The notion of "advice" appears to crop up really frequently in essays and speaking submissions - especially for tests like iBT TOEFL and IELTS. This is just my impression, but it also appears to be the most incorrectly applied word (grammatically) that I come across in this and many other forums!
So, let's set things straight and hopefully we can prevent you from making errors with this word "advice" and its close relative "advise"...
~ ADVICE ~
This is a NOUN, and an uncountable noun to boot. That means that "advice" serves as both the singular and plural form of the word. If you ever write/type "advices", you are making a glaring error that really stands out to native speaking users of the language.
We also never use the word on its own in the singular, so "an advice" is also completely incorrect!
The five most common (and correct) ways to use this word in its noun form are:
- some / a little / a bit of / a lot of + advice
- [adjective] good / bad / great / terrible / useful + advice
- give s.b. advice (as in: I gave my friend advice about his problem)
- give s.b. a piece of [adj] advice (as in: My father gave me a piece of [good] advice when I was young)
- get [some/etc.] advice from s.b. (as in: I got [some] advice from the student affairs office about my course selection)
So, in a nutshell, avoid saying things like "an advice", "a good advice", and "many advices" - they're all wrong!
~ ADVISE ~
This is the VERB variant of "advice". It is a regular verb that uses "-ed" in past and past participle form (advised). So this is the word you want to use when describing the action of giving advice.
Here are some common sentence patterns demonstrating the way this word is used:
- We advised him to take biology instead of physics. [Subj + advise + obj + to + verb]
- My elder brother advised me about the best course of action to take. [Subj + advise + obj + about + noun or noun phrase]
~ Other related terms ~
ADVISOR (noun) - A person who gives advice or advises
ADVISORY (adj) - Of an advice-giving nature
ADVISED (adj) - "It's not advised to take more than one major at a time."
There you have it. That's as much as I can think of right now, but I hope it makes the correct use of the word quite specific for you!
I hope you found this advice useful!
~ Jason
