Which one is right?

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learning54

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Oct 16, 2011
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Spanish
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Hi teachers,
Which one is right?
a) I hope everything goes very well for you this week.
b) I hope everything for you goes very well this week.

Thanks in advance.
 
Which one do you think, and why?
 
Which one do you think, and why?
Hi,
Thank you for your reply. For me it's 'b'. Why? Because 'to whom' is before than 'how'.
Am I right?
 
Hi,
Thank you for your reply. For me it's 'b'. Why? Because 'to whom' is before than 'how'.
Am I right?

a) I hope everything goes very well for you this week.
b) I hope everything for you goes very well this week.

I don't actually understand your reasoning, which I have marked in red. That sentence doesn't make any sense. However, you are wrong, I'm afraid. It's a)

If you break it down and then add extra information, you get ...

I hope ...
What do you hope?
I hope that everything goes well.
Goes well for who?
I hope that everything goes well for you.
When?
I hope that everything goes well for you this week.


You could put "this week" in a different position but you would need commas:

I hope that
, this week, everything goes well for you. (This suggests that perhaps last week things did not go so well.)

The same goes for "for you":


I hope that
, for you, everything goes well this week. (This suggests that the speaker really wants to emphasise that they only want things to go well for YOU.)

Without the commas, though, your sentence b) is ungrammatical.
 

6

1

2

3

4

5

6

(a) HOW LONG

(b) HOW OFTEN

(c) WHEN

WHO
WHAT


VERB

WHO
WHAT

HOW

WHERE

(a) HOW LONG

(b) HOW OFTEN

(c) WHEN

(a) Duration

(b) Frequency

(c) Time

Subject

Action or non-action

Object

Method of paying / traveling

Position or direction

(a) Duration

(b) Frequency

(c) Time

Hi,
Thank you for your reply.

Because 'to whom' is before than 'how'. See the above chart for my reasoning. It's called the seven columns. The chart is supposed to explain the whys to know the word order of a sentence in affirmative.
It's obviously wrong. That's why I've asked. That's why I have presented the two options. For me it was also the first one, but then I've doubted about it. You may think that it is an excuse, but it's not. Though the position of 'how' is just for the method of paying/traveling. In fact, it doesn't say that it includes other 'hows'.
 
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a) I hope everything goes very well for you.
b) I hope everything for you goes very well.

**** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I did some googling, and it seems that "I hope (that) everything goes well for you" is the usual order.

Most books tell us to place a prepositional phrase (such as "for you") as close as possible to the element that it is

modifying. As emsr reminded us, "for you" modifies "goes well." That is, it answers the question: goes well for whom?

(2) Question: Is "I hope (that) everything for you goes well" an example of "bad" English. Of course, I do not know.

I only think that some (a lot of?) native speakers might consider it unusual but not "bad."

(3) I went to the "books" section of Google because I was hoping to find many examples of this "unusual" order. I

was very disappointed. I could find only three examples after checking 20 pages of results. Here they are. In the

parentheses, I have written what I think might be the usual order:

"I wanted everything for you to be better." (The Joy Luck Club, 2001, by Amy Tan) (? = I wanted everything to be

better for you.)

""I've done everything for you I know how and you do this to me." (Native Son, 1940, by Richard Wright) (? I have done

everything (that) I know how [to do] for you and you do this to me.")

"... do everything for you that is in my power." (Who is Alexander Grothendieck?, 2011, by Winfred Scharlau) (? ...do everything

that is in my power for you.)
 
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Hi TheParser,
Thank you so much for your reply and work. I really appreciate it.

Have a nice day.
Learning
 
(3) I went to the "books" section of Google because I was hoping to find many examples of this "unusual" order.

What is the books section of Google?. Can we find more examples there?
 
Here's the link: Google Books

If you need to get there from the normal Google page, click on the word "More" in the black bar at the top of the Google screen, and select "Books" from the list.

Remember, of course, that the books you can see on Google are many and varied but may not have been written by native speakers so you can't rely on everything you read there as being grammatically correct.
 
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