Mikkel
Is it natural to say "I wrote it wrong/wrongly" In English? - for native English speakers EDIT: My apologies. I have not expressed myself properly. Anyway - my question has now been answered. Actually my main doubt was not about "wrong" versus "wrongly", but whether the construction "I wrote it wrong/wrongly" was natural. In Danish I would have said "I wrote wrongly", which I felt certain wouldn't work in English, so I was unsure what native speakers would say. Original post: In Danish, if I wrote something that isn't what I wanted to write I would say "I wrote it wrong/wrongly", but I'm not sure if it's natural in English. Thanks for your help!
Dec 1, 2017 4:05 PM
Answers · 19
3
Wrong/Wrongly sometimes cause a little confusion for English speakers or can generate a bit of controversy, but here's what I've gathered: Wrong is both an adjective and adverb, while wrongly is adverb. It is more natural to use wrong after the verb, while it is more natural to use wrongly before what it modifies, i.e. "Maybe, I heard you wrong," or "He was wrongly accused." So, I would say that "I wrote it wrong" is more natural than "I wrote it wrongly," but because wrong is also an adjective, the former sentence can sound informal, as though the adjective is being used in place of the adverb (though that's not the case). If you'd like to avoid the whole issue, you could say, "I wrote it incorrectly."
December 1, 2017
2
incorrectly..
December 1, 2017
2
Wrong is an adjective and would be wrong. You need an adverb as it refers to the verb 'write'. Wrongly would be correct. You could also use incorrectly and this would, to me, sound better. However many English people would incorrectly say "I wrote it wrong"
December 1, 2017
1
Looks like you have 3 British answers and 2 American ones, Mikkel. :-) Still, the most common form to hear will be 'wrong/incorrectly', even if the correct form is 'incorrectly'. But that wasn't your question, was is? You asked about being natural...not about being correct. Good to know that in Danish, you wouldn't include 'det'. Thanks, that helps my Danish!
December 1, 2017
1
I agree with Bill: 'incorrectly' is best. More generally, Americans tend to use adjectives as adverb very often, eg. 'Well done, you did real good'. In England we would tend to say 'Well done, you did/played really well'.
December 1, 2017
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