What's going on?

[milky]

The British National Corpus revealed that the expression "not exactly" is used ironically by native speakers 60% of the time while the Longman Learner's Corpus revealed it is used ironically by ESL students only 20% of the time.


What's going on?

[Casiopea]

The British National Corpus revealed that the expression "not exactly" is used ironically by native speakers 60% of the time while the Longman Learner's Corpus revealed it is used ironically by ESL students only 20% of the time.


What's going on?

native speakers use 'not exactly' 60% of the time
non-native speakers use 'not exactly' 20% of the time

Conclusion: non-native speakers are starting to use 'not exactly' in certain context, but not in all possible contexts. :wink: