Difference Between "Sell" and "Sale"?

Solution 1:

"Sell" is a verb, an action, it requires conjugation: I sell, you sell, he sells.. I sold, you sold, and so on. "Sale" is a noun, it is not conjugated and usually would appear together with definite or undefinite article "the sale", "a sale".

When person A sold something, A made a sale.

Solution 2:

@Tames is quite right. It's the verb that's the key. And the vowel in the verb.

The verb sell /sɛl/ contains the mid front lax vowel /ɛ/, as in bet or men.

The noun sale /sel/, derived from the verb sell, contains the mid front tense vowel /e/ (also /ey, ei, ej, e:/, etc), as in bait or main. These vowels are distinctive (i.e, Phonemic) in English.

However, speakers of many languages, like Spanish and Malay, do not easily distinguish [ɛ] from [e], so there may be some cultural problems, since pronunciation is what most people use as memory cues.

If that's not an issue, then the test is

• if it should be sale, then you can substitute an equivalent Noun Phrase like
  • the sale that Bill told me about
• if it should be sell, then you can substitute an equivalent Verb Phrase like
  • will sell the remaining stocks

Solution 3:

Sell is transfer possession and ownership of goods or property in exchange for money while sale is the process of selling goods and services.