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Teach Yourself - a doubt | ||
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| 吕明扬 Newbie United States Joined 5905 days ago 30 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 59 18 December 2008 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Terry have you never heard the phrase "I have some doubts (about this)" ? its definitely the noun in that situation. With "this" being the object. saying "I doubt this" sounds a little strange. so its probaly a N/V word like Plan.
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| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5929 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 59 18 December 2008 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
In Britsh English, "I doubt this/that" sounds quite normal, at least to me. TEL Edited by TheElvenLord on 18 December 2008 at 2:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6206 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 59 19 December 2008 at 3:10am | IP Logged | ||
Sure, but as Cainntear said, it means an uncertainty in this case. The particular "noun-al" use that I'm talking about seems to flat-out mean "a question to be asked." From Wikipedia: "Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision..." I searched USENET for "doubt" phrases. Here are some examples, not of disbelief, but a question: "so here is my doubt... How can I change the process to run or not with OS X?" "Please answer this Doubt i have." And my favorite: "I have a doubt. Why people use shut up for human being and shut down for computers. Purpose of both is same." OK, Let's forget the noun thing I brought up, my point is that the word "doubt" is just not used that way by U.S. Americans (nor by Brits?). And I even found a whole discussion on this topic: http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-192539.html I have a doubt about "doubt" (Sorry to hi-jack the topic) Edited by TerryW on 19 December 2008 at 3:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 5924 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 12 of 59 19 December 2008 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
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In response to TerryW's query, could the noun "a doubt" be the non-native English speakers result from the verb, which can have simmilar meanings in certain contexts.
e.g He questions my competence - He doubts my competence, both have very similar meanings in this sense. Maybe the confusion was created when taking the nouns (a question, a doubt) from these verbs? G 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5860 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 59 19 December 2008 at 10:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think we need to go too deep into theoretical "how they make this mistake" discussions -- basically "I have a doubt" is a literal translation from a very common phrase in the Romance languages. Nothing more complicated than that.
In French (as per Hollow): " j'ai un doute sur ce point- la" (I have a doubt on this point there [ie that point]) In Spanish "Tengo una duda" (I-have a doubt) Edited by Cainntear on 19 December 2008 at 10:53am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6743 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 59 19 December 2008 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I was reminded of this earlier this year when I invited questions from an audience with the words "Any questions, or doubts?", and someone, though not a native speaker of English as it happens, pointed out that it was an unnatural wording in English and he was able to guess from that that I had been living in a romance-language-speaking country.
Apparently I have been contaminated slightly by Spanish in the case of this expression. Not that it has gone far enough that I would ever utter something like "I have a doubt for you." but still. In any case, since then I am trying to catch myself with this and try to make it a point to use "Any questions, or anything you're wondering about?" instead. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cheng Diglot Newbie Singapore Joined 5673 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Japanese | Message 15 of 59 23 December 2008 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the word question is used when you don't understand something and the word doubt is used when you suspect something is wrong. Question covers a broader range of situations.That is the difference, perhaps?
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6758 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 59 23 December 2008 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's funny how a question about the Teach Yourself series can evolve into a discussion about the word "doubt". :)
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