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Originally Posted by ColinHowell
Hmm, "self-sufficient" never even occurred to me. Columbine is right that "self-reliant", "self-sufficient", and "independent" are synonyms. The corresponding nouns are "self-reliance", "self-sufficiency", and "independence". As Columbine said, use whatever you prefer.
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Hi. I see.
You have many synonyms.
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I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but you might try using a thesaurus (a reference book of synonyms) in situations like this. Merriam-Webster's online one appears to be fairly good.
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Oh, thank you!
This site seems to be really helpful.
I just was just about to buy a thesaurus to develop my vocabulary, but I don’t need any more. It’s really helpful.
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What follows is just minor quibbling; if it confuses you, feel free to ignore it.
I do object to Columbine's earlier statement that "The 'in' in 'independent' means 'self' in this context." I understand what he is trying to say, but I still think it's a misleading thing to tell an English learner. The prefix "in-" here simply means "not"; "in-" never means "self".
But Columbine is correct that the word "dependent" always implies a relationship to someone else or something else, and for that reason "self-dependent" sounds like it contradicts itself.
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I see.
Prefixes are confusing, because both “in-“ and “im-“ mean “not”, right?
At the same time, “in” in “increase” does not mean “not”, but “up”.
“Im” in “impossible” may means “not”, but in “import” and “immigrant”, it doesn’t mean “not”, but “in”. (!!!) This is really complicated.