More manquer confusion

Question

Sorry, I'm still not understanding the difference between "Je manque d'argent pour payer mes factures." and "Il me manque deux euros pour pouvoir l'acheter."  Their contexts seem identical.  The lesson talks about the second construction being "impersonal" and "not mentioning a lacker" but that doesn't seem right.What am I missing?

Accepted Answer

If I'm reading the lesson correctly, "je manque" has to be followed by "de" in this context, so you can't say "je manque deux euros". I don't believe you can say "je manque de deux euros" either. That's far from obvious though, since I think you can say "j'ai besoin de deux euros". But "manquer de" seems to be different, it must be followed by a bare noun, i.e. with no specification of quantity.
https://www.cairn.info/revue-travaux-de-linguistique-2018-1-page-43.htm#
In this article, the following example is marked as ungrammatical:
*Le service des livraisons manque de trois / plusieurs voitures.
So I think you have to use the "il me manque" construction instead in such cases.

Answer

Let's look at a more literal translations to decipher the logic behind that confusing verb:

Je manque de deux euros. -- Structurally correct, but manquer de needs to be followed by a noun, not an adjective. So you could say Je manque d'argent.
Il me manque deux euros. -- There are two Euros lacking from me. This is the proper way to say it in French.

Does that help you?

Answer

Thanks Chris.  Actually my confusion was more related to the fact that most lessons are trying to point to proper usage with clear distinctions between meaning.  What you're clarifying is that in this lesson either usage is ok to get across that the speaker needs two Euros.  Thanks for jumping in.