Timeline for 'took several years to be built' or 'took several years to build' – which one is correct?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
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| Oct 16, 2017 at 11:51 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | OK; I'll just say the second one doesn't sound natural. I'll offer the same degree of support as you do. Zero. // I just can't do that. Have a look at raw Google searches for building took years to be built and "building took years to build". | |
| Oct 16, 2017 at 10:03 | comment | added | dangph | @EdwinAshworth, not a good test. It will capture things like "it took five years to build the company / the boat / the community," which is grammatically different. In any case to be built IS natural-sounding English even if one form of the two may be more idiomatic than the other. There may be shades of meaning between the two as well perhaps making one better than the other in particular cases. | |
| Oct 16, 2017 at 8:53 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | No. The idiom using '... years to build' sounds far more natural, and is far more commonly used, as these Google Ngrams suggest extremely strongly. | |
| Oct 16, 2017 at 6:30 | history | answered | dangph | CC BY-SA 3.0 |