italki - english question 😂 'The hardest part is not being able to hear' when I think of the sentence, I wa

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hyun

english question 😂 'The hardest part is not being able to hear' when I think of the sentence, I was confusing whether 'not' goes with 'is' or 'being able to hear'. I mean, - Being able to hear is not the hardest part. - Not being able to hear is the hardest part. I know that the second sentence is the one that has the same meaing as 'The hardest part is not being able to hear' since it makes more sense in meaning. But when you think of similar sentence such as 'The hardest part is not writing' = Writing is not the hardest part in this case, not goes with is, not with writing. So, I can not understand why Not comes at the beginning of the sentence (Not being able to ~) hope my question to be understood.😅

Corrections · 6

English Question 😂

'The hardest part is not being able to hear.'

When I think of this sentence, I was confusing am confused about whether 'not' goes with 'is' or 'being able to hear'.

I mean,
- Being able to hear is not the hardest part.
- Not being able to hear is the hardest part.

I know that the second sentence is the one that has the same meaning as 'The hardest part is not being able to hear' since it makes more sense in meaning.

But when you think of a similar sentence such as 'the hardest part is not writing', it means 'writing is not the hardest part'.

In this case, 'not' goes with 'is', not with 'writing'.

So, I can not understand why 'not' comes at the beginning of the sentence (Not being able to ~)

I hope you can understand my question question to be understood.😅

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You have to listen to the stress of the sentence when the sentence is spoken. For an unstressed sentence, I would take it to mean = 'Not being able to hear is the hardest part', as this is the most logical interpretation, as you said (when is 'being able to hear' the hardest part of a situation?).

1) The hardest part is not being able to hear. (= Not being able to hear is the hardest part.)

2) The hardest part is not BEING ABLE to hear. (= Not being able to hear is the hardest part.)*

3) The hardest part is NOT being able to HEAR. (= Being able to hear is not the hardest part.)*

As for in written English, I think you could tell which meaning is correct based on the context of the following sentences :) Hope this makes sense!

(* I spent quite a while trying out various stress patterns, and as I overthought it it became harder to figure out which would be the most natural haha. So I'm not 100% certain these are correct stress patterns, only reasonably sure ^^;).

D'oh.

I know the meaning of each sentence and difference between two. I want to know WHY 'The hardest part is not being able to hear' means 'Not being able to hear is the hardest part, not 'Being able to hear is not the hardest part' 😂😅

Let's see what the two sentences mean: " Being able to hear is not the hardest part." = you CAN hear and this is not the hardest part. There are things that are HARDER than having the ability to hear " Not being able to hear is the hardest part." = you CANNOT hear and you consider this the hardest part. There ISN'T anything HARDER than the situation of being uncapable of hearing. Hope this helped!

Literally, for the part 'being able to hear is NOT the hardest part', NOT is used to deny 'the hardest part.' For the second one, 'NOT being able to hear is the hardest part' means being a deaf is the hardest part.

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