This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2509.
Happened to or happened for?
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How do you know when to use happen to or happen for?
In today's episode we break down the key difference, what they mean for the vibe of what you're saying and more.
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We're all out of the ordinary.
How's it going, Aubrey?
How are you?
I'm great.
How are you, Lindsay?
Good.
Yeah, doing great.
Aubrey, has anything really exciting happened to you lately?
Hmm.
Yeah, sure.
We got tickets to an ASU football game and a Dodgers Diamondbacks game in the same week.
That's amazing.
And that's very rare.
And they were both free.
People are just like, oh, we can't use these tickets.
Can you use them?
I'm like, yes.
That is the best.
I'll go to a football game.
I'll go to a baseball game.
Yeah, I love that.
Oh my gosh.
So good.
So good.
It's really exciting.
And this is interesting.
I noticed you used happened to.
Why didn't you say happened for?
What's the last really exciting thing that happened for you?
That's a great question.
So the idea is the event occurred...
Well, how do I even explain this?
We're going to get into this today because we got a great question about this.
Happen two versus happen four.
And we do use them differently.
And so, yeah, we're going to dive into this.
So we're going to dig into it.
But first, I want to make sure we take a minute to say a huge thank you.
We have some very important listeners to call out from Spotify, who left us some beautiful reviews and comments.
So thank you to Nadia Abzan on Spotify.
And that is today's question, actually.
So Nadia left today's question.
No, this is great.
Read this one as well, right?
Should I go ahead and read that?
Sure.
Read our question first.
I'm going to go ahead and read it.
So Nadia left a question.
So thank you to Nadia.
So here's the question from Nadia.
Thanks for the great podcast.
I noticed in this episode, you said it happened for me and not to me.
When would you use for me?
Very straightforward, but tricky, right?
Yes.
And this was in Spotify.
Thank you, Nadia, for leaving your question.
You guys can also leave a comment in Spotify with a question.
Yes.
And again.
So before we get to answering that question, there are other amazing reviewers in Spotify.
A special thank you to Ashkan Homei, who said, thanks a lot.
I learned some nuance English.
And then Julia the Mendoza, she says, I love this podcast.
And Francis Skoleter says, says, I love this podcast.
Best regards from Chile.
Sounds like people love this podcast, Aubrey.
Yes.
Thank you for every comment, for every review.
We read them.
We appreciate them.
And they do help other people find our podcast.
So we appreciate it.
Yep.
And also a huge thank you to you, Jay Lee and Gaga Baha from China on September 11th.
Guys, leave us a review and a rating wherever you listen.
We want to know what you think of the show.
Okay.
Absolutely.
All right.
So let's answer Nadia's question here.
This is interesting how sometimes we say it happened for me.
Sometimes we say to me.
So we're going to dive into the difference.
We'll start with happen to, which means occur, right?
We use this when something occurs to someone or something, often unexpectedly or by chance, or something that's beyond their control.
Something just happens to us.
Yeah, that's why your example of getting the tickets for free was a good example.
Your friend just called you up and said, hey, we have these free tickets.
Do you want them?
That happened to you.
Yes, exactly.
Or someone might say, what happened to your car?
Right.
So it could happen to something as well.
Right.
Something occurred.
Something happened.
And now the car is not running.
Maybe.
I know that happened to us.
Actually, we went to a farmer's market a few weekends ago and just parked nearby and we got sideswiped.
Some car came and just swiped the side of our car.
Two thousand dollars in repairs.
Oh, crazy.
It's the worst when something like that happens to you.
Yeah, it was wild.
It happened to us.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Unexpected, right?
Out of our control.
Just something just happens to us.
Nothing we can do about it.
Exactly.
Any other examples we need to share?
Yeah.
So everyone has that in case of an emergency number, the ICE number on your phone.
You might say to someone, if anything happens to me, call my mom, right?
Call my partner.
You have got that ICE number.
Yes, exactly.
So that is the first meaning of happen to.
It's occur.
Something occurs to you, right?
Exactly.
And interestingly, we use happen to with a verb in a totally different way, to mean by chance or coincidentally.
So you might say, I happened to see her at the store yesterday.
And that just means like I ran into her by chance.
Right.
Or if you ever happen to be in the area, please stop by.
So it doesn't mean that I'm assuming you're going to come to the area and try to contact me.
Right.
Just say if you find yourself in that area, please stop by and say hello.
Exactly.
If you just happen to be there, you're doing something else.
You're there for another purpose.
Then come see me.
Right.
Exactly.
So we use this happen to in both of these ways and both very often.
Since I planned this episode.
I just start noticing when I plan an episode and people say happen to constantly.
Constantly.
Interesting.
Now I'm curious about Happen 4.
I feel like it might be a little less common.
What do you think?
Yes, it is a little less common.
This is about...
It's like an event benefits someone or has a purpose for them.
So, for example, good things always happen for those who work hard, like they benefit in the end.
One of the reasons we don't use this as often is it's a much more formal construction.
And it's sort of bigger, like broader about the world.
I hope good things happen for me.
Right.
It's almost more like about fate.
Right.
A little more wistful, a little more dreamy, maybe.
Because we also could say, just to play devil's advocate.
We could say good things come to those who wait.
That's a common chunk, right?
Or good things happen to those who wait, I guess we could say.
Yeah, you could say that as well, right?
And then sometimes these are a little bit interchangeable, when it's just about like I hope something occurs right.
I hope it happens to me or for me.
The slight difference is when we're saying I hope that happens once for me.
It kind of has, like you said, a little more wistful, a little bigger, like Oh, I hope, like yeah, it's interesting.
Life stories, right?
Like here's another example.
Everything seemed to happen for me at once.
I got a new job, met some new friends and found a gym.
I love the other interesting thing here is it's often more of a positive connotation, right?
If someone said everything seemed um to happen to me at once, I would expect them to be like my car broke down.
Oh, it's a victim mentality.
It happens to you.
It's out of your control and it's usually negative, whereas something happening for you is positive.
I totally agree.
I think that's a good differentiator right there.
Right.
Yeah.
Interesting.
And then we also have this, you know, sometimes bad things happen for a reason.
This is sort of a common saying about.
You know, just generally, you know bad things happen, but maybe it's for a reason.
Yeah.
That's an interesting chunk that we use.
Yeah, it's a common chunk, or you might hear everything happens for a reason, which I don't love that.
I used to like that phrase.
I don't love it anymore.
I feel it sounds kind of trite to me.
I don't know.
It just simplifies things a little too much.
It kind of does go on things a little too much, especially if you're like upset about what's happening.
And then someone says that it's almost dismissive of your emotions about it.
And I also don't think everything.
Some things are just very random and there's not necessarily a reason for it.
That's my opinion.
Well, that's a really interesting point that if you say that it kind of says a lot about your view of the world, maybe your spirituality or religious.
And a lot of people would disagree if they think things are a lot more random.
There's not this bigger purpose to everything, right?
So it's interesting.
You almost need to be careful who you say that phrase to, because if they have a very different outlook and view of the world, they might disagree.
100%.
Super interesting.
That could be another episode for another day.
But we'll take a quick break and then we'll be right back.
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All right, Aubrey.
So role play time because we know our listeners love it.
Here we're friends and we're chatting while waiting for a class at the gym to start.
All right.
Yeah.
You want to start us out?
Yes.
Hey, what happened to your phone?
The screen looks cracked.
I dropped it yesterday.
Luckily, it had a screen protector, so the actual screen didn't crack.
Oh, well, that's good.
By the way, I happened to see your sister at the farmer's market this morning.
She said she's moving to Seattle.
Yes, I'm super bummed she's moving.
She just accepted a job there.
Oh, that's so far.
I know you two are really close.
You'll have to go visit.
I for sure will.
I love Seattle.
And I'm really happy this happened for her.
She's been looking for a fresh start.
Nice.
So we have a good mix here of happened to happen for and different reasons for choosing them.
Right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So what happened to your phone is the first thing you said.
This is that first meaning.
Happened to meaning occur.
This is an effect, right?
All the action comes to your phone.
Your phone is like the victim.
Exactly.
And we would never say what happened for your phone, right?
No.
Because first of all, that's positive.
And this phone just cracked.
And the phone's an object, right?
Exactly.
Things can't happen for an inanimate object.
Yeah, most of the time that's true.
So then you said or I said, oh, well, that's good.
By the way, I happen to see your sister at the farmer's market.
So this is that coincidental piece.
Yes.
And this is really interesting how it's in past tense here, because you saw her at the farmer's market this morning.
So I happened to see her.
But when we're saying it, i i wonder if listeners are wondering how this is was spelled.
Is this past tense?
Because you don't really hear the d.
I happen to the t of two really takes over and the d is elated.
There's elision here.
So i happen to see your sister.
You don't hear that d at all and it's kind of hard when you're speaking to tell that it's in past tense.
Oh yeah,
And if that's something that's challenging, that is covered in our pronunciation course, which is out right now.
So go over to allersenglish.com slash pronunciation to get everything you need for that.
Yes, there are lessons on every type of speech pattern elision assimilation, all of these things that we do that make speech more natural.
So good.
So good.
And the last thing we said here was you said, I for sure will.
I love Seattle.
And I'm really happy this happened for her.
Now we're telling life stories.
We're talking about a narrative of someone's life, the arc of someone's life, the events that happen.
Right.
And this is something positive that happened for her.
We wouldn't say happened to her.
That would sound strange, because then it's something that's like out of her control and just happened.
That often would be maybe negative for something like this.
Most of the time.
Yeah, most of the time.
Yeah, negative or probably like dramatic.
I think that's a good breakdown, Aubrey, what you said happened too, is often negative or dramatic.
Or I guess you could say like you won the lottery.
I can't believe this is happening to me.
I guess you could say that, right?
But it's dramatic, right?
It's interesting too, something like this that she got this job.
It wasn't totally out of her control.
She still worked for it.
She did well in the interview, right?
So we're like, I'm happy this happened for her.
It's like good things are happening because of all the work she put in.
If we said I'm really happened, this happened to her.
That's discounting all of the effort she put in and making it sound like it was this random chance.
That's a good point.
It takes away all the agency right, all the actions that she's done.
That's a good point too.
So it's like what is the center of action?
Or like what?
Yeah, what is what?
Who's causing the action?
Yeah, interesting.
So i think some pro tips here for our takeaway If you want to use to.
It happened to me.
This means you were affected by it.
It was probably out of your control.
It happened for me.
It means it worked out in my favor.
It was meant to be.
It's usually a more positive connotation.
More positive thing.
Yeah, I like that breakdown.
That's perfect.
So yeah, these are little grammatical things, but they're not that little because, as you can see, they do change the meaning.
They change, like the feeling, the vibe behind what you're trying to say, which does affect connection, Aubrey.
Yes.
And these are really great for connection conversations, to share things that randomly happened to you, which are interesting, or these amazing life changing moments of things that happen for you.
Oh, so exciting.
I bet our listeners could have some great conversation starters just based on today, some things you could open a conversation with, with someone.
So good.
Yes, exactly.
Just like at the top of the episode, right?
When you said, what's the last really exciting thing that happened to you?
I want to ask that to everyone I know.
That's an interesting answer.
It's a great party opener question, right?
Conversation starter.
All right.
Great stuff today, Aubrey.
Guys, hit the follow button and don't forget to check out our pronunciation course, which is live right now.
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Awesome.
I will see you next time, Lindsay.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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