I am curious whether it's just my brain that doesn't work right

[dr4b]

You're describing your travel experience to someone... which of these sentences would you SAY? As in, speaking, not as in writing an email/etc -- you're at the office or somewhere talking to somebody. Assume that you actually have the experience of travelling to France and Spain at some point in your life, and someone's asking you about what countries you have the experience of travelling to or plan to travel to.

(oh, and assume appropriate abbreviation, ie, "I've" instead of "I have", if that helps.)

[Poll #1413618]

And a better question: does it change if you are writing a report or article rather than just speaking?

Comments

[lifeofmendel.livejournal.com]

for the the concept of "visiting" has more to do with people or landmark places as opposed to 'locations'. i don't say "i visited france" as much as i'll say "i visited michelle in france."

sometimes i'll use the term 'visit' for a location if it's an inbetween, as in 'i'm visiting eugene on my way to hawaii' if hawaii is my main destination. i wouldn't say, 'i'm visiting hawaii.'

[dr4b]

I said something like that to the teacher this morning -- like maybe "I visited the Tokyo Tower" but in general, "I visited my family" or "I visited Bob last week".

unfortunately, "visit" is a direct translation word for the word they actually use to mean "take a short trip to a place".