He is as good a swimmer as any of us.

[joham]

He is as good a swimmer as any of us.
I read on the webpage one of the paraphrasings of this sentence like this: We are all good swimmers and he swims as well as us.

But to my Chinese thinking, it is not very probable that any of us is a good swimmer. This sentence just wants to express that he can compare with any of us in swimming. So I would think that this sentence means 'He is the best swimmer of us'. Am I right in thinking so?

 

[lotus888]

No. It does not mean that he is the best swimmer out of all of us. That would imply that he can swim better than all of us.

It means that he can can swim just as well as any of us -- and that includes our best swimmer, regardless of level. He can swim as well as the best swimmer.

Now, that is the literal meaning of the sentence. In reality, when you say he is as good as any of us, it could imply that he is as good, and possibly better than all of us. It may be what you're thinking in the back of your mind. That's how the sentence can come across, depending on context.

So, your intuition serves you well.



--lotus

 

[MikeNewYork]

Why does your Chinese thinking conclude that not any of you are good swimmers? Are there no good swimmers?

 

[joham]

Sorry, Mike. I made a mistake. I meant to say that it's not very probable that every one of us is a good swimmer. Thank you for pointing out my mistake. And thank you very much for your help, lotus.

My thank and like buttons won't work and I don't know why.

 

[lotus888]

I just thanked and liked your post above. Can you see it?

I'm wondering whether you have to activate Javascript in order to thank or like. When I put my cursor over the like and thank icon, the words "javascript://" shows up on the lower left side of my browser.


By the way, China won several swimming medals in the last Summer Olympics, including some Gold.



--lotus

 

[MikeNewYork]

That is much better.

 

[Matthew Wai]

My thank and like buttons won't work and I don't know why.

They may work on another browser.

Not a teacher.

 

[Tdol]

I just thanked and liked your post above. Can you see it?

I'm wondering whether you have to activate Javascript in order to thank or like. When I put my cursor over the like and thank icon, the words "javascript://" shows up on the lower left side of my browser.

They're working fine- I can see the results of your Likes/Thanks. If you don't have Javascript activated, you may not be able to see the results, but your clicks seem to work- you've given 17 Likes and 2 Thanks, apparently.