How To Use Prepositions | English Essentials

Eat Sleep Dreamers welcome back to another lesson with me Tom. Today I've got a super

useful lesson because this is a lesson that you guys have wanted for ages. We are going

to look at how to use prepositions. I'm going to give you an essential guide showing you

what a preposition is, how they are used in English and how you can use them in your English.

This is going to be really useful guys, so let's get going.

Have you ever been to a play at the theatre where the main character is trying to get

away from a scary monster or something? And they are standing there and they are looking

around. 'Where is the monster?' and you see the monster behind them so you shout 'It's

behind you!' to help the main character to realise that the monster is there. If you

have ever said this, then you have used a preposition. In this example behind is a preposition

and it's telling us the location of something. In this case the monster. 'The monster is

behind you.' You can't see it, it's behind you. Now there are many different uses of

prepositions so we are going to look at a few of them today.

A preposition is a word that comes before a noun or pronoun and it tells us the relationship

between that noun or pronoun and the other words in the sentence. So for example 'the

cat is on the chair.' On is the preposition, the chair is the noun and it's telling us

where the cat is in relation to the chair. So where is the cat? The cat is on the chair.

What does a preposition look like? We've go in, out, up, down, above, under, inside, outside,

by, at, with, before, after they go on and on. There are many different prepositions.

Now these are all single word prepositions. We also have two or more word prepositions.

For example, next to, near to, in front of, on top of etc. One of the main uses of prepositions

is to tell us where the location of something. Now we looked at the example earlier of 'it's

behind you!' The monster is behind you. In a more every day situation you might say 'I'll

meet you inside the station.' Our preposition there is inside and that is telling us where

we are going to meet. So meet inside the station. You've got the station there, that's the noun

and so it's coming before the noun. Inside where? Inside the station. Another example

'I've hidden the presents under the bed.' So again we've got under is the preposition,

it's telling us where the presents are. I've hidden them under the bed. Not on the bed

or next to the bed, under the bed.

We also use prepositions to help us talk about time. So for example 'I got up at 7 o'clock'

the preposition is at and it's linking I got up with the time 7 o'clock so it's linking

the two together. Another example 'I've been here for three weeks.' So the preposition

there is for and it's linking the phrase I've been here to the time 3 weeks. So I have been

here for three weeks. We also use prepositions to talk about movement and to describe how

things move and how we move. So for example 'i think there is a storm coming towards us.'

The preposition there is towards. Towards means getting closer or coming nearer to you.

So if there is a storm coming towards you it's getting closer and closer. So there's

a storm coming towards us. So the preposition there is in front of 'us' which is a pronoun

and it's telling us about the storm, isn't it? So it's telling us the relationship between

the storm and us. It's coming towards us, it's getting closer. Another example 'I'm

going for a walk around the park.' So here the preposition is around. Around is a circular

direction around an object so in this case it's a park. So if I'm going to walk around

the park I kind of go in a loop almost, in a circle. So again here's the preposition

'around' before the noun which is the park and it's telling you, and it's linking what

I'm going to do so 'I'm going to go for a walk around the park.' Another common use

of prepositions is to go after an adjective. For example 'good' What's the preposition

that comes after good? Alright, it's 'good at' so if you knew the answer I could probably

say that you were good at English. So you've got good, you've got at and then you've got

a noun English. Another example 'I am good at playing football.' So you have got good,

at and then playing football. Playing there is a gerund. So you've got the -ing form the

gerund. So you've got a gerund or you could have a noun. So good at playing football or

good at football. 'I'm interested in science' So you've got interested, that's the adjective,

in is the preposition that goes with that adjective and then whatever it is so the noun

in this case science. Another example "At work I'm responsible for customer service.'

So we've got the adjective responsible, the preposition is for with responsible so you

are responsible for something. In this case customer service. So again you can see these

adjectives so 'good at', 'interested in', 'responsible for' . There's no pattern, you

just have to learn them phrase by phrase or adjective by adjective.

The final use of prepositions that we are going to look at today is with phrasal verbs.

So a phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition. So for example you might have give up. Now

let's say 'I'm going to give up chocolate for January.' That means, give up means I'm

going to quit, I'm going to stop eating chocolate. That would be tough. That would be really

hard. So a phrasal verb often has it's own meaning that is separate from its own individual

parts. So we know what give means and we know what up means but when you put them together

it has a specific and special meaning in this case to quit or to stop using something. So

phrasal verbs are really useful and they are generally quite informal usually used in spoken

English but they are fantastic to incorporate into your English. Now I've done a whole series

of videos about phrasal verbs. I'm going to link them right above you right now. So if

you want to learn more about phrasal verbs check out those videos they are really useful

and yeah I'm sure that will really help you. Eat Sleep Dreamers I hope that found you useful.

Now there is so much more to learn about prepositions. We could do several lessons on prepositions

so if you would like that then please let me know in the comments below. Give me a big

thumbs up so I know that this is the kind of video that you would like and then in the

comments below let me know what kind of prepositions you find difficult and what kind of videos

you would like me to make to help you understand prepositions even more. There's so much to

learn here guys but today we looked at the basics of prepositions. What they look like,

where you'll find them and how you can use them in your English. As I said guys let me

know with a big thumbs up, share this with anyone you know that's trying to learn English

or you know that finds prepositions difficult. Of course subscribe as always and hit that

notification bell because that tells you when I release new videos so you could be the first

to watch my lessons. Thank you again guys, really appreciate you hanging out with me.

Until next time, this is Tom, the chief dreamer, saying goodbye.