# Treat someone to



## JorgeSoñador

Hi everyone,
I know the expression "*to treat someone to*" means "*to pay for someone else’s food, drink, or entertainment, etc*". But I found some sentences where it doesn't seem to mean that. So I would like to know the meaning of that expression in those sentences.

Here are the sentences:

1. _I'll *treat you to* a new coffee pot. _(I think it means *give*)

2. _John and Marta *treated us to* a delightful evening at their home. _(I think it means *invite*)

3. _The band *treated their fans to* a new song. _(I think it means *encourage to sing*)

Is that correct?

Thanks in advance,
Jorge


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## lingobingo

To *treat* someone (verb) can mean to pay for something so that they don’t have to. Or it can just mean to do something especially nice for someone; to give them a present or an experience as a special gift or *treat* (noun).

1 means buy you a new coffee pot. 
2 means gave the couple a treat by entertaining them for the evening. 
3 means gave their fans a treat by singing them the new song.


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## PaulQ

JorgeSoñador said:


> I know the expression "*to treat someone to*" means "*to pay for someone else’s food, drink, or entertainment, etc*".


This the mistake: The commonest form is when I buy something for you, but the other form is when I give you something.

"To treat" has a broader meaning than your definition. A treat (noun) is "an enjoyable thing or experience" = "to *give* someone a treat" = to _*give *_someone an enjoyable experience = to treat.

The question of who pays, or if there is payment, is irrelevant: the point is that I *give *you something1 that will please you and you do not pay. (It is not necessarily enjoyable if I give you a drink and then ask you to pay for it!) If I asked you to pay, that would not be a treat and I would not have _treated_ you to, for example, a drink.

1 _a new coffee pot; a delightful evening; a new song, or a glass of beer, etc._


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## JorgeSoñador

Thanks, lingobingo and PaulQ, for your help.


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## taraa

lingobingo said:


> Or it can just mean to do something especially nice for someone; to give them a present or an experience as a special gift or *treat* (noun).





PaulQ said:


> but the other form is when I give you something.


So according these two we can always use "treat" instead of "invite", since by inviting someone definitely we give them an enjoyable experience . Right?


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## tunaafi

No. If you treat someone to something, you pay for it.

If you invite someone to something, you ask them to come/go to it.

In both case, the assumption is that they will enjoy it, but that is not necessarily the result.


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## taraa

tunaafi said:


> No. If you treat someone to something, you pay for it.
> 
> If you invite someone to something, you ask them to come/go to it.
> 
> In both case, the assumption is that they will enjoy it, but that is not necessarily the result.


Thanks a lot!


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## lingobingo

taraa said:


> So according these two we can always use "treat" instead of "invite", since by inviting someone definitely we give them an enjoyable experience . Right?


 Absolutely not. The word *invite* has nothing to do with it.


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## tunaafi

I was invited recently to a reunion of old school friends. The letter inviting me clearly, and rightly, told me how much I would need to pay if I chose to attend.


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## tunaafi

In some countries in which I have worked '"I'm inviting you" (in the language of the country) means "I am treating you". This is not the case in English.


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## lingobingo

That could explain taraa’s assumption.


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## taraa

tunaafi said:


> The letter inviting me clearly, and rightly, told me how much I would need to pay if I chose to attend.


In Farsi such things exist also, I think. But when I hear "invite" I much think something like "I am treating you" .
Thank you both so much!


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## kentix

There is a difference between a person inviting you and an organization. When a person invites you to something it's much more likely they will pay for it.

You might distinguish between an invitation and an offer to "come along".

If I invite you to my house for dinner you will not be paying for anything.

If I call you up and invite you to "have dinner with me" then you will not be paying for anything.

If I call you up and say "Do you want to get something to eat?" then you will most likely be paying for your own food.

If I say my friends and I are going to an amusement park and we want you to come along then we might be giving you a ride there but we are probably not going to be paying for your entrance ticket or your food.


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## taraa

Good explanation! Thank you very much Kentix.


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## Roxxxannne

kentix said:


> There is a difference between a person inviting you and an organization. When a person invites you to something it's much more likely they will pay for it.
> 
> You might distinguish between an invitation and an offer to "come along".
> 
> If I invite you to my house for dinner you will not be paying for anything.
> 
> If I call you up and invite you to "have dinner with me" then you will not be paying for anything.
> 
> If I call you up and say "Do you want to get something to eat?" then you will most likely be paying for your own food.
> 
> If I say my friends and I are going to an amusement park and we want you to come along then we might be giving you a ride there but we are probably not going to be paying for your entrance ticket or your food.


To me, an 'invitation' can cover situations where the host pays for everyone, as well as those where everyone pays their share and those where the host pays for some things but not others. If I get an invitation to a wedding in a fairly distant location, I wouldn't expect the couple getting married, or their parents, to pay for my hotel room.  And if the couple and their parents are not wealthy (or if they are trying not to have a rowdy reception), I would not be surprised if, at the reception, the wine and beer are provided by the host(s) but the guests buy their own whiskey, gin, etc. drinks.

But in that situation, the phrase "I'm inviting you" has not been used.  Even if the wedding invitation says 'We're getting married on November 15th and we invite you to share our joy!' it doesn't mean they are inviting me on an all-expenses-paid trip to lovely scenic Washington DC or wherever the wedding is.

If, however, I call or write someone and say, somewhat formally "I'm calling/writing to invite you to eat supper at Crazy Ed's Taco Joint with me next week" I'd expect that the other person would understand that I'm paying for us both.  If we know each other fairly well or very well, then I wouldn't use the word 'invite.'  But if I want my friend to know that I'm paying for her food and drink, I'd say "Let's go out to Crazy Ed's Taco Joint next week. I'm treating!"


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## zaffy

tunaafi said:


> No. If you treat someone to something, you pay for it.



So if I'm visiting someone and that person baked a cake for me, we couldn't use treat, right? In Polish I might say this. How do I say it in English, then?

_After the dinner, Ashley treated us all to a delicious apple pie she'd made herself. _


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## jbening

May I offer you some cake? Would you like some cake? Have some cake?

May I have some cake? Mmmm...cake!

That said, the use of "treated us all to" that you quote doesn't sound unnatural to me. There the implication is that having her apple pie was a special treat.


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## zaffy

jbening said:


> May I offer you some cake? Would you like some cake? Have some cake?
> 
> May I have some cake? Mmmm...cake!


Yes, but how would you rephrase this if "treat" doesn't work?

_After the dinner, Ashley *treated us all to* a delicious apple pie she'd made herself._


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## kentix

As jbening said, that's okay because it's a different use of the word "treat". It's personal, not about who is paying. It's about doing something particularly special as a personal gesture. Offering someone a standard donut is generous but not special. Feeding something to someone that you made with your own two hands, perhaps from a traditional family recipe, after also feeding them an entire dinner, is going beyond buying some donuts and handing them out to whoever is around. You are sharing a part of yourself with them. It tends to imply the pie is particularly delicious. That's not the implication with offering someone a store bought donut.


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## lingobingo

More simply, the verb *treat* makes sense to describe giving someone something nice, as a kind gesture, whether or not what you’re treating them _to_ needs to be paid for.


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## zaffy

kentix said:


> that's okay because it's a different use of the word "treat".





lingobingo said:


> More simply, the verb *treat* makes sense to describe giving someone something nice, as a kind gesture, whether or not what you’re treating them _to_ needs to be paid for.



So being at home, the host might offer their hand-made pie to their guest saying this, right?

_Let me treat you to my apple pie. My husband and the kids love it._


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## lingobingo

No. It would sound ridiculous for someone to say they were treating you to something as they offered it to you. A typical usage would be, for example, for someone to report in the parish magazine that “After the meeting we were treated to tea and biscuits at the vicarage”. It means, in effect, that someone was “kind enough to offer us”, or that we were “lucky enough to be offered/given”, tea and biscuits or whatever. And it’s often used in relation to a performance of some kind. These are a couple of usage examples from the Lexico page for *treat*:

_‘Meanwhile, back at the car park, we were treated to some splendid entertainment courtesy of the lads and lassies from the three competing nations.’_​_‘Thus, we were treated to complimentary popcorn and drinks and a general attitude of being better than everybody else.’_​


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## kentix

lingobingo said:


> No. It would sound ridiculous for someone to say they were treating you to something as they offered it to you.


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## zaffy

So the example I gave above still sounds a bit formal or even stilted, does it ?

_After the dinner, Ashley *treated us all to* a delicious apple pie she'd made herself._


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## kentix

No, as said above, that's fine. What was wrong with your sentence was that it was immodest. In essence, in your sentence, Ashley is saying "Look how great I am. I'm giving you homemade pie." It's not a question of grammar, it's a question of culture.


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## velisarius

zaffy said:


> So the example I gave above still sounds a bit formal or even stilted, does it ?
> 
> _After the dinner, Ashley *treated us all to* a delicious apple pie she'd made herself._


It isn't the sort of context where we would use "treated us to" something.

_We went out for a coffee. Ashley treated us to a slice of apple pie each. Not for any special reason; she was just feeling generous._ (Ashley paid for the pie.)


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## lingobingo

zaffy said:


> _After the dinner, Ashley treated us all to a delicious apple pie she'd made herself. _


Here, the incident is being mentioned later, and it’s someone else who’s paying Ashley a compliment, which is fine.


zaffy said:


> _Let me treat you to my apple pie. My husband and the kids love it._


Here, someone is patting herself on the back in real time. It’s possible, of course – but highly unlikely.


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## kentix

lingobingo said:


> and it’s someone else who’s paying Ashley a compliment, which is fine.


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## zaffy

lingobingo said:


> Here, the incident is being mentioned later, and it’s someone else who’s *paying* Ashley a compliment, which is fine.


But my example, as I explained in #16, didn't refer to paying. I was talking about visiting someone and the apple pie was served by the host after the dinner. No money/paying involved.

So I now believe I can't use "treat to" and that's what velisarius said in #26 too.


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## kentix

That's a different use of paying. "Paying a compliment" is a standard phrase meaning "giving a compliment".


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## zaffy

kentix said:


> That's a different use of paying. "Paying a compliment" is a standard phrase meaning "giving a compliment".


Oh yes. But still, looks like you like the apple example and verisalius doesn't.


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## kentix

I don't see Velisarius on this thread and I don't see any sign of disagreement among the native speakers.


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## lingobingo

Velisarius is right, though. It’s not the sort of thing we normally “say” (literally). But it would be OK if you were formally reporting it in some way, as I tried to explain in #22.


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## zaffy

kentix said:


> I don't see Velisarius on this thread and I don't see any sign of disagreement among the native speakers.


See #26


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## zaffy

lingobingo said:


> Velisarius is right, though. It’s not the sort of thing we normally “say” (literally). But it would be OK if you were writing about it or otherwise reporting it, as I tried to explain in #22.


Ah, I see.  Sorry for all those questions but Polish works totally differently again. We could use "treat to" no matter if someone pays for something or just serves me their home-made apple pie. Language register also doesn't matter at all. I can use it in any situation. So if a colleague brought some apple pie he'd made to work and gave a piece of it to me, I might then have this conversation at home.

Wife: Why didn't you eat your lunch?
Me: Oh, sorry. Tom treated me to a piece of apple pie he made himself and I was full.

So how would that conversation go on in English?


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## lingobingo

We wouldn’t use “treated me to”, as all the answers in this thread explain. I’m not convinced that constantly comparing English against your own language is productive!


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## zaffy

Does this sound natural?

_Wife: Why didn't you eat your lunch?
Me: Oh, sorry. Tom *gave me* a piece of apple pie he'd made himself and I was full._


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## sound shift

Reply to #37

Yes.


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## zaffy

lingobingo said:


> We wouldn’t use “treated me to”, as all the answers in this thread explain. I’m not convinced that constantly comparing English against your own language is productive!


Yes, but a non-native first needs to know the difference. I guess most haven't got the slightest idea "treat to" is used differently in English. All we could do is open a Pol-Eng dictionary and look up the English equivalent. Dictionaries don't show those differences. Thus I thought "treat to " works the same way in English. Luckily I asked you all and I do appreciate straigtening things out


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## JulianStuart

zaffy said:


> Yes, but a non-native first needs to know the difference. I guess most haven't got the slightest idea "treat to" is used differently in English. All we could do is open a Pol-Eng dictionary and look up the English equivalent. Dictionaries don't show those differences. Thus I thought "treat to " works the same way in English. Luckily I asked you all and I do appreciate straigtening things out


That's exacty why this site was created, because of the limitations of dictionaries.  English and Polish are different, so expecting things to "work the same way" is not a good starting point.  There is no verb "treat to" in Polish - they are English words.


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## zaffy

JulianStuart said:


> That's exacty why this site was created, because of the limitations of dictionaries.


To make matters worse, dictionaries provide wrong examples/translations. I just looked up our equivalent of "treat to" and both examples are wrong because the Polish translations don't imply paying at all, just being kind enough to serve some pie or some tea, like in a host/guest scenario.


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## JulianStuart

zaffy said:


> To make matters worse, dictionaries provide wrong examples/translations. I just looked up our equivalent of "treat to" and both examples are wrong because the Polish translations don't imply paying at all, just being kind enough to serve some pie or some tea, like in a host/guest scenario.
> 
> View attachment 69885


You are right that the dictionary examples in the Polish dictionary you cite are not good.  The first one is possible in a narrow context (you never get context in a dictionary) and the second one is just bad.

One way of treating/being kind is to pay for something for someone else, but it's certainly not the only way.  In dictionary examples, they are examples, not restrictions   Your "equivalent of treat to in Polish" is not relevant to our use of those English words and I am not sure you have used the word "equivalent" correctly, because I don't speak Polish.  It seems from your questions that they are _not_ equivalent.  You need to stop thinking about "equivalencies" between the two languages, especailly when native speakers tell you "It doesn't work that way in English" - and asking "Why not _this way_ or _that way_?" is also not very productive.


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## AutumnOwl

zaffy said:


> To make matters worse, dictionaries provide wrong examples/translations. I just looked up our equivalent of "treat to" and both examples are wrong because the Polish translations don't imply paying at all, just being kind enough to serve some pie or some tea, like in a host/guest scenario.
> 
> View attachment 69885


In the two sentences I get an impression of "normal hospitality" towards a guest, the pie could have been store brought. To treat someone to something, it could be that the friend had called your mother and asked for the recipe of your favourite pie, and had made it especially for you. It's about to do something extra for someone, something they are not expecting.


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## lingobingo

That’s irrelevant. We don’t normally use the expression *treat *[someone]* to* something in a domestic setting at all. The examples are not idiomatic.


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## kentix

I just want to reiterate after all this that there are two distinct meanings that sometimes overlap. One is directly monetary, the other is not.

"I invited my friend to go with me to the ballet the other day. He'd never been before and wasn't sure he would enjoy it and was worried about the cost. I told him it was my treat1 and not to worry.

"It was an amazing production and we were treated2 to one of the best performances of _Swan Lake_ I have ever seen. My friend really enjoyed himself."

1 - I paid for his ticket (notice the use of "my"). This is about a monetary transaction in which I paid a third party to provide a service for someone else.

2 - The ballet company provided an extra special performance. They did not pay for anything. It wasn't a monetary transaction as in 1. They provided a special experience. (There is no my, your, his, her, their or our.)


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## fabio407

Based on all the explanations, I wonder whether "kindly provide" would work as a substitute to "treat to" in all of the contexts given. It would sound ridículous in the made-up sentence in # 21 for the same reason exposed in # 25.


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## Chasint

taraa said:


> So according these two we can always use "treat" instead of "invite", since by inviting someone definitely we give them an enjoyable experience . Right?


No. You could invite someone to a funeral.


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## kentix

fabio407 said:


> I guess whether "kindly provide" would work as a substitute to "treat to"


No one would say "I will kindly provide..." to dinner guests in their home. It's not natural wording in a situation like that.


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## Chasint

zaffy said:


> So being at home, the host might offer their hand-made pie to their guest saying this, right?
> 
> _Let me treat you to my apple pie. My husband and the kids love it._



"Let *me* treat you to *my* apple pie" sounds boastful. It implies "My apple pie is wonderful"

"She treated them to her apple pie" is fine because the judgement of whether or not it was a treat is made by someone else.

"Let me treat you to a dinner at the best restaurant in town" means "I will pay for it (and it will be good)".

"Let me treat you to a bowl of stale rice at Freddy's kiosk" would not be a treat, because it does not describe something good. This would be an insult.

*Summary*

A treat must be something good. It should be a luxury, not something commonplace. It is normally a fleeting experience, like a meal or a trip to a theatre or theme park. This is unlike a present which is usually a solid object that is designed to last.

It is given to someone without asking for anything in return. As a gesture of politeness, the receiver should of course say thank you. However they do not pay the giver or do them any favours.


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## fabio407

kentix said:


> No one would say "I will kindly provide..." to dinner guests in their home. It's not natural wording in a situation like that.


Please note that I've said that in that context it would be ridículous as would be "treat to" for the reason exposed in #25 (similar to the one recently  exposed in #49). What endorses the possible correctness of the substituton.


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## kentix

"I will kindly provide" is not really natural anywhere.


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## fabio407

I see.  Thanks!

Maybe without "kindly" when the speaker is  or the spearkers are the providers?

1-- "I'll provide you with a cup of tea." (grammaticaly correct, though unnatural, in place of "l'll treat you to a cup of tea"?)

2-- "The vendor kindly provided us with a cup of tea."

I do not intend to use "(kindly) provide". The substituton would be useful to remember the meaning of "treat to".


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## velisarius

fabio407 said:


> The vendor kindly provided us with a cup of tea.


_The vendor (a carpet-seller, for example) kindly provided us with a cup of tea._ I wouldn't say they "treated us" to the cup of tea, since it was presumably in the context of trying to sell us a carpet. We may even have asked for a cup of tea. 

_Providing someone with something _is "giving them something they need, usually in return for payment". I don't think it is helpful to think of it as close in meaning to "treating someone to something", which is a more spontaneous and generous act.


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## Chewey

lingobingo said:


> To *treat* someone (verb) can mean to pay for something so that they don’t have to. Or it can just mean to do something especially nice for someone; to give them a present or an experience as a special gift or *treat* (noun).
> 
> 1 means buy you a new coffee pot.
> 2 means gave the couple a treat by entertaining them for the evening.
> 3 means gave their fans a treat by singing them the new song.


I love your explanation. It is clear and perfect! 👋👋👋👋👋


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