Studying English is tough...

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a nice Golden Week. This month I thought I would start by talking about the tone of a conversation. You might hear someone say:

"I don't like your tone."

Which could mean I don't like your tone of voice (intonation) or the WAY you are speaking. Probably the person means that either the way or intonation of how you are speaking is disrespectful.

Like most languages, the words we use help set the tone:

1 - My job is difficult.

and

2 - My job is tough.

Sound quite different, the first sounds more formal and objective while the second sounds more casual and personal. For more on tough/difficult check out this previous blog entry: http://phils-english.blogspot.com/2011/03/learning-english-is-tough.html

Some other pairs are:

smart (casual)

He's really smart.

Bob is a smart guy.

intelligent (formal)

He's really intelligent.

Robert is an intelligent man.

So you can see that Robert becomes Bob, smart becomes intelligent and guy becomes man in formal speech. The tone of the sentence completely change from casual and friendly to a formal statement.

cheap (casual)

The hotel was really cheap~!

Let's go to a cheap restaurant, I'm pretty broke.

inexpensive (formal)

That hotel was quite inexpensive.

Let's go to an inexpensive restaurant, I don't have much money.

Inexpensive is used to makes things have a formal tone, so it is rarely used with really which is more of a casual word. Really goes very well with cheap which is also casual~! BUT be careful cheap has many meanings that inexpensive DOESN'T have!!!

Cheap can mean:

low cost

This book is 1$, so cheap~! +

stingy

He's a cheap guy. -

bad quality

Man this watch is cheap, it broke in one day. -

Inexpensive simply means low cost, it doesn't share the other meanings...

Have a nice week,

Phil