Different From Not Different To

One of the most common mistakes foreign learners of English make is which prepositions go with which types of phrases. As a student of other languages myself, I see this in action on a regular basis from the teachers. They know English well enough, but class happens mostly in their native language. We struggle and make mistakes, and some students won't ever get very good.

Anyway, for those who care, here are some often-violated rules of the EnglishLanguage:

 * foo is DIFFERENT FROM bar (or: foo DIFFERS FROM bar)
 * foo is SIMILAR TO bar
 * foo is THE SAME AS bar
 * foo is LIKE bar

The preposition (from, to, as) must agree with the comparison word in (native) English. You'll be understood but sound funny if you make this mistake. Perhaps there are even textbooks that teach the mistake, being written by non-native speakers. Furthermore, a profusion of English-as-second-language text is appearing on the net, further legitimizing flawed constructions such as "different to".

This area in particular is hard because many other languages use a single, consistent means to mark the target of a comparison. In English, the target of a comparison is ALWAYS the noun phrase which follows the comparator. The preposition which may seem to intervene is actually just a part of the comparison construction.

As a native English speaker of no small education, I am qualified to comment on what sounds natural in English, than you very much. At a minimum, I can comment on the speech styles of American large cities from coast to coast, with the exception of localities with strong foreign heritage. (For example, San Antonio has lots of Spanish-English, and Chicago has areas with a German influence on the local speech.) The time I spent in London was not enough to make significant observations.