Quick tricks to remember the difference between “affect” and “effect”

For the purposes of English language learning, think of “effect” as a noun and “affect” as a verb. It typically means “a result or outcome,” such as “the fireworks had a nice effect” or “the special effects made the movie seem real.” It is occasionally used as a verb that means “to bring about” (e.g., “It’s up to the next generation to effect change”), but this usage is far less common. “Effect” is almost always used as a noun. It basically means “to influence” in some way, such as “the chemicals affected the scientist strangely” or “I didn’t think that movie would affect me so strongly.” It is occasionally used as a noun to describe a facial expression, such as “the patient showed little affect during the experiment,” but this form of the word isn’t used very much outside of the field of psychology.

“Affect” is almost always used as a verb. However, once you learn the definitions of the two words and a couple simple tricks to remember the differences between them, you should have no trouble using “affect” and “effect” correctly. There are few words as commonly confused in the English language as “affect” and “effect.” Even native English speakers sometimes use these two words incorrectly.

Affect me