Some words are often confused by language learners – because they are similar to another word or because they look like a word in your own language but have a different meaning. Here are some words that often cause confusion.
有些词总会让学英语的人感到混淆—因为他们跟另外一个词很像，或者跟你的母语的某个词很像但是其意义完全不同。这里有一些经常引起混淆的词。
sensible and sensitive
sensible与sensitive
sensible means ‘practical’ or ‘having good judgement’
sensible是明智的
sensitive means ‘easily affected by the things people say or do
sensitive是敏感的
• Come on darling, be sensible and put a coat on. It’s freezing outside.
• Don’t be so sensitive - he didn’t say you were fat, it was just a joke.
Sympathetic and nervous
Sympathetic和nervous
Usually we are sympathetic when someone has a problem or is in trouble.
我们通常对某人遇到麻烦或者有困难的时候表现的 sympathetic（同情的）。
• They were very sympathetic when our house was burgled but they couldn’t do much to help.
We don’t use it to mean ‘nice’ or ‘pleasant’
我用它不是指好或者舒服。
• My uncle is a very sympathetic man.
We are nervous in a particular situation, like an exam. We don’t generally use nervous to describe someone’s character.
我们经常会在某些特定场合感到nervous，例如考试的时候，我们不用nervous去形容一个人的性格。
• I’ve never been as nervous as the time I had to give a speech to 500 people.
• My sister is very nervous. She’s always shouting at me.
journey and travel
journey和travel
Journey is countable. Travel is uncountable and refers to the general idea of travelling.
Journey是可数的，travel是不可数的，它指代的是“travelling（旅行）”的大意。
• Did you have a good travel?
• Travel is something I recommend to all young people.
• The journey took about 8 hours.
recipe, receipt and prescription
recipe, receipt和prescription
A recipe is a set of instructions for cooking something.
A recipe是菜谱
A receipt is a piece of paper you are given after you pay for something.
A receipt是收据
A prescription is a piece of paper a doctor gives you to get the medicine you need.
A prescription是处方
