mix the coffee

Question

(a) I add a spoon of sugar and mix the coffee.(b) I mix the coffee with a spoon of sugar. (c) Mix the coffee with sugar.(d) I mix some sugar into / in the coffee.

Khoff · Accepted Answer

Hi Vincent. All of your sentences are acceptable grammatically. (D should use "into", not "in".) But it would be more idiomatic, and sound more natural, to say (a) I add a spoon (or spoonful) of sugar and stir the coffee, or (d) I stir some sugar into the coffee. Both of these sound more natural than (b) or (c).

I would suggest, as a general approach, that when you want to know how to say something, you find the most common/idiomatic/natural way, either by asking here or by reading stories written in simple, current English, and just try to learn that example instead of comparing many different ways of saying each thing. You don't need to consider evey possible variation of every sentence. It just seems sometimes that you are making more work for yourself than necessary.

[C] [C] [C] (Also, I see that you are sometimes using subject lines now that describe the question in each post , instead of calling them all "corrections ___" -- Thank you, that's much better!)

mix the coffee

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