This mini episode teaches you about “continuous” and “continual,” two very similar words that can cause difficulty for people who are learning English.
Episode 238 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you about “continuous” and “continual,” two very similar words that can cause difficulty for people who are learning English. Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi, everyone! This is Gayatri, from India. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 238 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In a recent episode, I talked about two words that look very similar and mean similar things, but are actually pretty different. Those two words were most and almost.
And in this episode, I want to do the same thing: I want to talk about another pair of words that look very similar and mean similar things but are actually different.
And the two words that I want to talk about in this episode are continuous and continual. Continuous and continual. Continuous is spelled c-o-n-t-i-n-u-o-u-s. And continual is spelled c-o-n-t-i-n-u-a-l. Continuous, continual.
What do these words mean? Let’s start with continuous. Continuous means “happening without stopping, happening without interruption.” Another way that we say this is that something is “going on and on.” Or something is “happening on and on.”
For example, somebody could say something like this: “The baby who lives in the apartment next to me cries continuously.” In other words, this baby cries without ending. This baby does not stop crying. Or you could also say, “The baby cries on and on.”
That is continuous. What about continual?
One thing that makes this a little bit complicated or a little bit confusing is that continual can mean the same thing as continuous. Continual can mean “happening without ending, going on and on.”
But continual is also used in a different way. Instead of meaning “happening without ending,” continual can mean “happening again and again, happening and then happening again and then happening again and then happening again.” So, instead of meaning “on and on,” continual can mean “again and again.”
For instance, somebody could say, “My computer is continually crashing.” My computer is continually crashing.
That means “My computer crashes often, it crashes and then everything is okay, and then it crashes again, and then again.”
Another construction that you will hear that means the same thing uses the word keeps. So you could say, “My computer keeps crashing.” That means “It crashes continually, it crashes again and again, it crashes often.”
That is continuous and continual—two words that look similar, mean similar things, but are different.
Outro
And that is the end of episode 238 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can use at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Gayatri recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with another episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye! I’ll see you soon.