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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 376. Today we're going to look at the

  • difference between frightening, frightful and frightened . Okay. Let's take a look at

  • the note here. If someone or something is frightening , it causes others to feel

  • fear or causes someone to feel fear. It's a little similar to you know, other ones

  • that we covered before like bored and boring. Where if somebody is boring they

  • cause other people to be bored , but if you're bored

  • it means you feel bored. So this was very similar the difference between

  • frightening and frightened. All right. Let's, let's continue here . Let's look at the first

  • examples. So example number one. That, that scene from this horror movie was

  • too frightening for small children. So it caused small children to have fear. So it

  • was frightening for the children. Okay. Good.

  • Or number two here. It is frightening to think of the position, we would be in if

  • he lost his job. So this ... maybe this might cause this family to have some

  • fear. Maybe the father thought that he might be downsized and they might be out

  • of an income. That could put fear into the family. So that would be very

  • frightening. It could be a frightening situation in that sense. Okay. Good. Now

  • let's take a look at frightened here. Frightened means someone feels fear or

  • shows fear. So the the fear on their face or they feel fear, especially suddenly.

  • Okay. So let's look at the first one. That frightened child hugged her mother

  • because she was afraid of a dog. So she is the small child is showing fear. She

  • hugs her mother and she hugged her mother. Oh please, please !

  • So she is showing fear. So in that case we say that she is frightened. Or number

  • two. My dog was frightened by the sound of thunder. Yeah. I've seen some dogs get

  • scared about thunder before. So, so of course, the dog feels fear. So the dog is frightened.

  • All right. Now here were the X, with the X, this is where some students might mess

  • up, especially students of ESL. They might confuse the difference between

  • frightened and frightening. So let's look at this first example here. Many

  • frightening passengers screamed when the plane experienced strong turbulence. No.

  • Of course this is wrong. That's why we have an X here. If you say the passengers

  • are frightening, it means that the passengers are scary. They're scaring

  • other people. They're causing others to have fear. So of course with the

  • check. You should be saying this one . Many frightened passengers... Yeah they feel

  • fear, so they are frightened. Many frightened passengers screamed when the

  • plane experienced some strong turbulence. So this is exactly how we use it. This

  • would probably be one of the most common mistakes that students might make. If

  • they mix these two up. All right. Now let's look at frightful. Frightful is a more formal,

  • higher-level, educated word and tends to be more literary and more often used in

  • British English. All right. So remember if I say it's higher level it means that the

  • more educated you are, the more likely you might use this more often.

  • All right. People of lower education , you don't hear them saying frightful very

  • often. It tends to be more literary too, which means you're more likely to see it

  • written in books than just spoken directly out of your mouth. It

  • probably you mostly... you probably don't hear children use it. Although children

  • out of all these words children might use the word like scary more. And they

  • might use frightened but scary would probably be even more common for you

  • know , children. All right. Let's continue. So frightful also has a broader use. It can

  • be used to mean horror. You know, or feeling horror or experiencing horror. It

  • could be used for that. In that way it has similarities to both frightening and

  • frightened but it could also simply mean you know, extreme in degree. In that case

  • that that's you know, that's really not like frightening or frightened. Okay. Or it

  • could mean feeling anxiety of stress too. All right. So let's take a look at the

  • first example. They were in a frightful hurry. All right. Now this doesn't mean...

  • They are not in a scared or afraid... they're not afraid in the hurry. It

  • probably just means like extreme in degree. They were in a , a very serious

  • hurry. So they were in a frightful hurry. So here's a use for frightful is used in

  • a different way. The weather outside is frightful. I remember this from a Christmas

  • song too. We often may hear this too. It might mean more like causing anxiety or stress.

  • Could it mean scary ? Possibly. If it's really, really bad. But it probably means

  • causing more stress or , or anxiety. Because it's difficult to go through or

  • the murder scene was quite frightful. Now this is more like causing horror or

  • feeling horror. Many bodies were discovered cut into pieces. Yes. So that

  • is that's , that's experiencing horror. So we might use it that way too. Okay.

  • Anyway, I hope you got a better feel and know when you might use one ... in which

  • place rather than the other. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it was

  • informative. Thank you for your time. Bye- bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 376. Today we're going to look at the

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