help care for

[jiang_14]

Dear teachers,

I came across a phrase "help care for" but I can't find it in my dictionaries. Could you please tell me if there is such a phrase in English or is it a mistake?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

Where did you come across it? A little context would help.

My wife takes care of her mother, and I help her. I could say, 'I help care for my mother-in-law'.

 

[emsr2d2]

You can't look up every collocation of words in a dictionary. If you read the sentence "I saw a cat under a tree", would you look up "cat under a" and then be surprised it's not there?

I think you might have been less confused if you'd seen "to help to care for" which is probably what could have been substituted for the three words you quoted. Roman55 gave you a good example sentence using "help + care for". Do you understand what it means now?

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think the OP can find the usage 'help (to) do something' at http://ldoceonline.com/dictionary/help_1

 

[teechar]

Some verbs, such as "help", can be followed by a full or bare infinitive.
Have a look at the link below and let us know if you still need help with this grammar point.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv226.shtml

 

[Tdol]

This type of phrase is a case where search engines can help. I searched for "help care for" and got page after page of results from English-language websites- the phrase is clearly in use.