what english words always mess you up?

Condone and condemn. I have to be really mindful that condone means accept and not the opposite.

"archive" and "achieve"!! when I'm speaking I'm cool with them because they don't sound that similar so I have internalized their pronunciation already but I always have to give it some thought before writing them, otherwise I'll probably mess up and write "archieve" or something 😅

I hear this one all the time. I correct my daughter when she does it but for everyone else I gotta deal with it. “Scratch” and “itch.” An itch is what makes you want to scratch. You don’t itch an itch. You scratch an itch.

Idk if this is really relevant but for some reason, as a native speaker, I REALLY struggle to say the word 'remember' out loud in the middle of a sentence when I'm speaking at normal pace without getting tongue-tied 😅 it's strange. I feel like it probably has something to do with the way I articulate the r sound [(skip to 1:09)](https://youtu.be/ld3A3QCpXd4) but I'm not sure, either way it's weird and I always have to make a concerned effort to slow down just a little bit before I say it so I can pronounce it clearly

I’ve always thought it’s crazy that the word “fine” can mean truly exceptional or merely acceptable.

I can't pronounce "rear wheel" for the life of me. When I try to say a vehicle is rear wheel drive I end up saying "It's reew weew drive" and have to try several times to get it right. Also, not so much messing up as I refuse to do it the correct way. I will never spell "dammit" only "damnit" when swearing. It's "damn" and "it" put into one word, why would the N turn into an M? No, I am right and English is wrong damnit!

Lose and loose 😅

1)Vague verbs like *to slam, to slug* etc 2)Silly adjectives that end with -y: like wacky, frumpy, ritzy, raspy, grumpy 3)Not word but That is, as it, so that, that the "something", as to, that being said, just as "something" but "something" 4)Words for describing the sound of hit: whack, bang, thudd, thump, bump, blow, jolt, bash etc 5)Multi-meaning words for measurement: aisle, array, gamut etc

analysis and analytic

Worcestershire

Owe I owe you 200$ I always get confused about who wants 200$ from the other one.

The, a

I've seen "radii", so nothing can wounded me, except... "Beautiful", this word drives me crazy because I usually say aloud what I write and I can't say bjuː.t̬ə.fəl when I write " bEAUtiful".

English is messed up even to a native speaker like myself. This is a complete and correct sentence: Right, write right right right away. Translation: “ok, write the word ‘right’ correctly now”

then/than I think I'll never remember which is which 😅

Not me for obvious reasons, but my Italian friend always mixes up dirt and dirty!

what about shadow/shade? This difference seems to always mess my students up. Also do/make collocations in phrases. Another one is comfortable/convenient. Challenge for me (native speaker) is giving clear examples to reinforce the difference!

Brought and bought screw over native speakers all the time. To this day I’m still not 100% sure which is which. And I’ll even go out of my way to avoid using the terms.

Native speakers also mix up borrow and lend for some reason. You may even have gotten mixed up because of someone else.

horribble - horrific, terrible - terrific. No logic in this whatsoever.

Even as a native speaker, I have to make a conscious effort to use “effect” and “affect” correctly. Even then, I somehow still get it wrong sometimes 😅

Can I say he and she? I am not stupid. But in Chinese, there is no gender in our speaking. When it comes to the other person, we all say "he". So sometimes Chinese will mess up the gender if speaking fast.

Complement and compliment, conscious and conscience.

Hello, I use the coding method. But even that is not enough. I think it is necessary to use each word at least 3 times in sentences we create within speaking. For example, the coding I did is as follows: "Lend" means "To give" in my language. I coded the second letter of both words as "E" in my brain. But as I said, even that is not enough. More advanced techniques need to be used. Thank you. Intermediate level users can reach me via Whatsapp, I can have voice and video chat via Whatsapp. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) If you write whatsapp meeting in the subject section, I can share my phone number, friends. Thanks.

Practice and practise.

is able to and can conscious, coincidence

Expect and except 🙄

My Korean students make those two mistakes a lot, too. I don't know how many times I've explained that to different students, but I would not be surprised if it was in the hundreds. Are you Korean? Or are there other languages that have a fundamental difference to English on these points, as well?

It's not a word per se, but it's the order that we should follow when we describe something. That's not a thing in Spanish, so most of the time I end up messing it up

Breath vs breathe. In, on, at, with, and to. Bored vs boring.

Fully native speaker, I have a lot of trouble saying 'rural'

\> For me, it’s "borrow" and "lend." I always said "Can you borrow me a pen?"  My wife (French) makes the same mistakes, she also asks me to "remember" (should be remind) her of stuff, and so on. it's a common one I guess!

Than and then. Always stumps me when I have to use one of them...

I always write customer as costumer. I don't even know why lmao.

As a native speaker, I remember our first year history tutor at college having to correct most of the class as we were writing 'could of' instead of 'could've'....when spoken with our accent it does sound more like 'could of' but this doesn't make grammatical sense