I'm Jenna welcome back to my channel Learn Academic English on my channel my aim is
to help English learners take their English to a higher level so they can be successful in school
and work and if you're learning a language you know that vocabulary is probably the most
difficult part because it seems like there's a never-ending number of new words that you need
to learn and often it can be difficult because it's hard to know what's the difference between
words that seem to be similar so in today's lesson I'm going to talk about the difference between the
words efficient and effective and I'm going to help you learn these words in detail so that you
will feel confident using them the reason that I'm talking about these two words is well as some of
you already know I teach English at a college in California and one of my students just last week
asked me, “Professor, what's the difference between efficient and effective? I hear these
words a lot but I don't know what the difference is between them.” So first let's look at the word
effective and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take you through my system of how I learn new words and
I have a video that explains that system you can check that out so first effective the first thing
that I do is I look up this word in a good English learner dictionary so dictionaries
that are for English learners are different from dictionaries that are designed for native speakers
my favorite online one is the Longman dictionary and I'll leave a link to that
in the description box below so when I looked up this word on the online Longman dictionary
I found that it's an adjective and the definition is successful working in the way that was intended
okay successful and working in the way that was intended and we have a couple of example sentences
first generic drugs are just as effective as expensive ones so if you're not familiar
with this term generic drugs here we're talking about medicine and generic is medicine that is
made at a much lower price generic or low-cost medicines are just as good as expensive ones
that they work just as well okay next what is the most effective way of reducing crime
so now let's look at some collocations what words do we often use with the word
effective well we often use effective way or effective method or effective means
if you don't know this word means means is a way or a method of doing something
for example what is the most effective way of studying or that is a very effective method of
preparing for a test and we often use these words with of plus a gerund after an effective method of
doing something okay we also can say an effective solution an effective solution to homelessness
effective treatment for this would be talking about medical situations so an
effective treatment for kovid and an effective system of with a noun so an effective system of
organization another thing that we want to pay attention to is connotation and if you watched
my last video you know that connotation is how does the word feel it does it have a good meaning
a bad meaning or neutral and effective is definitely a good meaning right something that's
effective that's a really good thing and what do we use this word to describe well we sometimes use
effective to describe people an effective worker and effective teacher but usually we describe
effective four things like an effective way an effective method an effective treatment
okay next let's look at synonyms and antonyms so as I mentioned in my last video synonyms don't go
to your dictionary and look for a bunch of synonyms of like words that you don't know
that's not going to help you very much a better way or a more effective way of learning the word
is to think about synonyms that are easy for you so let's try to match the new word with words that
you already know so we might say that synonyms here would be good successful or the verb and
adverb works well so this is actually the way that we might use this if we're talking or in a more
informal situation we might say for example the medicine works well or the treatment works well
so instead of saying it's effective which sounds a little more formal we might use this it works well
and for antonym we can use the prefix in to make it the opposite ineffective okay and then word
family the noun is effectiveness or efficacy notice the word stress on this word efficacy
now this one is more formal so you might see this in newspapers or in like academic journals I just
saw an article about the efficacy of booster shots for Covid so that's a medical situation this one
is more formal but they have the same meaning this one would be more common especially in less formal
situations then we have the adjective effective and the adverb effectively she works effectively
okay so that's what effective means and that's how we use it I will provide additional example
sentences in the description box below to help you but now what we're going to do is we're going to
look at the word efficient and then I will do a quick side-by-side comparison of them so you can
really see how they are different so efficient I looked it up on the Longman dictionary online and
it is an adjective also and the definition is works well without wasting time money
or other resources so again works well without wasting
this is the important part of the meaning here for example lighting is more efficient nowadays
okay so what does that mean that means that it works well but it doesn't waste energy
or an efficient use of land so again that would mean that we use the land
well but importantly without wasting so that means that we would get the most out of the land
as possible collocations we can say an efficient way of doing something an efficient means of
collecting information for example an efficient of studying so studying as
much as possible in a short period of time without wasting time an efficient system of
energy or fuel efficient this is a very common collocation that you can hear nowadays we hear a
lot about fuel efficient cars or energy efficient machines so this is very common now and again it
means without wasting or conserving energy and we also use the adverbs highly efficient or
extremely efficient okay so how about some synonyms and antonyms well for synonyms we
could use economical and what do we mean here by economical we mean without wasting money
productive this would be to describe the way that a person works so an efficient worker is also a
productive worker it's a person who does a lot but in a shorter amount of time who uses their time
well doesn't waste time and we could also use the word cost effective but this would be only when
we're talking about efficient to talk about money situations so a cost effective way of gaining new
customers that would be any efficient way that it doesn't waste money and the antonym is inefficient
inefficient not efficient just like the last one the connotation it's definitely a positive meaning
and we use it to describe people or things we use efficient to describe people probably a
little more often than the word effective because efficient can also describe the way that a person
works an efficient worker doesn't waste time and finally for the word family efficiency
is the noun efficiency efficient is the adjective and efficiently is the adverb he works efficiently
so now that we know the words efficient and effective let's take a quick look at
how these words are similar and different so that you can know which one to use in which situation
so efficient and effective they're both adjectives and they both describe something that works
well they both have a positive connotation so that means that the words have a good or positive
meaning we use both of them to describe people and things now a little difference here is that
we often use efficient to describe machines so a dishwasher can be efficient a car can be efficient
a mode of transportation can be efficient they can also be effective meaning that they work well
but efficient would be more common for machines and we some collocations we often say
an efficient way an efficient method and efficient means so this is how we do something an efficient
method of studying we can also use effective and effective method of studying and we often
will use the adverbs highly or extremely before these words highly efficient highly effective
and we often use the word effective with the word treatment to talk about medical situations and
effective treatment for cancer the difference is that if you want to focus on the fact that
something doesn't waste resources then you're going to use efficient and efficient method
of studying what does that mean well that means that it works well but when you use
the word efficient you're focusing on the fact that you're not wasting not wasting time
on the other hand with the word effective it really just focuses on the result
what is the result the result is good it works well and in the end it is successful
so I hope this lesson helped you to learn these words and to know what the difference is between
efficient and effective so that you can use these words correctly in your speaking and writing
and so when you hear them you'll understand them well I have a question down below to help
you practice and don't forget to give this video a like and leave a comment
make sure that you're subscribed if you found it helpful and I would love to know what
vocabulary words would you like me to explain in an upcoming video I love to talk about vocabulary
so let me know what words you would like me to teach you take care and I'll see you soon!