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When speaking English with an Italian, Portuguese, Spanish or French person, it is easy to notice that the prepositions ‘to’ and ‘for’ are often confused, interchanged, or doubled up. (‘...for to do...’ is one of my pet hates as an English teacher!)

Asian language students tend not to make this mistake, so it is probably connected to the first language of the learner. In the case of the Latin languages, ‘for’ and ‘to’ are serviced by the same word (In Spanish and Portuguese, ‘para’, in Italian, ‘per’.)

I think there are two basic ideas to keep in mind if you want to learn to correct this mistake.

NOTE: In common usage, both forms can be used interchangeably in passive voice:

This pen is used for calligraphy/doing calligraphy AND

This pen is used to do calligraphy.

It’s not an easy structure to control, and it takes patience and a good ear to listen to your English and notice the mistake. Good luck!

Written by Justin Moon.