Confusing English Words: NO, KNOW, NOW

Do you ever get NO, KNOW, and NOW mixed up? They are quite similar, so it’s understandable if you do. In this lesson I’ll be looking at each word in turn, and giving examples of how they’re used. We will practice together at the end of the class, and then you can take another quiz on your own at . After all that, I hope you’ll be able to say “NOW I KNOW, NO problem!” More lessons like this: “THAN“ or “THEN“? “LEND“ or “BORROW“? What’s the difference? In this lesson: 0:00 “no“, “know“, “now“ 0:36 How to say “no“ & “know“ correctly 1:15 How to say “now“ correctly 1:48 “no“ – usage 2:42 “know“ – usage 4:36 “now“ – usage 4:58 Test yourself! TRANSCRIPT Hello. I’m Gill at engVid, and today we have a lesson on three little words. “No“, “no“, and “now“. There is a bit of similarity between them in the way that they’re spelt, so I think some people find them a little bit confusing as far as the pronunciation is concerned, and also how to use them, what parts of speech they are. So, this is just to help to explain and to clarify. Okay? So, these two, “no“ and “no“, they’re spelt differently. This one has “no“ in the middle of it, like “no“ there, but there’s a “k“ at the beginning and a “w“ at the end, but they sound exactly the same. There’s the “o“ vowel sound, “no“, and “no“. It’s the same for both, even though the spelling is different. So, this is typical of English spelling. It can be confusing. Okay? So, they’re both pronounced the same with “no“, but this one has a different vowel sound, so it’s... It’s a diphthong, which means a vowel sound with two parts, so it’s “ow“. If I say it slowly, it’s “ow“, but saying it quickly in the normal way, it’s “ow“, and that’s “now“. Okay? So, different vowel sound for that. So, then let’s just go through each one and see how they are used. So, “no“, “n-o“ is the negative word. It can also appear, “n-o“ with often a full stop after it, which is an abbreviation for number. Number. So, number three, number four, etc. If you see “n-o“ with a dot, that is an abbreviation for the word “number“. Just like this symbol, the hash symbol, is another symbol meaning number. You might get that followed by a three, meaning number three. So, that’s another little confusion. It’s usually a negative in a sentence, but if numbers are involved, it could be the abbreviation. Okay. And then this one, “k-n-o-w“, also pronounced “no“, is a verb, the verb “to know“. So, in the present tense, it would be “I know“, “you know“, then “he knows“, the third person singular, you put the “s“ on the end, “he knows“, and “we know“, “you know“, “they know“. Okay? And then in the past, the simple past, “I knew“, “we knew“, it’s... This is the same for every pronoun, every personal pronoun. “I knew“, “you knew“, “he knew“, “she knew“, “it knew“, “we knew“, “they knew“. Okay? And then the... The other past tense with “have“, and then the past participle, “have known“. Okay? So it’s “know“, “knew“, and “known“, the three forms of the verb. Okay. Right. And then the word “know“, if you expand it into this word, it’s pronounced... Again, it changes the pronunciation, so it’s not pronounced “knowledge“, it’s pronounced “knowledge“, “know“, “knowledge“. So, the pronunciation, the vowel sound changes here to “knowledge“. Okay? And that’s a noun, an abstract noun, meaning a state of knowing, really, knowing something. If you have knowledge about something, you know about it. So, you’re in a state of knowing about a subject. Okay, so that’s “knowledge“. “Know“, “knowledge“. And then finally, this one, “now“, with the diphthong vowel sound, means “now“, “right now“, “in the present“, “at this moment“. Okay? So, I’m sure you’re familiar with these words, but this is just to clear up any confusions. So, there we are, then. So, that’s all of them explained. And then we have a little test here with some gaps for you to decide which of these three... So, it’s this, this, and this, from the top here, go in the gaps. So, you have to work out from the meaning which word is the right one. So, “I don’t ____ what to do.“ So, which one of those do you think it should be? “I don’t ____ what to do.“ So, do you think you need a verb here? So, which one is the verb? That one. “I don’t know what to do.“ Okay. So, it’s that spelling. Right. And then this one, “We need to do this ____.“ “We need to do this ____.“ So, which one of the three words fits best in that? So, “We need to do this ____.“ So, is it to do with at this moment? We need to do it right now. So, “We need to do this now.“ Okay. Good. So, you can probably guess what this next one’s going to be. So, “I don’t think so.“ So, which one haven’t we used yet? […]