Hum...Those Darn Confusing English Words!

Here are some words that both non-natives and natives find confusing. During my 20 years of

 teaching English, I have often seen this confusion myself. Let's take a stab at these, shall we:

*Affect is a verb as in "She was affected by her parents's divorce."

*Effect is mostly a noun as in "We should wear sunscreen to protect our skin from the effects of the sun."

*Than is used for the comparison of two things as in "The population of Denmark is taller than the Japanese."

*Then is used to illustrate a period of time when something happens in succession "First I climbed the tree, then I picked the apple."

*There shows us where something is or to express a place as in "There is the ball over there by the bucket."

*Their is a possessive pronoun as in "Their (the designers) clothing line for the fall is highly anticipated."

*They're is a contraction for "they are" as in "They're from Indonesia and are standing over there, while their children were born here."

*Your is another possessive pronoun as in "Don't leave your bike in the street unattended, because someone will steal it."

*You're is another contraction for "you are" as in "Everyday you wake up, you're one day older."

*Whose is a possessive pronoun as in "Whose car is this?"

*Who's is a contraction as in "Who's going to the party tonight?"

*To is a preposition as in "I went to the store."

*Too is an adverb of degree as in "Sometimes students like to talk too much."

*Two is a number as in "They finally decided where to eat out of the two restaurant choices given."

*Accept is a verb as in "She accepted his apology after he suddenly snapped at her."

*Except can be used as both a preposition and a conjunction, depending on how the sentence is     structured and the context. It's a preposition as in "All the eggs except one broke."
                                         
*It's a conjunction as in "He would buy the suit, except that it costs too                                                    much."

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