4
Actually "drew up to" is the more correct form for this meaning. This usage goes back to the days of horse-drawn carriages, when a carriage would draw up to a specified spot such as a door way or entry way. This use ultimately derives from the way in which a horse would draw the vehicle.
"Draw up at" has an essentially identical meaning.
"Draw up" with ...
4
The two sentences do not mean exactly the same thing, no. Those positional prepositions mean two different things; you get "out of" something if you are no longer inside of it, and you are "away from" something if you are no longer near to it.
In the sense of helping someone "get away" (or make a "getaway") it still means distance.
If the prisoners dug a ...
3
This is obviously where experience and knowledge starts to really help!
One practical way that even native speakers are advised to use to get that knowledge is a decent thesaurus, and then under synonyms or antonyms there should be some useful alternatives - including phrasal verbs.
Here is thesaurus.com I have put in 'separate' already. Notice the tabs ...
2
There are some subtle differences between the two sentences
This research is devoted to investigating.
I wanted to investigate.
These differences are caused by the verb that is used.
The verb "devoted" is a part of a verb-preposition combination with the preposition "to". In the first sentence, "investigating" is a gerund noun that is used as the ...
2
In your example, "This research was devoted to investigating the performance," that "to" is not part of an infinitive. It's a preposition associated with "devoted". "Devoted to" is an expression meaning "dedicated to", "used for", "occupied with", or "spent on".
The infinitive form of "investigate" is "to investigate", just like other verbs. In your ...
2
1- John began to talk but she guessed at his intention and interrupted him.
2- John began to talk but she guessed his intention and interrupted him.
Number one does not suggest anything about whether the guess was correct or not. Number two strongly suggests that her guess was correct.
3- There are no photographs of him, so we can only guess at what he ...
2
Some English verbs can take "at" plus their usual object. This "at" roughly means that it is not possible to observe that anything was achieved by the action. Some examples:
The puppy is pulling the blanket could mean the blanket is moving along with the puppy
The puppy is pulling at the blanket could mean the puppy is not managing to get the blanket to ...
2
Because it is an idiom, and we do not "adapt" idioms.
If I am not wrong,
more than meets the eye
is the shorter form of
more than what meets the eye
Since "what" has the value of a singular, it requires a verb in singular, even if it ("what") is missing.
2
Native speakers looking for this kind of thing use a thesaurus (wikipedia), most often one descended from Roget's 1805 work.
An online version of that gives
separate
10 Irrelation: Adj. disrelated, disconnected, dissociated, detached, removed, separated, separate, segregate, apart, independent,
independent.
15 Difference: Vb. separate, sever,...
2
You're so right that translation is far more than simply substituting words. To translate well from one language to another you need to have a reasonable idiomatic understanding of both. My favourite example of how you can't translate with a bilingual dictionary alone is that if you were asked to translate the German term "schraube and mutter" into English ...
1
The difference between "lift" and "carry" is that "carry" implies you travelled with the item after you lifted it. For example, you can stand on the spot and "lift weights", but if you are "carrying a weight" it means you are walking around with it. "Lift up" idiomatically means to pick something up. Some might say this is a tautology, but "lift down" ...
1
without clarifying what you are scooping up and just mentioning from what container you are scooping up
If you want to relay this exact sentiment, then your sentence would not be correct. While grammatical, it doesn't relay the meaning that you want:
✘ She scooped up an ice cream box.
This says that she either picked up the ice cream box itself, or she ...
1
Literally, the term "scoop up" means "to use a scoop (like a small, deep shovel) to collect something that is difficult to collect by hand, such as a pile of dirt, or small rocks, or anything granular.
You can also scoop up something with your hands, in an action like using a scoop:
The child flung her arms around him as he knelt to scoop her up.
...
1
You can say both, and you don't have to be too explicit about the place: it's the place where the people are.
The plant manager showed investors around the plant
The plant manager welcomed the investors to the plant and showed them around
Welcome. Let me show you around.
1
"Serve out" is incorrect; it's not a phrasal verb - you should just use "serve." "They have started dishing out the food" or "They have started serving the food." "Please dish me out a plate" or "Please serve me a plate."
Whilst very similar in meaning, "dish out" is more informal, and has a sense of sharing something equally to multiple people. You would ...
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