Indiana

especially if it's a synonym with another word.

Like, okay, another digression here.

The other day, one of my English students was asking me about the difference between complex and complicated.

And

And my initial reaction is like, oh, it's like the same thing.

You know, they're synonyms.

But of course the answer is not so easy as that.

So if you look up like a collocations dictionary with each of these words, you begin to see situations where complex would be used, where complicated is not used.

So like a complex system of transportation or highways or something like public transport, you more often see the word complex with something like that.

Or in nutrition or science, complex carbohydrate, we can't just replace the word complex with complicated there, like it's a set expression.

So if you're trying to figure out the difference between two synonyms, try to get some collocations online through a dictionary or do a little research for your flashcard, and then you can connect those words with the larger context or frequent examples that they would show up in.

And I think that is so key, especially for English learners, because there's so many synonyms in our language.

And it's crazy making actually how many synonyms there are.

Right, Andrew?

Yeah.

And I definitely listen to many, many podcasts and my target language.

Like if I'm at the gym or I'm walking the dog or I'm cleaning the dishes, you know, like filling in that gap time with as much exposure as I can get.

It's really great.

And it's essential for sure.

I think that I'm also coming from a biased perspective of being a very, very visual learner.