sounds OK?

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Taka  #546298  Fri, 25 Jul 08 03:30 PM
Does this sentence sound OK as English?

 He will tell you the aspects of love that you haven't thought about.

  
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Philip  #546300  Fri, 25 Jul 08 03:34 PM
Taka
Does this sentence sound OK as English?

 He will tell you the aspects of love that you haven't thought about.

It's o.k.  I think I would replace 'tell you' with 'talk to you about'.
  
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Taka  #546310  Fri, 25 Jul 08 03:43 PM
Great. So with the noun 'aspect(s)', it can be either 'tell someone about the aspect(s) of X' or 'tell someone the aspect(s) of X', right?

e.g

・They will tell you some aspects of yourself that you are not usually aware of.

・They will tell you about some aspects of yourself that you are not usually aware of.

 

  
Taka  #546348  Fri, 25 Jul 08 06:46 PM
Jim, are you there? Do these below sound natural? 

Taka

・They will tell you some aspects of yourself that you are not usually aware of.

・They will tell you about some aspects of yourself that you are not usually aware of.

 

 

  
CalifJim  #546375  Fri, 25 Jul 08 07:55 PM
 I'm here (for now, anyway!)

You tell someone a story, a narrative, the truth, a lie.

You don't tell someone a rabbit, a table, a book.

And neither do you tell someone an aspect, an attitude, a consideration, a parameter, a size, a shape.

In the latter cases, you tell someone (something) about a rabbit, table, book, aspect, attitude, etc. 

In short, you have to have about there.

CJ 

  
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Taka  #546380  Fri, 25 Jul 08 08:13 PM
Isn't (some) aspects of yourself a sort of truth, information, about yourself and therefore something which we can tell somebody?

In fact, I've found this. It's from 'An English Teacher's Guide to Performance Tasks & Rubrics, written by Amy Benjamin:

We need to give them the language and tell them the aspects of literature that they might want to consider.  

  
CalifJim  #546394  Fri, 25 Jul 08 09:25 PM
Taka
tell them the aspects of literature that they might want to consider.
OOF!  I'd have said:

tell them which aspects of literature they might want to consider.

i.e., tell them the answer to the question:  Which aspects of literature should we consider? 

to tell someone an answer is idiomatic, so indirect questions after tell are quite normal.

Tell me what you want to do next.

Jerry told me how he caught the fish.

Sally will tell me later where we can store the suitcases.

Otherwise, if I had to retain the aspects, I might have said We need to ... [list / enumerate] for them the aspects of literature ... or ... make them aware of the aspects ...

Apparently I am pickier than Ms. Benjamin on this point.  Smile

CJ 

  
Taka  #546506  Sat, 26 Jul 08 04:43 AM
CalifJim

Apparently I am pickier than Ms. Benjamin on this point.  Smile

CJ 

 

And than Philip, it seems.

So some native speakers see the expression 'to tell someone the/some aspects of X' as acceptable, but some don't; it's not that it's completely wrong and unacceptable. 

Can I see it that way? 

  
Taka  #546696  Sat, 26 Jul 08 04:46 PM
Jim?
  
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