常见易混淆词汇辨析

Bear and bare

 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用作动词时常常容易混淆。Bare的意思是“裸露、身体的一部分或其他物体无覆盖物”, Bear作名词时表示“熊”。另一方面，bear也可以用作形容词，表示“没有穿衣服或无遮盖物的”。因此bear feet 和 bare feet并没有较大差别，均可表示“赤脚”。

stationary and stationery

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.

stationary 和stationery也是一组常见的易混词汇。这两个有相同的发音并且拼写很相似。但stationary是形容词，表示“静止的”，stationery则是名词，指“文具、信纸”。

Dessert and desert

 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.

停留在甜食小岛上听起来很吸引人，但实际上，你可能会在海难后最终在一个荒岛上后海难中幸存下来。类似于stationary 和 stationery，一个字母之差可能导致一个很大的区别。Desert（沙漠）可以作为名词和动词使用，意思分别为“n.沙漠/荒凉之地”和“v.遗弃某人”。Dessert，意为“一餐中的甜点”。

isle and aisle

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.

同音异形异义词isle和aisle都是名词，前者指的是一个岛屿，而后者的座位之间的过道。因此，当在你的杂货店购物时，你遇到的是一个aisle（通道），而不是一个isle（岛）。