Homonyms and homophones 同音同形异义词和同音异形异义词
"'Irradicable' and 'eradicable' sound exactly the same but have opposite meanings! This is the first time I've ever met such confusing words. Could you tell me how to correctly distinguish the sound and the meaning of these two words?"
Danny, Tianjin
收听与下载
Some words in English sound the same but have very different meanings.
For example, look at the word 'patient' in these sentences:
The hospital has beds for 800 patients
You need to wait a little longer, please be patient
And what about the words 'meat' and 'meet'? They sound exactly the same too:
Meet me at 8 o'clock at the market
I bought 8kg of meat at the market
We call words which sound the same 'homophones'. If they sound the same and have the same spelling too we call them 'homonyms'.
Listen to the programme to find out more.
If you have a question you'd like us to answer, you can write to us or email: questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk
