Ron's ESL Blogs

Accept or Except?

Ola Zur — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:40:51 +0000

Let’s talk about the difference between accept and except.

These are two words that sound the same but have different meanings.

They are English homophones.
Accept and except are almost antonyms (opposites), so it is important that you know how to use them correctly!

Accept means to receive something or to take something.

Except means to leave something out or not include.

We will look at each word separately.

Accept

Accept is an English verb that means to receive or to take.

Examples:

Please accept my help.
(Please receive my help.)
This store does not accept credit cards.
(The store does not take credit cards. You cannot use them there.)
They accepted his application for the job.
(They received/took his application for the job.)

Until now we discussed accept. Now let’s explain what except means.

Except

Except is usually an English preposition meaning leaving out, but or other than.

Examples:

We go to school every day except Saturday and Sunday.
(We go to school every day but Saturday and Sunday.)
Everyone got a prize except Sally.
(Other than Sally, everyone got a prize.)
Except for her son, all the kids had a good time.
(All the kids had a good time, not including her son. Her son did not have a good time.)

Synonyms and Antonyms

Ola Zur — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:27:56 +0000

Hello,

Let’s talk about the difference between “synonyms” and “antonyms.”

Synonyms are words that have the same or almost the same meanings.

Example: small/tiny

Antonyms are words whose meanings are the exact opposite or almost the exact opposite.

Example: big/small
Synonyms and antonyms can help you be a better writer and speaker.

Synonyms and antonyms can help you be more descriptive and make your writing more interesting.

Synonyms

Synonyms are words that have the same or almost the same meanings.

Examples:

little/tiny/small
big/large
fat/chubby
beautiful/pretty
sad/unhappy
hard/difficult
and/plus
cold/chilly
fast/quick
kid/child

Synonyms are not always exactly the same.

For example, “pretty” and “beautiful” are synonyms, but they can have slightly different meanings.

Sally is pretty, but her sister is beautiful!

This means that Sally’s sister is prettier than Sally.

I am not fat! I am just a little chubby.

Here, fat is considered bigger than chubby.

Antonyms

Antonyms are words whose meanings are the exact opposite or almost the exact opposite.

Examples:

big/small
difficult/easy
add/subtract
hot/cold
black/white
ugly/pretty
stupid/smart
up/down
child/adult

Why should you use synonyms and antonyms?

Synonyms and antonyms can help you be a better speaker and writer. Using the same words all the time can become boring.

Compare these two examples:

The tall boy climbed a tall tree to rescue the fat cat. The fat cat was stuck high in the tall tree.
The tall, lanky boy climbed the huge tree to rescue the fat cat. The chubby kitty was stuck high in the large tree.

The second sentence is more interesting and more descriptive than the first sentence.

So when building vocabulary you can enrich it by also learning synonyms and antonyms.

my high school friend henry

JonathanSum — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:51:08 +0000

Henry man is my high school friend. he is taller than me. he like people. he always makes a cool look before he goes to school. every one can remember him after they graduated .

Henry is a man who is really taller and thin. it is just likes a man with no meant. it looks like he only has boons. before i know him when he is in the tenth grade, he was as talk as me. it is just in one day. he became a very tall. every one said it was unbelievable.

Henry is a person who likes to have friends. he likes to talk with people all the time ,even in class. He is really friendly. he likes to get close with girls too. i think he likes having more friends. In a weekend, he always spends a few hours to make a style. Specially his hair, he make a style. he loves to do that every day. some time he make a style. he loves to do that every day. sometime he make a very handsome style ,or he makes funny style. one day he even makes a female style too. in that day, he wears a dress,and he becomes a man who is the most popular,and they ask this parents why he did that. after that day, no one cant remember him in their whole life.

Henry is my nice friend in high school. he always makes fun to the people. he likes to get close to every one.

my neighborhood

alex wu — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:13:54 +0000

I know everyone has lots of good neighbors and bad neighbors. I am lucky, most my neighbors are very nice. But I have good neighbors and bad neighbors. I very like my best neighbors Mr.Chan.
He is 45 years old, he is friendly and considerate man. He is a hard worker, especially so in the past when he had to make money to feed his family. Now his hardworking habit has paid off. He has established his own business and his family is in much better financial shape than ever before. He has a deep seated sense of honor and is trustworthy, industrious and tolerant and it is such virtues, I think, that win him respect and make him well established in society.
By contrast, my worst neighbors is Mrs.Wang she is a forties woman. She likes to shout her car, which greatly annoys us, also self righteous in everything and intolerant of any small faults of others. How others would feel is not what she cares. rich as she is, she is disliked by all her neighbors.
However. Mr.Wang is my worst neighbors, I do not any authority let she move. But I am glad I have such good neighbors Mr.Chan. he is my best neighbors.

My High School Friend

alex wu — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:59:08 +0000

In my life, I have a lot of friends, but they are not my best friends. My best friend is my high school student Sam. We know each other for a few years. I know his everything, and it is easy to have same topics to talk with him.
We are both 21 years old. He is tall and strong. He likes to eat fruits, he can eat two or more apples for one day. He is very straight and generous. We always help each other. He is a nice person and he has one talent. That is math, every math tests he can get A grade, I never see him use calculator, he always can came up with an answer to those difficult math questions. He like to play basketball and soccer. I like to play with him on the same team, because we never lose the game and I can learn a lot from him. We usually play together after school.
He is very funny and sometimes he tells me some interesting jokes but sometimes he set me up. His goal is to be a math teacher. Right now, we study at different schools but he is my best friend forever.
Sam is my best friend, I don’t want to lose my friend Sam.