Gil-seop
Why is this unnatural? Please help me! Please read this: "Inside Out is about a girl named Riley and her personified emotions. Riley is an ordinary cheerful girl who likes to play hockey. She has a very happy childhood with her parents and hockey team. But she suddenly moves to a shabby house and transfers to a school. To adjust her to the new environment, her emotions work harder than usual. ~~~~" The two following sentences are the corrections for the last sentence in that paragraph. "Her emotions work harder than usual, in order to help her adjust to the new environment." "Her emotions work harder than usual, in order to adjust her to the new environment." They are the same in two points. 1)Why does "in order to" sound more natural than "to infinitive"? 2)Why is it awkward to put the adverbal phrase before ", her emotions work.."? I thought that putting the adverbal phrase at the beginning of the last sentence would be natural because I focused on Riley before the last sentence. I need your help. Thank you in advance!
Jul 28, 2015 8:13 PM
Answers · 4
1
The main problem, 해거름, is with the verb. We do not usually adjust *people*. We adjust things. And in English, "to adjust someone to something" is not natural. We would not say "We need to adjust Bill to his new work environment." We would use 'acclimate' or 'get someone used to' or 'help someone to adjust'. So, in addition to 'help her adjust' you can say: To acclimate her to the new environment, her emotions work harder than usual. We could also say To get her used to the new environment, her emotions work harder than usual. The position of the adverbial phrase is up to the writer. Your logic on this is correct. Some people may find the adverbial clause a bit long, but to me this is not the case. So, go with the placement you prefer. Neither is wrong, grammatically. Frankly, I like your placement, because it saves the most important information (her emotions work harder than usual) for last. As for "to" versus "in order to," the former is more concise, and the latter is more explicit. They mean the same here, so the choice is yours. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv146.shtml and http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3110/in-order-to-to-or-for
July 28, 2015
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