是用good for还是good to（一）

发布时间：2017-07-06

作者：Kimmy

来源于：昂立外语网站

学生问：有一次见到一本教辅书上讲，像useful, important, necessary这些词一样，good之后用介词to或for没有区别，可以互换。请问老师，这样说对吗？

这种说法是不对的。因为good有不同的含义，所使用的介词也不尽相同，而且to和for的意思也有差别。good在句中用作表语时，接for可表示“有益的；有效的；合适的；胜任的”，此外good for还有“付得起，价值是”之意。接to可表示“对......友善的，友好可亲的”，偶尔也表示“对......益处”的意思。

下面，我们先看一个英语幽默故事：

A man was troubled by mice. They ran about all over his house at night. In the daytime, they just stayed under the floor.

The man thought, “What I need is a cat, a good cat that can catch mice.” He knew of a man who had cats for sale. So he went to see him. “Do you have a cat that is good for the mice?” he asked the man. “Well, yes. I do happen to have a cat that is good to the mice,” replied the man. “I’ll take it,” said the first man.

He paid for the cat and took it home. A week later, the cat didn’t catch any mice, but it played with them like old friends. So the man went back again with the cat under his arm. They had a quarrel because they both took the meaning of “good” as they needed.

上面的故事十分有趣。买猫人是想买一个good for mice的猫，然而，那个卖猫人有一个good to mice的猫，最后结果必然是一场quarrel。

下面，我们分析一下故事中的两个关键句子：

“Do you have a cat that is good for the mice?”“你这儿有没有善于捉鼠的猫？”

“I do happen to have a cat that is good to the mice.” “碰巧我还真有一只对老鼠不错的猫。”

good表示“适合，有效，胜任”意思时，用be good for；good表示“仁慈，善良”意思时，用be good to。只有表示“对......有益处”时，两者可以互换。试比较：