Commonly Confused Words

admit, recognize and accept

The Japanese verb äF­§­Ž (mitomeru) corresponds to at least three different English verbs: accept, admit, and recognize. These verbs are not exactly the same in meaning, and in many situations, only one of them can be used.

The definitions and examples below are adapted from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 3rd edition.

admit

The senses below are common uses of admit. Notice that that senses (3) and (4) are neutral in tone, but (1) and (2) are usually rather negative, indicating that the person is embarrassed or unwilling to admit something.

  1. to accept and agree unwillingly that something is true or that someone else is right
    • 'I was really scared,' Jenny admitted.
    • You may not like her, but you have to admit that she's good at her job.
    freely/openly admit: admit without being ashamed
    • Philips openly admits to being selfish.

  2. to admit to: to say that you have done something wrong, especially criminal
    • A quarter of all workers admit to taking time off when they are not ill.

  3. to allow someone to enter a public place to watch a game, performance etc.
    • Only ticket holders will be admitted to the stadium.
  4. to allow someone or something to join an organization, club, etc.

    • The UK was admitted to the EEU in 1973.

More examples of admit.

recognize

Some of the senses of recognize are similar to thoseof admit, but others are quite different.
  1. to know who someone is or what something is because you have seen, heard, experienced or learned about them in the past
    • She was humming a tune I didn't recognize
    • Saleha came home so thin and weak her own children hardly recognized her.

  2. to officially accept that an organization, government, document, etc. has legal or official authority
    • The management recognizes three main trade union. British medical qualifications are recognized in Canada.
    This sense is similar to admit, sense 4. The difference is that admit focuses on the fact that a person or group is joining an organization.

  3. to be recognized as: to be thought of as being important or very good by a lot of people
    • Lawrence's book was eventually recognized as a work of genius.

  4. to accept and admit, often unwillingly, that something is true
    • We recognize that it is an unpleasant choice to make.
    • Do you think he recognizes how foolish he looks?

    This sense is quite similar to admit, sense 1. The difference seems to be that with if a person uses admit, it sounds like he or she is in some sense responsible for the situation. For example: "We admit that it is an unpleasant choice to make." It sounds as if "we" are implying that they somehow responsible for making someone else make a choice. With recognize, it sounds like the situation is out of the control of "we" or at least that "we" is not willing to do anything to make the choice easier.

  5. to publicly and officially thank someone for something they have done, by giving them a special honor

More examples of recognize

accept

  1. GIFT/OFFER/INVITATION
    to take something that someone offers you, or agree to do something that someone asked you to do
    Examples:
    • I've decided to accept the job.
    • Are you going to accept their invitation?

  2. PLAN/SUGGESTION/ADVICE
    to decide to do what someone advises or suggests you should do
    Examples:
    • I wish I'd accepted your advice and kept my money in the bank.

  3. IDEA/STATEMENT/EXPLANATION
    to agree that what someone says is right or true
    Examples:
    • She managed to persuade the jury to accept her version of events.

    This sense is similar to admit, sense 1 and recognize, sense 4. But unlike those two verbs, accept does not imply any unwillingness. Also, compared to accept, admitseems to show more involvement on thepartof the person who is agreeing--if you admit something, it is usually something that you have done or that you know about first-hand. Here, admit would sound strange because the jury probably does not have any first-hand knowledge of what the defendant or witness has done. However, recognize could be used in place of accept in this sentence.

  4. SITUATION/PROBLEM
    to decide that there is nothing you can do to change a difficult or unpleasant fact and continue with your normal life
    • There's nothing we can do about it so we'll just have to accept it. I found it hard to accept the fact that she'd gone.

    This sense of accept is something like Japanese ✭§­Ž (akirameru)ª@.

  5. THINK SOMEBODY/SOMETHING GOOD ENOUGH
    to decide that someone has the necessary skill or intelligence for a particular job, course, etc. or that a piece of work is good enough
    • My story's been accepted for the school's magazine.

  6. BECOME PART OF

    to allow someone to become part of a group, society, or organization and to treat them in the same way as the other members

    • The children gradually began to accept her as one of the family.

More examples of accept

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