形容词 continual 与 continuous（及其副词形式 continually 与 continuously）所表达的意思相似，在非正式使用时，两者往往可以互换；不过，严格来说，它们的意义并不相同，而且在正式的英文写作中应加以区分，尤其是学术论文。
这两个形容词都是描述某些状况或状态没有停止的情形。两者意思的差异在于，continuous 描述没有间断的行为或状况，而 continual 则用于某些行为或状况在一段时期内曾经中断，但仍重复出现的情形。
以下例句将说明 continual(ly) 与 continuous(ly) 之间的差异。
- The visitors have made continual requests to be moved to another room.
- After continually attempting to measure the signal directly, we eventually gave up and constructed an indirect and more generally applicable method.
- The herons continually returned to the same marsh to feed./li>
- We assume that the pressure is a continuous function of the volume during the operation.
- The patient is continuously monitored.
- This power plant generally operates with a continuous output of 22 MW.
