18 March 2014

1 B2 Prevent or Avoid

I hope it gets clearer with this explanation.


AVOID -keep away from or stop oneself from doing (something).
"avoid excessive exposure to the sun"
We want to avoid Tom (because he is sick).

PREVENT -keep (something) from happening.
"action must be taken to prevent further accidents"
We washed our hands in order to prevent catching the bug going around (a sickness).

The truth is that you can use either oneAvoid has a negative connotation and prevent means to stop something that has occurred more than once. For your example, I would use "We will try to prevent this mistake from happening again (in the future)."

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