Hello, welcome to my new lesson, may name is Emmelda and today's lesson is for all those
who struggle to use the write word when they are writing something, may be an email or
a letter or a story. We will be talking about homophones. Homo means similar while phones
means sounds. I’m very sure in a lot of places or a lot of situations you come across
words that sound very similar but they mean absolutely different things. and if you want
to use those words while writing, you've got to be careful as a wrong choice of word can
give a different meaning to your email or letter that may be very important to you.
So let's take a look at a few examples that we have here.
The first one I have for you is, allowed. Allowed means a permission that means something
or someone is allowed. This is how you will use it. May be John is allowed in the office.
Why? Because John has the permission to enter the office. But there is another word that
sounds very similar, it also sounds like allowed. This means a lot of sound. Now imagine if
you say John is allowed in office. If you want to write it, if you are using this word,
it means John is allowed or John has the permission to enter the office. However if you use this
aloud, it means that John sounds very, John makes a lot of noise in the office or he is
very vocal in the office. So allowed versus aloud.
Moving on to, complacent versus complaisant. I know it sounds very similar but it is completely
different or they are completely different from each other. One complacent means uncritical
satisfaction with oneself. The key here is, oneself. How do you use this is a sentence?
For example you say, we cannot afford to be complacent with our performance. That means
when we do something, we have to be sure that whatever we do is right and is up to the standards.
Also some people use this term when they are talking about security. We cannot be complacent
with the security of the nation. Got it? Yeah that's the word complacent. However, we have
another word, which is complaisant which means agreeable or shall I say, obligated. This
means I’m complaisant to my boss that means I’m very agreeable. Whatever my boss says,
I say yes boss, you are right and i know whatever you say is right. I don't use my own brains.
So people use it in a way that, my complaisant staff will never be able to go against my
decision. Complacent means uncritical satisfaction versus complaisant means agreeable or obligated.
Moving on to, the next one is dear or deer. Now this dear, it means when you regard someone
with affection and you'll use this word especially when you are writing an email to someone who
is very important. You are going to use dear. Please note, it is d-e-a-r. This makes a lot
of difference. You are regarding that person with affection. However, this deer means an
animal. you know if you have seen, it looks something like this, it has a very sharp face,
got two ears but it's got like big horns, okay. Vegetarian basically, you find them
in forests. They graze grass. You cannot use this deer for an email or a letter because
they totally mean different things. Got it? Yeah the next time if you are writing an email,
please be watchful of the third letter, which is an a and not an e, okay? Yeah.
Moving on to the next one. Forth means being away from a starting point. You will use this
in a sentence like, bring forth the news, bring forth the table. That particular item
or information is somewhere and you want to bring it forward. Okay so it's bring forth,
something which is like coming closer to you. Moving away from a starting point. However,
the other word which sounds very similar is, fourth, it's a number. It’s a number four.
How will you use it? You will say, you wanna use it in a way like first for one. Second
for two, third for three and fourth for four. For example, I can say, I coz that is very
personal. Let’s say a person xyz is the fourth child in the family or the you know,
oh china is ranked fourth amongst the largest economy in the world. So this is, fourth.
You cannot use this word to ask someone to bring forth and you can't say bring fourth
or you can't say china is the forth economy in the world. No this is wrong when you are
writing. The right spelling would be fourth, fourth and forth, sound very similar but mean
different, means different, okay.
The next we have is, meet. Now meet is according to Oxford dictionary, happen to come into
someone's presence. Okay that means when you go somewhere and you see another person, so
that's a meeting. You may want to greet the person and say, hello, my name is Emmelda,
how do you do? That’s a formal conversation in a meeting. You meet a person, it's, you
come into someone's presence, that's meet. However, the other word is, meat which means
a flesh of an animal. So you cannot say, I want to meat you, if you are using an a instead
of e. please be careful, ee and ea sound eee. So meet and meat, well this means coming into
someone’s presence, this means a flesh of an animal or a mammal.
Moving on to the next one, we have is swat versus SWOT. Well this swat according to Oxford
dictionary means a sharp blow. Okay any time you are hitting something very hard, you are
giving it a swat. However, this term is also used for a group of soldiers. Why? Because
they are expected to give a sharp blow to their enemies or to a critical situation,
which is very unfavourable. Am I correct? Great, there's another SWOT, which means strength,
weakness, opportunity and threat. this is a short form used by many companies or many
corporate giants for a 360 degree analysis that means they want to make sure that what
are your strengths, what are your weakness, what all things can you improve and what all
things can harm you. So it's a SWOT analysis. It’s kind of feedback that they will give
you. SWOT versus swat.
The last one I have for you is and very important is, loan versus lone. Loan means debt with
interest. Please be careful this is pronounced as debt and not depbt. It’s debt with interest.
Okay debt with interest, whereas lone means to single out something. So if I wanna make
a sentence or I wanna write this in a sentence I will say, please grant me a loan of $10000,
that's the loan, l-o-a-n. However, if you use this word, please grant me lone $10000,
it means give me a single pack of $10000. Practically and grammatically it's incorrect,
you cannot use this word for this. So next time if you are asking for a loan or if you
read a financial newspaper or a magazine, you know what exactly are they talking about,
when they use these letters, right? Okay.
This brings us to the end of the lesson, I hope you learnt something new, you've learnt
something useful. I will be coming back with another lesson with more vocabulary, more
grammar, more voice and accent and everything that you may want. I’ll be back soon, until
then have fun learning English, stay healthy be beautiful, see you and bye.