Teaching > Grammar Questions and Teaching Suggestions

Help yourself to...help yourself with

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Sean240689:
Having some issues with an exam question.

Answer should have been "help yourself to some cookies".

A student put "help yourself with some cookies" and is kicking up a bit of a fuss (with the help of his Mum at being marked down.

Any idea how I can explain this clearly to him in grammatical terms?

Cheers

Sean

flasyb:
Help yourself to some cookies. Help yourself with your fingers.

When you use "to", it tells you what you can get. When you use "with", it tells you what you use to get it.

Help yourself to some salad. Help yourself with the tongs. - Get the salad using the tongs.

IHMLAIWTD:
Prepositions obey some crazy rules, and often with little rhyme or reason. English gets many of its prepositions from German, which also does some odd things with them.

For most, it's just a matter of memorizing which ones to use and when to use them. So good luck explaining that to his mum.

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