make advanceS AT someone
make advance (to smb)
заигрывать
Обсуждение (7)
Светлана, Вы неподражаемы! :( Исправьте, пока не поздно.:)
Улий, взгляни на это, пожалуйста.
I’m watching an American tv show, right now they said “Jack had made advances TO Karla any number of times”. So, is it to or at? And why did they use “any” in that sentence?
So the thing is, it can be TO(WARDS) or AT, but since MAKE ADVANCES can mean: (1) to make payments to someone; or (2) to make sexual advances, we tend to use AT for (2) to be clear. But both can be used.
ANY NUMBER OF is another way of saying SEVERAL:
“I called you any number of times yesterday, but you never picked up.”
Thanks Uly, didn’t know about that particular meaning of the phrase ‘any number of .. ‘
You’re welcome! It’s a true idiom, because if you look at the words individually, they don’t really add up to the meaning, but it’s actually quite common.