[Vocabulary] what's the meaning of " I sort of..."

[hooman79108]

hi all
I'd like to know the meaning of "I sort of taught myself" :-|
could you please give me more examples ?
tnx

 

[emsr2d2]

Hi all
I'd like to know the meaning of "I sort of taught myself".
Could you please give me more examples?
[STRIKE]tnx[/STRIKE] Thanks.

It means something like "In a way, I taught myself" or "I didn't really do it in a formal way, I just taught myself", "I simply taught myself".

However, it doesn't exactly mean any of those things. The two words are not necessary for the sentence as "I taught myself" would be fine. We add those two words in a lot of places without an exact meaning.

See if these make sense:

I can't decide whether to got out tonight or not. I'm sort of tired but awake, if you know what I mean.
I don't know how I picked up that car. I saw my child trapped underneath and I just sort of did it.
I can't really describe that colour to you. It's sort of brown with a hint of caramel.
I love your shoes. They're sort of elegant without being posh.
I need to take my car to the garage. It's making this sort of grinding, crunching noise. There's definitely something wrong with it.

Also, please note the amendments I made to your post:

- There is no need to post in bold.
- Start every sentence with a capital letter.
- End every sentence with the appropriate punctuation mark.
- No space is required before a full stop, a comma, a question mark or an exclamation mark.
- Please don't use textspeak, like "tkx" - use "thanks". Other learners read all these threads so we use the full correct English spelling of words to ensure other people don't think that the textspeak versions are acceptable.

 

[hooman79108]

Thanks for your clear explanation.
So, "Sort of" means somehow, approximately, about, a little depends on the sentences. Am I right?
Thanks for your amendments as well. It will help me to improve my grammar and dictation.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I may be wrong (of course), but this is how I interpret your sentence:

Tom: You speak French very well.

Mona: Thank you.

Tom: How did you learn French?

Mona: Well, I sort of/ kind of / more or less taught myself.

Tom: What do you mean?

Mona: Well, I read a lot of books and watched a lot of French movies. But I did attend a French class, too, but I got

bored and left after three months. Oh, yeah, I also agreed to help a French student learn English if she would teach me

French, but we had a big argument, and that agreement lasted only two months.

Tom: Oh, now I get it. You did have some help from time to time, but -- generally speaking -- you learned French on your own.

Mona: You hit the nail on the head, dude!