what do you think of synonyms ?
for instance,
ban, forbid, prohibit are all synonyms.
chide, blame are synonyms.
and you can think of lots of else for now.
what's good about having all those synonyms?
do you think them useless?
do you think they are just adding confusion to learning or reading?
do you think they are useful because help express our varied emotion?
do you think they are rather insufficient nonetheless?
do you think they are needed just in order to be looked educationed?
what do you think?
P.S. any correction will be appreciated.
Well, it's a good thing to use synonyms when you need to write a letter for example, repetitions are bad.
I agree at that point.
But avoiding repetitions is all about synonyms?
You must also take into account the "strength" of words (for lack of a better term). "Palatable" and "Delicious" mean the same thing, but the latter has a more positive connotation than the former (ie: it's "stronger"). The same goes for "cool" and "frigid"; the latter is "stronger" than the first.
This makes it easier to construct messages with just the right level of "meaning" for any given situation.
well, You reassured me that synonyms are the tool to enrich our conversation as I expected. but it's because you might the native.
the reason why I came up with the question is synonyms are so overwhelming to me, non-native.
I can't help hesitating what to select as a proper word for this situtation, in this atmosphere whenever trying to express something.
I'm suspicious and worried if the words I put down here were very inappropriate even now.
how can I overcome this concern ?
David Winters said: >>You must also take into account the "strength" of words (for lack of a better term). <<
In semantics, this is called connotation. For example, taking the words in the first message, "ban", "forbid" and "prohibit" largely overlap in meaning, but not completely. The connotation of "forbid" is mostly "to prevent an action being carried out" or, in the case of "forbidden", "impossible to access", so you can say "Driving trucks is forbidden at weekends" or "Forbidden City" (in Beijing). "Prohibit" is quite close in connotation, it overlaps with the first sense of "forbid", and has even replaced it as an active verb ("forbid" is mostly used as a past participle now, or in exclamations like "God forbid!"). "Ban", on the other hand, can be used for driving, as in "driving ban", but only as a noun. As a verb, it is used in the sense of "prevent the existence of or access to something completely", like, as I imagine, anti-Communist books or internet sites are banned in China, therefore it is slightly stronger than "prohibit", but is also used in slightly different contexts. You can also say "impose a ban" or "impose a restriction" (this latter being a much weaker word), but not "impose a prohibition". The best way you learn to feel connotations is regular exposure to authentic material, but even in this case this skill takes some time to develop, even for native speakers, I guess.
lucky said: >>I'm suspicious and worried if the words I put down here were very inappropriate even now.<<
I personally have felt nothing wrong with the way you used your words so far. :-)
By the way, I'm non-native, so my opinion may carry a little bit less weight. :-)
"The reason why I came up with the question is synonyms are so overwhelming to me, I can't help hesitating what to select as a proper word for this situtation, in this atmosphere whenever trying to express something."
(lucky)
You should read a lot, and if you feel the atmpsphere of the text, and meet a word, then you should understand: this word is used in this atmosphere. That is all, IMHO.
And I'am not a native speaker.
Anton