[Vocabulary] proficient skills

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brianbrian

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I understand the meaning of the word, proficient. It means able to do something skillfully. A few examples are: You are proficient in English. You are a proficient computer programmer. You are proficient at the computer.

I want to make up another sentence with the word.

(ex) His proficient computer skills helped him find a programming job easily.

Is it grammatically correct to say, "proficient skills"? Please help me. Thanks.
 

Tdol

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It doesn't work for me. You seem to be trying to shoehorn words into contexts where they are not used much or at all. If his skills were good enough for him to find work easily in a competitive market, then we know that his is highly skilled- proficient would add nothing. Unnecessary adjectives, especially very strong ones, can be a bit like litter in sentences.
 

ChinaDan

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I understand the meaning of the word, proficient. It means able to do something skillfully. A few examples are: You are proficient in English. You are a proficient computer programmer. You are proficient at the computer.

I want to make up another sentence with the word.

(ex) His proficient computer skills helped him find a programming job easily.

Is it grammatically correct to say, "proficient skills"? Please help me. Thanks.

Do this:

When you want to test something like your example, replace the word in question with a brief (but more than one word) exchangeable definition.

"Proficient" means "possessed of a high level of competency". You can rewrite your first two sentences substituting my definition for "proficient".

But it should be obvious that "His possessed of a high level of competency computer skills helped him...", is ridiculous.

This informs you that your usage of the word is almost certainly wrong.

I qualify that because something is tickling the back of my brain warning me that there is probably some unusual example someone can show that breaks this suggestion.
 
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