Struggle in doing something?

[qianruS779]

Hi,

I am not a native speaker. I would like to know if "struggle in doing something" is idiomatically correct, and is there some difference from "struggle to do something" in terms of meaning?

Thank you very much.

Best, Song

[RonPurewal]

this has nothing to do with 'idioms'.

'in ___ing' means what it always means—it describes something that transpires during, or as part of, the process of '___ing'.
for this to make logical sense, the 'struggle' should be with some smaller aspect of '___ing'.
e.g.,
In translating the poems into Russian, Valery struggled with puns, double meanings, and other forms of wordplay that were impossible to preserve in translation.
(Valery struggled with wordplay in translating the poems into Russian.)

in these sentences, THE WORDPLAY was hard. the implication is that the rest of the job was easier (and perhaps even effortless).

--

'struggle to ___', on the other hand, means that the ENTIRE EFFORT to '___' was difficult.
e.g.,
Valery struggled to translate the poems into Russian.
--> in this case valery almost failed to translate the poems altogether. the WHOLE JOB of translating them was difficult (not just one part as in the example above).

[qianruS779]

An awesome answer.

Thank you very much

Best, Song

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.