I often hear people say
I will do it when I reach to home
While it does not make sense and I urge the people correct themselves, I often fail to give them the logic.
What suggestions may you have for me?
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1See also: Prepositions used with "home" – Andrew Leach Oct 09 '14 at 13:00
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There's a difference between your two examples. "I am going to home" isn't that incorrect; it would be fine if "home" was replaced by another noun. For example, we would say "I am going to the office". It doesn't sound that bad to me. But we don't put a "to" after "reach". So people don't say *"I will do it when I reach to the office". And "when I reach to home" sounds quite wrong to me. – Peter Shor Oct 09 '14 at 13:52
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Going to home is not idiomatically correct – mplungjan Oct 09 '14 at 13:58
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@mplungjan That's because home is a preposition which when used to indicate a goal, already entails the meaning of to. – Araucaria - Him Oct 09 '14 at 14:10
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1I know - I was commenting on the "isn't that incorrect" – mplungjan Oct 09 '14 at 14:13
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Am I the only one who is reminded of "The Life of Brian"? – JenSCDC Oct 11 '14 at 10:53
3 Answers
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In "to go home" "home" is neither a preposition nor "a direct object" but an adverb indicating the destination of the verb to go. The expression is to go home and "to go to home" is simply wrong, maybe used by people who have not learnt proper English. If you need an argument for the correct expression of "to go home" you simply can say it is in the dictionaries in this form.
Nevertheless poster Tiwari is correct in saying there are people who use "to home". Beside a steep graph line for "to go home" Google Ngram Viewer has a graph line for "to go to home", although it is incorrect. I think "to home" can only be heard in AmE by speakers whose English is a bit wobbly. But I would like to learn more about the mysterious Ngram line of "to go to home".
Thinking about "to go to home" it is possible that some speakers take "home" as the noun as in "my home" and construct "I'm going to (my) home". But "home" is not only a noun but also an adverb (a where-to indication). English "I'm going home" is parallel to German "Ich gehe heim".
rogermue
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I will do it when I reach to home is possibly a hypercorrection, using "to" in a way that seems awkward to native English speakers.
When I reach home is smoother. "Home" in this instance is the direct object of the verb "reach". The speaker is trying to make a prepositional phrase "to home" when that is not necessary for the meaning.
Theresa
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When we say "go home", we must know that it is, in fact, "go to home". In this context, the world " home" is an object of the implicit preposition "To" , and "To home" is a prepositional adverbial phrase indicating the direction and modifying the verb "Go". In general, " Go home" is originally "Go to home", and it's function is Adverb.
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Hi Mehdi, welcome to EL&U. This is a Q&A site "for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts", so we expect an answer to be authoritative, detailed, and explain why it is correct. Your answer hasn't explained why "going to home" or "reach to home" is incorrect. For further guidance, see [answer] and take the EL&U [Tour]. :-) – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Dec 25 '18 at 22:03
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Mehdi, you might also find our sister site [ELL] of interest, as it tends to have a stronger focus on the grammatical construction of English (similar to the way you've analysed this "go home" expression). :-) – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Dec 25 '18 at 22:06