confirm

Confirm Before a Claim

Level 5

Confirm can work as an adverb as well as a verb.

How It Works

Strong Speaker Certainty
Informal adverbial confirm can stand before a predicate or occur within a modal phrase. It shows a high degree of confidence in the claim.

Not the Same as Verification
He confirm forgot. says the speaker is sure he forgot. It does not say that he carried out an act of confirming. He confirmed the booking. has that ordinary verb meaning instead.

Confidence Can Be Wrong
Confirm as an adverb is a stance, not proof. It can sound emphatic or playful, so make the context and the basis for the claim clear when reporting important information.

Examples (3)

  1. He confirm forgot the meeting.

    I am sure he forgot the meeting.

    He has not arrived, and the speaker strongly believes forgetting is the explanation.

  2. With this traffic, we will confirm be late.

    With this traffic, we will definitely be late.

    Confirm expresses certainty within the modal phrase.

  3. She confirm knows where the spare key is.

    She definitely knows where the spare key is.

    The speaker is confident about another person's knowledge.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

confirmLevel 5Confirm Before a Claim

Learn This First

Distinguish a necessary action from the speaker's degree of certainty about a proposition.