"明天是她的生日，我想送花给她。"

Translation: It is her birthday tomorrow, I want to give her flowers.

[john27rg]

Surely the phrase 送花给 does not translate in English to 'give her flowers', but instead 'send her flowers'. Otherwise it would be 给她花 with no 送. Am I right?

[Gabrielle145359]

送 specifies that these flowers are given as a gift. If you only use 给, it could mean that you are "giving" the flowers in the sense of picking them up and handing them to her, or giving the flowers in exchange for something.

[KX3.]

No, it can mean both. At any rate, they are both accepted now.

[uncannyrain]

No, they are not.
"It's her birthday tomorrow. I want to send her flowers." not accepted, December 2018.

[Devon711559]

Still not accepted, reported 2019 March 22.

[TamaraKovalova]

I think, it must be: " ... I want to give flowers to her"

[HartmutBoh]

"song" literally means "to send". that should be accepted, too.

[alb0rt]

Totally agree

[Dexter970277]

Why cant we say "I would like to give her flowers"

[KX3.]

Why not indeed.
Assuming you go on to translate the other part of the sentence.

[miestasmagnus]

I was under the impression that "gei ta" needs to come before "song hua", since it acts as a preposition that determines what the main verb means. Am I partially or completely wrong?

[KX3.]

No, 送花给她 is natural. 给她送花 may be colloquial in some places, but not where I live.

[Aleksandro_RU]

But why it is so?

Why 给 here is after the verb?

[dmmyccnt]

Following the grammatical example of 我给她打电话 with the indirect object preceding the verb and the direct object following, why is 我给她送花 incorrect?

[Patrick_Dark]

I think this sentence is literally "Tomorrow is her birthday. I would like to send flowers to give to her.", therefore, "Tomorrow is her birthday. I would like to send flowers to her." should be accepted. (The "to give" part is too awkward to include in an English translation.)

[Simon299426]

"It is her birthday tomorrow. I want to send her flowers" still not accepted. Reported 18th October 2018.

[IDrinkTea.]

I thought it's supposed to be "送给她花", not the other way round.

[duxtuxidrruszr]

❤❤❤

[AlanTsang2]

I want to gift her flowers?

[mxl828011]

Could anybody elaborate on this sentence structure 送 + 花 + 给 + 她, I've never come across this construction, neither in course books nor in real life, the way it is put here sounds like a 把字句 where suddenly 送 takes the role of 把/将, is this standard? What dialect is this? Many thanks in advance

[ArtBurnap]

This is a very ordinary type construction that has both a direct object, flowers / 花, and an indirect object, the recipient, her / 她. There are two main things, however, that can be sources of confusion, and these are the words 送 and 给, that each have more than one meaning or use. In addition to meaning send, deliver, carry, or send/ see off, 送 is also used to mean give as a gift. And finally, although we may initially learn 给 only as the verb to give, it is also routinely used to indicate the indirect object of a transitive verb (the recipient of the direct object) as well as to indicate a person for the sake or benefit of whom something is done. No obscure structure here, just straight forward stuff, once you realize that in Chinese, like English and other languages, many words have more than one meaning or use. Learning to sort this out, however, is one of the tough parts of language learning, and if it gives us any solace, is one of several big challenges still facing machine translators.

[harrylee.vn.93]

Tommorrow is her birthday, I dont think It's her birthday Tomorrow, sounds right?

[Burcelin]

Why is "I want to offer her flowers" not accepted?