LiuJing
Member
- Joined
- May 30, 2010
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Chinese
- Home Country
- China
- Current Location
- China
We looked forward only to see a narrow path leading to the top of the mountain.
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The sentence was the selected right answer to a question to choose between 'only to seeing' and 'only to see' in one of this year's Chinese college entrance tests. It had an obivious intention to trap students into choosing 'seeing' for the very reason that there is an idomatic phrase 'look forward to verb+ing'. However, whoever selected 'seeing' would be marked wrong.
My question is: is the presumably right choice 'We looked forward only to see a narrow path leading to the top of the mountain' idiomatic?
Isn't it better to say:
We looked forward and only saw a narrow path leading to the top of the mountain.
Thank you.
------------------------------------
The sentence was the selected right answer to a question to choose between 'only to seeing' and 'only to see' in one of this year's Chinese college entrance tests. It had an obivious intention to trap students into choosing 'seeing' for the very reason that there is an idomatic phrase 'look forward to verb+ing'. However, whoever selected 'seeing' would be marked wrong.
My question is: is the presumably right choice 'We looked forward only to see a narrow path leading to the top of the mountain' idiomatic?
Isn't it better to say:
We looked forward and only saw a narrow path leading to the top of the mountain.
Thank you.
