趣味漫畫：辨別5組傻傻分不清的英文單詞

小編導讀：在英語中有很多聽起來一樣，但是意思大相徑庭的詞語。下面的漫畫會告訴你即使只是個簡單的拼寫錯誤會造成多麼尷尬的效果！

Bear feet or bare feet?

熊腳or 赤腳

Bear and bare are often confused when used as verbs. While bare means ‘to uncover (a part of the body or other thing) and expose it to view’, the verb bear relates to carrying or supporting, both literally and figuratively. Bear can, of course, be a noun –denoting the furry animal. Bare, on the other hand, can also be used as an adjective, meaning ‘not clothed or covered’. So it does make quite a difference whether someone has bear feet or bare feet.

Bear和bare在用作動詞時經常會被混淆。Bare意思是露出（身體或物品的一部分）讓別人可以看到，而動詞bear無論字面意義上還是比喻象徵意義上，都有承擔，支撐的意思。當然，Bear作爲名詞——說的就是那種毛茸茸的動物（熊啦）。另一方面，Bare也可以作爲形容詞使用，意思是“沒遮蓋，赤裸的”。所以一個人是熊腳還是赤腳，意思差了十萬八千里。

A stationery car or a stationary car?

文具車or 停着不動的車

Another very common mistake is to confuse stationary and stationery. The two have the same pronunciation and their spelling is very similar, but while stationary is an adjective meaning ‘not moving’, stationery is a noun referring to writing materials.

另一對經常混淆的詞是stationary 和stationery。這兩個詞有相同的發音，他們的拼寫也十分相似，但是stationary是一個形容詞，意思是“固定的”。而stationery是名詞，指的是“文具”。

A dessert island or a desert island?

甜品島or 荒島

While the prospect of stranding on a dessert island may sound quite appealing to some, you’d probably be more likely to end up on a desert island after having survived a shipwreck. Similarly to the stationary and stationery confusion, a single letter can make a big difference here. Desert can be used both as a noun and a verb, meaning ‘a waterless, empty area’and ‘to abandon someone’, respectively. A dessert, on the other hand, is the sweet course of a meal.

置身於一座甜品島上的前景可能聽起來對很多人都很有吸引力，但如果是在一起沉船事故中劫後餘生的你，可能更希望看到一座荒島。跟stationary 和stationery 的混淆一樣，一個字母的差別意思南轅北轍。Desert可以被用作名詞和動詞，分別是“沙漠，荒地”和“拋棄，丟開”的意思。而dessert則是甜品的意思。

A supermarket isle or a supermarket aisle?

超市島or 超市過道?

There may be no such things as dessert islands, but what about supermarket isles? The homophones isle and aisle are both nouns, with the former referring to an island, and the latter to a passage between rows of seats. Thus, you’d perhaps come across an aisle rather than an isle while doing your grocery shopping.

也許甜品島這樣的地方不存在，但超市島是個什麼東東呢？同音異意詞isle和aisle都是名詞，前者指一座島，後者則是指一排排座位之間的過道。因此，當你在雜貨店採購的時候，你也許是走在過道上，而非島上。

A gorilla soldier or a guerrilla soldier?

猩猩士兵or 游擊隊員?

Gorillas are not necessarily known for their combative, militant nature, but guerrillas certainly are. Although gorilla can be informally used to describe a person, or more specifically, ‘a heavily built aggressive-looking man’, in a military context, speaking of guerrilla soldiers makes more sense, as it refers to ‘a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting’.

大猩猩並不被人熟知它好戰好鬥的本性，但游擊隊卻是。雖然非正式用法，gorilla 可以用以形容一個人，或者更具體的說，“一個外表很有攻擊性的男性”，在軍事定義中，用guerrilla soldiers（游擊隊員）顯然更合適，因爲他是指“一個進行非正規戰鬥的獨立團體的一員”。