QUITE: the Most difficult Word in the English Language 

Nah. Saying "sorry" is easy. Meaning "sorry" is hard.

It's a sad sad situation

😂

Elton forever

@@AnnaAnna-uc2ff Well, for some people, at any rate, saying sorry really does seem to be impossible.

I'll be over for tea

Quite so.

Quite!

If you are unable to put the subtile differences in words, this is not really valuable for language learners.

@@holger_p One example: A Brit might say "Nigel's crumpets were really quite delicious, weren't they?" An American would probably just say "Joe's cookies were really delicious, weren't they?" This use of quite would be considered to be an affectation to most Americans. Hopefully you have found this example to be quite informative. I would write an entire book of examples for you, but I don't have quite enough time.

Many of the uses in this video are ones an American would understand if we heard it, but which we would never say ourselves. Mostly we use it in the negative. “Gimme five minutes-I’m not quite done.” Or with a bit of sarcasm, “Hmmm… that’s really quite something there.” (Meaning it’s impressive but not in a good way).

@@sarco64 actually you said american wouldn't use it. That's the opposite of " similiar" or " identic". But they would passivly understand it right, That's what I get. As a non native, if you hear different speakers of different sources it's very hard to recognize two languages. You just see there are different options to say things. Usually you fall for the way you hear most often , same as babies do.

There are also the gaps between Elephant and and and and and Castle.

"I do quite enjoy your show." -- I think this sentence is a good example of a British use of quite that would sound affected coming from an American.

@@sarco64absolutely

Agreed!

That's a wrong use of "pregnant". A woman is pregnant or not, it's 1 or 0, there is no uncertainty about it. However, even in Spanish I've heard people using "very pregnant", also to refer she's near the date.

One of the advantages of being a non-native speaker is that you can choose which words to use according to your preference. As soon as I write "recognize" with a "z" I get criticized for it.

​@@LetThemTalkTV Luckily, so far, nobody has criticized you for writing "criticized" with a "z" either. I can't tell by looks alone, but did you use a _zed_ or a _zee?_

I already have a video on "get". "Set" has a lot of meanings. We'll look at that in a future video.

Also “don’t quite” can also carry meaning 9 as in your previous example “I don’t quite agree” means “I almost agree.”

Ok but can you say "I'm a little sure"? I don't think so. In American English "pretty" usually has the meaning of "completely"

@@LetThemTalkTV I can't agree with that at all, "pretty" is closer to 75% strength than 100% strength.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert on American English but if I hear "pretty fantastic" it strikes me as "completely fantastic" (or quite fantastic) not 75% fantastic.

@@LetThemTalkTV That is quite interesting, as for me it would take someone to be "really pretty fantastic" to be "quite fantastic." I take a "pretty difficult hike" to be more like a "fairly difficult hike" than a "quite difficult hike," which to me would be a rather strong warning.

You're welcome

British English provides a unique construct to flatten one’s emotions. Innit😂

You're quite welcome

Greetings to Kyiv

there are some differences but Americans use "quite" as well.

Another vote for this as moreso British English. In the Midwest it can come off as a little posh sounding. I notice this all the time from my English brother in law. It's also quite tempting to pick up and use here. Oh no, not again.😢

As a student you are quite perfect! I applaud you albeit in an emojiless way.

​@@LetThemTalkTVI was thinking about "emojiless" I meant "quite good teacher teaching" really QUITE is not for beginners students to understand straight away, continue studying...

Or rather, extremely good teacher

That's funny. There might be some psychological trauma deep in my subconscious from someone called "Perkins", perhaps. I don't know. The name sounds like that of an insufferable bureaucrat (apologies to any Perkins' reading). I think I've used "McNulty" before too. On the French side I'm rather fond of "du Pont". What about you? What names do you fall back on in your fictional examples?

@@LetThemTalkTV Probably you picked Perkins because Perkins is perfect 👍🏼 Quite perfect.

@@LetThemTalkTV oh interesting! Well if you ever publish a book, I’d expect a "Perkins" to be in it! 😂 I like using names with hidden meanings for instance pairing a Deborah with a Melissa (meaning "bee" in Hebrew and in Ancient Greek), an Alice and a Celia (anagram of each other) etc. When I was a kid, I wrote a short story where a little boy realised Father Christmas was his uncle Leon, and he worked it out as "Leon" is an anagram of "Noel". This kind of things makes me feel like I am JK Rowling haha

ah that's how you spell them!

You get a heart because you mentioned Bob Dylan.

"bear" is easy. A big hairy mammal.

​@@LetThemTalkTV I'll bear that in mind.

yes, you're right. It is gradable. My list was incorrect. I'm seeing if I can remove the list. Apologies for the error.

Some more words that-logically speaking-shouldn't be, but in practice, are treated as gradable: • superlatives like _greatest, best, worst_ etc.: "... one of the greatest / best / worst ..." • absolutes like _perfect:_ more perfect, almost perfect Native speakers of English assume that their language is logical, so they get distressed if some aspect of English usage doesn't seem logical. On the other hand, ESL/EFL learners like me know that English is far from logical. In fact, it's extremely arbitrary-as any computer programmer, computational linguist, or conlanger will tell you. So we don't get quite as worked up over such issues. We simply observe the common usage patterns of the native speakers, and use them ourselves. In short, everything is gradable 😜. If there are two things that are opposites of each other - say, _empty/full_ or _unsure/sure_ - then there's a whole spectrum of intermediate values. Which could even extend beyond the extremes on both sides! Natural languages follow Fuzzy Logic more than Boolean Logic.

Please make a video on "magari". :)

@@ajw9533 Magari lo faccio

Perhaps the equivalent in English would be "certain." Are you sure? is a yes/no question. Are you certain? allows for a more conditional answer.

@@josephcote6120 The two respective Italian words, sicuro and certo, are used for both, they are always interchangeable and gradable like certain. They can definitely mean sure, but without losing the potential to be interpreted as "certain to some degree". There's no way to escape gradability.

Perfect pairing, “quite bemused”

It's based on my teaching experience. Glad you like the video.

exactly!

I'm so pleased that you liked it. Fyi stunned is an ungradable adjective.

@@LetThemTalkTV Thanks a lot for your kind reply!

@@LetThemTalkTV "...stunned is an ungradable adjective." Mea culpa! Actually, I did not consider that when I wrote that sentence, and now I am trying to understand if my use of "quite" was correct or not, if the meaning of it is the meaning I intended, based on what I just learned in your video. Could you give me a note on that, please?

If you meant by "quite stunned" that you were completely surprised then, yes, it's correct.

Well, that was not 100% what I meant, but it is very near. So, after reviewing the video, I think it would be wise (quite wise?) for a foreigner, not to use the word "quite" at all, or at least to avoid it as much as possible. Looking at my past English communication I am very sure I made a lot of ugly mistakes using this word. 😥

You can't be 10% pregnant or 50% or 90% pregnant. That's what we mean by gradable.

ask them to say "figures" instead.

Siento no estar de acuerdo, el embarazo se produce durante 9 meses y comprende desde el momento de la concepción al parto, por eso no pueden tomar las embarazadas ciertas sustancias independientemente del tiempo de gestación. Eso de " bastantemente" embarazada es lo mas absurdo que he oído nunca, y menos de una mujer. Si tu tienes ahora 30 años, y eres española, eres "bastantemente" mas española que cuando tenías 10 años? Aclárate las ideas, please.

Can one be "kind of pregnant"?

No confundas el "ESTADO DE EMBARAZO" con el "TIEMPO DE EMBARAZO", porque NO ES LO MISMO.

No confundas el "ESTADO DE EMBARAZO" con el "TIEMPO DE EMBARAZO", porque NO ES LO MISMO.

can something be a little full? I'm not sure. I'm glad you liked the video.

@LetThemTalkTV Strictly logically speaking of course, "fullness" is a non-gradable thing. But you know, 99% is practically full, while 45% is close to empty, kind of... People need simple ideas in everyday talk...

@@miceliusbeverus6447 What you mean is, people do not talk exactly, and make (accepted) mistakes. Filled by 50% or half full is not scaling, cause you set the term full to exactly 100%. It's a binary information, a fixed point of reference. And maybe filled is just another word than full. Filled is gradable, full isn't.

@holger_p Right! Plus, scientific accuracy is not as important to people as understandable communication. Anyway, any living language is full of inconsistencies, so pretending it works like mathematics is not QUITE provable. 😎

@@miceliusbeverus6447 Right, but there is a dilemma of accepted mistakes, and non-accepted mistakes. I just stumbled over "smashed potatoes" and have not found any other 'correcter' writing for this dish. The wrong way seems to be the correct way.

Whoops! ah yes...you spotted my intentional error there...

I think Americans are more direct in their communication

You're correct. If people are communicating with each other in person, then a transcription of the spoken words certainly won't capture everything that was communicated. It'll miss not just the tone and stress patterns of speech, but everything non-verbal as well, including facial expressions, gestures, body language etc. After all, it is said that 70-93% of communication is non-verbal. Hence the clichéd _"Speak up for the record"_ and _"Let the record show that the defendant is pointing to the accused"_ whenever courtroom or meeting proceedings are being transcribed. With video-conferencing, although you can see and hear other people, everybody is rigidly posing in front of their webcams. Nobody moves around naturally. So you miss a lot of nuances. Skype or Zoom calls are therefore very unsatisfactory-quite fatiguing, in fact-because of the cognitive strain it puts on you. With telephone calls (or worse-teleconference), where you can't even see the others, you have to depend on sound alone. There are no visual cues-you can't see people smiling or shaking their heads or yawning. Everybody has to speak up. And when you come down to written communications-letters, emails, contracts, legal notices etc.-even audio clues are absent. That's why written communications have to be worded very differently compared to people talking to each other. You have to use many more words to compensate for the loss of audio-visual cues.

I quite forgot, sorry.

It sounds to me like you've got it down quite well.

I quite agree

Also, “mostly dead means a little bit alive” - Miracle Max, in Princess Bride 😂

did you watch this video?

@@LetThemTalkTV No, just the beginning, where I thought you said 'get' was the most difficult word. Apologies if I've missed the point. I always find your video entertaining and instructive.