In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. This week’s tip is about practice and practise.
In British English, practice (a noun) should not be confused with practise (a verb). These two words sound exactly the same:
✗ Soldiers had only a few days in which to practice manoeuvres.
✓Soldiers had only a few days in which to practise manoeuvres.
✗ The important thing is to put it into practise.
✓ The important thing is to put it into practice.
However, in American English, both the noun and the verb are spelled practice:
Waylans broke his wrist during practice and will be unable to pitch in tomorrow’s game.
How many hours a day do you practice the piano?
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I teach people an easy way to remember the difference (for British English, of course):
Ice is a noun, as is pract-ice.
Hope this helps.
I teach people an easy way to remember the difference (for British English, of course):
Ice is a noun, as is pract-ice.
I hope this helps.
That’s a good one, Steve. Me, I still use something I’ve been using since I was a kid [and that’s going back several decades now 😉 ] and that’s, alphabetically, C comes before S and so does Noun come before Verb.
Hi there, I also use the tips as above but include advice & advise / device & devise
Just a comment
all good tips, thanks, though of course advice/ise and device/ise are pronounced differently, unlike practice/ise. I can’t think of any other verb/noun pairs off the top of my head where the pronunciation is the same but spelling different
An English friend of mine gave me this tip which he learned in grammar school in Bolton: Nelson’s Column, Victoria Square — this means you should use a “c” in the spelling if it’s a “noun” or “s” if it’s a “verb” — according to the first letters of the tip words!
@Liz: Another such pair is “license” (v) and “licence” (n). Here also American English uses only one spelling, but in this case it’s the one with S.