Common Grammar Mistakes: Prepositions
Common Grammar Mistakes: Prepositions
Common Grammar Mistakes: Prepositions
Common Mistakes
Assistants vs Attendants
To assist vs. To attend
His/Her, She/Him
Peter and Paul were best friends until he betrayed him. (Who betrayed who?)
What are prepositions?
● prepositions show relationships:
○ in time
○ space
○ logical relationships between ideas
● A preposition in a prepositional phrase is always followed by a noun, pronoun,
or another word that can replace a noun (i.e. gerund).
○ Robert went with her.
○ Subject + verb + preposition + object pronoun
○ With training, the dog learned to obey.
○ Preposition + gerund + noun
At, In, and On
At
● A preposition of place which is used to discuss a certain point
● Guidelines from “at” as a preposition of place:
○ usually used to talk about the position of someone or something inside small and specific
places
■ I’ll meet you at the store.
○ used with proper names of buildings and organizations
■ She works at Juan Valdez
○ used to indicate an email address: “please email me at [email protected]”
In
● A preposition of place which is used to discuss an enclosed space
● Guidelines for using “in” as a preposition of place:
○ usually used to talk about the position of someone or something inside large places such as
countries, continents, big cities
■ She grew up in Colombia.
○ used for enclosed spaces
■ Put the wrapper in the trash can.
On
● Used to express a surface of something
● Guidelines for using on as preposition of place
○ Used to tell us that a noun is located on a surface
■ Your cellphone is on the table
○ Usually the noun is touching the thing it is on top of
Prepositions: Speaking of Places
We use “in” with: a specific room or apartment, city, a state or province, country,
region or section
I live in New York City.
The plane landed in Chicago.
The cheese is made in the Southwest.
in on the tarmac
Caldas at home
in the desert
Harriet lives 1 235 Greene Street,
Phoenix, Arizona. She took a plane to
Little Rock, Arkansas. The plane landed
Over:
● higher than something else: The photo hung over the fireplace.
● more than: The phone costs over $100.
● across from one side to the other: She walked over to him.
● overcoming an obstacle: The horse jumped over the gate.
More prepositions
Across: from one side to the other side of something with clear limits: He sailed
across the Atlantic
Through: from one end or side of something to the other: They walked slowly
through the woods
To vs. towards: To-used with a verb showing movement and shows the result of
the movement. Towards-the direction of the movement is shown, but not the
result. A <====== to ======> B
(B traveled to A)
(B is moving toward A)
More Prepositions
Into: the inside or middle of something and about to be enclosed by it