to or for again

hirashin · 7 Jun 2012

Dear English speakers,

I have another question. Would someone help me?

Which sentences would be used by native speakers?
1a. My father gives me 100 dollars every month.
1b. My father gives 100 dollars every month to me.
1c. My father gives 100 dollars every month for me.

2a. Mr. Watanabe showed us an interesting picture.
2b. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture to us.
2c. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture for us.

3a. My grandfather sometimes play me a nice tune.
3b. My grandfather sometimes play a nice tune to me.
3c. My grandfather sometimes play a nice tune for me.

4a. My mother often makes us a delicious cake.
4b. My mother often makes a delicious cake to us.
4c. My mother often makes a delicious cake for us.

5a. Our teacher often tells us interesting stories.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us.
5c. Our teacher often tells interesting stories for us.

6a. My father got me a cup of coffee.
6b. My father got a cup of coffee to me.
6c. My father got a cup of coffee for me.

7a. Tom found me a beautiful picture postcard.
7b. Tom found a beautiful picture postcard to me.
7c. Tom found a beautiful picture postcard for me.

8a. My mother often read me interesting stories.
8b. My mother often read interesting stories to me.
8c. My mother often reads interesting stories for me.

9a. My grandmother sometimes writes me a letter.
9b. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter to me.
9c. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter for me.

10a. I chose him a funny book.
10b. I chose a funny book to him.
10c. I chose a funny book for him.

11a. My mother sometimes sang me that song.
11b. My mother sometimes sang that song to me.
11c. My mother sometimes sang that song for me.

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin

Grandpa Frank · 8 Jun 2012

My picks are.....

1-a
2-a
3-c..... change play to plays sounds better
4-a or c
5-a
6-c
7-a or c
8-a or b ....read for past tense and reads for presense tense
9-a or b
10-a or c
11- a or b or c....sings for present tense and sang for past tense

On some of the sentences , it might depend on the content they are with on which sounds better. I gave answers based on how they are standing alone. Some of them depend on which tense you want, past or present.

Uncle Frank

hirashin · 8 Jun 2012

Thank you for your prompt reply and help, Uncle Frank. I really appreciate it.

Yes, for 3, I should have written:
3a. My grandfather sometimes plays me a nice tune.
3b. My grandfather sometimes plays a nice tune to me.
3c. My grandfather sometimes plays a nice tune for me.

For 1, how about this? Does it still unnatural?
My father gives 100 dollars to me every month.

For 3a, don't you ever use the pattern "play someone a tune"?

I thought you could say 2b, 5b and 6a. Do they sound unnatural to you?
2b. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture to us.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us.
6a. My father got me a cup of coffee.

>....read for past tense and reads for presense tense
>....sings for present tense and sang for past tense

Yes. I know. All of them are in the simple past tense.
Should they be transformed into the present tense? (Am I saying it right?)

Hirashin

Cereal · 8 Jun 2012

My opinion

I would consider these ones correct:

(I'll mark sentences with a * if they look a bit awkward, but are still used by many native english speakers)

---------------------------------------
1a. My father gives me 100 dollars every month.

2a. Mr. Watanabe showed us an interesting picture. *
2b. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture to us.

3a. My grandfather sometimes plays me a nice tune. *
3c. My grandfather sometimes plays a nice tune for me.

4a. My mother often makes us a delicious cake.
4c. My mother often makes a delicious cake for us.

A note: It's far more common to use the verb 'bake' when talking about cake. For example: "bake a cake" as opposed to "make a cake"

5a. Our teacher often tells us interesting stories.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us.
5c. Our teacher often tells interesting stories for us.

6a. My father got me a cup of coffee.
6c. My father got a cup of coffee for me.

7a. Tom found me a beautiful picture postcard. *
7c. Tom found a beautiful picture postcard for me.

8a. My mother often read me interesting stories. *
8b. My mother often read interesting stories to me.
8c. My mother often reads interesting stories for me.

9a. My grandmother sometimes writes me a letter. *
9b. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter to me.
9c. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter for me. <-- This is actually gramatically correct, but I don't think it is what you meant.

10c. I chose a funny book for him.

11a. My mother sometimes sang me that song. *
11b. My mother sometimes sang that song to me.
11c. My mother sometimes sang that song for me.
---------------------------------------

hirashin · 8 Jun 2012

Thanks for the help, Cereal.

As for 1, how about this?
1d. My father gives 100 dollars to me every month.

According to your views, you can say all these:
5a. Our teacher often tells us interesting stories.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us.
5c. Our teacher often tells interesting stories for us.

How do they differ from each other? I guess 5b and 5c are different in meaning.

Don't you ever say or hear a sentence like 10a?
10a. I chose him a funny book.

How about this?
I'll choose you an exciting book.

Hirashin

Petaris · 8 Jun 2012

As for 1, how about this?
1d. My father gives 100 dollars to me every month.
It sounds better if you say:
My father gives me 100 dollars every month.
But it looks correct the way you wrote it as well.

According to your views, you can say all these:
5a. Our teacher often tells us interesting stories. This would be my preference.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us. The teacher is telling you something
5c. Our teacher often tells interesting stories for us. This one sounds like its for your benefit, as if you had requested it.

How do they differ from each other? I guess 5b and 5c are different in meaning.

Don't you ever say or hear a sentence like 10a?
10a. I chose him a funny book.
I chose a funny book for him. - This sounds a lot more natural.

How about this?
I'll choose you an exciting book.
I'll choose an exciting book for you. - This is how I would say it.

Hope this helps!

Cereal · 8 Jun 2012

Okay, I'm going to write a lot so bear with me. I was a bit tired when I checked out your sentences last time, but I think I know what you're struggling with. The thing is, most of these sentences actually make sense, but certain sentences may mean or imply very different things. I'll try to break each sentence down but before I do that I'll make a few comments on the three sentence structures you have:

A: [Subject][Verb][Noun][Object] (Example: [My father][got][me][a cup of coffee])

Now this one is a bit tricky, and I'm not an English teacher, but the pattern here seems to be that you need to link the Subject to the Verb.

For example:

My father gives me a hundred dollars.
My father gave me a hundred dollars.
My father will give me a hundred dollars.

My mother makes us a delicious cake.
My mother made us a delicious cake.
My mother will make us a delicious cake.

These are all correct because there is Subject-Verb agreement, now the only way to get it wrong would be to have incorrect subject-verb agreement. For example:

My father give me a hundred dollars.
My mother make us a delicious cake.

B: [Subject][Verb][Object][To][Noun] (Example: [Mr. Watanabe][showed][an interesting picture][to][us].)

When you use a sentence with "to" in it, you are usually interacting with the person. For example:

Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture to us.

The above sentence works because Mr. Watanabe is interacting with "us" by showing us the picture.

My mother often makes a delicious cake to us.

This sentence does NOT work, because the verb "Make" is about interacting with the CAKE, and not "us"

C: [Subject][Verb][Object][For][Noun] (Example: [My father][got][a cup of coffee][for][me])

When you use a sentence with "for" in it, you are doing something that the Noun can not do, will not do, or has not done.

Tom found a beautiful picture postcard for me.

The above sentence makes sense because Tom found a postcard that I could not find/will not find/have not found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frequency Words

This brings me to a totally different topic, and that is Frequency Nouns and Frequency Adverbs. A lot of the sentences that you have provided are wrong only because of the Frequency words being misplaced.

Frequency Nouns are words such as: Every day, every two weeks, every month, etc.
Frequency Nouns are ALWAYS at the beginning of sentences or at the end!

Frequency Adverbs are words such as: Always, Often, Usually, Sometimes, Hardly, Never.
Frequency Adverbs (and all other adverbs) are generally before Verbs (it's possible to have them be in a different place, but it's safe to always keep them before verbs)

Now on to the sentences:

hirashin said:
Dear English speakers,

I have another question. Would someone help me?

Which sentences would be used by native speakers?

1a. My father gives me 100 dollars every month.
1b. My father gives 100 dollars every month to me.

Wrong placement of Frequency Noun. To make this sentence correct, it would be either:

Every month, my father gives 100 dollars to me.
OR
My father gives 100 dollars to me every month.

1c. My father gives 100 dollars every month for me.

I marked this orange because it COULD make sense. A situation in which it would be correct would be: My father lives in Spain and I would like to give money to a Spanish charity. Unfortunately, I'm in Nigeria visiting a prince to discuss my bank details. Instead of me giving money to the charity, my father does it for me because I CAN NOT give money right now.

2a. Mr. Watanabe showed us an interesting picture.
2b. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture to us.
2c. Mr. Watanabe showed an interesting picture for us.

Again, this would make sense only if "we" asked Mr. Watanabe to show us the picture.

3a. My grandfather sometimes plays me a nice tune.
3b. My grandfather sometimes plays a nice tune to me.

^ This is wrong because the verb "plays" is about interacting with the "tune" and not about interacting with "me" (Incorrect Verb-Noun Agreement)

3c. My grandfather sometimes plays a nice tune for me.

4a. My mother often makes us a delicious cake.
4b. My mother often makes a delicious cake to us. Incorrect Verb Noun Agreement
4c. My mother often makes a delicious cake for us.

5a. Our teacher often tells us interesting stories.
5b. Our teacher often tells interesting stories to us.
5c. Our teacher often tells interesting stories for us.

The above sentence only makes sense if "we" ASKED the teacher to tell us stories.

6a. My father got me a cup of coffee.
6b. My father got a cup of coffee to me. Incorrect Verb-Noun Agreement
6c. My father got a cup of coffee for me.

7a. Tom found me a beautiful picture postcard.
7b. Tom found a beautiful picture postcard to me. Incorrect Verb-Noun Agreement
7c. Tom found a beautiful picture postcard for me.

8a. My mother often read me interesting stories. <-- Past Tense
8b. My mother often read interesting stories to me. <-- Past Tense
8c. My mother often reads interesting stories for me. <-- Present Tense

All of these sentences are correct but they are not using the same tense!

9a. My grandmother sometimes writes me a letter.
9b. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter to me.
9c. My grandmother sometimes writes a letter for me.

I think you were trying to have a sentence with the structure [Subject][Frequency Adverb][Verb][Noun] with the Noun being "A letter for me". In fact I just realized that you might have been doing that the entire time. However you have to be careful because "A letter for me" is not a noun in this case, it is of the form [Object][for][Noun].

So the only way this sentence would make sense is if I was unable to write a letter, so my grandmother wrote a letter instead of me.

10a. I chose him a funny book.

I know I said this was wrong before, and I still actually do think it's wrong, but I told you that [Subject][Verb][Noun][Object] is correct. I think you have to be careful when using that sentence structure because there are some sentences such as this one which sound very strange and I can't really explain why. (Sorry! >_<)

10b. I chose a funny book to him. Incorrect Verb-Noun Agreement
10c. I chose a funny book for him.

11a. My mother sometimes sang me that song.
11b. My mother sometimes sang that song to me.
11c. My mother sometimes sang that song for me.

ClarkH · 11 Jun 2012

1. A only.
2. A preferably. Then B. Never C.
3. A or C. Also, "play" should say "plays". Never B.
4. A or C. Never B.
5. A only.
6. A or C. Never B.
7. A or C. Never B.
8. Any make sense and are casual. However, C can have a different meaning. It can also mean that you asked her to silently read something for you, as if she is supposed to give you a summary. For example, if my mother is an attorney, and I get a letter from the government, I can ask her, "can you please read this letter for me?" Also, every sentence should say "reads".
9. A or B. C has a different meaning. It means that you asked your grandmother to write something for you, like a document, as if she is your secratary.
10. A or C. Never B.
11. A or C. B makes sense, but it's not very natural.

to or for again

hirashin

Sempai

Grandpa Frank

Sempai

hirashin

Sempai

Cereal

後輩

hirashin

Sempai

Petaris

Sailing away...

Cereal

後輩

ClarkH

先輩

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