To vs For with Meals - Going Out To Eat - English Grammar Explained

Hi there. I'm Drew Badger the founder of englishanyone.com, and the world's number one English Fluency

Guide. Welcome to another video. It's a great pleasure to see you here and hello if you're

new. Well, in this video I wanted to answer a question actually I got on a recent video.

I apologize, I didn't write down the name of the person, but thank you for the question.

This is actually just kind of an interesting question so I wanted to make a quick video

answering something about grammar. Now, because this is a very specific thing the first thing

I want to say is there are many usages, many meanings for both to and for. Now because

of this I want to make something very important to help you learn more like a native so that

you speak more fluently. That point is, when natives are learning things they don't learn

a whole bunch of usages for something all at the same time. So, what natives do not

do ... When I am teaching my young, 4-year-old daughter or my almost 1-year-old daughter

now ... So, I have two girls and when I'm teaching them I do not say, "Okay, today we're

going to learn the word to it's a preposition and it means this and I'm going to teach them

all these different uses for that. Now, what you will see on YouTube is examples

of that because people are trying to teach you kind of the traditional way where you're

thinking more like a computer and we're going to just list a whole bunch of usages for it.

This is great if they are related to each other but often it just makes things really

confusing. So, what I recommend instead is, especially if there are multiple meanings

and they can all be actually quite different from one another, just try to focus on one

thing. So that's why in this video it's only about one usage of this, or one use, you can

use either one of those, but just one way of using these words just so you understand

this one idea. The other thing I will say before we talk

about this is that in this sentence, if you ask a native, "Let's go out to dinner," or

"Let's go out for dinner." So, I would probably get maybe 50/50, so natives would say ... Some

would say to and some would say for, and that's because in this case there's really no difference

between the two of these. The difference is, it's almost so slight most natives would not

be able to tell you why they said one or the other, it's just they've gotten into the habit

of using one of those. Honestly, it doesn't really matter.

For these purposes ... Again, just for this example I want you to focus on this because

this is a common expression you will hear natives use, and you should use it as well.

Let's go out to, or for, dinner. Now, this is used actually for many different meals,

so we can talk about, let's go out to dinner. we can talk about, let's go out to or for

breakfast. Another interesting kind of very quick lesson

about breakfast, the reason we use this word so fast, too fast. Obviously we have quick,

but to fast means to not eat anything, so we break that fast in the morning. So, when

you're going through all night, just a little bit of English trivia for you. I remember

when my mom taught me that when I was a little kid. I thought, "Oh that's a really interesting

lesson." It's a great way to remember it as well. So, you're breaking the fast that goes

on during the night. So you're breaking that fast.

So let's go out for breakfast. Let's go out for dinner. Same thing with lunch, and you

might've even heard the word brunch. So B-R-U-N-C-H. So brunch is the meal between breakfast and

lunch. Pretty easy. So, we have breakfast and brunch. I didn't really put these in the

right order but, again, we've got dinner, breakfast, lunch, or brunch. So let's go out

or let's go out to one of these things. Now, really the only difference here, it's so slight,

it's so tiny. It's not even important for you, but the reason I'm teaching it is number

one, I got the question, but number two, people, because they have learned to translate to

learn languages, they think about things like this.

Which word is it? It has to be one or the other. I want to understand why. So your brain

will not rest until you find an answer. So let me give you a very simple one for this.

Really, too, you're talking more about the direction moving towards that particular thing.

This is just a very simple way of thinking about it. Other people might, maybe they're

going to contradict me, they're going to say, "No, no, that's not really true." Really natives

are thinking about it this way. Let's go out to breakfast or to lunch. So, they're thinking

about more the motion of moving to that thing. So the motion itself is ... It's not more

important than the end result but they're just thinking about it that way, or describing

it this way. Let's go out for dinner. Really, you're talking

more about the particular thing. So, whenever you do something for a particular thing, like

I am studying hard for my degree, so I'm working hard to become a doctor and that's the reason

I'm doing something. So, when you use for your talking about this. This is more the

main highlight, but when you use to we're talking about the direction of something.

You're talking about maybe working towards that.

Really it's the same. It's basically the same idea because you're always working towards,

or moving to, a particular goal that you have but it's just in this case, "Let's go out

to dinner." We're just thinking more about like we are here at home right now so we have

to move to get this location, as opposed to let's stay in. So, you wouldn't say, "Let's

stay in to dinner because you're not going anywhere, you're just staying at home. So,

let's stay at home or let's stay in. This is a great phrasal verb. You're talking about

staying in. It just means being at home. Maybe you're eating at home or just doing something

at home rather than going outside. So, if you stay in for dinner instead of going out

for dinner you're still talking about the purpose of it, and it's maybe just deciding

where you're going to do that. So, either you're going out or you're going to stay in

or stay at home. Does this make sense? Really there are some questions like this,

and this is, again, not a really big lesson on all of the uses of to or all of the uses

of for. It's just helping you understand one idea the same way natives do. Let me know

if you like this lesson. Comment down below. Number one, do click that like button if you

enjoyed this lesson, if it helps you understand the difference here and that makes you feel

more confident and fluent about using this. Also, if you have more questions about this,

or other related grammar points that you find tricky, let me know what those are and those

will become future videos, again, if you like this kind of thing.

So anyway, remember this idea. If you're talking about going to something we're thinking a

bit more about the motion to that thing, the traveling to that thing, and if we're talking

about for we're thinking about the result. You don't really have to think about this

so strictly that you have to use one or the other, but this is just so you can understand

the native way of thinking about this. It's usually, again, in this case you really will

see examples of both, and natives really are just talking about having some food somewhere.

So, it's not that important. Even natives are not thinking about the grammar this much.

Usually this is kind of the idea that you're getting in the back of your head when you

think about this. Well, if you have enjoyed it, again do click

that like button. Also, YouTube for some reason is not really sending my videos out to subscribers

so make sure you click on the bell icon after you subscribe so you get the videos. If you

like and you click on them you also be more likely to get the videos, as well. Anyway,

it's been a pleasure teaching you. I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know and also post

a comment below letting me know if this helped you, if you'd like to see more of these, as

well, because it really is fun helping you learn this way. This is exactly how I learned

to speak Japanese. Again, it's really the very simple way to become a fluent speaker.

If you understand fluently you can become a much more confident fluent speaker.

Well, that's it. I look forward to seeing you in the video and you can help me, tell

me what to produce next with your comments. So let me know what you think and I'll see

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