Hello!
I would really like to know if the sentences below mean the same:
- I am confident in Sergiu.
- I trust Sergiu.
- I have confidence in Sergiu.
Thank you for your time!
More or less the same they mean.
- I am confident of Sergiu.
- I trust Sergiu.
- I have confidence in Sergiu.
Thank you for answering! However, instead of saying:‘I am confident in Sergiu.’ is it correct to say:‘I am confident of Sergiu.’?
The word (adjective) confident takes the preposition of. The verb confide and the noun confidence take in.
There is a site which tells us something else: forum.wordreference.com (I am confident in Michael.)
You may follow what you think is more acceptable, or wait for other comments.
I’ve already discussed this here: “confident of” vs. “confident in”[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: A women in an office[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Antonella,
You can use both ‘confident in’ and ‘confident of’, but they tend to be used somewhat differently. In addition, you will also find other prepositions used after ‘confident’.
Contrary to what Anglophile would have you believe, there are not any easy rules about this. The best way to get a feel for usage is to read lots of examples. A good place to look would be the BNC or COCA.
Here is a sentence I found on the BNC:
(1). They almost all knew Scott, and he was confident of his ability to change his style.
You could also use ‘confident in’ in that sentence:
(1a). They almost all knew Scott, and he was confident in his ability to change his style.
For me, there is a slight difference in nuance, depending on which preposition is used.
In (1), I get the sense that the reference is to his ability to change in the future.
In (1a), I get more a sense that his ability to change his style is static. In other words, his ability to change his style is a constant. This is the difference I sense, but I would not say it is a rule.
Here is another sentence from the BNC:
(2) But ministers and party leaders are confident of victory.
The meaning here refers to the future. In other words, they are confident that they will be victorious.
If you change the preposition to ‘in’ in sentence (2), then it could mean basically the same thing OR it could mean that they have already won, and as a result have a general feeling of (self) confidence. You would only know which was the intended meaning from the broader context. This second meaning is not possible with ‘of’.
On the other hand, here is a similar sentence found in COCA:
(3) I am confident in our plan for victory.
In sentence (3), the person has confidence about a current plan. I personally would never use ‘of’ in that sentence.
And finally, here is a sentence in which ‘in’ should NOT be parsed together with ‘confident’:
(4) The other reason I feel confident in the briefing room is because I believe in the president.
Sentence (4) should be parsed thus: The other reason[color=blue] I feel confident [color=red](when I am) in the briefing room is because I believe in the president. In other words, in this case the word ‘in’ refers to location.
[color=white].
These are just a couple of comments from my perspective about how the choice of preposition might influence meaning. However, in many cases there may be no real difference at all between ‘confident of’ and ‘confident in’.
As I suggested earlier, I think the best thing to do is to find lots of usage examples in order to get a “feel” for when to use which preposition.
[color=darkblue]__________________________________________
[size=75]“As a performer, I’m very, very confident in what I do.” ~ Russell Brand[/size]
Thank you a lot for your answers. Now this point is clear to me.