Improve Your English Vocabulary with over 140 Tricky Words

Even in lecture descriptions in this course, there are many common words that have sound-alikes in English. And there are two ways to get them right: you can memorize these words, which can take a long time, or you can prepare a mental trick, a mnemonic, that you can use to remember the right word. I used bold to highlight words in the lecture descriptions which apply to the current lecture, and italics for the words that you will find in another lecture. Now you can see some of the words in sentences and paragraphs as you go along.

Crown photo by Jason Train (Flickr, CC-By).

It's almost impossible to write a sentence in English without using some of these words. For example, one (person) might try to write two sentences to describe a lecture and find that you wrote "to" three or four times.

Crown photo by Jason Train (Flickr, CC-BY). Goat/Horse/Turkey photo by galendara (Flickr, CC-BY).

Hi! In this lesson, we're going to learn about the words that allow us to meet people, make dear friends, and offer to buy them breakfast in the morning. It's almost impossible to get by without getting these words right.

It's time for those dreaded apostrophes! How will you improve your written English if they're always putting apostrophes in the middle of their words? In this lesson, you're going to learn when to use the apostrophes, when not to, and the meanings of words that sound exactly like those tricky possessive pronouns and their sound-alike contractions.

Watch photo by Joe Haupt (Flickr, CC-BY).

Now we're going to cover some words which have loose similarities, but are commonly confused anyway. I thought I would add them to the course because it's better to learn these words than to make mistakes when you're writing.

This wraps up our first section of the course. In this lecture, we do a very quick review of vocabulary with some hints for you to remember what you've learned.

Next we go on to tricky verbs. After this section you'll be more certain that you're choosing the right action verb in your sentences.

In this lesson we will go over the most confusing verbs and their sound-alikes. It may be hard to accept, but it would be great to write our English words right.

Fountain pen photo from Morguefile.

You're doing great here! You are learning how to take the words we hear and break them down in understandable ways. After this lesson you can take a break, or you can go on to our next quiz.

Fresh grated cheese photo by Jay Davis (Flickr, CC-BY-ND). Grate discrepancy by JD Hancock (Flickr, CC-BY).

I hope you're not getting bored with our lessons yet, because that could affect whether you have allowed these tips and tricks to help you write more effectively.

You've now finished the 2nd set of words covered in the course. Please make sure you take the quizzes and review what you've gotten wrong; it will help you a great deal to practice what you're learning.

Car visor photo by Gumby Nut (Flickr, CC-By).

I hate to boast, but being able to publish 6 more lectures today really gives my spirits a boost! I could almost write a rap song about it. If I had known about Udemy sooner, I could have added many more courses by now.

I assure you that you will have a great time with these new words. Being aware of good vocabulary will ensure that you are employable, no matter where you end up.

In this section we will cover 3 types of nouns:

• People nouns
• Place nouns
• Things (animals, objects, etc.)

When you're done, you will find the differences between these words much less confusing and be able to pick the right words for your sentences.

In principle, which words you choose when you write can affect how people view you. This is great when writing to affect a council's decision, to meet with a principal about your grades, or if you need to compliment a witch to avoid being turned into a deer. Bear with my counsel, and your writing will have a greater effect.

I'll often write a letter to representatives in our state council, and it gets mailed to the capital city and then is delivered to the state capitol building. I suppose they often sleep at an inn while the council is in session, unless they're getting room and board somewhere.

Like dough to a counter-top, you've stuck with me this far! Let's see if you can bear to accept more of my attempts to complement each lesson by writing barely acceptable sentences. If you're sitting there doe-eyed with fright at my writing, let me know in the discussions and accept my apology, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIjobdArtiA

In this section we cover over 10 tricky nouns and their sound-alikes. Of course, to make sure you get them right practice with the quiz coming up next!

Dear Tricky Words Student,

I'd like to ask you to take your time learning how to use each pair of words. Write them down, use them in sentences, draw rings around them to help you remember. It will help you the next time you pick up a pen or have an axe to grind.

Rather than utter any foul language, you could alter your communication style, or just stay quiet.

This lecture adds 16 tricky words to our list. These are comparison words and their tricky companions and sound-alikes.

Do you want some free advice? When working on your résumé, make sure you massage the wording to appeal to the reader and accurately reflect your programming experience. Before writing your cover letter, carefully appraise the salary for the position you're asking for.

The receptionist said, "One of the perquisites of already having an appointment with the doctor is that I can skip you ahead in the queue. Occasionally someone will question why you went in before them. That's my cue to put on my best smile and quiet their doubts. Patience is a prerequisite for working with patients."

Joe used dictation software to write this letter to his friend, Dave. Apparently the software made many mistakes with homophones. See if you can find all the errors. The corrected letter and mistakes are in the resources section.