English Reference

Commonly confused words

280 pairs English learners mix up — grouped by the kind of mistake, so you can find yours without knowing its name.

  1. Everyday pairs 25

    The ones that come up first: borrow and lend, say and tell, do and make.

  2. Grammar and structure 37

    Its and it's, then and than, fewer and less — the pairs that change a sentence.

  3. Verb pairs 44

    Lie and lay, rise and raise: verbs that differ by what they take as an object.

  4. Prepositions 20

    Arrive in or arrive at, depend on, married to — the small words that go with the verb.

  5. Adjectives 21

    Bored and boring, sensible and sensitive: how you feel against what caused it.

  6. Nouns 33

    Job and work, price and cost, advice and advise — nouns learners swap.

  7. Time and frequency 10

    Since and for, already and yet, by and until: how English marks when.

  8. Academic and professional 33

    Effective and efficient, imply and infer — pairs that matter in formal writing.

  9. British and American 23

    Colour and color, lift and elevator, maths and math: the same language, two habits.

  10. False friends 34

    Actual, eventually, sympathetic — English words your first language will mislead you about.

Or by theme

The same sets cut a second way, for when you know the subject but not the grammar it belongs to.

The ones people ask about most

Each of these has a page of its own.