[General] expect something (to be) enjoyable

LiuJing · Sep 9, 2013

Suppose you are going to meet in person with a long-time penfriend and expect the encounter to be enjoyable and exciting, can you write this:

I expect something (to be) enjoyable.

I know without the (to be) the sentence is perfectly correct and sounds natural. Does the sentence also sound natural with it?

Thank you.

emsr2d2 · Sep 9, 2013

I don't find either "I expect something enjoyable" or "I expect something to be enjoyable" natural. If you are talking to the penfriend or to another person, you would say something like "I'm really looking forward to it. I expect it will be very enjoyable".

LiuJing · Sep 9, 2013

emsr2d2 said:
I don't find either "I expect something enjoyable" or "I expect something to be enjoyable" natural. If you are talking to the penfriend or to another person, you would say something like "I'm really looking forward to it. I expect it will be very enjoyable".

emsr2d2，If you expect something to be enjoyable, and it turns out boring, you can say dismissively, 'That's no fun!'------ Does 'expect something to be enjoyable' sound natural to you in this particular context? By the way, that's a British national's words.

emsr2d2 · Sep 9, 2013

LiuJing said:
emsr2d2，If you expect something to be enjoyable, and it turns out boring, you can say dismissively, 'That's no fun!'------ Does 'expect something to be enjoyable' sound natural to you in this particular context? By the way, that's a British national's words.

As you used it in your opening sentence, it's fine. "Something" refers to an unspecified thing.

If something turned out not to be enjoyable, I would say "That was no fun!" or something similar. However, before the event, I would not say, for example "I'm going bowling on Saturday. I expect something to be enjoyable". I would say "I'm going bowling on Saturday. I expect it's going to be really enjoyable".

I can't put the word "something" into what you seem to be trying to say.

LiuJing · Sep 9, 2013

emsr2d2 said:
As you used it in your opening sentence, it's fine. "Something" refers to an unspecified thing.

If something turned out not to be enjoyable, I would say "That was no fun!" or something similar. However, before the event, I would not say, for example "I'm going bowling on Saturday. I expect something to be enjoyable". I would say "I'm going bowling on Saturday. I expect it's going to be really enjoyable".

I can't put the word "something" into what you seem to be trying to say.

In my quoted sentence, is that ok to drop 'to be' ?

If you expect something (to be) enjoyable, and it turns out boring, you can say dismissively, 'That's no fun!'

emsr2d2 · Sep 9, 2013

LiuJing said:
In my quoted sentence, is that ok to drop 'to be' ?

If you expect something (to be) enjoyable, and it turns out boring, you can say dismissively, 'That's no fun!'

I find "If you expect something enjoyable and it turns out boring ..." rather unnatural.

If you expect something to be enjoyable and it turns out to be boring ...
If you expect something enjoyable and you get something boring ...

[General] expect something (to be) enjoyable

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