More confusing and often confused words

Even the headline of this article is confusing, isn't it?

As we have suggested in a previous article, there are words in English that speakers often confuse and use them incorrectly. And don't worry, sometimes even native speakers make mistakes!

Such words might present problems in spelling or pronunciation.

Let's look at a few examples of
words that sound the same but are spelled differently.
These are called homophones.

Typically, they are those pairs of a verb and a noun where the meaning is similar:
advice -- advise
practice -- practise

Remember that the verbs have -s- in them.

Then there are words that differ only in vowels (a/e, e/o, oo/o, ou/o-e). There are many of these, which can sometimes result in ridiculous mistakes. I estimate that this type causes mistakes most frequently:
pour (verb) -- pore (noun) -- poor (adj.)
loose (adj.) -- lose (verb)
bear (noun) -- bare (adj.)
piece -- peace -- peas (all nouns)
hear (verb) -- here (adverb)
stationary (adjective) -- stationery (noun)

Can you think of more examples?
Here is an amusing example for you:

Another typical example are -ea-/-ee- confusions, although they have different pronunciation:
sweat (noun) -- sweet (adj.)
bear (noun) -- beer (noun)
It is not infrequent to buy pyjamas made in China that read: "Sweat beers"! :)

Some mistakes are also caused by verb forms such as
scared -- scarred.
Both are adjectives, but they come from different verbs: scared comes from the verb to scare someone (make them frightened), while scarred comes from the verb to scar (injure them so they have a scar on their skin). Note that verbs that end in -e do not double the consonant -r-. Memory help: Is it Scary Movie or Scarry Movie?

There are probably fewer words that have the same spelling but are pronounced differently according to the context. Now these are really tricky:
tear (noun) -- tear (verb)
Tears [i:] is the liquid that is produced in your eyes when you cry or when something falls in them. To tear [e:] means to damage something by ripping it in pieces or against something sharp, typically clothes or also muscles when you make an awkward movement.
Another example is the verb to read [i:] which is pronounced read [e] in its past form.

Other troubles are caused by the differences between British and American English. It is not exactly a mistake to write "flavor" instead of "flavour" or "theater" instead of "theatre", but you should keep the spelling constant throughout the text you are writing. If you keep switching between -or and -our, it looks like you are not sure about which is correct.

A good peas of advise is to cheque what you have just written befour you make it pubic! :)

(This article was inspired by an Oxford Dictionaries article.)