Today we are going to focus

on a very interesting pair of words - 'affect' and 'effect'.

They seem to be very close, but actually they are not!

They are near-homonyms.

And it is very important to understand the difference between these,

because these words can have a very similar meaning.

But the problem is that 'affect' is mostly used as a verb,

and 'effect' is usually used as a noun.

However there are some additional meanings

which make this topic a little bit more complicated.

First of all let's talk about the meaning

which is more or less the same,

when 'affect' is a verb and 'effect' is a noun.

The meaning is: 'affect' as a verb

means to produce a change

or to influence something.

While 'effect' is the change that takes place.

In other words 'affect' means to produce an 'effect'.

And 'effect' is the result of

something 'affecting' something else.

Rain affects my sister's hairdo.

So you can always see if she has been outside

and it has been raining.

However it gives her some charm.

Or you can say that rain produces a special effect

on my sister's hairdo.

So here 'effect' is used as a noun,

not as a verb. Be very careful,

because a lot of my students make this mistake

and they say 'to effect' instead of 'to affect'.

Or they use 'affect' as a noun

when they are not supposed to do it.

Or I can say that rain has no effect on my hairdo.

And that's sh... well, that's not true...

If I pour a bucket of water over my head,

my look will... my hair will look different.

For sure. I'm not gonna do that.

BTW 'affect on',

'produce an effect on', 'have an effect on'.

Not let's take a look at a couple of more examples.

So our goal is to focus on competences,

which really affect competitive advantage.

As you can guess, this is business English. Yeah!

Do you like my glasses? Shall I leave them on?

If you take out all special effects from a film nowadays,

it has just nothing else left, it's dull.

And I have one more question for you:

What effect does this man have on you?

What effect does this woman have on you?

It's just an example.

Now at the beginning of this class I told you

that there are a couple of meanings, which are... well...

not that popular and a little bit confusing.

So once again the meanings

connected with changing and influencing

are very common, they are used a lot, they are popular.

And you should make sure to remember

the difference between 'affect' and 'effect' in this particular case.

However there are some extra meanings,

which you need to know too. For example,

'Affect' as a verb can have the second meaning,

which is 'to act in a way, that you don't feel'

or 'to put on a false show'.

For instance, you can affect surprise!

Let me tell you a little story.

Some time ago I found a gift,

which was intended for me,

and which I was not supposed to have found.

But I did! So when I was given the present,

I had to affect surprise!

This is for me! Really? Oh my God! Thank you!

You shouldn't have! Oh, you shouldn't have!

Shame on me!

So it turns out that you can affect surprise,

superiority, fear and so on.

You can affect feelings and emotions which you do not have.

What a bad thing to do. Anyway,

'affect' can also be a noun. What? Yeah.

It's true. And it has a very specific meaning,

a psychological meaning, to tell you the truth.

So 'affect' is a feeling or emotion

which is usually expressed by body language.

when you move, speak, cry, shout

and express you feeling or your emotion.

So this is a psychological term,

it does not mean some specific feeling.

It is actually a feeling as opposed to

having no feelings, no emotions what so ever

and and being calm and silent and...

And when you have a feeling this is an 'affect'.

An 'affect'.

BTW 'affect' with 'a' is pronounced with the schwa sound

at the beginning of the word.

Or when you talk about the noun, the first sound is here - [æ].

While 'effect' has [i], short [i] at the beginning of the word.

I mean the first letter is 'i' and the first sound is [i]

but a short one.

This meaning is very specific,

and I'm almost one hundred percent sure that

you won't have to use it. At all.

If you are not a psychologist or a psychiatrist

or something of the kind.

Anyway, but now you know the meaning

of 'affect' as a noun.

BTW 'effect' can also be a verb! What?! Yeah.

But once again it has a specific meaning,

different, it's not connected with influencing and changing

well, directly.

So 'effect' as a verb means to bring about, to accomplish

or cause to occur.

So for example,

The manager has effected some positive changes

in corporate culture.

Once again business English.

Take a look - 'effect some positive changes'.

You can effect changes.

So basically you can effect effects.

Yeah, but of course you should not say it like this.

Anyway, here 'effect' does not mean 'to influence',

be careful! It means to bring about,

to cause to occur.

So some changes occurred because of this manager.

He did a good job and he effected these changes,

he brought them about,

he caused them to occur, to appear, to happen.

So this is the meaning of the verb 'effect'.

You can also say 'affect changes',

but in this case the meaning will be different.

Because here something will influence the changes,

they changes will be influenced by something else.

Like 'The crisis affects the changes happening within the company'.

So the changes, for example, stopped happening

or they slowed down, or there was some other effect

on the changes.

Effect changes - to bring them about, make them happen.

To affect changes - to influence changes,

change them.

OK, that's it about some specific meanings,

Once again let's repeat that

the most popular meaning,

which you are supposed to remember here,

is connected with influencing and changing.

In this case 'affect' is a verb,

to affect something means to change something

or to produce a change.

While 'effect' is a noun in this meaning,

it is the change, the result.

The change that takes place, when you affect something.

Affect something.

To make it even easier to understand,

let's remember one example:

When you affect something, it produced an effect.

Once again the meaning of these words,

'affect' and 'effect', connected with influencing and changing

is very common. Native speakers use these words

in this meaning so often, that

they are practically coming out of their ears!

Anyway, remember the meaning,

affect - a verb, effect - a noun.

And you won't have any problems with these words anymore.

So I hope that you liked this video and you found it useful.

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It will help me a lot

and it will mean the world to me.

But that's it, hope to see you soon,

keep studying English with me, keep studying Russian with me.

Do not forget that I have two languages here.

You can study one, you can study both,

well, it's up to you. Anyway,

See you soon! Happy English and Russian practice! Bye-bye!