「自信」是「confident」，「confidant」還是「confidante」？

The Quick Answer

A confidant or confidante is someone to whom private matters are confided. (The words confidant and confidante are interchangeable, but strict grammarians reserve confidant for males and confidante for females.)

一個confidant或者是confidante是一個你可以吐露心聲的對象（人）——知己。（confidant和confidante通常是可以互換的，但是比較嚴謹的語法學家則認為confidant是男性，而confidante是女性。）

Confident means being certain or assured; e.g., I am confident it will rain.

Confident的意思是非常確定、確信的；比如說，我肯定今天會下雨的。

Confident

The word confident is nearly always an adjective. Someone with confidence (i.e., not shy and with self-belief) is described as confident. Being confident also means to be assured or certain of something that is pending.

Confident這個詞幾乎一直都是形容詞。某人很自信（就是他不害羞，對自己有堅定的信念）就可以用confident來描述。Confident也意味著對即將發生的事情有信心。

Examples:

My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you"re doing.

我的理論是，如果你看起來很自信，你可以完成任何事情——即使你不知道自己在做什麼。

(Jessica Alba)

No matter what a woman looks like, if she"s confident, she"s sexy.

不管一個女人長什麼樣，只要她自信，她就是性感的。

(Paris Hilton)

Confidant

The noun confidant refers to someone to whom private or personal matters are confided (i.e., someone trusted).

Confidant則是一個名詞，指的是某人吐露心聲的對象（意味著這個人是被信任的）。

Examples:

Finding a confidant can be difficult if you have a hard time placing trust in others.

如果你很難信任別人，那麼找到一個知己是很困難的。

Confidante

Most people consider the word confidante to be an alternative spelling of confidant. However, some contest that confidante is the female version of confidant, which they reserve for males. If you know the confidant is a female, I would advise using confidante.

大多數人認為confidante與confidant是一個詞的兩種拼寫。但是，另外也有人認為confidante是confidant的女性版本，也就是說confidant本身是個男性。如果你知道這個知己的性別是女性的話，我建議你還是用confidante。

One technique you can use to determine which word to use is to remember that if you believe in yourself, then you must be confident but if you put your trust onanother person, then he is your confidant.

這裡有個小竅門幫你記憶這幾個詞。如果你相信你自己，那麼你肯定是自信的，但是如果你把你的信任放在別人身上，那麼他就是你的知己。

今天的內容大家都學會了嗎？

還有哪些詞是你怎麼也分不清的呢？

評論！我們一起探討一下！

最近微信又改版了，愛學習的小可愛們一定要把本賬號設為「星標」或「置頂」哦！

這樣就能第一時間找到我們，每天堅持學習啦！

設置「星標」或者「置頂」步驟

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