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QUITE: the Most difficult Word in the English Language
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- Опубликовано: 7 авг 2024
- I know you'll find this video quite interesting. Did you guess correctly which word is the most difficult? It's not quite as hard as you think. I'm quite sure you will agree that this is an important word to master if you are learning English.
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00:00 Which are the candidates?
01:15 Meaning 1
02:08 Meaning 2
03:38 Meaning 3 and 4
04:08 Meaning 5
05:09 Meaning 6
08:27 Meaning 7
10:37 Meaning 8
11:16 Meaning 9
11:32 Meaning 10
12:36 Meaning 11
13:10 Meaning 12
13:44 Meaning 13
Yeah yeah, that's all quite interesting, but as we all know 'sorry' seems to be the hardest word.
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.
Now that was QUITE enough, but not quite ENOUGH! 🤣
I could listen to this man for hours
I'll be over for tea
This word is quite differently understood in the US.
Quite so.
I do quite enjoy your show.
Now from Martin Gardner, American mathematics and science writer (1914-2010)
"Is that that the that that that that refers to?"
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
I think that British and American usages of this word are quite similar, but not quite identical, as there are quite a few subtle differences.
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.
I've heard "very pregnant" used to mean that a woman is either carrying more than one child or very near her due date.
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.
Now this is quite a video! :) Thanks, Gideon.
Thank you dear Gideon for this exposé on the uses of the word quite, although English is a third language for me I’ve been using it for quite a long time now, and as I was new to it, I was introduced to the word quite by an English teacher who happened to be British, which means I do use the word à l’Anglaise quite a bit more and has become part of my own spoken English.
I think ANY native English speaker would think my spoken English is treasure trove of linguistic anomalies, simply because of the puzzle of influences that have gradually become my own English, bear in mind that it’s a third language so a lot of liberties are indeed open for me vis-à-vis the makeup of my very own English 😂, and it does surprise my American friends to hear a middle eastern man have an accent which is about 65% American and yet employ the word like rubbish not garbage, petrol, not gas (thank a to Jeremy Clarkson) and aluminium since there’s no such thing as aluminum (thanks to french which is my second language AND the language in which I studied sciences and math in school) not to mention autumn and aubergines 😊😊. Some Kiwis I met in my travels also found my employ of the English language quite peculiar 😊
That said thank you again for the richness you provide, indeed some ways of using the word are not quite part of my linguistic thinking in English
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?_
Quite a bit more than I expected. You're quite good at this.
Thanks, Gideon! Excellent video. Your choice of the most difficult word in English was quite unexpected to me, but it is well-reasoned. Indeed, there are so many meanings of this little word. Although "have" and "get" also have many different meanings depending on the context.
I already have a video on "get". "Set" has a lot of meanings. We'll look at that in a future video.
A quite delightful episode!
In Polish language we have a word "całkiem" (literally "fully") which can be used in quite similar cases.
This has always struck me as a very British English word, and I'm not quite certain, as an American, I would ever be able to use it and it still sound "natural". Quite the opposite! :P
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.😢
Great.
I had guessed it was “quite” before you told us! I agree with you, it is a very difficult word to master! Thank you for all your explanations!
Quite! 👏
Lovely lesson Sir G .
Thanks.
This is quite uuuuseful. Thank you so much.
7:35 on the contrary, at least in American English “I’ve very sure” and “I’m not very sure” as well as “I’m pretty sure” are commonly used as graded levels of sureness.
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.
Wow, that was quite a video!
Cheers from Kyiv, Gideon)
Greetings to Kyiv
In England a customer is shown some merchandise and says: "I QUITE like it". And the seller knows he means he does not like it, and shows him something else. That would never happen in America.
British English provides a unique construct to flatten one’s emotions. Innit😂
This video is quite amazing
Could you at some point make a video about the kind of English that is/was spoken by someone like Richard Dimbleby? Thanks :-)
Thank you, this video awakens spirit to learn English more deeper.
Hi. Terric lesson ideed. Maybe it happenps just in my Italian mind, but we say: "Sono quasi sicuro" and I've always said: "I'm almost sure" because sometimes you are not sure 100%. Same thing with EMPTY, FULL, PERFECT .It' incredible , in my Oxford Collocation among the adverbs that can be used with GREAT and SURE you can find VERY...(The play was a very great success)I'm really confused, Thank you.
I thought you had said 'Quiet' which is definitely the hardest to spell along with 'Necessary' of course.
ah that's how you spell them!
Guideon is quite the very best!!!
I quite love this word! ☺️
Gideon, your content is, as usual, quite interesting every single time. I quite love it ❤😁
Merci beaucoup governor
Gideon, you've quite opened my brain!
Thanks for another great video, sir
You're welcome
I'm from Bolivia. Useful class for me. Thanks a lot dear Teacher.
This video is quite 'useful'!!! Thank you, Gideon
You're quite welcome
Yes, our teacher is an exemplary lesson and those who do not subscribe to your channel lose. I am grateful to you and your lessons, and I pray to God to open your heart to Islam and grant you Paradise, happiness and health.❤
Quite is useful, but quite is quite complicated, but does quite have quite à similar meaning to the french Word "plutot"? I would be quite pleased to write Bob Dylan's words that could quite help me to understand your quite good lesson: "two Doors down the boys finally made it through the wall, and cleaned out the bank safe, it is said that they got off with quite à haul",Hi Giddeon always full appreciate your work.Please don't hésitate to correct me.Best regards.Serge from France.
You get a heart because you mentioned Bob Dylan.
Bravo 🌞 Lit 💡 Impressive 😍 gratitude for your satisfactory Work 🚀
Despite this video having quite a lot of quites, I expected it to be quite interesting and it is quite so!
This was SO much fun! Thank you for the delightful time!
I was quite surprised by this word used in quite a few sentences and with quite different tenors. I'm going to play with them, study!! Angel Gideon in my ear, quite real teacher teaching. Another one of your advanced videos that I applaud👏👏👏
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
Love your channel dear Gideon
‘Quite’ seems like a good way to flatten one’s reaction - one way or another 😂
Quite!
I was also expecting "quite a few", but I was quite surprised that you didn't mention it!
Please make a video on "as to". It's quite hard for me to figure out the exact meaning I'm looking for.
In dictionary, it is defined as having the meaning of "about". e.g.
1. I'm not sure as to what to eat tonight.
Now I'm gonna write a sentence below in which I think this definition doesn't align with it.
2. I hope you'd be kind enough as to forgive my actions.
Hopefully, you'll answer my question.
This was quite the video.
8:08 I am wondering if there is a difference between English and German that I haven’t been aware of… we use most of the ungradable adjectives in the list in a gradable meaning - but that might be because the word is then used in a methaphorical way…
Quite so!
Quite , quite ! .
What about words whose accents change when they change their part of speech? The swimmer set a new REH-cord. (noun) They're going to re-CORD my recital. (verb) Brussels sprouts are in the PRO-duce section. (noun used as adjective) He lost the case because he could pro-Duce no evidence. (verb)
These would seem to be more problematic than a word whose stress just changes depending on usage. Quite the conundrum, yes?
Dear Gideon, Your lessons aren't quite so boring. I do have a question regarding "full". In your first example of full "I was quite full but not so full....." seems to be gradable. However, later on in your list full shows up as upgradable. Could you please give an explanation.
yes, you're right. It is gradable. My list was incorrect. I'm seeing if I can remove the list. Apologies for the error.
As Dostoyevsky pointed out, a common profanity has multiple meanings depending on the way in which it is spoken. It is no different than the word “quite“in this regard.
I am quite understand your presentation. But you need to make more video like this. I think you quite so interesting. I am quite hesitate about yousing these words correctly. Replay me i quite wating your reply.
That’s in British English. In American English we don’t use it as often. Very seldom rather.
I am just thinking about the ‘quite pregnant’. A woman might use it about another woman with a big bump meaning she isn’t far from giving birth. And I could imagine a tv detective asking his sidekick who has found a body asking If the corpse was ‘quite dead?’ really asking if the corpse is beyond resuscitation. Gideon, it may be what you were trying to explain. I live in the UK and English my only tongue, but you make me think about my own language.
Oh quite interesting with the stress on interesting Yes I have had some problems with this word and it is similar to 14:25 14:25 assez in French Assez Bien a mark lower than bien good His work is quite good but not satisfactory
In Italian "sure" is quite gradable, as we tend to speak even when we are not quite confident about what we are saying.
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.
No, no, no, it's an easy word, and quite useful and versatile at that. I'd say words like 'bid' 'bear' are quite challenging to fully master.
Quite insightful lesson. Thanks.
"bear" is easy. A big hairy mammal.
@@LetThemTalkTV I'll bear that in mind.
Regards from Poland 😃
I'm quite bemused as to why you chose to categorize this word as difficult instead of, perhaps, versatile. As always the video was quite interesting and now I'm equally curious on the word set.
Perfect pairing, “quite bemused”
It's based on my teaching experience. Glad you like the video.
Gideon, I do have a question for you and I have been keeping it for quite a while-like genuinely, I was waiting for you to mention that name again.
Where did you get the name "Perkins" from? You have mention "Perkins" a few times on Zeitgeist Banana, now you have mentioned Mrs Perkins. I have googled it, thinking it was a character from a book but I haven’t found anything. It might just be a surname you like using in your examples to stay away from "generic" surnames like Smith or Jones, but I don’t know! 🤷🏻♀️ Somehow I feel like there is a cultural reference I am missing here and it is driving me nuts! 😅
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
### *You should also mention the difference of the meaning of "quite" on the opposite side of the pond* (i.e. USA) 😋
I thought I had better leave a comment, up till now I have been QUITE QUIET about the subject...
To express that I am not 100% sure about something, I use the German word "ziehmlich". To express that I am completely sure, I use "ganz". I've always translated "ziehmlich" with quite ("I am quite sure"), but in fact I stated "I am not quite sure"! 😂 Sometimes I said "I am pretty sure" to express that, and the American comments seem to prove me right in this case. But otherwise it looks like I used "quite" quite right.❤
I’m probably hypocritical in (usually silently) condemning any adverbial qualification of ‘unique’ - I lament the loss of this useful word to semantic bleaching - while happily speaking of a car park being ‘pretty full’ or ‘rather empty’, and feeling ‘FAIRLY sure’ I parked at the far end. Logically, I agree, these adjectives should be absolute, but evidently my instinct is to follow the herd in treating them as gradable. Perhaps such usage doesn’t undermine the fundamental meaning of these adjectives as much as it undermines ‘unique’.
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.
Great example -- and maybe people shouldn't freak out over tonal Asian languages.
exactly!
When I was in broadcasting school it seemed there were quite a few students who couldn't say statistics.
ask them to say "figures" instead.
8:53 don't you mean "Common verbs that can be preceded by QUITE"?
Whoops! ah yes...you spotted my intentional error there...
You said in your last post that you'd publish a new video the next day but the video wasn't quite in time 😉
I quite forgot, sorry.
Note the double quite in the final use
I couldn't quite understand it when you said the word the first time, even after several attempts. I had to put on subtitles. It sounded like kwhy-et (last syllable very quiet), with the why drawn out. I've always pronounced it quickly, one syllable, so people don't think I'm saying 'quiet", which has quite a different meaning - my Japanese partner has, indeed, confused the two. It could just be because I'm going quite deaf. . . Anyway, it's quite the filler.
sphygmomanometer has little variance in it's meaning - Those 1st 6 consonants before the 1st vowel arrives makes the word quite difficult to pronounce, but the man in black was only mostly dead. 🥝🐐
Whow! I am quite stunned. (Meaning a little bit.. I hope... 🤔) Never did I think and learn more about a single English word like in this video. I guess nuances like these can only be mastered if you grow up with a language, like English in this case. Also nuances like these will often lead to misunderstandings when you communicate with a non-native speaker.
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 might find this to be quite the opinion, but i don't quite agree with the notion that «i don't quite agree» is a polite way to say «i completely disagree»
quite frankly it sounds condescending and rather insulting to me if it's used as a blunt way of disgreeing.
there is an exception to this though: if you go on to explain that for instance while you agree with the postulates you disagree with the conclusion of someone's statement, or that you disagree with a single but important point of a list of proposals, then i feel like it sounds fine. i do, however, put stress on the word "quite" in such a case, which i suppose is somewhat in keeping with the usage you explain in respect to adjectives (even though the disagreement is clearly still a quite pronounced aspect)
i reckon i find «i can't (say i) quite agree» an acceptably polite way to disagree, though i personally prefer either the more direct «i politely disagree» or a more verbose and diplomatic phrasing like «i can't see where you are coming from but i don't quite agree»
He was quite quiet for she was pretty pretty.
Quite
My customers thanked me for a good service provided, and I always reply, you're quite welcome!
Is there an equivalent of quite in other languages?
Most difficult word? Easy, that's Worcestershire (sauce).
No, I reckon the most difficult word in the English language is… "a." Sometimes you use it, sometimes you don't. You don't use it with "mass nouns," but so many nouns can be "mass" or "countable" depending on the context! So, is it just "war," or "a war?" You declare "war," but your company is in "a price war" with competitors. Right? Quite so.
I’d say Pregnant is gradable. You can be heavily pregnant, a bit pregnant, depending on how far along the female is.
You can't be 10% pregnant or 50% or 90% pregnant. That's what we mean by gradable.
Okay, pretty interesting! Hmm?
Happy Passover, Gideon !
I'm Norwegian and I think I still don't quite understand the word quite, but it is still quite an interesting word.
It sounds to me like you've got it down quite well.
I quite agree
Your observation that stressing the adjective gives a different meaning to the sentence is true of any sentence in English and has nothing to do with the meaning of quite. For example, saying “your simply beautiful“ changes nuance if you emphasize simply in one case, and beautiful in the other.
"Quite" is quite seldom heard on this side of the pond, though.
I think Americans are more direct in their communication
If the meaning depends on the stress when spoken, then written language is unable to transfer the intended information.
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.
Honestly, this differentiation between words like "tired" vs. "exhausting" is a bit shaky to me. Also, in practical life "full" and "empty" are scalable, in the way that we would often use them to describe a level to which, say, a bottle is filled, where "full" would be "the upper half" and "open" would mean "the lower part" only being of the content still being in the bottle...
That being said, I absolutely love this show, it's incredibly instructive!🌞
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.
"The mouse was ([quite] quiet) as he hurried across the way."
"Quite" is quite difficult. Quite!
@11:08 - "She's an exemplification of a woman", and good or bad - depends of the context and connotation.
If great is ungradable, why can we say greater? Someone cannot be deader, an item cannot be more unique but why can numbers be greater?
Also, “mostly dead means a little bit alive” - Miracle Max, in Princess Bride 😂
Queen is the most difficult word
He sounds like the computer on Red Dwarf :)
i nominate queue
That’s QUITE enough to think about for one day!
Many of your examples for using "quite" are quite British. They are not quite how we say things here in the US. In fact, some of the ways you use "quite" are quite different.
I'm quite, quite tired of hearing about all the different meanings of the word "quite." It's quite, quite confusing, to be quite honest. Quite frankly, I think we've all had quite enough of these "quite" discussions. But I must say, this video was quite, quite informative - albeit, quite long-winded at times. All in all, it was quite an interesting watch, quite enjoyable even. Quite remarkable, really. Quite.
I believe the word 'set' has the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. It has so many different meanings.
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.