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Believer Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

various vs. different

0Hi,02br
02br
00Can you help me to better use or correctly use the words 'various' and 'different'. It gets to be confusing when they both seem to be good in certain sentential contexts.02br
02br
00need advice from various groups/different groups of people02br
02br
00from various levels/different levels of academic backgrounds02br
02br
00have choices to make from various fresh/different fresh fruit products 02br
02br
00Do you have some tips? 0-
  

Top answer

0 01blockquote 01cite 10Believer12cite 10Hi,12br 12br 10Can you help me to better use or correctly use the words 'various' and 'different'. 12br 12br 10need advice from various groups/different groups of people12br 12br 10from various levels/different levels of academic backgrounds12br 12br 10have choices to make from various fresh/different fresh fruit products 12br 12br 10Do you have some tips? 12br 12br 12blockquote 10One difference may be that "various" tends to be used with plural nouns.

— Anonymous

  • 0 01blockquote 01cite 10Believer12cite 10Hi,12br 12br 10Can you help me to better use or correctly use the words 'various' and 'different'.
  • 12br 12br 10need advice from various groups/different groups of people12br 12br 10from various levels/different levels of academic backgrounds12br 12br 10have choices to make from various fresh/different fresh fruit products 12br 12br 10Do you have some tips?
  • 12br 12br 12blockquote 10One difference may be that "various" tends to be used with plural nouns.
  • 0-
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7 Answers
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Believer12cite10Hi,12br
12br
10Can you help me to better use or correctly use the words 'various' and 'different'. It gets to be confusing when they both seem to be good in certain sentential contexts.12br
12br
10need advice from various groups/different groups of people12br
12br
0
0
0 01blockquote
01cite10Believer12cite10Hi,12br
12br
10Can you help me to better use or correctly use the words 'various' and 'different'. It gets to be confusing when they both seem to be good in certain sentential contexts.12br
12br
10need advice from various groups/different groups of people12br
12br
0
0
0Thank you, Philip and Anon.02br
02br
00Can I apply Philip's suggestion that said that 'Different' would mean 'something other than what we now have' to these as well?02br
02br
01i00We need to get good advice from people of 01u00various 02u00levels of expertise.02i02br
02br
01i00Many people
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Hi,

I was also unsure about the usage of these two words. However,
  • I use various when the sense is vague, it is not known or there is no need or intention to know how many are there, e.g. People from various countries attended the conferece...in this case use of 'different' would be wrong..countries are different. Also, in this context it is not important how m
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correction in my previous post:

Please read the example 3 as follows:
  1. have choices to make from various fresh fruit products (again, the embasis is we do NOT care about the total number of products available..but we have to choose from 'many'.)
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various: used when showing multipliciciy/variety of choices
different: used when showing that the choices are not the same as something else
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various usually indicates many or it refers to many while different is used while comparing two things.

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