# EN: Pour moi



## hamlet

Quand on veut dire "pour moi" signifiant "selon moi/dans mon opinion", à la place de dire "in my opinion", doit-on dire "To me" ou "For me" est également accepté?

Exemple : "For/to me, 'beautiful' means elegant, etc."


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## villefranche

_*To me*_ beautiful means elegant.


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## hamlet

"For me" --> not possible?


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## villefranche

hamlet said:


> "For me" --> not possible?


 
To me, "for me"  sounds strange with your example.  I would not use it.


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## Suehil

You could, however, say 'for me, beauty is elegance'.  Something can *be* something *for* you, or *mean* something *to *you.


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## villefranche

response to Suehil-
That is true.  But, in the context of the original question from hamlet, that doesn't apply.


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## hamlet

villefranche said:


> response to Suehil-
> That is true.  But, in the context of the original question from hamlet, that doesn't apply.


how come?


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## villefranche

hamlet said:


> how come?


 
You asked about _selon moi/dans mon opinion, _what beauty means according *to you.*


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## charlerina ballerina

Technically you could say 'Elegance is beauty to me' but it is ambiguous.

A better way of saying this would be:

In my opinion, elegance is beauty.
You might use ‘I find’ … I find elegance beautiful.

Examples where ‘to me’ is ok:

He seems untrustworthy to me
Understanding body language is important to me.
To me the blue shirt looks better than the red one.
 
I would not use ‘for me’ to express opinion.


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## mally pense

If you think about the possibility of the sentence being inverted, "To me" makes sense:

"Beautiful means elegant *to* me" 

when inverted becomes:

"*To* me, beautiful means elegant" 

"For me" doesn't work because the uninverted sentence would be:

"Beautiful means elegant *for* me" 

(Something *means* something *to* someone, not *for* them).

For me, "To me" works in your example.

If you want to know why I've just used "For me", it's because something _works_ *for* someone, so my uninverted sentence would be ""To me" works *for* me in your example.

Disclaimer: This is just how I see it. It may have no basis in formal grammar (I don't know) and there may well be exceptions.


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## villefranche

Thank you mally pense and charlerina ballerina. You both explained it better than I.


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## mally pense

Not better, just wordier I think! Your reply summed it up beautifully, but I couldn't help expanding on it.

I can't help noticing that charlerina's examples all follow the pattern of the "to" matching the verb (or verb phrase?), i.e. "seems to", "is important to" and "looks better to".

I suspect there's also cases where "To me" doesn't follow this pattern, and is used purely as a substitute for "In my opinion". Possibly in these cases, "For me" would also work, but I can't think of any examples right now.


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## charlerina ballerina

In my lowly opinion, the 'to' part is not atached to the verb. I think I can prove this:

You can move the 'to me' together, the verb stays in the same place

He seems untrustworthy to me.
= To me he seems untrustworthy
= In my opinion he seems untrustworthy

Understanding body language is important to me.
= To me understanding body language is important.
= In my opinion, understanding body language is important.

To me the blue shirt looks better than the red one.
= The blue shirt looks better than the red one to me.
= In my opinion the blue shirt looks better than the red one.
 
Hope this helps xx


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## mally pense

I'm sure you're right, but maybe for sentences using verbs which _are_ associated with "to", the verb association technique is why "for" doesn't work, even if "In my opinion" (which is verb-neutral, if I can coin a phrase) does. Perhaps the linguistic circuits in the brain automatically make the inversion and decide that "for" doesn't sound right in cases where it wouldn't work with the verb?

Well, maybe, but I can assure you my opinion is as lowly as yours, if not more so. It's fun playing with these ideas though


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## charlerina ballerina

ok, let us consider:
This tea has too much sugar for me [to enjoy]

The 'for me' could easily be followed by an infinitive.
'For me' in this sense denotes for my tastes; *for my specification.*
Perhaps this is the key?

I am certainly getting more and more confused myself lol.
xx


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## mally pense

You may be right, but it's getting late, so perhaps it's a good opportunity to see if anyone else has any thoughts?


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## mally pense

I should point out that Suehil had already made the point about the "to" or "for" agreeing with the verb well before I made my first reply. My main point really was that changing the order of the sentence might be a useful technique to check which word to choose.


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## villefranche

hamlet,
J'espère que vous comprenez maintenant. Le bon mot est "*to." *


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