New2grammarCan I replace competition with contest in general? Are they interchangable?
No.
competition can be used as a noncount noun;
contest cannot.
Our firm expects a lot of competition from several others in introducing this new product on the market. (contest absolutely cannot substitute for competition here.)
To my mind, contest connotes a more trivial kind of competition with a prize to the winner at the end. Sometimes just sending in a coupon for a random drawing is called 'entering a contest'.
CJ