I repeated it after him.
I would like to ask whether the preposition "after" is used properly. I want to express that I repeated exactly the same words that he had said. The preposition "after" suggests that I repeated it after some period of time and I am not sure if I can use "after" in my context.
Longman Exams Dictionary gives one of the definitions of the verb repeat :
"to say something that someone else has just said, especially in order to learn it:repeat something after somebody(Repeat after me...)
The verb is transitive. Your sentence is fine.
Consider the following:
He told the lie and I repeated it after him.
He told me to repeat after him, so I repeated after him. I repeated what he said verbatim.
In the first sentence, there is no implication that you followed his every word. The introduction of the word it there can be understood to mean only that you too told the same lie, but not necessarily word for word.
The idiomatic form which means unambiguously "to repeat what someone has said, word-for-word, verbatim" has no pronoun:
I repeated after him the words he spoke.
He recited the oath and I repeated after him.
Here's the point: If you say "I repeated after him" then you would have to say what you repeated.
If you say or write: /I repeated it after him/, you already know what the /it/ is.
Here is an example: /I repeated after him: 'Good behavior merits a reward'/.
/I repeated after him./ on its own is not grammatical. What is repeated after a person has spoken has to be given in the sentence for it to be grammatical in the form without it.
Another example: I repeated after him the very words he said to my mother.
The verb repeat is transitive, so you need a direct object.
