“自信”是“confident”，“confidant”还是“confidante”？

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.)

一个confidant或者是confidante是一个你可以吐露心声的对象(人)——知己。(confidant和confidante通常是可以互换的，但是比较严谨的语法学家则认为confidant是男性，而confidante是女性。)

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

Confident的意思是非常确定、确信的;比如说，我肯定今天会下雨的。

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这个词几乎一直都是形容词。某人很自信(就是他不害羞，对自己有坚定的信念)就可以用confident来描述。Confident也意味着对即将发生的事情有信心。

Examples:

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

我的理论是，如果你看起来很自信，你可以完成任何事情——即使你不知道自己在做什么。

(Jessica Alba)

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

不管一个女人长什么样，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则是一个名词，指的是某人吐露心声的对象(意味着这个人是被信任的)。

Examples:

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

如果你很难信任别人，那么找到一个知己是很困难的。

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.

大多数人认为confidante与confidant是一个词的两种拼写。但是，另外也有人认为confidante是confidant的女性版本，也就是说confidant本身是个男性。如果你知道这个知己的性别是女性的话，我建议你还是用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 on another person, then he is your confidant.

这里有个小窍门帮你记忆这几个词。如果你相信你自己，那么你肯定是自信的，但是如果你把你的信任放在别人身上，那么他就是你的知己。

今天的内容大家都学会了吗?

还有哪些词是你怎么也分不清的呢?

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