student asking question

Why is "with" being used before "wasabi"? Is it wrong to say "put this wasabi in my mouth"? I don't really know how to use the preposition "with".

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Great Question. In this sentence "this" is referring to the chopsticks and not to the wasabi. He is putting both the chopsticks and the wasabi in his mouth, the chopsticks have the wasabi on them, that is why he uses "with". Think of the sentence as put this (chopstick) with wasabi" and you can more clearly see why the "with" is necessary. He could have simply said "put this wasabi in my mouth" and the sentence would have been fine as we would simply see that he is using the chopsticks, but that is not how he chose to construct the sentence. Ex: Can you give me this with a slice of cake on it. Ex: Can you give me a slice of cake.

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