Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 501. The title of the lesson today is the difference
between unsatisfactory and unsatisfying. ( And Satisfactory and Satisfying as well ) Yeah. Sometimes students, especially students of ESL
might mix up these two because they sound kind of similar. There is some meanings that sometimes it
could be true in both situations where something could be both unsatisfactory and unsatisfying
at the same time , but in a lot of situations we should really be using one instead of the other.
Okay. If somebody wants a screenshot do it right now. Let's get right to it.
something that is unsatisfactory is not good enough. It is considered to be below
acceptable standards. It is not as good as it should be. Okay. If something is unsatisfying.
It's, it's more personal to your personal taste. It is not living up to one's expectations
of what one hoped for or or is not happening the way you liked or you know it's not giving
you pleasure. You could say it's unsatisfying in that way. All right. Let's continue. So remember,
a lot of these ones here if they have the X that would be wrong. Where the check is
that would be correct. So here's the first one. The teacher said his homework was unsatisfying.
No this one should definitely be unsatisfactory. The ...it was not, it was below an acceptable
level. It's not like the child's homework should satisfy her or give her pleasure.
So of course this would not be unsatisfying. This should be unsatisfactory.
Let's look at the second one. The boss said his work performance was unsatisfying and fired him.
Well the word that's more appropriate here is unsatisfactory. It was not an acceptable level.
I don't know was the boss unsatisfied with it he probably was unsatisfied too , but that that's not
really what he should be saying. He's saying that the level is not good enough. So unsatisfactory
is the one that should be used here. Again, with the X this is wrong. Thanks. The meal was
satisfactory. It filled me up. no actually I mean satisfactory means good enough. So I mean
you might think this is okay, but it's not really okay. If you told some if somebody made you a meal
and you said the meal was very satisfactory that's not really a compliment. It's just it's just it's
just good enough. It's not special. It's not very good. It's not very delicious . It's just you know
it's passable. It's acceptable. So that would not be the right one. You should use. Satisfying the
meal was very satisfying. It gave you pleasure. It made you feel good. It was it was as good as
your expectations of it. So in this case, you should be using satisfying and not satisfactory.
Filled you up means of course it fills your belly. You're not hungry anymore. All right. Let's look
at the third one. Jenny finds her job too boring. It is very unsatisfactory for her. Well in this
case , she probably means the job's not rewarding. So to be honest. She accepted the job so it
probably was satisfactory to her probably. The pay was probably good enough for what she was doing,
but maybe after she got it , she didn't find it to be a stimulating job. It wasn't exciting
enough for her. She didn't feel like she's really accomplishing anything. And in that sense, it was
it really unsatisfying is the one you should use here. It's not giving her pleasure.
Maybe she wants to change and do something else. Something that's more rewarding or making her
feel like she's doing something important. all right. Number four here . All right. Now I'm
giving you this where it depends on the situation. I mean you say the result was unsatisfactory. The
result was unsatisfying. Both could be used. It depends upon what you're talking about.
Again unsatisfactory would mean that it's not a good enough level and unsatisfying mean that it
does give you pleasure. So it really depends upon what you're talking about. If you're talking about
you know, you know, satisfying you. Because remember we could take the away from these
words and they have to you know the same meaning the opposite way. So if you're worried about it
giving you pleasure or you know, making you happy enough, then you could say that it's satisfying.
Okay. And the last one here with the X. Again, this is wrong. The health department inspector
said the health standards were unsatisfying. No again this should be unsatisfactory. It means
the level is not good enough. It's not acceptable. He shouldn't care if he's satisfied. It should be
satisfactory. Are they good enough to pass the health standards ? Are they satisfactory ? So
he should say they were unsatisfactory. They were not good enough to pass the health standards.
His personal feelings about it should not really come into play or not be important.
So it should really be unsatisfactory. Not unsatisfying. Okay. Anyway, I hope
you got it. I hope it was clear . I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye- bye.