Claudio
Things I don't understand

Hello!

I was reading an article and there was a word I couldn't understand in that context. Here's the sentence:

 

"especially when you're confronted with a rather complex language like German."

 

I don't understand why "rather" is necessary in this sentence. Would anybody help?

Jun 30, 2015 10:56 PM
Comments · 3
2

Rather here is used to say "to a large degree".

 

Rather is not crucial or necessary in the sentence, but it does shift the tone a little from statement of fact to a subjective view.

 

"Especially when you're confronted with a rather complex language like German."

I'm not sure what the subject is. I know the subject is especially the case when confronted with German, but maybe the author is trying to say when you see German, Magyar and some other languages you will experience the subject. 

 

Maybe the author could had written "You will see this in German and similar languages." (See  could possibly be 'feel', 'hear' or some other experience)

July 1, 2015
1

The word 'rather' can mean many things in different contexts.

 

In this sentence, 'rather' is an adverb ( like 'very' ) modifying the adjective 'difficult'. It has the same effect as the adverbs 'quite'  'fairly', 'relatively' or 'comparatively'. For example, you might say 'That's rather expensive. I might try to find a cheaper one somewhere else'. So you could understand it like this:

 

"especially when you're confronted with a fairly complex language like German."

 

This suggests that the writer considers German to be more complex than some languages, but less complex than others.

July 1, 2015

'Rather' is usually a filler with no real meaning. You can replace it with other words that carry little meaning....

 

...with a rather complex language...

...with a qiete complex language...

...with a pretty complex language...

...with a actually complex language...

 

more:  a bit, a little, fairly, slightly, somewhat, relatively, to some degree/extent, comparatively, moderately , sort of, kind of, kinda

 

"it all sounds rather complicated"

 

or simply ignore it:

...with a complex language...

July 1, 2015