appreciate 嘅用法

好多香港人搞錯咗 appreciate 嘅用法，有必要糾正。

有人幫咗你一個忙，你同佢講「唔該」或「多謝」之類，正常不過。鍾意講英文嘅，咪講句 thank you 囉，都冇問題。有啲人鍾意扮吓嘢，有 thank you 唔講，學人講 appreciate，死得。

「吓？唔係喎，外國人都會講 appreciate 㗎喎。」肯定唔係，外國人一定唔會講 appreciate。簡單嚟講，appreciate 係一個及物動詞，即係 appreciate 後面一定要有個 object。你可以講 I appreciate your gift、I appreciate you、I appreciate it，但你一定唔可以講 I appreciate。既然冇 I appreciate，就自然冇 appreciate。

至於你成日聽到外國人講嘅，其實唔係 appreciate，係 appreciated。冇錯，有 d 的。點解會係過去式？唔係過去式，係被動句。你幫我做咗件事，我感激你，就應該講 I appreciate you。如果要將 I appreciate you 變成被動句的話，就會係 You are appreciated by me，或者純粹講 You are appreciated。所以其實外國人講嘅 appreciated，就係 You are appreciated 嘅縮寫，意思就是「感激」。

商務書信來往，經常看到以下呢句錯誤示範：I would appreciate if you could get back to me by Friday，這句是禮貌地表達「希望你可以星期五前回復我」。又係嗰句，appreciate 係一個及物動詞，所以 appreciate 後面一定要有個 object，正確寫法係 I would appreciate it if you could get back to me by Friday。

查查字典，你會發現其實 appreciate 也可以是一個不及物動詞，即是 appreciate 後面，有時候不需要一個 object。但當 appreciate 是一個不及物動詞，那麼它的意思就不是感激或欣賞了。舉例，I believe the property will appreciate，這裏的 appreciate，是「升值」的意思。