mardi 16 septembre 2014

Top Tips Grammar: Prepositions of place

Main points

*You use ‘at’ to talk about a place as a point.
*You use ‘in’ to talk about a place as an area.
*You use ‘on’ to talk about a place as a surface.

 

a) You use ‘at’ when you are thinking of a place as a point in space.

- She waited at the bus stop for over twenty minutes.
- ‘Where were you last night?’ – ‘At Mick’s house’.

 

b) You also use ‘at with words such as ‘back’, ‘bottom’, ‘end’, ‘front’, and ‘top’ to talk about the different parts of a place.

- Mrs. Reategui was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
- They escaped by a window at the back of the house.
- I saw a taxi at the end of the street.

You use ‘at’ with public places and institutions. Note that you also say ‘at home’ and 'at work’.

- I have to be at the station by ten o’clock.
- We landed at a small airport.
- A friend of mine is at Training College.
- She wanted to stay at home.

You say ‘at the corner’ or ‘on the corner’ when you are talking about streets.

- The car was parked at the corner of the street.
- There’s a telephone box on the corner.

You say ‘in the corner’ when you are talking about a room.

- She put the chair in the corner of the room.

 

c) You use ‘in’ when you are talking about a place as an area. You use ‘in’ with:

*a country or geographical region

- When I was in Spain, it was terrible cold.
- A thousand homes in the east of Scotland suffered power cuts.


*a city, town, or village

- I’ve been teaching at a college in London.


*a building when you are talking about people or things inside it

- They were sitting having dinner in the restaurant.

You also use ‘in’ with containers of any kind when talking about things inside them.

- She kept the cards in a little box.

 

d) Compare the use of ‘at’ and ‘in’ in these examples:

- I had a hard day at the office. (‘at’ emphasizes the office as a public place or institution)
- I left my coat behind in the office. (‘in’ emphasizes the cinema as a building)
- There’s a good film at the cinema. (‘at’ emphasizes the cinema as a public place)
- It was very cold in the cinema. (‘in’ emphasizes the cinemas as a building)

 

e) When talking about addresses, you use ‘at’ when you give the house number, and ‘in’ when you just give the name of the street.

- They used to live at 5, Weston Road.
- She got a job in Oxford Street.

Note that American English uses ‘on’: ‘He loved on Penn Street’.

You use ‘at’ when you are talking about someone’s house.

- I’ll see you at Fred’s house.

 

f) You use ‘on’ when you are talking about a place as a surface. You can also use ‘on top of’.

- I sat down on the sofa.
- She put her keys on top of the television.

You also use ‘on’ when you are thinking of a place as a point on a line, such as a road, a railway line, a river, or a coastline.

- Loreto is on the north coast.
- Yurimaguas is on the Ipuatia Avenue between Tabalosos in Lamas.

 

 

 

 

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Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
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See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs Common Slangs
Common misspellings Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors Frequently confused words
Common Slangs Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés Common Prepositions

 

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