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A question from Jean-Francois from Limoges, France: I find it difficult to understand the word 'quite' in a conversation. Does it mean 'partially' or 'totally'? Please help! Quite
Alex Gooch answers: Hello Jean-Francois, thanks for your question. You asked whether 'quite' means 'partially' or 'totally'. The simple answer is that it has both meanings. If we say: "I am quite happy"... This can mean that I'm partially, fairly, somewhat happy but not completely happy - or it can mean I'm totally, entirely, completely, 100% happy. Your next question will probably be: How can we tell the difference? When somebody says: "I am quite happy"... How do we know if they mean partially happy or totally happy? Well, I'm sorry, but simply reading the sentence on the page can't help us with this. If I read the words, 'I am quite happy', I really don't know if this means'partially' happy or 'completely' happy. However, don't despair - there are some clues that can help us solve this problem. Firstly, we have some adjectives in English which include the idea of 'very'. For example: 'delighted' means 'very pleased' 'exhausted' means 'very tired' 'enormous' means 'very big', and so on. 'Quite' is often used with one of these adjectives, and in this situation, it always means 'totally'. So, if we say: "I am quite exhausted"... This means I'm absolutely, completely, 100% exhausted. If you think about this, it's logical because it's impossible to be 'somewhat very tired' - that doesn't make any sense. Secondly, we have to think about the context. Often we can clearly understand which meaning of 'quite' the speaker intends, by looking at the meaning of what he or she is saying. William's here with me... (William: Hello!) Let's imagine that William has recently been ill: Alex: Are you feeling better now? William: Yes, I'm feeling quite healthy, thank you. In fact, I feel great! Here, William probably means that he has fully recovered, and he's feeling 100% healthy. On the other hand, we could have a conversation like this: Alex: Are you feeling better now? William: Well, I'm feeling quite healthy, but I still have a terrible headache. In this case, William probably means that he feels partially healthy, but not completely healthy. Also, when these sentences are spoken, we can often get a clue from the speaker's tone of voice and intonation: If he or she speaks in a positive, definite tone of voice, going down at the end of the sentence, that probably means that he or she feels totally happy, or healthy, or whatever. However, if the speaker's tone is more uncertain, and if it rises at the end of the sentence, that probably means that he or she is partially happy or healthy, but not completely. In fact, it's quite old-fashioned to use 'quite' to mean 'totally' or 'completely' - at least in spoken English. It's still used this way sometimes in writing, especially in formal writing, so you might read that in a novel for example. But in modern conversational English, 'quite' normally means 'partially'. Alex Gooch has been an English teacher for ten years. He has taught in Poland and Switzerland, and more recently he's been teaching in various universities in the UK. Downloads |
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