"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"
Tags: Meaning of words \| English
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Cortical
Tetraglot
Newbie
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4637 days ago
30 posts - 52 votes

Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish^B1
Studies: Russian, Mandarin

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.
1 person has voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6601 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

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.
1 person has voted this message useful

mrhenrik
Triglot
Moderator
Norway
Joined 6083 days ago
482 posts - 658 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French
Personal Language Map

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".
1 person has voted this message useful

tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4711 days ago
5310 posts - 9399 votes

Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

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
2 persons have voted this message useful

druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4872 days ago
1181 posts - 1912 votes

Speaks: German*, English^C2, Korean
Studies: Persian

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

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 13 messages over 2 pages: << Prev 1 2

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.7500 seconds.