A few years ago, I saw a former student in a pub and he said, “You learned me good.”
Well, clearly I didn’t because that compliment has two massive errors in it. The first comes from the fact that Czechs use the verbs ‘ucit’ and ‘ucit se’. We have two completely different ones – teach and learn. If you are listening and processing facts, you are learning, if you are the one sharing these facts you are teaching.
The other is the use of ‘good’. If we are talking positively about someone’s performance using the verb ‘be’ then ‘good’ is fine. E.g. His guitar playing was good. But if you are using it with any other verb, you need to use ‘well’. E.g. He played the guitar well.
So next time I see you in the pub, Jaromir, what do you need to say?
“You taught me well”
Exactly.
