1/13/2011

Life, Live, Leaf, Leave

As you already seen and heard for yourself, there are many words whose spelling and pronunciation are often confused. Life, live, leaf and leave are among them.

life[1] (laif) = noun. Do you believe in life after death?
live[2] (libf) = verb. They live at the end of the street.
live[3] (laibf) = adjective, adverb. Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night Live!

Don’t confuse lives (laibfs), the plural form of the noun life, and lives (libfs), the third-person-singular form of the verb live.

Firemen save countless lives everyday. (noun)
It lives at the bottom of the ocean. (verb)

leaf[4] (líf) = noun. She fanned[5] herself with a large leaf.
leave[6] (líbf) = verb. Leave me alone. We are gpoing to leave at 5:00.

The plural form of the noun leaf has the same spelling and sound as the third-person-singular form of the verb leave, which is leaves (líbfs).

The fallen leaves completely covered the car. (noun)
Our train leaves at midnight. (verb)

Listen to the audio below.



[1] vida, [2] vivir, [3] en directo, [4] hoja, [5] abanicó, [6] dejar, marchar

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