Sunday 15 May 2011

Grammar Rules & Activity: Expressing Purpose with for and to

Expressing purpose using 'for' and 'to' poses significant problems for some learners, so I will try to make it slightly clearer. When you've finished reading the explanation, do the quiz at the bottom by clicking on the image.

A common error is to use 'for to', for example:

Wrong: I went to the café for to have a cup of coffee.

We never use 'for' and 'to' together.

We use 'for' with nouns to express personal purpose:

They went to the snack bar for a bite to eat.
She's saving for her summer holiday.
He came to me for some advice regarding the usage of infinitive of purpose.

We don't use 'for' with verbs to express personal purpose.

To do this, we use 'to' + verb:

Right: They went to the snack bar to have a bite to eat.
Wrong: They went to the snack bar for having a bite to eat.
Wrong: They went to the snack bar for to have a bite to eat.

Right: She is saving to go to Croatia for her summer holiday.
Wrong: She is saving for going to Croatia.
Wrong: She is saving for to go to Croatia.

Right: He came to me to ask for some advice.
Wrong: He came to me for asking some advice.
Wrong: He came to me for to ask me for some advice.


However, we can use 'for' to express purpose of a thing, especially if the thing is the subject of the clause. Format: for + verb in -ing form

Is the mobile phone only for making phone calls?
What do we call the object used for measuring wind speed?
I use the microwave oven only for heating food and drinks quickly.

Click on the image below to test if you've understood my explanation. You'll have to enter an email - either a valid one or a fictitious one. If it's valid, the results will be sent to it. All other fields are optional - you can skip them by pressing the ENTER button on your keyboard.

ELT ESL EFL ESOL CLIL Resources, Games, Activities: Expressing infinitive of purpose with for and to

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