5 tips for learning prepositions in English

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I've been a teacher for more than 14 years,

and during this time I've realised that some nationalities

have difficulties with different areas of learning English.

With my experience as a teacher, talking to other teachers

and students, I've noticed that some nationalities,

for example, Brazil, where I'm based,

struggle with prepositions.

In this video I’ll give you five tips

for you to learn prepositions.

Tip number one, never translate.

With verbs, nouns and adjectives,

translation is a possibility because they have similar

meanings in different languages.

However, with prepositions this almost never works,

because prepositions are function words.

It means they have a grammatical job

in each phrase.

Sometimes they can even have more than one function,

like, at, that can be used for time or place.

Tip two, learn them by their function.

Since prepositions are function words,

you should learn them by what they do, their function.

You can see this in grammar books,

where they're divided by prepositions of place,

time, movement and position.

If you know which prepositions can be used for each function,

you have a better chance of getting it right when

you use it.

Tip number three, learn chunks.

A good idea to learn prepositions is to learn

phrases or expressions with prepositions.

Memorise these phrases, so when you have to create

a phrase you can refer to the phrase you’ve memorised.

My meeting is at ten o’clock.

My meeting is at ten o’clock.

My meeting is at ten o’clock.

What time do you have lunch?

I have lunch at twelve o’clock.

Tip number four, create a body movement.

When learning prepositions of place, position and movement,

it's a good idea to create a body

movement for each preposition.

This helps the brain memorise when to use each one of them.

The book is on the table.

The book is under the table.

The book is in the box.

The book is next to the box.

Tip number five, listening, reading

and writing prepositions.

Expose yourself to books, newspapers, websites, blogs,

podcasts, videos and movies to notice the use of prepositions

in context.

You can even keep a notebook and register phrases,

expressions, or phrasal verbs that contain prepositions for

you to practice.

Or even if you're reading a book you can highlight

the prepositions as you see them when you read.

So, those are my five tips to help you learn prepositions.

If you want to get started on learning prepositions in

a fun way, you can check out Maria’s series on prepositions

of time and place.

The links for the videos are in the description of

this video below.

What do you have difficulty with in learning English?

Tell me in the comments section.

If this video was helpful to you,

please give it a big like and share

it with your friends, family or students.

I hope you stay safe and I’ll see you soon.

Bye.