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Yes, beside those you listed (that are not common in a normal conversation) there is a large number of Latin derived words in English, as a rule of thumb, there are almost always two words in English a non-latin derived one and a latin derived one having more or less the same meaning (or a near enough one).

Usually native English speaking people will use the non-latin one, but of course they also generally know it (or at least have heard or read the "other" one) so they can understand you alright, but I am told that if/once you are proficient enough in English, when you - mistakenly - use the latin based ones you sound like being snob or "upper class" or very formal (and wanting to seem so).

A few examples (of common words):

apartment=flat < I never managed to get this right

obscurity=darkness

arms=weapons

annually=yearly

legal=lawful

constructor=builder

transmit/transmitted=send/sent

custodian=keeper




Exactly :)

My friends say that I usually sound "academic" more than snob.

Some time ago I witnessed this first-hand. I was at a speaking event, the speaker was Canadian. He said: "If you ever had the fortune to encounter [Mister XYZ]". I would have definitively expected something like: "If you were lucky to meet him"/"had the luck to have met him" or similar. He was native, but very academic indeed. :)


> use the latin based ones you sound like being snob or "upper class" or very formal (and wanting to seem so)

I'm guessing that distinction comes from the norman conquest, with the upper class speaking French with the latin version for 500 years and the lower class speaking a germanic version.




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