puzzling me

[lisa666]

Hi there
There are two sentences below.
A) It is easy to me.
B) It is easy for me.
A teacher said that Sentence A is incorrect and that we could say "It looks/seems easy to me." But I don't really understand why Sentence A is incorrect and why it becomes correct after it's rewritten as " It seems easy to me." Could you make it more specific for me to understand, please? Thanks a lot.

 

[BobK]

It seems to me that it is easy:tick:
It looks to me as if/though it's easy. :tick:

but

It is to me easy. :cross: "Is" just doesn't work like that. ;-)

[I was thinking of saying 'Is to' is impossible; but that would have been wrong. It's used in comparisons such as 'Catalunya is to Spain as Wales is to Great Britain - with rich mineral resources and a distinct cultural and linguistic background'.]

b

 

[lisa666]

It seems to me that it is easy:tick:
It looks to me as if/though it's easy. :tick:

but

It is to me easy. :cross: "Is" just doesn't work like that. ;-)

[I was thinking of saying 'Is to' is impossible; but that would have been wrong. It's used in comparisons such as 'Catalunya is to Spain as Wales is to Great Britain - with rich mineral resources and a distinct cultural and linguistic background'.]

b

Hi BobK,
Thank you for your help. But I don't know where the sentence " It is to me easy." comes from. The sentence I give is " It is easy to me." Besides, I have no idea why we can say " It is easy for me." but we can't say " It is easy to me." What's the difference between " for me" and " to me"? Please help me again. Thank you very much.

 

[emsr2d2]

It is easy for me : This is an easy thing for me to do.

It seems easy to me : It appears that the thing is easy when it is shown to my eyes/it makes its way to my brain.

Please note that the sentence I have posted beginning "It appears..." is not a grammatically good sentence but I wanted to find a way to help you to understand why the word "to" is used here. I apologise if this has simply confused you further!

 

[emsr2d2]

In addition, we use "to me/you etc" when we are expressing an opinion.

To me, Spanish seems to be an easy language to learn. How does it seem to you?

By saying "to me", you are explaining that you are expressing your opinion, your thoughts on a subject.

For me, Spanish is very easy to learn.

This is a statement of fact. You are explaining that you are learning/have learnt Spanish and that you found it very easy. This is not just an opinion.

 

[BobK]

Hi BobK,
Thank you for your help. But I don't know where the sentence " It is to me easy." comes from. The sentence I give is " It is easy to me." Besides, I have no idea why we can say " It is easy for me." but we can't say " It is easy to me." What's the difference between " for me" and " to me"? Please help me again. Thank you very much.

I applied the same transformation to your three sentences to arrive at my three. The difference seems clear to me, and I hoped my trick would show you why you couldn't use 'to', as I couldn't really explain it - I just knew! I hope emr2d2's explanation is more to your taste! ;-)

b