I have a question about the word"quite". Do you use this word when you want to say very?
For example:
This ship has quite(very) a long history.
When I asked my English teacher who is from London, he said," this usage is rare because it sounds old- fashioned. "Also he said" the word 'quite' has two meanings; fairly and very. And now when we use quite, that usually means fairly."
But... I suppose the word"quite" USUALLY( not always) means "very" at least in American English though I agree that quite has two meanings.Not sure. If you are a native speaker of English, I'd like you to let me know what u think about this.

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Deleted user

6 Jan 2016

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Not two -- I can count four different usages off the top of my head. Thing is, "quite" doesn't mean "very" and it doesn't mean "fairly". "Very" means "very" and "fairly" means "fairly". They're not the same word. Just like most other words "quite" has its own meanings that might be similar to other words.

I found this Oxford link for English learners instead of native speakers. It'll probably help.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/le...

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Deleted user

6 Jan 2016

Not two -- I can count four different usages off the top of my head. Thing is, "quite" doesn't mean "very" and it doesn't mean "fairly". "Very" means "very" and "fairly" means "fairly". They're not the same word. Just like most other words "quite" has its own meanings that might be similar to other words.

I found this Oxford link for English learners instead of native speakers. It'll probably help.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/le...

shitatakani

6 Jan 2016

Japanese

@Kuroshin Actually I have this dictionary and checked it again and again. And I found these explanations.

In British English quite has two meanings:I feel quite tired today(= fairly tired). With adjectives that describe an extreme state (‘non-gradable’ adjectives) it means ‘completely’ or ‘absolutely’:I feel quite exhausted. With some adjectives, both meanings are possible. The speaker’s stress and intonation will show you which is meant:Your essay is ˈquite good(= fairly good—it could be better);Your essay is quite ˈgood(= very good, especially when this is unexpected).
In North American English quite usually means something like ‘very’, not ‘fairly’ or ‘rather’. Pretty is used instead for this sense

Very confusing. I don't know what is true.

Deleted user

6 Jan 2016

What you said makes sense. Why are you confused?

shitatakani

6 Jan 2016

Japanese

@Kuroshin Do you think it's rare for you to use quite when you want to say something like" very"? I don't think so, but my teacher said it was rare because that was old fashioned.That's why I'm confused.

Deleted user

6 Jan 2016

It's not rare. I don't know why your teacher would say that. Like you said, I would say this with surprise if I meant "very".

Another way I'd use it is "fairly". If my friend shows me his essay to edit and it's not very good, I might say something like, "It's quite good." I'd actually mean "fairly", but I can't exactly say that, right? I'd be rude. So I'd use it when I pretend to mean "very" but I actually mean "fairly". I guess you could call it the tatemae version of "fairly".

I use "pretty" more often, though.

shitatakani

6 Jan 2016

Japanese

He is from London, so I guess in the UK it would be rare... I don't know:-(

Yeah, I use"pretty" more often, too.
Alright, thank you for helping me. Your opinions really made me feel relieved. My teacher is intelligent, so I tried to believe his words but I couldn't and...yeah thank you so much. Now I have to go to sleep. it's 1am in Japan lol bye!