What are prepositions ?

Small words that show time, direction and many

other functions.
Usually single words, but some have > than one
word. E.g. in between, close to, all over, in spite of
Difficult to learn to use cos there are few rules
which tell us which prep. to choose.
Best way to learn = read and listen to a lot of
English
Often placed before or after nouns/noun phrases,
pronouns or gerunds to show r/ship betw one
person, thing, event, etc. and another.

- Can be used with verbs and adjectives

- Some words must be followed by certain
prepositions
E.g. With reference to your letter,
- Many verbs can take a no. of preps depending
on what you mean
E.g. CALL : call for, call in, call off, call on, call
upon, call to, etc (Phrasal verbs)
- Again, there are no rules to guide you, just use
a dictionary if you do not know which prep to
use

Types of Prepositions
(A)Prep of place & position -to indicate
place/position
E.g. At, in, into, on, onto, above, over, below,
under, beside, between, behind, in front of,
opposite.
TIP : AT
-Used to talk abt a place we think of as a point
rather than an area, & abt an event where
there is a gp of people E.g. I arrived at
Masjid Jamek Station at 7.30 p.m. We last
met at the conference in Italy.

TIP :

ON : Used to talk abt. a position touching a

flat surface, or on something we think of as
a line such as a road or river
E.g. Is that a spider on the ceiling ? She owns
a house on Heeren Street. I will meet you on
the corner of the street.
IN : Used to talk abt. a position within a larger
area or something within a larger space
(enclosed areas)
E.g. Theres been another big forest fire in
California. She looked again in her bag. The
lamp was in the corner of the room.

AT
: Used before an address, and
IN or ON : before the name of a road
E.g. They have opened an office at 28, Leeds Road.
The church is in / on Park Road.
We sometimes use on instead of in when we talk
about long streets or roads.
E.g. The town is on the Pacific Highway.
At is used instead of in when we use a street
name to refer to an institution in that street.
E.g. There was an important meeting of ministers
at Downing Street today.

(B) Prep of time to express time

E.g. At, on, in, by, before, after, from, till/until, to,
since, for, during
TIP: AT
- used with exact points of time
(at midday, at midnight, at 3 oclock)
- Used with short holiday periods such as Xmas,
Easter, New Year, the weekend
( at Easter, at the weekend)
- Used with other short periods that we think of as
points such as the end of January, the beginning of
the year, etc.
( at the end of the month, at the beginning of June)

- Used with mealtimes such as breakfast, lunch,

dinner, etc.
( at breakfast, at dinner)
- Used with night when we mean when it is
night or each night
( People dont go out on the streets at night any
more, its so dangerous.)
- In used with the middle of . and when we
talk abt. a particular night, we use in the night
-At used in the phrase at the moment(=now) ,
but in a moment (= in a short period of time)

TIP: IN
- Used to talk abt longer periods of time(e.g. in
spring), months, years, decades ( e.g. in the
1990s), centuries ( e.g. in the 16th century) and
other periods (e.g. in the week before Easter, in the
hours before the exam)
- Used when we talk abt how long it will be before
something happens ( e.g. In a few moments, we
will be arriving at KLIA)
- Used when we say how long something takes
(e.g. He learnt how to program the computer in just
a matter of weeks.)

- Used with parts of the day, such as in the

morning, in the evening, etc.
TIP : ON
- Used when we talk abt a particular day, date,
or part of a particular day (e.g. on Friday, on
the last day of the month, on the 21st of Jan.,
on Easter Sunday, on Monday morning)
(C)Prep of direction- to show direction
- E.g. From, to, by, on, in, to, into, off, onto, out,
out of

(D)Prep of manner placed after adjectives

E.g. anxious about, angry with, bad at, good at
(E) Prep of means used with the means to do
something
E.g. go to work by bus.
(F) Prep of instrument used with the
instrument to do something
E.g. walk with a cane, holds chopstick with her left
hand.
(G) Prep of accompaniment to mean in the
company of
E.g. Gary still lives with his parents.

(H)Prep of possession to mean having or

carrying
E.g. Jill is married with one child.
This car belongs to Jill.
(I) Prep of reason/cause to show reason or cause
E.g. Borossa Valley in South Australisa is famous for
its wine.
The match was cancelled because of the rain.

Problems with prepositions

1.We do not use a preposition for these words :
- Discuss ( X about X) : We must discuss the
problem together.
(BUT, we had a long discussion about world
hunger.)
- Marry ( X with X) : She will marry Sean tomorrow.
- Reach (X to/at X ) : We reached London in time for
breakfast.
- Request ( X for X ) : I would like to request Aimi
give us a list. We requested French help during the
disaster.

- Return ( X back X) He returned to Singapore

after the funeral. He returned my bag to me.
- Stress ( X on/upon X) We must stress the
importance of punctuality.
- Tell ( X to X ) Please tell me about it.
2.We must use preposition for before these words:
- Reply : Thank you for replying to my letter.
3.We leave out the prep of time when we use
words like last, next, this and that
- I saw him on Monday. I saw him last Monday.
- Were having a party on Sunday. Were having a
party this Sunday.

4. Sometimes, prep may not appear to

be our idea of a correct form.
- E.g. He is sitting in the chair. ( / )
Cos of culture, we see a chair as
something we sit on. But native
speakers sometimes think of large
armchairs they can sit in, as well as
ordinary chairs they can sit on.

- They sit around all day waiting for

the time to pass. ( = means sit
around doing nothing)
- We decided to stay indoors and sit
out the storm. (= means waited for
the storm to end)
- You cant just sit by and let them
steal everything from you. (=
means do nothing)