Using English Prepositions - Lesson 8: Near, Beside, Next to, By - Part 2 (place)

It's time to challenge your listening skills again.

I'll let you listen to another part of the conversation I had

with my children.

In this part, we talk about the location of their school and their classrooms.

So my daughter's classroom is on the second floor.

And my son's?

He's on the third floor.

His classroom is near the computer lab.

What is my daughter's classroom close to?

She's near the library.

NEAR means not far from something.

Close to something.

Near the library. Near the computer lab.

Neither one of them have a classroom that's right beside a bathroom.

They have to walk a little bit.

BESIDE is the same as NEXT TO.

Two sides are touching.

Beside. Next to.

Let's do a quick review.

Which of the new prepositions could we use to complete this sentence?

It's the same thing as saying, "It's not far from our home."

Or, "It's close to our home."

NEAR is a preposition.

But FAR FROM and CLOSE TO

...that's adjective + preposition.

How about this sentence?

How can we complete it?

And I want to say it's side-by-side.

It touches our property.

It's the same thing as saying "beside our home."

Often we use "right beside" to emphasize

just how close it is. Side by side.

The tricky thing is that there are other words that look similar to prepositions,

and I don't want you to confuse those other words with our prepositions of place.

So let me take some time to go over some useful points.

Be careful not to confuse NEAR and NEARBY.

There could be some overlap, but usually there's a clear difference.

See if you can choose the correct word and complete four sentences.

We need a preposition.

Same word, but NEAR can also function as an adverb.

The storm drew closer.

It drew near.

NEARBY here functions as an adverb.

It's the same as saying, "There are some shops close by."

You could use NEAR, but I think

most speakers would choose to say NEAR HERE.

There are some shops near here.

NEARBY can be an adjective.

So a "nearby restaurant" is a restaurant

that's very close. It's local.

And here's a bonus sentence.

Do you know a word that looks like NEAR,

but means "almost"?

That's an adverb.

Also, don't confuse BESIDE and BESIDES.

Do you know which one is the preposition of place?

BESIDE is a preposition, so it always needs an object.

Beside what?

BESIDES is a word we use to show an addition.

Like "Moreover."

So how would we complete these two sentences?

We'd say...

Meaning "next to my house."

It's the same thing as saying:

Also,... / In addition,... / Moreover,...

BESIDES is a little less formal than MOREOVER and IN ADDITION.

BESIDE means "next to something,"

and there's one more preposition that's similar in meaning.

We can also use BY.

So let me show you some examples.

Look at the alternatives.

Finally, don't confuse NEXT TO and NEXT.

What's the difference?

I think you know.

Look at these sentences.

Here we have a preposition.

"We live next to a farm" is the same as "we live beside a farm."

NEXT as a single word shows sequence.

We've looked at different prepositions of place:

Let's try an exercise now to check your

of all these prepositions,

and make sure that you're not confusing them

with other words.

Note we could also use BY here.

Why don't you go back now and answer the questions?

Well, I hope you're feeling more confident about using prepositions of place.

That's all for now. Thanks for watching.

Happy studies!