welcome to our weekly audio lesson on ABC English Levels with Valentine.
This time I’ll explain some verbs that are easily confused, e.g: “rise” – “raise”, “lie – lay”, etc. Hope you’ll find it helpful and interesting. As usual, if you want me to talk about something especially interesting for you, get in touch with us via contact.
Look forward to hearing from you soon!
Verbs often confused
Hello, friends! Here we are again, ABC English Levels and Valentine. Get to know more about us and our courses on our web site abc-englishlevels.ru. I remind you about our new, self-study, completely interactive, game-like courses from A1 to C1 level. With video and audio material, topical vocabulary, your pronunciation test and many other really helpful and entertaining things, it’s worth trying. You should never miss it! Click the link and test the free demo here.
Today we are talking about some verbs that are easily confused. They are quite a lot, so I decided to introduce the most common ones and to make it more effective, I’ll put them in small groups of five pairs, five today and five in the next podcast. Let’s get started.
1) realize/notice
a) realize — to understand, sometimes suddenly, or become aware of a particular fact or situation. E.g., After a night in this hotel, I realized I had made a mistake in choosing it – it was too noisy.
b) notice — to see, hear or feel sth. E.g., My husband never notices or sees what I do with my hair.
“Realize” is connected more with judgement and conclusion often based on some evidence, while “notice” is connected more with our senses. Very often we can replace “notice” with “see” or “feel”.
2) rise/raise
a) rise — to go up (can’t have an object). E.g., The sun rises late in winter (no object).
b) raise — to make sth go up (needs an object). E.g., The company raises salaries (the object) after a long recession.
3) discuss/argue
a) discuss — have a conversation about sth. E.g., In the meetings, we often discuss new methods of marketing.
b) argue — talk often angrily to sb because you disagree about sth. E.g., Arguing about trivial things can ruin your relationships. Evidently, discussing is more effective than arguing, which is always destructive.
4) prevent/avoid
a) prevent — stop sth from happening. E.g., Jane’s parents prevent her from seeing her ex-boyfriend.
b) avoid — stop yourself from being in a situation. E.g., Jane avoids seeing her ex-boyfriend.
Sometimes both verbs can be used with little change in meaning. E.g., You should follow doctors’ advice to avoid/prevent the disease.
5) remind/remember
a) remind — make sb remember. E.g., This melody suddenly reminded me of the two weeks spent on the island.
b) remember — have a picture or idea from the past in your mind. E.g., I remember meeting my husband at a party then.
Mind that “remind” normally has the structure with an object and the preposition or to plus an infinitive: remind somebody (him, her, me, my friend etc.) of/about something or to do something. E.g. Remind me to call your teacher. I remind you about our new interactive eLearning course. Her smile reminds me of her mother. In this case, you can’t use “remember”
Now let’s try to practise. I’ll give you some sentences where you have to choose between the words in each couple.
1.
a) When I saw her deadly pale face, I realized/noticed that something terrible had happened. “Realized” is the right option here because a person made a conclusion, deduced something because of some evidence.
b) My husband never … when I change the colour of my hair. What do we put here? The correct answer is “notices”. My husband never notices or sees what I do with my hair.
2.
a) Everybody, who knows the answer, rise/raise your hand! “Raise” is the right option as we have an object “hand”.
b) The level of noise rises/raises during the rush hours. “Rises” is the right variant.
3.
a) Teenagers are often rebellious and discuss/argue with their parents. “Argue” goes here.
b) Before making a decision, I should discuss/argue the issue with my husband. “Discuss” is the correct variant here.
4.
a) Let’s take the ring road to avoid/prevent a traffic jam. “Avoid” fits well here.
b) After the accident, the traffic police are taking all possible measures to avoid/prevent the congestion on the road. “Prevent” goes right here.
5.
a) After a couple of shots of vodka, he usually starts to remember/remind his first weeks in the army. “Remember” is the right word here.
b) This film remembered/reminded him of his first weeks in the army.
This is all for today. Thank you for listening. Leave your comments below and follow us. In the next podcast, we’ll continue to find out the difference between confusing verbs.
This was ABC English Levels and me, your Valentine. Good luck!
