we had an opportunity to vs we had the opportunity to

Both phrases are correct, but "we had the opportunity to" is more commonly used in English. The slight difference lies in the use of the definite article "the" before "opportunity." Both phrases convey the same meaning, but the second one is more idiomatic and natural.

Last updated: March 26, 2024 • 1213 views

This phrase is correct but less commonly used in English.

"we had an opportunity to "

This phrase is grammatically correct and conveys the idea of having a chance or possibility to do something. It can be used in formal or literary contexts.

Show examples from the web [+]

Last month, at the United Nations summit on the Millennium Development Goals, we had an opportunity to review our accomplishments and see what still needs to be done.
We all know - and we had an opportunity to discuss the threat of a pandemic in this House some weeks ago - that avian flu is an animal disease.
We had an opportunity to discuss this issue in this House quite recently.
We had an opportunity to go into this in depth during the 2000 budget discussions.
In November 2006 we had an opportunity to acquaint ourselves with such results in the course of the hearing on education systems in the EU which our committee organised.
Similarly, we have held three political dialogue meetings, one of which at ministerial level, when we had an opportunity to see exactly what is expected of Turkey up to the end of 2004.
We had an opportunity to discuss matters with the mayor of Kaliningrad, who complained bitterly that the last visit by representatives of the European Union had raised hopes about the construction of a new hospital.
Yes, I know about that, and in fact we had an opportunity to discuss this issue at the Informal Health Council in Aachen in April.
We realized we had an opportunity to make things right.
You then closed the vote before we had an opportunity to correct our own votes.
I will not go into the animal health side, since we had an opportunity to discuss that recently in this House.
Recently, just in May, we had an opportunity to debate tourism, when the European Parliament adopted the report of Ms Torres Marques.
With the crisis now so urgent, we had an opportunity to call on the European Commission to introduce strict legislation.
Mr President, it has once again been a high-quality debate on an important subject, similar to the last time we had an opportunity to debate these issues in this Chamber.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control we had an opportunity to discuss the proposed reform and the specific steps involved in great detail.
It is true that it would have been much better had we had an opportunity to debate this in committee and, as was said at the beginning of the week, that would have been a much better opportunity to have the issue debated.
We had an opportunity to observe the projects developing there and we saw that Chile is a model for economic and social development in the Southern Cone region.
We had an opportunity to listen to and hold discussions with workers' representatives and with union leaders from Portugal and other parts of Europe.
We had an opportunity to strengthen the pact, with automatic penalties, in particular, but what happens?

Alternatives:

we had the opportunity to
we were given an opportunity to
we were presented with an opportunity to
we had a chance to
we had the chance to

This phrase is correct and commonly used in English.

"we had the opportunity to "

This phrase is grammatically correct and widely used in both spoken and written English. It indicates that a chance or possibility was available to do something.

Show examples from the web [+]

Last week our group met in Madeira where we had the opportunity to visit several isolated communities.
You know, we had the opportunity to put up some of those fancy towers, but folks decided a basic landline was fine with them.
The introduction of a European professional card is a good idea, and we had the opportunity to discuss this during the previous term of the European Parliament.
Regarding the point raised by Mr Fjellner on the issue of patients' rights, we had the opportunity to discuss this issue in this House and we are looking into it through the healthcare initiative which should be adopted towards the end of the year.
Mr Mulder, we had the opportunity to talk about this yesterday.
Another priority for action in 2002 was the closure of the technical assistance offices, which we had the opportunity to discuss at the last meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr President, last Thursday, in the Conference of Presidents, we had the opportunity to discuss this issue.
Months ago, we had the opportunity to debate the situation of dairy producers, but even then, many of us said that the crisis was affecting the other sectors of agriculture.
In the course of the hearings of the nominees at the Budgetary Control Committee, we had the opportunity to see their professional competences, their personal knowledge and their individual motivation.
In the Treaty of Lisbon, we established citizenship of the EU for its inhabitants, and yesterday we had the opportunity to vote on the citizens' initiative.
On these health services, as I said earlier, we had the opportunity to discuss this in May during the debate on the report by Mrs Vergnaud, which was very helpful to us.
author. - Madam President, back in 2005 we had the opportunity to talk about the situation of women in Saudi Arabia, and in that context we did so in relation to the municipal elections and the fact that women were unable to vote.
We had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Gord/ock's mother.
We had the opportunity to recall that Europe cannot be built solely with an internal market and monetary union.
We had the opportunity to discuss in plenary a communication and action plan on generic preparedness, which was adopted in 2005.
We had the opportunity to cover some of the ground two weeks ago when I met the Committee on Legal Affairs to discuss the annual policy strategy.
We had the opportunity to evaluate the situation of the bilateral talks and we agreed to move ahead with the negotiations on the association agreement.
And we had the opportunity to build a building on this site.
Only a few weeks ago, I met with the foreign minister of Peru, and we had the opportunity to discuss this issue.
Mr President, quite recently we had the opportunity to discuss the issues related to the Green Paper on common energy policy.

Alternatives:

we had an opportunity to
we were given the opportunity to
we were presented with the opportunity to
we had a chance to
we had the chance to

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we had an opportunity to vs we had the opportunity to