hi everybody my name is Alisha today I'm going to talk about the difference
between taste and flavor two commonly confused words let's get started okay
the first one I want to talk about in this lesson is the word flavor flavor we
use flavor as both a noun and a verb let's first look at how to use flavor as
a noun the definition of flavor as a noun is the blend of taste and smell
sensations caused by something in the mouth so this is a key point a blend of
taste and smell together in the mouth so for example we could say this has a nice
flavor so here we see flavor at the end where this is the item in the mouth this
food item perhaps has a nice flavor or I don't like fruity flavors so again the
blend of something in the mouth produces a fruity flavor in this case I don't
like that so we can use this as a noun that's one however second we can use it
as a verb as well so as a verb we can say to give or add flavor to something
is the definition so this is key giving something or adding something so in
other words a flavor that was not there a taste that was not there before is
added or is given to something else so in some example sentences I flavored the
drink with lemon here we see it in past tense I flavored the drink with lemon
meaning I added lemon to the drink to create a new flavor to create a new
taste we can also use it in this sentence we flavored the cake with
berries so by adding berries it changes the taste or it changes the flavor of
the cake by adding some ingredient in this case berries so I've used the past
tense here flavored is the past the tense so these are the two ways
primarily we can use the word flavor as a noun and as a verb okay but let's talk
about the verb taste or the noun taste as well so
taste as a noun it has a couple of different meanings first we can say that
taste is can be understood some people might argue there are five tastes but
for now let's look at these four a sweet sour salty or bitter quality of
something some people might say mummy is the fifth taste you can decide that but
a quality of something one of these as understood with the sense of taste as
understood by using essentially your mouth your tastebuds to understand these
qualities of something so for example this has a really salty taste so here we
see salty comes before the noun taste here so we're describing specifically
using one of these words the quality of something that's in the mouth of food or
drink another example the taste is bitter at first but sweet at the end so
again a specific word to describe the quality of something we use taste the
taste of something is bitter or the taste is salty so we're talking about
the quality a specific quality as understood using these kind of rough
categories here so the second definition of the word taste as a noun though is as
a small amount of food or drink a small like food or drink item so if you just
want to try a piece of something you can describe that as a taste of something so
for example can I have a taste of your Drake just a taste of it means just to
take something into the mouth and test the flavor as we'll see you later
we uh we can also use it in a sentence like this I just want a taste of that
sauce so meaning just a small amount of a food or drink item so these are the
two ways that we can use taste as a noun as a verb however we can use it to mean
one to understand the taste of something by taking it into the mouth so taking
something into the mouth to understand the flavor or we can use taste in that
way to understand the flavor to understand the taste for example I want
to taste your cake here I want to taste it
used as a verb in this sentence so I want to in other words understand the
flavor of your cake by taking it into my mouth this is the meaning here the
second general meaning I have is to have a specific flavor so this is where many
people run into some issues I think this sentence that I have here prepared is
this tastes good this tastes good when you want to talk about a specific flavor
you're enjoying something or you're not enjoying something that you're eating or
drinking you should use taste tastes in this way in this example this tastes
good it tasted bad for example we don't use flavors so much we don't say for
example that had a bad flavor about it you can say that and it will be
understood it'll be easy to understand actually but if you want to sound more
natural I recommend using this form of taste this tastes good this tastes bad
so this means having a specific flavor having some flavor some combination of
smells and tastes together and then you can describe that with a good or bad or
great so when you want to talk about a food I would recommend using this form
this tastes good or this tastes bad I want to mention though a couple of other
items a couple of other meanings that I sort of hinted out with the noun
description up here we can also use the verb taste to mean one to eat or drink
in small quantities of something so like I tasted every item on the menu sounds
like I only had a small piece of each item on the menu so it doesn't sound
like I ate one portion of everything from the menu but to taste something
sounds like just a small piece of something so we can use it to mean to
eat or drink in small quantities that's one second as I hinted at before as well
it can mean to test the flavor of something so for example you might have
heard of wine tasting so wine tasting is testing the flavor of wine or maybe like
beer tasting or some other kind of tasting where participants just try a
small piece of something to understand the flavor to try to test the flavor so
there are these other kind of common meanings as well of the verb to
taste but in general when you want to explain your opinion of a flavor your
opinion of a food you should use an expression like this this tastes good
this tastes bad your cake tasted really good for example of course you can drop
the expression all together you can drop taste like this is good or this is bad
that's fine but just please keep in mind taste is something that refers to your
understanding of the flavor flavor it refers sort of just to the blend of
things so we tend to use flavor more to maybe describe a the quality of a food
or a drink by that I mean the ice cream is lemon flavored for example or this is
a grape flavored soda for example we tend to use it in that way when we want
to express our opinions we'll use taste more often at least this
is how I use it and this is perhaps how it's used more in American English so
please maybe consider that if you want to just describe the name or a just
simple description of something flavor might be a better choice if you want to
talk about your opinion try using taste this tastes good this
tastes bad so I hope that that's helpful for you if you have any questions or
comments about how to use these two words feel free to let us know though if
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too you can check us out in English class 101.com for some other good stuff
as well thanks very much for watching this episode and I will see you again