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This post was last edited by Saiqi Business on 2016-2-3 at 12:54. Many people from Sichuan have probably gone home for the holidays, so this forum is becoming increasingly quiet. I’ll put the poison in. Some English words can be easily misinterpreted if one tries to guess their meaning from their literal form. Here are a few examples; feel free to add more. 1) Bemused seems to be be + amused; it’s easy to guess that it means pleasant. Actually: confused. I am bemused. I’m very confused. 2) Nauseous – I’ve always heard people use this word. It was always thought to be “feeling uncomfortable and nauseous”. The real meaning is “uncomfortable, disgusting.” It is a proactive word, not passive. If there is a dish that makes you feel sick, then that dish is nauseous, and you feel nauseated. 3) Enormity: If you’re not familiar with this word, you might guess it means huge or enormous. It’s no wonder, because its pronunciation is similar to “enormous”. But what he meant was indeed immoral and evil. 4) Disinterested – It’s too easy to guess that this means having no interest or being uninteresting. But what he meant was “neutral, neutral”; here, “interest” is interpreted as interests. If you want to express lack of interest, it should be: uninterested. 5) Fortuitous – Would you think it means “lucky”? What he really meant was: it’s just a coincidence; luck and opportunity are not the same thing. Fortuitous means purely accidental. For example, if you win a prize, that’s luck; but if you meet a friend you haven’t seen in years while walking on the street, it’s just a coincidence. Fortuitous refers to the latter. 6) foreigners really like using the word “Literally”. Due to the influence of literary and literal concepts, we often translate it as “symbolically, in a literal sense”. Actually, what he meant was “exactly.” You might disagree, because sometimes foreigners say, “I literally haven’t eaten Chinese food for hundreds of years!” In fact, what they mean is figuratively (in a metaphorical sense). They used “literally” just as an exaggeration. If you hear them say, “I literally have not eaten Chinese food for 2 weeks!” then your translation should be, “To be exact, I haven’t eaten Chinese food for 2 weeks.” ” There are actually many, many more. For example, “conversate” can easily be considered to mean “to talk”. Actually, there is no such word at all. Converse is the verb form of conversation. I’ll exercise everyone’s minds in the last few days before the holiday – happy holidays!