I suspect that native English speakers are much more likely to use the phrase “firmly believe” idiomatically as shorthand for “I have a very high confidence level in,” whereas a non-native speaker may take it literally to mean “I place an unshakeable probability of [asymptotically approaching] 1 on”.
It could be that I’m making this mistake. If a native English speaker (including you, if you are one) can confirm that I am misunderstanding the phrase as expressing a higher degree of certainty than it actually is, I will retract that part of the comment.
I am a native English speaker, and have probably used the phrase idiomatically at some point, but I shall not presume to speak for the author of the post.
Looking at the other comments and other examples of the use of the phrase, it does seem like I have made a mistake here, so I am retracting the second part of the comment.
I suspect that native English speakers are much more likely to use the phrase “firmly believe” idiomatically as shorthand for “I have a very high confidence level in,” whereas a non-native speaker may take it literally to mean “I place an unshakeable probability of [asymptotically approaching] 1 on”.
It could be that I’m making this mistake. If a native English speaker (including you, if you are one) can confirm that I am misunderstanding the phrase as expressing a higher degree of certainty than it actually is, I will retract that part of the comment.
I am a native English speaker, and have probably used the phrase idiomatically at some point, but I shall not presume to speak for the author of the post.
Looking at the other comments and other examples of the use of the phrase, it does seem like I have made a mistake here, so I am retracting the second part of the comment.