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I came across the following sentence and I would like ask to if it is grammatically correct?

There is a phrase " to think through" which means to think carefully over something and there is a phrase " to think for yourself" which means you take your own decision in dictionaries. However, there is no a phrase " to think something through for yourself".

I think it means " making own decision after a thorough thinking" but is it standard English?

For example:

They need to be able to think things through for themselves and show initiative, not wait for direction.

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  • To think things through and to think for yourself are popular expressions. To think something through for yourself combines them in a perfectly idiomatic construction. Sep 18, 2018 at 15:40

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You have it right. This is a combination of two expressions, "to think things through" and "to think for oneself". It means exactly what you guessed. Combining the two expressions gives the statement more emphasis. There is no such thing as "standard English" as I'm sure you know, but it is grammatical, and it sounds normal enough to me.

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