So or Really?
A student recently sent me a query from the FCE practice. He didn’t understand the difference between: I was really impressed (which he got wrong) OR I was so impressed (which was the right answer).
The full sentence was: I was ………. impressed I went straight home.
This was my reply.
‘So’ is stronger than ‘really’.
It is used before adjectives and adverbs but not before verbs.
You use ‘so’ when a reason or a result is stated.
You don’t have a reason or result with ‘really’.
Here there is a result, the person went home!
Hence the answer is ‘so’ and not ‘really’
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