What is a preposition? Prepositions with Georgie

31,810 views ・ 2024-11-12

BBC Learning English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Prepositions. People hate them.
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But what are they?
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And why are they so difficult?
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This is Georgie from BBC Learning English.
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Let's get into it.
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I live in England. Right now,
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I'm walking through the streets of London.
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I can see cars on the road because people are travelling
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from their homes to work. Prepositions are words like these.
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They go before nouns to show things like time:
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I'll see you at 7 o'clock.
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  Place: Where? At the restaurant.
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And direction: OK,  
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I think I'll walk from my house to the restaurant
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and then I'll get some fresh air.
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Some propositions are one word.
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Some are more than one word.
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But why are they so difficult?
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Well, often there isn't a direct translation in a person's first language.
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Or, if there is, it doesn't always apply, because prepositions
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in English have lots of different meanings and uses. Just have a look
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at all of these uses of the word 'over':
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The plane flew over the mountains.
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I slept a lot over the weekend.
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The athlete is over two metres tall.
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OK, so we know they're difficult.
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But, how can we learn them more easily?
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I've got two tips. One:
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It helps to learn them with words they are likely to go with.
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So don't learn 'depend' on its own: learn 'depend on',
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don't learn 'consist' on its own: learn 'consist of'.
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Two: It also helps to learn them in categories, like 'time', for example.
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So, now you know a little bit more about prepositions
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and why they are so confusing, in the next videos,
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I'm going to show you some tricks for how to remember
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the prepositions. And in the meantime,
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practise using the worksheet on the website. See you next time.
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