Important, Essential and Crucial

Hello All,

Great to see very informative forum about English. Good going…

Could you please help me out in understanding the difference between the uses of important, essential and crucial in different scenarios?

One thing more I want to ask that Can you people guide me in improving my English speaking? It’s very bad even I have lack of guidance in speaking a very basic structure. I am sometime very frustrated about it because I can’t speak what I can write. {Also if anyone finds any mistakes in my writing, feel free to tell it}

Thanks and Regards
Farheen Abid

Oh I find my own mistake, I wrote guidance instead of confidence by mistake.

Hello Farheen and welcome to English-Test!

Regarding the adjectives you asked about, they have very similar meanings, but perhaps it’s a matter of intensity. I’ll list them by order of importance :slight_smile: :

crucial:
extremely important/critical: it is crucial that the report should be on time

essential:
(something) very important/indispensable: it is essential that you should take out a proper insurance; it is essential for the applicant to wear a dark suit;
it can be a noun, too: they can hardly afford the bare essentials, the things which are absolutely necessary

important:
1 serious/with a serious effect/which matters a great deal: how important is it for you to get to London tomorrow? an important announcement from the Prime Minister’s office
2 with great influence/holding an influential position:
an important civil servant

As to improving your spoken English, if you don’t have the opportunity to practice on the net or in real life (and even if you do!), try reading aloud as much as you can and repeating (always aloud, if possible) what you hear on TV or in films, for example (it’s much easier with DVDs, because you can do it at your own pace!).

Hope to see you often!

Hello,

Thanks Conchita for your kind help and pointed out my mistakes . Ah! I think that I have to pay attention in the article usage because Alan also pointed out some mistakes about article in one of my post. Thanks again.
And yes this is such a useful and informative site, [[Why I have not been here often] i guess that’s right way to say it]:slight_smile:

Regards,
Farheen