Is "such noun as adjective" structure ungrammatical in this case?

Question

We are faced with such problems as difficult to solve.I just heard from a native speaker that the above sentence sounds unnatural and should be "We are faced with problems that are difficult to solve".But I've found that this sentence "We regard such problems as difficult to solve" seems to sound natural.So I've concluded that when "such noun" is not the object of verbs, "such noun as adjective" structure is not grammatical.What do you think?Could you find cases where the structure is grammatical and makes sense when "such noun" is not the object of verbs?

GPY · Accepted Answer

"such" is a bit of red herring as far as your examples are concerned. The pattern in your "regard" sentence is "regard noun as adj.", where "as" associates with "regard". The noun or noun phrase may or may not include the word "such". For example, you could just as well say "We regard these kinds of problems as difficult to solve". There is no corresponding pattern applying to the "faced" sentence.

There are other uses of "such ... as ..." where the two words do link together. For example, "I don't associate with such people as these". In this case "such people as these" is a phrase. "such noun as adj." is not a phrase, but depends on "as" associating with some other word in the sentence.

Anonymous · Answer

I can't answer your question because I'm not sure of the correct usage. It's better to take it from the teachers. I just wonder about this particular example:

"We are faced with problems that are difficult to solve".

I'd prefer to use an active voice here instead of a passive voice. I'd say directly:

"We face problems that are difficult to solve."

If I wanted to use a passive voice in such situation, I would say:

"We are trapped by problems that are difficult to solve."

Is "such noun as adjective" structure ungrammatical in this case?

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