kaka
strange present for Chrisrtmas In my memory, we didn't celebrate Christmas very much in China about 10 years ago. Since we thought that it's just a western culture festival. But now it became one of favorite festival in China. And in Christmas Eve, giving apples for present became popluar in the last few years. It'll sound strange to people who are not Chinese. The reason is the first word of "Christmas Eve" in Chinese pronouciation is like "ping", and it's same as the first word of "Apple" . Many people don’t really care about the real meaning which is for celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ. Anyway, I wish all of you have a Merry Christmas again.
Dec 25, 2014 11:56 AM
Corrections · 5

>> Since we often say like "Give something for present"

 

In this phrase, you have missed the 'a' article:

.   "Give something for a present."

 

>>  why can't use "for a" instead of "as a"?

 

Here is your sentence (as I said above, you must include the 'a' article): 

.   "On Christmas Eve, we give apples for a present."

 

Here is my sentence:

.   "On Christmas Eve, we give apples as a present."

 

These sentences are very, very similar.  If you said "On Christmas Eve, we give apples for a present" to any native speaker, he or she would understand you perfectly.  However, a native speaker is more likely to say, "On Christmas Eve, we give apples as a present."  There are two reasons why.

 

First, consider these slightly different sentences:

.   "We give apples for a present for Christmas."

.   "We give apples as a present for Christmas."

 

The repetition of 'for' makes the first sentence a little awkward and a little harder to say.  Therefore, a native speaker is more likely to say "give something as a present".

 

Second, there are many different reasons to give something to someone.  Consider these sentences:

.   "We give apples as a present."

.   "We give apples as a snack."

.   "We give money as a reward."

.   "We give flowers as a token of our sympathy."

.   "We give kisses as a display of affection."

 

The structure "give ... as a ..." is very flexible and very common.  The structure "give ... for ..." is not as flexible and not as common.  Therefore, a native speaker is more likely to say, "On Christmas Eve, we give apples as a present."

 

Finally, your sentence was not wrong.  Arguably, I should have corrected your sentence only by adding the missing 'a' article: "On Christmas Eve, we give apples for a present."  This sentence is perfectly okay.  However, it felt a little weird to me, which is why I changed it.

 

>> why does it not make sense to use "have" , before say "Merry Christmas"? What's the different saying between "have a nice day" and "have a Merry Christmas"?

 

There is no difference at all between "have a nice day" and "have a Merry Christmas".  Here, we have a single verb ('have') and a noun phrase ("a nice day" or "a Merry Christmas").  Both of these phrases are perfectly fine.

 

However, your sentence already had a verb phrase ("wish you"), so it is not the same as the above examples. 

 

Consider this simple sentence structure:

.   Subject  +  Verb  +  Noun

As a simple example:

.   "I love apples."

 

A slightly more complex sentence uses the same structure, but uses a verb phrase rather than a simple verb:

.   Subject  +  Verb Phrase  +  Noun

As a simple example:

.   "I wish you happiness."

Here we have a verb phrase ("wish you") and a simple noun ("happiness").

 

A more complex sentence uses the same structure, but uses a noun phrase rather than a simple noun.

.   Subject  +  Verb Phrase  +  Noun Phrase

As a simple example:

.   "I wish you a long life."

Here we have both a verb phrase ("wish you") and a verb phrase ("a long life").

 

Using this sentence structure, we can also say:

.   "I wish you a Merry Christmas."

Here we have the same verb phrase ("wish you") and a new noun phrase ("a Merry Christmas").

 

Now let's consider a simpler version of your sentence:

.   "I wish you have a Merry Christmas."

Now we have a verb phrase ("wish you") followed by another verb ("have").  This breaks our sentence structure and, as a consequence, sounds wrong.

 

Here are some sentences which follow our simple sentence structure:

.   "I wish you a Happy New Year."

.   "I wish you a happy birthday."

.   "I wish you a romantic valentine's day."

.   "I wish you a Merry Christmas"

.   "I wish you all a Merry Christmas."

.   "I wish all of you a Merry Christmas."

None of these examples use an extra verb ('have').  This is why I removed the extra verb ('have') from your composition.

 

I truly hope I have not confused you.  It can be extremely hard to explain why something sounds weird to a native speaker, yet I have done my best to explain why your last sentence sounded wrong.

December 25, 2014

Strange Present for Chrisrtmas

In my memory, we didn't celebrate Christmas very much in China about 10 years ago, since we thought that it's just a western culture festival [1].
But now it became has become one of the favorite festivals in China.
And in on Christmas Eve, giving apples for as a present became popular in the last few years.
It'll sound strange to people who are not Chinese.
The reason is the first word of "Christmas Eve" in Chinese pronouciation is like "ping", and it's which is the same as the first word of "Apple" .
Many people don’t really care about the real meaning, which is for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
Anyway, I wish all of you have a Merry Christmas again.

 

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[1] A native English speaker is more likely to say: "... it's just a western celebration."

 

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圣诞节快乐!

December 25, 2014
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