"I see forward to" vs "I look forward to" (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

"I see forward to" vs "I look forward to"
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13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Cortical
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Message 9 of 13

16 July 2012 at 11:53pm | IP Logged

druckfehler wrote:

I'm certainly no expert, but "I look forward to" strikes me as quite idiomatic and specific to English. But it doesn't have to be a direct translation, it could be a case of the native language using only one word for the concepts of looking and seeing.
I can see a German making this mistake, even though the equivalent to "I look forward to" is "ich freue mich auf", which has nothing to do with the verb "look". But "look" and "see" can both be translated as "sehen" - If people have a vague memory of the phrase and then mix up their verbs they could easily end up saying "I see forward to".

In German you have "hinsehen"/"ansehen" or "schauen" for "to look" while "sehen" is the equivalent of "to see" so I'd discount German as a source of that kind of confusion.
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Serpent
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Message 10 of 13

17 July 2012 at 12:21am | IP Logged

For some reason, even when there's a similar distinction in one's native language, many use words like look/see/watch or say/speak/tell incorrectly. Perhaps in many cases it's due to knowing one word better than the related ones? I mean, even if something would be incorrect in your native language it won't necessarily feel like a mistake to say the same thing in your target one.
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mrhenrik
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Message 11 of 13

17 July 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged

Sounds like a Scandinavian error to me!

Norwegian: "Jeg ser frem til" = "I look forward to", but "ser" is both "look" and "see".
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tarvos
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Message 12 of 13

17 July 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged

Cortical wrote:

druckfehler wrote:

I'm certainly no expert, but "I look forward to"
strikes me as quite idiomatic and specific to English. But it doesn't have to be a
direct translation, it could be a case of the native language using only one word for
the concepts of looking and seeing.
I can see a German making this mistake, even though the equivalent to "I look forward
to" is "ich freue mich auf", which has nothing to do with the verb "look". But "look"
and "see" can both be translated as "sehen" - If people have a vague memory of the
phrase and then mix up their verbs they could easily end up saying "I see forward to".

In German you have "hinsehen"/"ansehen" or "schauen" for "to look" while "sehen" is the
equivalent of "to see" so I'd discount German as a source of that kind of confusion.

And quite simply "gucken" as well
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druckfehler
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Message 13 of 13

17 July 2012 at 4:31am | IP Logged

Cortical wrote:

In German you have "hinsehen"/"ansehen" or "schauen" for "to look" while "sehen" is the equivalent of "to see" so I'd discount German as a source of that kind of confusion.

Very true, it's not exactly the same words for "look" and "see" and it's easy to explain with reference to "schauen" or "gucken". ("Ansehen" is close enough to "sehen" to not really count, in my opinion, because it's often separated into "ich sehe ... an".)
Still, I know a number of Germans who regularly mix up "see", "look" and "watch" in English.

Edited by druckfehler on 17 July 2012 at 4:34am

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