Should You Use TO or FOR? - 5 Levels of English Grammar

Hi, I’m Kasia.

Welcome to Oxford Online English!

This is a ‘5 levels’ lesson.

The lesson has five parts.

Each section will give you a challenge.

Each section is designed to be more difficult than the previous ones.

You’ll probably find different parts easier or more difficult.

This will help you to understand where you have problems; in each section, we’ll give

you an idea of what you need to know in order to understand the challenge fully.

Level one is beginner, so if you’re not a beginner, you should skip to level two.

Ready?

Let’s go!

Look at five sentences.

Complete each sentence with either ‘to’ or ‘for’.

Pause the video and do it now!

Ready?

Let’s look at the answers.

‘To’ and ‘for’ both have many different uses in English.

Some are simple.

You use ‘to’ to talk about going somewhere.

For example ‘go to the shop’, ‘go to London’, ‘go to China’, and so on.

There’s one common exception: you say ‘go home’, without ‘to’.

Use ‘for’ when you do something for someone else.

For example, you can hold something for someone, carry something for someone, buy something

for someone, and so on.

Use ‘to’ when you’re talking about an end point in time or space.

In these cases, you often use ‘from… to…’

For example ‘I’ll be here from Monday to Friday.’

‘The new road runs from the capital city to the south coast.’

You can also use ‘to’ with verbs of giving, like in sentence four.

However, with these verbs, it’s common to use a structure without ‘to’.

For example, with ‘give’, you can give someone something, or give something to someone.

Both structures are possible, but the first is more common.

So, you can say: ‘Give the bottle to me.’

Or: ‘Give me the bottle.’

Both are possible, but the second is more common.

These are some of the most common ways to use ‘to’ and ‘for’.

Let’s move on to level two, where you’ll see another important use of these two prepositions.

Here are your sentences for level two.

In each sentence, you need to choose ‘to’ or ‘for’.

Pause the video, and think about your answers.

Are you ready?

Here are the answers.

You can use ‘to’ and ‘for’ to give a reason for doing something, or to explain

the function of something.

In sentences one and two, you’re talking about your reason for doing something.

Why did you stop on the way home?

To get a coffee.

Or, for a coffee.

Look at two more examples: ‘We need to go to the shop to buy some batteries.’

‘We need to go to the shop for some batteries.’

Again, you’re talking about *why* you’re going to the shop.

In this case, you can use ‘to’ plus an infinitive verb, or ‘for’ plus a noun.

In sentences three and four, you’re talking about the function of something.

What does this little metal thing do?

It’s used to open bottles, *or* for opening bottles.

Look at two more examples like this: ‘She developed a tool to analyse data collected

at different times and places.’

‘She developed a tool for analysing data collected at different times and places.’

So, we’re talking about ‘reason’ and ‘function’.

Are these ideas the same?

No – they’re different.

Let’s see how.

‘Reason’ tells you why someone does something.

Here, you can use ‘to’ plus an infinitive or ‘for’ plus a noun.

*Don’t* use ‘for’ plus an -ing verb.

‘Function’ tells you what something is used for, for example a tool.

Here, you can use three structures: ‘to’ plus infinitive verb, ‘for’ plus -ing

or ‘for’ plus noun.

If you’re not sure whether to use ‘to’ or ‘for’ in sentences like this, what

can you do?

If you’re not sure whether a sentence is about reason or function, then try to use

‘to’ plus infinitive if you can, because you can use this in both cases.

Review this section if you need to, and think more about the difference between reason and

function.

It’s a common mistake to use ‘for’ plus -ing when talking about reason, for example

‘We stopped on the way home for getting a coffee.’

Remember, this is not correct!

But, it’s a common mistake.

Let’s move on to level three, where you’ll see more mistakes which English learners often

make with ‘to’ and ‘for’.

Level three is a little different.

Four sentences are incorrect; only one is correct.

You have two jobs.

First, find the correct sentence.

Second, correct the mistakes in the other four sentences.

Got it?

Pause the video, and find your answers.

Take as long as you need!

Could you do it?

Which sentence do you think is correct?

Let’s see.

‘To’ and ‘for’ are used after many verbs, adjectives and nouns.

Many of these are fixed phrases, meaning you just need to remember them as you learn.

‘Good for your health’ is one expression like this.

You can also say ‘good for you’, which has the same meaning, and is more natural-sounding,

especially in conversational English.

So, you could say ‘Jogging two or three times a week is good for you.’

There are some verbs like ‘phone’, ‘call’, ‘ask’ or ‘answer’ which are used with

‘to’ or a similar idea in many other languages, but not in English.

Is this true for your language?

Do you say ‘phone to someone’ or ‘phone someone?’

If in your language, you say ‘phone to someone’, you need to be careful with mistakes like

in sentence two!

In English, you phone *someone*, call *someone*, ask *someone* and answer *someone*, without

‘to’.

What about sentence three?

You heard about this in level two.

This sentence expresses reason – why did you go to the post office?

To express reason, don’t use ‘for’ plus an -ing verb.

Here, because there’s a verb – ‘send’ – you need to use ‘to’ plus an infinitive

verb.

Sentence four has the same problem.

You’re talking about reason – why are you taking a break? – and there’s a verb

– ‘eat’.

So, you can only use ‘to’ plus infinitive.

Sentence five is correct.

Do you find it strange?

Normally, you use ‘to’ to talk about the destination, or end point of a journey.

However, with verbs like ‘leave’, ‘depart’ or ‘set out’, you use ‘for’ instead.

Remember: there’s a lot of information and different topics in this lesson.

If you want more examples, go to a good online dictionary; we recommend Lexico, which you

can find at www dot lexico dot com.

Look up ‘to’ or ‘for’ and you can find many examples of the different ways to

use these two prepositions.

This time, there are two gaps in each sentence.

Put either ‘to’ or ‘for’ in each gap.

Do you have the answers?

No?

Pause the video and think about your answers!

Don’t just wait for us to tell you!

Ready now?

OK, here are the answers.

With some verbs, nouns and adjectives, it’s possible to use *either* ‘to’ or ‘for’

to express different ideas.

This means you can sometimes use *both* ‘to’ and ‘for’ after a verb, such as ‘wait’.

You can wait for something, wait for someone, or wait to do something.

If you combine these, you can also wait *for* something *to* happen, or wait *for* someone

*to* do something.

While it’s possible to use both ‘to’ and ‘for’ here, and with other words too,

the order is not flexible.

You wait *for* someone *to do* something.

You can’t put the ‘to’ phrase before the ‘for’ phrase.

In sentence two, you *could* change the order of the ‘to’ and ‘for’ phrases, but

in the other four sentences, you can’t.

In such cases, you need to learn the exact patterns which can follow each verb, noun

or adjective: for example ‘apologise to someone’, ‘apologise for something’

and ‘apologise to someone for something’.

This is more of a vocabulary problem than a grammar one.

If you have problems with this, then learning grammar rules isn’t the best solution.

Learn and practise specific phrases, and try to use them in natural speech or writing,

like you would with other new vocabulary.

Are you ready for the toughest challenge?

Let’s see the sentences Each sentence has three spaces.

In each space, you can put ‘to’, ‘for’ or nothing.

You should put ‘to’ or ‘for’ if possible.

Pause the video and think about your answers now.

We tried to make these sentences as challenging as we could, so take your time!

Ready?

Let’s look together.

In this lesson, you’ve seen different ways to use ‘to’ and ‘for’.

There are other meanings of ‘to’ and ‘for’ which we haven’t covered.

Here’s a test: can you remember three different ways to use ‘to’ and three different ways

to use ‘for’?

Pause the video for a few seconds and think about it.

Could you do it?

If not, don’t worry.

You don’t need to memorise every single way to use ‘to’ and ‘for’.

However, you should understand that if you’re asking questions like ‘how do I use ‘to’

and ‘for’’? or ‘what’s the difference between ‘to’ and ‘for’’? then you’re

not asking one question.

There are many ways to use ‘to’ and ‘for’, and many differences between them.

In level five, you needed to combine different uses of ‘to’ and ‘for’ in a single

sentence.

This is common in real-world English use; you may need to use ‘to’ and/or ‘for’

in different ways in the same sentence.

This is where things get complicated.

So, what can you do?

Here are two tips.

One: learn about using ‘to’ and ‘for’ to talk about purpose and function, which

we covered in levels two and three.

This causes the most problems for English learners.

Two: if you find it difficult to use ‘to’ and ‘for’, try to find the reason why.

Which meaning of ‘to’ or ‘for’ is giving you problems?

Do you just need to learn more fixed phrases using ‘to’ and ‘for’?

Are you having problems because you’re trying to translate a structure from your language

directly into English?

Remember that English might use different structures to your native language.

Before we finish, a question: what difficulties do you have with ‘to’ and ‘for’?

Can you think of any other common ways to use ‘to’ and ‘for’ that we haven’t

mentioned in this video?

That’s it.

Thanks for watching!

See you next time!