
A lack of training affects team performances.Saying “the rain influenced or impacted my mood” is grammatically correct, but affect is more widely used. For example, when speaking about health, mood or performance (sport or work-related) we often use affect over synonyms like influence and impact. Affect can be synonymous with those verbs, yet there are occasions when affect is the appropriate verb to use. It follows that affect should be used when the action of the sentence is the impact, change, influence and so on. You can tell that affect is a verb because these sentences would still make sense when reversed: The temperature is affected by cloud cover.We usually think of affect in the sense of being affected by something or someone: The effects of climate change will be felt by everyone.Īffect is most commonly used as a verb and it broadly means to influence, change or impact something.The long-term effect of the government’s policy was that more people went to university.The effects of a cold winter left many farmers with reduced livestock.John’s illness did have an effect on his exam performance.Being poor shouldn’t affect your chances of going to university.The cold winter affected the livestock tremendously.Will John’s illness affect his exam results?.Some more examples of the correct usage of effect and affect are shown below: The effect (result, noun) of too much loud music can affect (influence, verb) your hearing in later life.In a way, we can think about the effect as the result of the action of affecting something. The noun effect is the result of something changing. The verb affect means to change, influence or impact something. Indeed, effect and affect have different meanings, although a quirk of language means that people usually understand the speaker or writer’s intention even when they have mixed them up. While the words are pronounced differently, English speakers will often mix up affect and effect in speech and writing. Effect (e- fekt) stresses the first ‘e’, such as the one in email or easy. Affect ( a-fekt) has a softer ‘a’, like the one in pizza.

While the words are often mixed up in speech and writing, it should be noted that the pronunciation is different. There are some instances when effect can be used as a verb and affect as a noun, which will be discussed later.

But something can leave an effect upon us, with the noun form telling us that effect is a thing and not an action. We can affect something, which in its verb form tells us that it is we who are doing the affecting. In most cases, affect is used as a verb, meaning to impact, and effect is used as a noun for the result of an impact. The difference between affect and effect is one of the most common questions in grammar. What is the Difference Between Affect and Effect?
