The picture was sold for/at one million dollars to a Japanese

[hirashin]

Dear native English speakers,
I have two questions. Would you help me?
1. Which would be common or acceptable?
(a) The picture was sold to a Japanese for one million dollars.
(b) The picture was sold to a Japanese at one million dollars.
(c) The picture was sold for one million dollars to a Japanese.
(d) The picture was sold at one million dollars to a Japanese.

2. I think (a) would be used, but how about (b)?
(a) This picture was painted by a famaous American painter.
(b) This picture was drawn by a famous American drawer.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

 

[Majestic]

Hello Hirashin,

1. Both (a) and (c) would be common and acceptable.
The use of "at" in (b) and (c) in these particular sentences would be slightly unusual. Understandable, but unusual.

2. You are right. (a) is fine. (b) is strange because of the word "drawer". We would probably use the word "artist" in the case of someone who exclusively draws instead of paints.

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for your help, Majestic.

I noticed my mistake in 2(a). " Famous" is the correct spelling. Sorry.

By the way, I have a further question.
Would the following sentence sound strange?
(2c) The painting was painted by a famous American painter.

Hirashin

 

[Majestic]

Yes - 2(c) is fine. The repetition of the word "paint" might be slightly undesirable, but in this case it is almost unavoidable (unless, again, you substitute the word "artist" for painter at the end). However, there is nothing grammatically wrong or unusual about 2(c) as it is.

 

[Azarashi]

I'm not native English speaker, but shouldn't you imply that you are selling it to a person and say it like this, "The picture was sold to a Japanese buyer for one million dollars"?
I might be wrong, but isn't addressing someone "Japanese" without person, citizen or something like that grammatically incorrect?

 

[Majestic]

Hello Azarashi,
"Japanese" by itself is grammatically correct. It works fine as a stand-alone demonym (the same for Italian, American, etc...). There are irregular demonyms where you would want to add something on the end - for example "English" doesn't work, but "Englishman" works. Japanese, however, is fine on its own.
Of course it wouldn't be incorrect to say "Japanese person", or "Japanese buyer" as you suggest. Some people might find it more politically correct to add such a word on to the end to soften the phrase (in effect, to humanize the person who is the doing the action, rather than just referring to the person as a nationality).

But for Hirashin's purposes, and really I think for just about any situation, both (a) and (c) would be completely fine, correct, understandable, and common.

 

[Azarashi]

Thanks.
Just sounds strange to me since in Latvian you conjugate word to fit the situation.

 

[OoTmaster]

Personally I think adding person to the end after Japanese sounds better. I like adding clarification after something like Japanese because it's a bit more broad than Japanese person, Japanese man, Japanese woman, Japanese shop. With nationalities ending with -an you don't add those.