Me and my brother are really different
I’m really different __ my brother
What preposition do I have to use in the second sentence if I want to keep the same meaning as the first one?
Thanks!!!
I’ve heard from the native speakers two prepositions: ‘from’ and ‘with’.
I prefer ‘from’.
“from”
A lot of native speakers use “to,” and some even use “than,” but I believe that “from” is the only correct answer, or at least the best answer. “With” is definitely incorrect.
Also, in the first sentence you would say: “My brother and I” rather than “Me and my brother.”
I hope this helps.
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“I’m really different with my brother” has a different meaning. For example, maybe when my brother is not around, I am a good little boy, but when my brother turns up, I start to behave badly. Then I can say that I am really different with my brother.
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That’s a good remark, Colin: ‘with’ is possible, but it gives another meaning.
THanks!
“me and my brother …” is a valid construction
I’m different from my brother.
“Me and my brother are really different”
— it should be " I and my brother are different" or " I and my brother are really different"
@ Dhesy
Your two sentences are
" I and my brother are different"
" I and my brother are really different""
Everything that I understand about grammar tells me that these should be correct. However, they are not. No native speaker of English would say this. We would always say ‘me and my brother are different’. I do not know why this is.
@Colin
“Me and my brother are different” is colliqually correct, but technically it is as wrong as “I and my brother are different.”
The correct phrase is “My brother and I are different.” I believe this grammar rule has something to do with personal humility. The first person pronoun always comes last.
It’s stupid. I rarely say it like this, but that is just the way it is ;/
Ah yes. This is something old people and young teenage girls used to take joy in telling me a lot when I was a kid. It conforms to how I understand grammar better than ‘me and my brother’, but I still don’t speak like that. Still, both ‘me and my brother’ and ‘my brother and I’ sound fine to me.
I think the prescribed models of “someone / something and I” and “I and someone / something” are based on 18th/19th century grammarians, and their belief that English should reflect aspects of Latin. As Latin was held in such high regard in academia, and seen as a “perfect and logical” language. I think the Latin version of similar phrases has the the first person pronoun always in the nominative ( " I " ) and not in an ablative case (" me " ).
It’s a jugement call as who gets to define what is correct, “qualified” grammarians or “uneducated” speakers ; )
I would say “My brother and I went to school together…” The rule of thumb I was taught was to remove the “my brother and” and examine the rest of the sentence…“I went to school …”
However, if these are not the subject of the sentence, the word usage is different…“She went to school with me and my brother” would be the most natural usage.
Another way of expressing sentence 1 is to say “compared to my brother, I am really different .”
Another way of expressing sentence 1 is to say “compared to my brother, I am really different .”
In German we say “der Esel nennt sich stets zuerst” (the donkey always puts himself first), a great reminder of the personal humility aspect, it sounds so much better to say “My friend and I” rather than “I and my friend”…
At a conversational level ‘Me and my brother are really different’ would be acceptable. However, at a publication level, an editor would change that sentence to ‘My brother and I are quite different’. As djvlbass remarked, the first person pronoun is always last in a series. Consider how strange it would sound to say ‘My aunt, I, my brother, and my neighbor went on a picnic.’
The paraphrase ‘I am different ___ my brother’ would indicate ‘from’ in this context since you are emphasizing a separation between your brother and yourself. At a publication level, I would suggest ‘I am not the same as my brother’.
Its really tough learning a new language, isn’t it? The tables are turned as I try to learn Spanish.