Name: 12 Confusing English Adjectives
Uploaded: 2025-06-06T02:56:27.000Z
Duration: 14 min 48 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy.

What is the opposite of this word, interested?

In this video, we are going to find out because together, we will look at 12 confusing adjectives.

We're going to look at the meanings, we're going to look at the pronunciation, and we're going to see lots of examples to help cement the differences in your brain.

To test your understanding, I've also included a short quiz at the end.

And look, it's not just English learners who get confused by these adjectives.

Native speakers do too, including me sometimes.

Something else you might like is that I've created a free PDF that contains everything in this video plus 12 more confusing adjectives and two additional quizzes.

Just click on the link in the description box or scan that QR code there.

You sign up to my mailing list and the PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.

Then you will automatically receive my free weekly PDFs plus all of my news updates and offers.

It's a free service and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Right, let's get started with the lesson and go back to the question I asked you at the beginning of the video.

So if you're interested in something, you want to know about it.

If you're uninterested, you don't want to know about something or you don't want to be involved in something.

An example, my students seemed completely uninterested in the lesson about the history of taxation.

Shock, they didn't want to learn about it.

Disinterested isn't the opposite of interested, even though it looks like it is.

If you are disinterested, you are able to be fair and you don't favour one side or the other in a situation because you're not personally involved.

It's similar to being neutral or impartial.

For example, we need a disinterested party to help decide who should win the prize.

We need someone who is not involved and is able to be fair.

So to recap, uninterested means not interested and disinterested means neutral or impartial.

Now, many native speakers use disinterested to mean uninterested, particularly in speech or in informal situations.

They consider it to be incorrect, but it's fairly common.

Next, we have another pair of words that look like opposites, but are not.

Listen to that difference in pronunciation.

Famous has a schwa in the final syllable.

Famous and infamous has two schwas in the second and final syllables.

I remember reading when I was younger the first time I came across this word and I naturally pronounced it infamous, but I was corrected.

The stress for both words is on the first syllable.

Jordan Belfort is for running a stock market fraud operation.

He's the guy from the Wolf of Wall Street.

And the next sentence, Taylor Swift is a, or an, singer.

Well, famous simply means known about by a lot of people, usually for something we consider positive.

We have famous people, famous songs, and famous songs.

Some examples, she became famous after winning an Olympic gold medal, or the Taj Mahal is famous for its beauty.

Now, infamous also means well-known, but for something bad, like Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, in our earlier example.

It can also be used for people, things, and places, and I guess animals as well.

For example, Al Capone was an infamous gangster, or that house is infamous for having a grisly history.

So, to recap, famous generally means known and celebrated.

Infamous generally means having a bad reputation.

All right, the next pair is one I get confused about sometimes when I'm writing.

They're pronounced the same, but one is spelt with an I and the other with an E.

Complimentary with an I has two main meanings.

That's not too hard to remember, as the noun and verb form compliment is also spelt with an I.

An example, he was very complimentary about your presentation.

But, complimentary with an I also means free.

For example, the hotel offers a complimentary breakfast for guests.

Now, complimentary with an E refers to two people or things that work well together, either because they are useful together or visually appealing.

The two elements can be quite different, but they enhance each other.

For example, complimentary colours like blue and orange offer a strong contrast, yet they look great side by side.

Another example, they have complimentary skills.

She's creative and he's highly organised.

So, to recap, complimentary with an I means expressing praise or free.

Complimentary with an E means work well together.

Our next pair of words is really challenging for English learners.

We have economic and economical, or is that economic and economical?

See, the confusion starts even with the pronunciation.

You can pronounce both words with either an E or an F sound at the beginning.

Economic, economic, economical, economical.

I wish I could tell you which pronunciation I use all the time, but honestly, I flip between the two.

I grew up with different teachers using the different pronunciations and I just never really thought about it and used both.

Try them out, see which one feels more natural to you.

But the pronunciation isn't the trickiest part, the meaning is.

One, this country is facing serious problems and my washing machine is very...

So, in the first gap, we need economic or economic.

So, in the second gap, of course, we need economical or economical.

I'm going to stick with the E pronunciation here.

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12 Confusing English Adjectives

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