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Consider this sentence:

The solution to this question should no more difficult be obtained than that to the other question.

Is this sentence grammatical?

Is difficult here used as an adverb?

tchrist
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Jonas
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1 Answers1

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Difficult is an adjective. There is no adverb like "difficultly". If you want an adverb there is "laboriously" or "arduously" or you can use "with difficulty"

Your sentence is not grammatically correct, here are better examples:

The solution to this question should not be more difficult to obtain than that to the other question.

The solution to this question should not be obtained with more difficulty than that to the other question.

The solution to this question should not be obtained more laboriously than that to the other question.

Edit: Following the comments, here's an example of an easier sentence:

"Obtaining the answer to this question should not be more difficult than obtaining the one to the other question"

I used "answer" here, which is more friendly with "question". "Solution" would be more appropriate for a "problem"

Hope that helps you to understand

Manuki
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  • It still isn't grammatical: it needs to be *“of the other question”* or “than the other question’s”. Even once that’s fixed, it’s a terrible sentence, as if people go off somewhere to “obtain” a solution by begging, borrowing, or stealing them. “The solution to this question shouldn’t be any harder to work out than the other question’s solution was.” Or should be no harder. I know you’ve tried to preserve his wording, but it’s really awful: there are any number of ways to rephrase this as a native speaker might, but neither the original nor yours would normally be amongst these. – tchrist Jan 17 '19 at 12:13
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    @tchrist It sounds very normal to me to "obtain" a solution to a question, especially if you are cheating for an exam, for example. The use of TO in "solution TO the question" is perfectly ok also, see this question: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/14753/solution-for-or-solution-to-a-problem

    You might prefer problem to question or other things.. but that's just preferrence, the OP only wanted something gramatically correct.

    I understand your point nonetheless, feel free to edit my answer to add additional wordings that you deem more elegant. thank you :)

     – Manuki Jan 17 '19 at 12:26
  • Trust me: “than that to the other question” is nonsense here. – tchrist Jan 17 '19 at 12:31
  • yeah this part is definitely difficult. maybe it would be more clear to repeat: "more difficult than the solution to the other question" ..? – Manuki Jan 17 '19 at 12:32
  • @tchrist I edited with a new example sentence with a clearer meaning – Manuki Jan 17 '19 at 12:35
  • @tchrist Re "of" vs "to": Google Ngrams shows that uses of "answer to the question" vastly outnumber those of "answer of the question". As for "solution of/to the problem", admittedly "of" peaked in 1932, far ahead of "to", but, since then, "to" has become more popular, and has been more popular than "of" from 1966 on. – Rosie F Jan 17 '19 at 14:01
  • @RosieF That is not the issue, at all. Rather, it's that "than that to the other question" sounds wrong. Using a simpler possessive form would be one improvement, but intractable structural troubles would remain: it's comparing *unlike things.* When you make a comparison like "X is harder than Y is", you need X and Y to be the same sort of thing. Here that parallelism is completely absent, which is why this doesn't make any sense as currently written. – tchrist Jan 17 '19 at 15:37
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    @tchrist In "The solution to X ... than that to Y", how is the parallelism absent? It seems OK to me -- "that" means "the solution". – Rosie F Jan 17 '19 at 15:41
  • How are two solutions to two questions "unlike things" ?? – Manuki Jan 17 '19 at 15:52
  • @RosieF I can't use that in such a way. The following sentence is confusing to me: "Peter's advice to Paul was the same as that to Mary." – tchrist Jan 17 '19 at 16:33