My diary has just reminded me something.
It happened to me more than a few times when I said "As I understand it",
and some people would perceive it as "Because I understand it" and then they just mistook me as conceited.
We learned the difference between past tense and past participle in the English class some time ago. Each of us was given a piece of worksheet to see whether we understood the lesson.
Here was the most difficult question.
He ___ the work before we got there.
(1). had started
(2). started
When I was talking with my classmates about the above question, I said, "As I understand it, option (1) is the right one, because…", and then our English teacher popped up all of a sudden and spoke to me very loudly with her speech like this, "Do not think you have understood it, you pxxxy…"
I am wondering if there are any other ways of saying "As I understand it" so as to avoid any unexpected mistakes.
Will the meaning remain unchanged if I add some more words to it like this?
(1). As the way I understand it…
(2). As far as I understand it…
Best Answer
"As I understand it" is a more-or-less unnecessary phrase that just hedges your statement in case it's wrong. You could just leave it out entirely, because in this context, of course your answer to a question is going to be based on your personal understanding. You could also say:
Also, the question your teacher presented doesn't have an unambiguous answer without context - both could be correct.