to/for

在這裡有人提出問題:是To me 還是 For me?

回覆這個問題的人意思大致是這樣:若你是個人闡述自己意見的話，就用to me。倘若是有人和你在爭論或不同意見時，你要表達自己的看法時，就是for me。

當這兩個介系詞後面接的是人時(to John or for John)，就有小小的差別。to用在某人收到像信件或紙條等的情形，但用for的話，則是對方會從該物品/服務獲得一些"利益"。舉例，我留一張小紙條to John，但我從法國買了個紀念品for John。

可是正如這裡的版友寫的，形容詞(adjective)後到底接 to 還是 for好像沒個準:

An opinion I heard from a native speaker was that a rule of thumb for the choice is "to a person" and "for a thing." But I don't know to what extent this rule can be generalized. I often come cross a writing where "to a person" and "for a person" are used in parallel. We can see one of such examples in the speech by Archbishop Harry J. Flynn:

As was the case for many of our foremothers and forefathers, emigration does not come easily. It did not come easy for the Irish, the Germans, the Scandinavians. It does not come easy to the Hmong, the Liberians, the Somalis, the Bosnians or the Hispanics.

來自西班牙的Alex也有問BBC Learning English這個to/for的問題，雖然解釋算詳盡，但卻沒有提到這兩個介系詞後面+"人(a person)"的使用方法。