Two English words that are often a source of confusion are "further" and "farther." Are they the same or not? It doesn't help that many native English speakers get these words mixed up, and that they are handled differently in British and American English.
In American English, "farther" refers to actual, measurable physical distance:
The second stage propelled the spacecraft even farther and faster into space.
Caption 45, Moon Landing: Apollo 11’s Journey to the Moon
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He looked out onto the meadow that stretched for as far as he could see and even farther.
Captions 57-59, Story Hour: The Story of The Ugly Duckling
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...like with the Andes, or farther inland like the Rocky Mountains.
Caption 63, The Last Paradises: America's National Parks
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The word "further," on the other hand, is used when talking about extent, amount, or figurative distance:
And we now face further uncertainty.
Caption 5, Brexit: PM Says He Will Pause Brexit Legislation after Timetable Loss
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Don't need to look no [sic, any] further.
Caption 4, Adele: The Making of "Chasing Pavements"
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First, the Americans released a further three hundred and fifty million dollars.
Caption 13, BBC News: Western aid for Ukraine's military
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In British English, the word "further" is generally used for both physical distance and as a synonym for "more"/"even more," "additional," "extra," or "to a greater extent." "Farther" is still only used for physical distance.
Further Learning
You'll find many examples of "further" or "farther" on Yabla English. When you see these words, pay attention to the accent of the speaker as well as the context the word is used in.
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In English, cardinal numbers (for example, "one," "two," or "three") refer to quantity, whereas ordinal numbers ("first," "second," or "third") refer to distribution. Ordinal numbers are used in dates and fractions. They are employed as adjectives to describe importance, position in a list, and placement in time.
Generally, ordinal numbers are created by adding -th to the end of the cardinal number. However, there are exceptions for the numbers one (first), two (second), three (third), five (fifth), eight (eighth), nine (ninth), and twelve (twelfth).
I've been nervous. I think you know it's my first video ever.
Caption 31, Adele - The Making of 'Chasing Pavements'
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It is the world's sixth largest country by total area.
Caption 3, Soccer World Cup - Australia
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On the twelfth day after Christmas, we have to take down all the decorations and the tree.
Caption 47, Christmas traditions - in the UK
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Starting with twenty, the ordinal numbers for multiples of ten (for example, thirty or ninety) are created by replacing the "y" with "ieth."
And we've got the one year celebration on the thirtieth of May.
Caption 30, FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015 - New Zealand getting the word out
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This may seem like a lot to remember. However, for other numbers above twenty, only the last figure is written as an ordinal number:
English is the language of the twenty-first century.
Caption 8, Strothoff International School - Imagefilm
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They have a wonderful internet café on the forty-seventh... forty-eighth floor.
Caption 67, An Apartment - in Japan
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Further Learning
Memorize the ordinal numbers from one to twenty with the help of this extensive list of ordinal numbers and find more examples on Yabla English.
An adjective is a "describing word" that describes or modifies a noun. Today we'll take a look at the most basic type of adjective, called an "attribute adjective," which in simple sentences in English usually precedes the noun.
It's quite a big video!
Caption 32, Adele - The Making of "Chasing Pavements"
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In the sentence above, the adjective "big" describes the noun "video." If you have more than one adjective, however, it is important to understand they must be put into a particular order: an adjective describing size is mentioned first, then shape or quality, followed by age, color, origin, and, lastly, material. For example:
And mix it well into this beautiful red tomato onion paste.
Caption 34, Tara's Recipes - Chilli Prawns and Golden Couscous
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In the sentence above, the adjective order is: beautiful (quality), red (color), and tomato onion (materials). The last two are actually nouns that are acting as adjectives. You can see how the order is important, because to say, "And mix it well with this tomato beautiful onion red paste" doesn't make sense!
A noun can be used as an adjective too, as in "a stone house", which describes "a house made of stone." But an adjective can become a noun too:
The ever widening gap between the rich and the poor is despicable.
Caption 6, Occupy DC - Barry Knight
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The adjectives "rich" and "poor" become nouns when the article "the" precedes them.
Further Learning
Take a look at this list of the most commonly used 500 adjectives in the English language and pick a few out that you are less familiar with, then learn how they are used in context on Yabla.