In this video, I'm going to talk about two similar sounding and confusing English words

'affect' and 'effect'.

We will work on pronunciation and usage to help you master these words.

Let's get started.

Let's start with 'affect'.

Listen carefully to how I say it.

'affect'

'affect'

It's usually a verb.

It means to influence or change.

A quick way to remember 'affect' as a verb

is to remember 'a' is for action.

Verbs are actions.

Let's look at some examples.

The first sentence says,

'Junk food affects your health.'

We all know that junk food can change our health.

It can make it bad or worse.

The next sentence says,

'New technologies continue to affect how we live.'

This is something we also know.

New technologies change the way we live.

They make things easier. They make things faster.

They affect the way we live.

Now, I will talk about 'effect'.

Listen carefully to how I say this one,

'effect'

'effect'

'effect'

It's usually a noun.

It means a result.

Let's look at some example sentences.

The first sentence says,

'Pollution has a negative effect on the environment.'

We all know that pollution causes negative results in the environment.

You'll notice that in this sentence we used 'effect' as a noun

– 'a negative effect'.

The next sentence says,

'Spicy food has a bad effect on my stomach.'

For some people spicy food causes some bad results in the body.

So again, we use 'effect' like result - a noun.

Now, let's do a checkup.

In the sentence below we need to use 'effect' and 'affect'.

Take a moment to think about where we use these words.

The sentence says,

'The _blank_ of the war will _blank_ the economy.'

Take a look at the first 'blank'.

The _blank_

Remember, if there's a 'the',

we usually need a noun

so we use 'effect'.

'The effect of the war…'

that means the results of the war

'…will _blank_ the economy.'

Here we have 'will' and so we need a verb.

That's 'affect'.

'The effect of the war will affect the economy.'

Now you know the difference between 'affect' and 'effect'.

Be sure to practice these two words.

Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you in the next video.