I have lived in four countries where English in various forms is the official language: Australia, England, USA and Jamaica
3 other countries where English is spoken but not the main language
4 other countries where the main language was not a language related to English: French, Flemish, Swedish and Spanish
I became aware of the peculiar usage of the English language by non -native speakers when I was asked the question?
Did you have a funny evening at my party last week?
Fun and Funny are not the same ..
That was in Sweden, where they speak excellent English, but they were translating something from Svenska to Engelska in their minds.
French and English share so many words but in many cases the same word may not have the same meaning .
In many Latin languages, one can find a great number of false cognates. They are basically words that look similar but have a different meaning in the two given languages, although they might have a common historical linguistic origin. This could give the language student a hard time, but with practice and experience, they become quite familiar with such words and learn their different meanings. (From TransPremiium)
Offer, Agenda, Bureau these french words come to mind.
Offer, Agenda, Bureau these french words come to mind.
During my stay in Paris, these words were the “false friends” faux amis
Ancient, atendre, bras, brasserie, blesse, bouton, monnaie, envie, grand, jolie, journee, libraire, coin, preservatif, prune, raisin
None of the above words come anywhere near the meaning similar English sounding words have
Last night I was listening to an hour long discourse by a well-known spiritual leader who was talking about response to a situation and he kept on using responsibility and to me it was very confusing , so much so that I did not understand what he was trying to convey: If you do not do what you can do, you are a disaster.
Each time he asked the audience,which I imagined to be Indians living in the USA, do you feel responsibility, i took it to mean, will you respond to this situation.
A good example of how little nuances of this beautiful language can create so much confusion and misunderstanding.
As nouns the difference between responsibility and response
is that responsibility is the state of being responsible, accountable, or answerable while response is an answer or reply, or something in the nature of an answer or reply.
A war is going on in Yemen, are you responsible for it, NO. But what is your response? One of sadness at the depth of human tragedy.
As nouns the difference between response and respond
is that response is an answer or reply, or something in the nature of an answer or reply while respond is a response.
English is not an easy language to master, but it is a very easy language to speak badly or incorrectly.
As a verb respond is
to say something in return; to answer; to reply.
Do you respond to the tragedy in Yemen? Yes, I do
Would you like to respond to the tragedy in Yemen? Yes, I would like to.
