One of my students asked me to explain the difference and uses of these words so I thought this might be useful for readers of my blog, so here is a breakdown of them.
Sometime is an adverb and is written as a single word. It refers to an unstated time in the future
“We should go for a drink sometime.”
“I will do my homework sometime this week.”
Some time is an expression, written as two words, that refers to a period of time.
“It was some time before he realised his friend wasn’t coming to the party.”
“He waited for some time, but the train never arrived.”
Sometimes is used to describe something you do only occasionally. Not often but now and then.
“I sometimes drink wine with my meal.”
“I never eat meat but I sometimes eat fish.”
Can you give me an example of something that you sometimes do, or perhaps something you’d like to do sometime ? What do you like to put aside some time for?
Leave a comment below.
Subscribe to my newsletter if you’d like more tips on speaking English, in particular, British English.
You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.
If you’re interested in taking one to one lessons over Skype, get in touch
Responses
Thanks for the explanation. That clears the doubt I have. Is this similar to in term and in terms? Here’s the example;
– Sometimes, I like to create a demo website just for fun.
– My childhood friends suggest that we should go jogging sometime.
– I like to put aside some time for language learning as currently, I’m learning Spanish.
Thanks for commenting Meina!
Those are great examples.
I use in terms of a lot in English, but where would you use in term?
I read it on some blogs the other day. I’d love to give the links but I just don’t remember the name.
Ah ok, no problem.
We use “in terms of” to talk about something regarding something. It’s often used in business when discussing cost.
“We measure customer satisfaction in terms of happy customers rather than profits”
You can also use it as “in…something…terms”
“In cost terms, this is very effective”
I would generally not use “term” (singular) in the same way.
Understood. Thanks again 🙂