>>>>>It's my understanding that the word gullible is more appropriate, since it has the same meaning as we Europeans use the word naive.
>>>>
>>>>In English gullible has a negative conotation of being stupid or easily duped. Naive is softer more like unaware or trusting.
>>>
>>>Maybe innocent is the closest match?
>>
>>we do retain the little used word "naif" meaning a person without knowledge of evil which retains more of the original French meaning. As others have said, in current English, naive has a connotation of gullible and implies being a bit dull-witted.
>>
>>Innocent is indeed the closest match for the original meaning.
>
>How about spoken language? I assume that naif sounds totally similar to naive.
It is a noun rather than an adjective and frankly it is used so seldom in spoken English I'm not sure most people would have any idea how to pronounce it. I think final sound is pronounced as an f rather than a v and it is pronounce more as one syllable as opposed to naive which is distinctly two syllables.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
