using for and to

[Unregistered]

Hello, I teach English to a couple of Japanese students and they took the test "for & to." I tried to explain to them when to use one versus the other but I really couldn't figure it out other than "it just sounds better"

Please help

[Casiopea]

What kind of sentences and what type of verbs? If you can tells us a bit more about what your students were tested on, it will help us narrow down the scope of our answers for you.

[threeboyzmommy]

They used the quiz that is on this website...under prepositions.

some of the questions were like

She was promoted ____ manager
She was promoted ____ her experience.

I'm lost...I tried to explain it to them but the more I talked, the more confused I was myself.

[Casiopea]

Two examples, that's good. Let's start off slowly because the topic can be a big one.

The preposition to is short for towards. It expresses a direction; e.g., ran to the house; gave it to them; promoted to manager:

Ex: She was promoted to (the higher position of) manager.

The preposition for, in our example below, expresses a reason: it tells us why something happened. Which is why it can be replaced by the phrase because of:

Ex: She was promoted for/because of her experience.

Does that help so far?

[threeboyzmommy]

OMG this helps more than you can imagine. I have my students in the morning and I am going to be so happy to be able to explain this to them. Thank you so much.....:D

[Casiopea]

You're most welcome.