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Currently I am studying English in a school, and today I had an exam, and one question was like:

"What did your brother use to do when he was 5 years old?"

My answer was:

"He used to fight me a lot, when he was 5 year old"

then she told me "that fight me" was wrong that I needed a preposition, so I used "fight against me" in the sentence, she said that the sentence was correct now, but I have doubts, and I think both are fine written.

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Your brother used to fight with you. To say that he fought against you would imply that you were enemies.

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  • Yeah, what I mean is that we used to fight a lot each other when we were children. but what is correct? "Fight someone or fight against someone" I think both are correct in my sentence.
    – Xavi Rose
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 22:00
  • Was your brother your enemy?
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 22:18
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If by "I think both are correct in my sentence" you mean you are seeking confirmation of the grammaticality of your version and the teacher's version, the short answer is: yes, they are both fine, syntactically. You don't need the comma in your sentence.

However, semantically "fight", "fight against", and "fight with" mean different things. It is more idiomatic to use "fight with" in your given context.

In "to fight someone", "fight" as a transitive verb is often used to indicate engagement in a battle or a physical fight. If you want to say your brother routinely picked on you, try "beat", "beat up", "pick on". If you are trying to say you two are more or less equals in those fights, use "fight with".

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  • "in my sentence" I don't know why I wrote that at the end, I was trying to edite it. And thank you for your answer, now I have it more clear
    – Xavi Rose
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 22:22

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