Hi this is tutor Nick P and this is lesson 90 today we're going to look at the difference between predicament and dilemma yeah this is one that
comes up sometimes students will ask what is the difference between these two words
all right let's take a look at the first one predicament if someone finds
themselves in a predicament they are in an unpleasant situation or you might have
even wondered it may be even possibly be an embarrassing situation that it's not
easy to figure out or how to get out of okay so let's look at the first one
or let's look at this note predicaments are more likely to be very sudden
unexpected events yes something just kind of happens like and you ask
yourself how did I end up in this situation how did this happen
that's more like a predicament so let's look at example one Margaret found herself
in a real predicament her car broke down on a quiet road in the middle of the night
and her cell phone battery was out of power so a couple of things happen here at
the same time it's unexpected that you break down but she didn't expect that
her cellphone battery was also out of power at the same time and it's at night
it's late so you can't really contact anybody it's a quiet road not many people going
by what do you do how do you figure out how do you get out of this I don't know
she may have a few options but there again they're not good options
all right let's take a look at the second one Sophia found herself in a real
predicament she went down a very high waterslide and
closed her eyes yeah you know sometimes when you go down the waterslide they tell you to lie like this and you go down
really fast along and you're probably screaming ahh when she got to the bottom of
the slide Sophia discovered her bikini top was missing ahhh
something like that it already happened you can't it's very sudden it already happened
I'm sure somebody there if it was like that a big water park
you know maybe well you know I'm sure if she was with some friends they will offer
her some clothes they will probably cover up but the damage is done
probably everybody already looking at you this just happened suddenly you
found yourself in this and predicament this of course is more like an
embarrassing one okay good so let's look at dilemma
all right dilemma always has to do with a choice so if you have a dilemma you
have to make you very hard choice in which none of the choices are good yeah
because if one choice was good it wouldn't be a dilemma or if one choice
was clearly far better than the other choices and then that's also not a
dilemma you choose the one that's better but with the dilemma it's both of them
are not good it's both probably you know serious issues or serious problems with
whichever one you choose so each each choice has or causes a serious concern
or problem so again that's why it's a dilemma you know if I do this first this this is going to happen or if I do that so that is more like a dilemma So here is the first example I discovered my
friend's husband in a restaurant having a romantic dinner with another woman
this is a real dilemma for me if I tell her it will ruin her marriage if I don't
tell her I feel like I'm betraying her so maybe this woman you know maybe for
other people it won't be a dilemma the other people will tell her right away
but this woman is worried that she doesn't want to feel responsible that
maybe she may ruin their marriage maybe if she doesn't say it maybe maybe things
will work out but if she says it she knows her friend this will cause all
kinds of friction and yet she's she's not sure what to do between the two
choices she's feeling guilty not to tell her so it's a dilemma
it's a difficult choice that she has to make both choices are bad okay let's look at the second
one my two best friends are having a quarrel and each one wants me to side
with them to take their side you know so maybe two friends are like You tell her I'm
right she's wrong you know both of them probably feel that way I'm in a real
dilemma about whether I should take sides or not because you realize that if you
do take one side the other one's probably going to be angry at you and if
you take the other side the other one's gonna be angry at you so you don't know
what to do you have a dilemma all right so again clearly predicament there's always
some sort of a sudden situation that comes up that puts you in a bad
situation you can't figure out how to get out of it
dilemma is always about choices you always have to choose something and
always neither choice is easy there's problems with both choices okay thank
you for your time