0

I would like to ask about differences in usage between these three phrases, for example:

"I can hardly control how much time I spend online, to the extent that it interferes with my daily activities."

"I can hardly control how much time I spend online, so much so that it interferes with my daily activities."

"I can hardly control how much time I spend online, to the point where it interferes with my daily activities."

My teacher, a non-native speaker of English, said that "so much so that" is as more natural in this context as "to the extent that", and "to the point where" is an alternative that I can think of.

1 Answer 1

1

As a native speaker, all three of your example sentences feel pretty similar to me.

To my ear, "so much so that" feels a little more wordy/official/formal, I don't think that I would normally use it in speech.

Google Ngrams says "to the extent that" is the most commonly occurring - In other contexts, of course, they may not be interchangeable.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .