Advice vs. Advise

Advice and advise are two commonly confused words in the English language. When do you use each one?

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These two words have a very similar spelling, but they are pronounced differently.

Advice is pronounced with an "S" sound at the end.

Advise is pronounced with a "Z" sound at the end.

Advice

Advice is a noun. It talks about something someone tells you to do, because they think it is the best course of action.

When we have a problem, and we don't know what to do, we ask someone for their advice. We ask them what they think is best for us to do.

Let's look at some examples of the word advice.

Examples:

• You should talk to Laura. She always gives excellent advice.
  
  - Laura always knows what to do. She will tell you what the best thing to do is.
  

• If you need some advice about which courses to take, you can talk to the professors.
  
  - The professors can give you helpful input about which courses are best to take.
  

• I didn't ask for his advice, but he told me what he thought anyway!
  
  - I didn't want to know what he thought I should do, but he told me anyway.
  

• My advice is, always follow your heart!

        - What I think you should do is, follow your heart.

Advise

Advise is a verb that means to give advice.

This verb must always be followed by the person we are advising. In this way, it is just like the verb tell.





If we want to say exactly what the advice was, we use to right after the listener's name, like in the example above.

Let's look at some more examples with this verb.

Examples

• The salesman advised the customer to buy the product.

        - The salesman told the customer it was a good idea to buy the product.

• The experts advise the president about complex situations.

        - The experts give him advice about complicated situations.

• If you ask Donna, I'm sure she'll advise you to report the problem.

        - Donna will give you advice. She will tell you to report the problem.

More Tips

First, remember that these two words are pronounced differently.
Advice has an "S" sound at the end, and advise has a "Z" sound at the end.

Also keep in mind that these two words are different parts of speech.
Advice is a noun, and advise is a verb.

So, we've seen that even though these words are similar, their pronunciation and use are different. Now you've got it!


These were the differences between advice and advise. Now that you understand, it's time to practice! Get our ESL Books.

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