Which sentence sounds better to you:
(A) I have a strong foundation in this field.
(B) I have a solid foundation in this field.
(C) I have a strong background in this field.
(D) I have a solid background in this field.
I need to know which one would be the most common choice of an American?
I know well that these all are used and sound idiomatic for every English native speaker everywhere in the world because I read them all somewhere in some documents written by the natives. In other words, I need to know which combinations are used more; e.g. I need to discover that which one of the words "strong" or "solid" is used with the word "background" or "foundation".
Best Answer
Though I would not personally tend to use "solid background," the only real distinction that I would make is between background and foundation. That would guide my choice more strongly than frequency considerations.
If you have a strong background in an area of study, then you have broad knowledge of a variety of topics in that area, possibly quite advanced in some areas.
If you have a strong foundation in an area of study, you understand the fundamentals of that area, but you do not necessarily have knowledge of more advanced topics.
For instance, if you were applying for a job and wrote that you had a strong background in computer science, I would expect you to have worked in a computer science position at some point or to have some relatively advanced CS studies. If instead you told me that you had a strong foundation in CS, I would expect that you had studied thoroughly at a lower level or perhaps done related work in a position that was not explicitly computer science.