12 Confusing English Nouns

“Foreigners“ or “strangers“? “Suit“ or “suite“? “Weather“ or “climate“? “Wedding“ or “marriage“? Join me and learn the difference in 12 confusing nouns from everyday English. See how vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling can change the meanings of pairs of words such as “desert“ & “dessert“ and “resident“ & “residence“. Improve your speaking and writing skills for work, school, IELTS, and more. To keep improving your English, take my online course, Correct Your English Errors in 10 Minutes a Day: Take the quiz on this lesson at Check out my video about 12 confusing English verbs: In this lesson: 0:00 – 12 Confusing Nouns in English – 0:53 “wedding“ or “marriage“? 2:23 “suit“ or “suite“? 3:56 “weather“ or “climate“? 4:58 “desert“ or “dessert“? 6:03 “foreigners“ or “strangers“? 7:19 “residents“ or “residence“? 8:44 – Test Yourself! – TRANSCRIPT: Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. Today we'll look at 12 nouns, and more specifically, 6 pairs of nouns that often cause confusion for English learners. Some of the mistakes with these nouns are made while speaking, and some are made while writing. Some are vocabulary errors, pronunciation errors, or spelling errors. So let's understand exactly what these words mean and how to use them correctly. Okay? Now, if you're interested in improving your English, especially in this way, I have an entire course called Correct Your English Errors in 10 Minutes a Day, where we look at over 160 such errors, which have to do with vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and more. So if you're interested in that, please feel free to check the link below. But for now, let's get started. Alright, so number one. “We're invited to their wedding.“ or “We're invited to their marriage.“ What is correct? What should we say? Now, if you want to... If you need a little more time, just pause the video, think about it, and then continue. So which of those is correct? The correct answer is “We're invited to their wedding.“ Okay? So what's the difference between a wedding and a marriage? The wedding is the actual ceremony. Okay? The party, the event, where two people are married, get married. Okay? Or someone marries them. After that celebration, after that event, the wedding, then they are married, and the rest of their life is known as their marriage. Okay? That is the legal relationship that they share after the wedding ceremony takes place to describe their marital status. Okay? So the wedding is the event, and the marriage is the relationship that exists between those two people for the rest of their lives or for their marriage. Okay? So that's the difference. So, “You're invited to their wedding. You're not invited to their marriage.“ Let's make sure of that. Okay, number two. Do we say, “The fire department told them to stay in their suit.“ or “The fire department told them to stay in their suite.“? Which is correct? In this case, the second one is correct. “The fire department told them to stay in their suite.“ Suite. Okay? Now, what's the difference between a suit and a suite? A suit is something that you wear, a man or a woman, like a jacket and pants, or a jacket and a skirt, or whatever. It's a piece of clothing. It's a suit. A suite is either like a fancy apartment or a fancy room in a hotel. Completely different. Right? So, “The fire department didn't ask them to wear special clothes. The fire department just told them to stay in their apartment or their suite.“ And this word, even though it's spelled s-u-i-t-e, it's pronounced like suite. Okay? That's how we pronounce it. So, if you're using this word, make sure you're using the correct word, not using this word, using this one, pronouncing it like this, and spelling it like that. Okay? There are a few points to keep in mind there. Next, number three. Do we say, “What's the weather like today?“ or do we say, “What's the climate like today?“ What's the difference here? The correct word would be, “What's the weather like today?“ because “weather“ talks about short-term weather patterns. Okay? Temperature, rain, snow, etc. “Climate“ is talking about the general patterns, the long-term patterns. And especially here, we asked “today“. Right? We're just talking about today. Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it raining? Is it snowing? How is it? Is it windy? Is it stormy? Right? So, we want to use “weather“ to talk about a short period of time, like a day or sometimes a week or something like that. But if we're talking about the climate in this country, that's different. We're talking about the seasons [...]