Easy English! By Adrian Wallwork Top 50 Vocabulary Mistakes How to Avoid Them Easy English! Series Editor Adrian Wallwork English for Academics SAS Pisa, Italy Easy English is a series of books intended for students and teachers of English as a foreign language. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15586 Adrian Wallwork Top 50 Vocabulary Mistakes How to Avoid Them Adrian Wallwork English for Academics SAS Pisa, Italy ISSN 2522-8617 ISSN 2522-8625 (electronic) Easy English! ISBN 978-3-319-70980-2 ISBN 978-3-319-70981-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70981-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963154 © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents Part I Top 50 Vocabulary Mistakes 1 According to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 Actual, Actually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3 Advice, Advise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4 Agree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5 Among, Between, Of, From . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 6 Appreciate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7 As, Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 8 Available, Comfortable, Convenient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 9 Beautiful, Good, Fine, Nice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 10 Because, Why . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 11 Big, Great, Large . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 12 Borrow, Lend, Loan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 13 Both, Either, Neither . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 14 Bring, Take, Carry, Fetch, Get, Lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 15 Camping, Campsite, Parking, Car Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 16 Chance, Possibility, Occasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 17 Close, Near, Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 18 Clothes, Dress, Dresses, Get Dressed, Put on, Wear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 19 Come, Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 20 Control, Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 v vi Contents 21 Cook, Cooker, Cooking, Kitchen, Dish, Course, Plate. . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 22 Do, Make . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 23 Early, Soon, On Time, In Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 24 Earn, Gain, Win, Beat, Deserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 25 Economic, Economical, Economically, Financial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 26 Education, Background, Upbringing, (Good / Bad) Manners, Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 27 Enjoy, Have A Good Time, Funny, Fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 28 Enough, Quite, Pretty, Sufficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 29 Even If, Even Though, Although . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 30 Ever, Never, Always . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 31 Expect, Wait (For) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 32 Find, Find Out, Discover, Search, Look For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 33 Fit, Match, Suit, Go Well With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 34 Grow, Grow Up, Increase, Cultivate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 35 Happen, Occur, Take Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 36 Home, House; Homework, Housework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 37 In the End, At the End, Eventually, Finally, At Last, Lastly, If Necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 38 Job, Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 39 Know, Meet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 40 Last, Latest, Most Recent; Next, the Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 41 Look At, See, Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 42 Look, Seem, Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 43 Lose, Lack, Miss, Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 44 Remember, Remind, Forget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 45 Rise, Arise, Raise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 46 Say, Tell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 47 Sorry, Excuse, Apologize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 48 Think, Think Of, Think About, Believe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 49 Travel, Trip, Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Contents vii 50 Understand, Catch, Figure Out, Realize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Part II Revision Tests 51 Revision Tests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Part III False Friends 52 False Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Student’s Introduction What Is Easy English? Easy English is a series of books to help you learn and revise your English with minimal effort. There are two main strands of the series. You can improve your English by 1. doing short exercises to improve specific areas of vocabulary (this book) and grammar. The grammar and vocabulary books focus on the areas that tend to lead to the most mistakes. The aim is just to highlight what you really need, rather than overwhelming you with a mass of rules, many of which may have no practi- cal daily value 2. reading texts in English that you might well normally read in your own language (e.g. personality tests, jokes, lateral thinking games, word searches). Who Is the Book for? What Level Do I Need to Be? Anyone who is interested in eliminating the typical mistakes they make when faced between choosing from a set a of similar words. You need to have reached a mid-intermediate level of English to benefit from this book. How Many Vocabulary Mistakes Are Dealt with? This book is called The Top 50 Vocabulary Mistakes. In reality there are over 150 words dealt within the 50 sections of Part I of this book. Another 50 false friends are dealt with, in less detail, in Part III. ix x Student’s Introduction How Is the Book Organized? Each chapter has a heading which gives the key words dealt with in the section. In the explanations below I will be referring to Chapter 5 (among, between, of, from). Each chapter is made up of five subsections. 1. the first subsection shows some typical mistakes. All sentences in italics are mistakes. Each mistake is then followed in the line below with the correct ver- sion (in normal script). The key point is highlighted in bold in the correct ver- sion. Here is an example: Many people can’t distinguish among red and green. Many people can’t distinguish between red and green. In the above example, the writer of the first sentence has incorrectly chosen among instead of between. Note that other typical mistakes where some languages use a different word from the key word, may also be listed in this subsection. For example, Illiteracy is commonest under rural women. Illiteracy is commonest among rural women. In the above example under has been used instead of among. However, the word under is not dealt with in the other three subsections. This is because it is not one of the keywords (among, between, of) in the heading of the section. It is simply men- tioned to raise your awareness that in your language you may use a completely dif- ferent word. Such mistakes are tested in the Revisions Tests in Part II of this book. 2. In the second subsection correct examples are given of the key words used in typical situations. These correct examples are shown in a box with a grey back- ground. Here is an example: He was standing between Paul and Joseph. She was standing among a crowd of hooligans. 3. In the third subsection, very simple guidelines are given of the key words. For example: • between = two different items or groups of distinct items • among = a number of indistinct different items • of = before an indeterminate number of the same item • from = after a verb when making a selection (choose from, pick from, select from) These guidelines are not comprehensive, they are designed to give you a quick easy- to-remember guideline to the most common uses of the particular word in question. For example, in the above case the use of of given is just one of many possible uses of of. It refers only to the use of of in relation to the use of among and between.