Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <word-meaning><connotations>
Title: May I use "naive" to mean "inexperienced"?
Question: Sometimes I may use "naive" in sentences like   I am naive in writing this type of articles   To say "inexperienced"  I would like to know how common this word is among native speakers of English, or in which situations they use it (through some examples please).

Answers:
sents: text: Be careful.
text: Naive (adjective) or naivety (noun) carry more a sense of attitude than of experience.
text: If you are naive , you tend to: believe everything you are told believe that people are good be easily tricked.
text: Even if you were tricked many times and hence in theory are experienced Children are the standard example of naive.
text: If you want to say inexperienced, write inexperienced .
text: You could also describe yourself as a novice or beginner .
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/12661/Stephie
score: 31
sents: text: Naiveté is a result of inexperience; it is not inexperience per se .
text: To be naive is to not know that one's knowledge and experience are insufficient in a given context.
text: Therefore, it is impossible to say "I am naive".
text: One can only say "I was naive."
text: But one can say "I am inexperienced".
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/10264/Tᴚoɯɐuo
score: 9
sents: text: To answer your question, we use this word when talking about people when we feel they believe everything they hear, or take things at face value, or can easily be convinced to do anything: A:
text: He said he was going to leave his wife and marry me!
text: B:
text: That was five years ago
text: and they're still together.
text: Don't be so naive!
text: It's not always a reproach - sometimes it just means innocent and unsuspecting :
text: She entered college a mousy, naive girl, and came out a confident, savvy businesswoman.
text: It is also sometimes used to describe someone's actions, who doesn't suspect anything is amiss in a given situation:
text: "They made up a profile for a girl named Debbie on a dating site.
text: "Debbie" sent me her email address
text: and I wrote her several times to ask her out.
text: They must have gotten a lot of laughs from my naive attempts to meet her."
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/6650/CocoPop
score: 5
sents: text: You've got excellent answers regarding the meaning and the use of the word naive , but I would try to explain the meaning of your phrasing instead:
text: I am naive in writing this type of article.
text: This would mean that you came to the conclusion that someone too easily persuaded/convinced you to write this type of article regardless the consequences, in other words, that's not the lack of experience in writing this type of article but the lack of assessment/judgement/discernment of the article's subject.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/3223/Lucian Sava
score: 1
sents: text: Naive also means being simple and unaffected.
text: It can refer to a lack of sophistication as well.
text: So a naive young man or a naive villager, could also refer to, depending on the context, somebody who is simple and artless.
text: You can say the village girl exuded a naive charm - in which case the word is used in a positive complimentary sense.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/21889/Harish Kumar
score: 1
sents: text: I have also heard it used in the context of art, Naive Art, meaning childlike / simple in the artistic technique.
text: I have heard the art of LS Lowry described this way for example.
text: As others have said, naive tends to be something you say of others
text: "he was naive to believe her" whereas in your sentence I would use inexperience.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/21909/Neil Murphy
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Naiveté is a result of inexperience and can also mean being simple and unaffected. It carries more a sense of attitude than of experience.  To be naive is to not know that one's knowledge and experience are insufficient in a given context.
Naïve is related to inexperience and means being unaware that your knowledge and inexperience are insufficient in a specific context.