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The following is a sentence I used -

Read these stories. See how many you can relate to with your own childhood

Somehow this relate to with was there in my subconscious mind, but now I feel it is not correct. Should I use relate to/with instead?

Sandeepan Nath
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    It is a little awkward, perhaps, but it would certainly not consider it wrong. You could perhaps say something like, “See how many you can relate to through examples from your childhood”, but I'm not sure that would really improve things. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 26 '13 at 18:46

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Using relate to or relate with is certainly correct. Using relate to with your own childhood is also correct as it can be interpreted as relate to using your own childhood.

  • Group therapy is often put forward as being a good way of tackling certain mental disorders, showing the sufferer that he is not alone. But how many fellow sufferers can one be expected to relate to with sociophobia? However, I don't think OP's juxtaposition of particle/preposition sounds really idiomatic. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 26 '13 at 19:55
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In the example you give I think you should just remove the 'with'. It makes perfectly good sense without it and I believe it says exactly what you want to say.

WS2
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I am glad an answer above encourages me to say relate with instead of relate to because with implies closeness whereas to implies distance.

Janet Bloom
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  • I find "... can relate with your own childhood" a bit confusing, and it seems to change the sense of the sentence. But the original is a hair confusing as well -- probably needs to be reworded more extensively. – Hot Licks Dec 02 '16 at 12:53