English lessons (and discussions) for dummies

[UserX]

Ok, the reason of this thread comes from here

This line is a big indicator for me. I see this broken English line so often, that it has become a flag for me, to stay away!

View attachment 406237

It's: "We'll explain everything to you". This isn't even a difficult one.

It saddens me because everything preceding this was written kinda well, there were mistakes, but they weren't too bad.

But still, job advert, proofreader wanted!

Now, the point is, the line: "We'll explain you everything" seems perfectly legit to me.
For example: "If you win I'll give you... I dunno... let's say a kiss." sounds legit as well to me. But it follows exactly the same scheme as the one considered wrong.
But is it correct or no?
So, the whole purpose of this thread is for devs -and not devs- to ask here if they have doubts about english sentences, creating some sort of community based proofreading references.

I don't know if it will help, but you never know, if you don't try.

 

[freedom.call]

"We'll explain everything to you".
"If you win I'll give you... I dunno... let's say a kiss." or "If you win I'll kiss you". Prolly not gonna happen.

 

[riktor]

Ok, the reason of this thread comes from here


Now, the point is, the line: "We'll explain you everything" seems perfectly legit to me.
For example: "If you win I'll give you... I dunno... let's say a kiss." sounds legit as well to me. But it follows exactly the same scheme as the one considered wrong.
But is it correct or no?
So, the whole purpose of this thread is for devs -and not devs- to ask here if they have doubts about english sentences, creating some sort of community based proofreading references.

I don't know if it will help, but you never know, if you don't try.

'I'll give you' works because whatever will be given will be given to 'you', in this case the preceding 'If you win' helps set up that association. 'We'll explain you everything' doesn't work because it implies that 'you' is what will be explained, not to whom something will be explained. 'you' doesn't even need to be in there at all given the conversational nature of the text, 'We'll explain everything' would be perfectly fine. Though any native english speaker should still know what you're getting at.

 

[polywog]

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[UserX]

Well, thank you all.
While on one side I'm happy that my guts were right about the "give", the fact that it works while the "explaining" doesn't gives me troubles. So another related quick question, if any of you don't mind to reply: "I'll give to you ... I dunno... let's say a kiss" (or "the fact [...] gives to me troubles") are okay, right? But are they okay colloquially -or do they sound too formal/arkward?

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It seems a fine tool, but dear goddess, the eula is ten pages long, full of legalese. I pass.

 

[riktor]

Well, thank you all.
While on one side I'm happy that my guts were right about the "give", the fact that it works while the "explaining" doesn't gives me troubles. So another related quick question, if any of you don't mind to reply: "I'll give to you ... I dunno... let's say a kiss" (or "the fact [...] gives to me troubles") are okay, right? But are they okay colloquially -or do they sound too formal/arkward?


It seems a fine tool, but dear goddess, the eula is ten pages long, full of legalese. I pass.

'I'll give to you' or "gives to me" isn't overly formal, but it isn't correct either (it is essentially archaic). 'to' here is simply unneeded as it is already implicit in 'I'll give you' or 'the fact [...] gives me' however 'to' would be needed in something like 'I'll give it to you' since there the object (it) is placed between the verb and the subject. Of course that can get a bit tricky with more specific nouns. for instance 'I'll give 5 dollars to you' is grammatically correct, but would often more naturally be phrased 'I'll give you 5 dollars'.