Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sabrinak]

Hello there,

Will you help me? I'm not sure about "is cose to the same as me".

Does it mean "lives close to where I live"?


"I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family
because not everyone in my family is close to the same as me."

Thank you for your explantion in advance.

[redset]

Ok I didn't understand this at first, it took a minute to click.

If something isn't fun, people might say it's not even close to fun. This means it's a long way from being fun, a lot would have to change to make it fun. It's a negative emphasis, like the opposite of very (not very isn't really the opposite, it's fairly soft and polite).

I think what the author is saying is that some members of their family are not very much like them. If you and another person have very similar interests, perspectives and so on, you can say they're the same as you. Some members of the author's family aren't much like the author at all - they're not even close to being the same.

Honestly it feels like a strange way of writing it, maybe with more context it might sound better... Someone else might have an opinion anyway

[sabrinak]

Thank you for your reply.

I add one more sentence here.

And I understand the meaning now; however, is the sentence including "close to the same as me" correct? Is this a frequently used expression?

I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family
because not everyone in my family is close to the same as me.
We are all interested in seeing different sites and doing different activities.

Thanks again very much.

[redset]

Honestly, reading it again it doesn't sound like the author's using correct English. The sentence feels awkward, and in the extra part you provided it says "seeing different sites" - it probably should be sights (as in "seeing the sights" or "sightseeing"), unless they're specifically going to historical sites or camp sites or something like that.

I would write it something like:
I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family, because most of my family are nothing like me.

I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family, because most of my family aren't much like me.

I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family, because most of my family have little in common with me.


I suppose this would be closer to the language used in your example:

I would prefer to go on a long trip with my friends rather than my family, because most of my family aren't even close to being the same as me.

But it feels unwieldy to me. I prefer the others!