Learn English Prepositions: TO or AT?

1,108,970 views ・ 2017-04-22

Learn English with Rebecca


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00:01
Hi.
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I'm Rebecca from engVid.
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In this lesson you'll learn the difference between two commonly confused prepositions,
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which are "to" and "at".
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So, the thing to remember is that "to" always suggests movement or direction.
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All right?
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"To" with movement, you're going to someone, to someplace, or towards something.
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So, "to" is movement or direction, and "at" suggests a location in place or time.
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So, "to" something, but "at" somewhere.
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"To" something, "at" somewhere.
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Do you see the difference?
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"To", there's movement.
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"At", you've already arrived.
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Okay?
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So: "to" and "at".
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If you use those gestures it may help you to think through it while you're choosing
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which preposition to use.
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So, let's look at some examples.
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So, as again...
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As I said, again, we use "to" for movement or direction towards a person, a place, or a thing.
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For example: "I talked to him.",
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"We went to school.",
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"She walked to her car."
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A person, a place, a thing.
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Movement, "to".
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Okay?
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All right, here are some other common verbs.
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There are lots and lots of verbs that we can use with this preposition "to", which implies movement.
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These are some examples.
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You go to someplace, you go to school.
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You go to the university.
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You go to work.
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You run to something.
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You fly to London.
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You return to somewhere.
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Okay?
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Or you can also use lots of verbs with "to" plus a person.
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You explain something to someone, send a letter to someone, read it to someone, write to someone,
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or speak to someone.
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There's a direction.
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Right?
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Whether you're speaking, or writing, or walking, or running
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- "to" is always movement and direction.
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Good.
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Now, "at" is steady.
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Whereas "to" is moving, "at" is very steady.
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"At" stays in one place, "at" is location, location and place, location and time.
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For example: "We arrived"-where?-"at the airport."
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We drove to the airport, and then we arrived at the airport.
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All right?
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So: "We arrived at the airport."
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Or: "Wake me up at 6:00."
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So, again, it's a location or a place in time, or a physical place.
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All right?
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Got it?
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Now, here are some other examples of verbs that you can use with "at", but again, there
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are lots and lots of verbs.
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So what's really important is not to learn the verbs, but to learn how these prepositions
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are used and what exactly they mean.
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But here are some examples.
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We stayed at the hotel, for example.
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I live at...
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I work at...
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I eat at this restaurant.
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I shop at the mall.
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Okay?
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So, "at" plus place or sometimes "at" plus time.
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Call me at 5:00.
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Let's meet at noon.
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Let's start at 10:00.
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Okay?
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So we have "at", location.
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Okay?
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Arrival, and "to" is always movement or direction.
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Got that?
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Now let's do a little quiz to make sure that you really got it.
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All right, now let's do the quiz.
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Now remember: "to" indicates movement and "at" indicates location or arrival.
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So, here we go.
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"We stayed _______ home." "at home" or "We stayed to home"?
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"We stayed"...
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In all of these cases you have to choose between "to" and "at".
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"We stayed at home."
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Okay?
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Stay somewhere.
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"I spoke _______ Jack."
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"to Jack", "I spoke at Jack"?
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What do we say?
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"I spoke
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to".
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The direction of your speech is towards Jack.
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Next: "She went _______ the bank."
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"to the bank" or "at the bank"?
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"She went", so "went" is movement.
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Right?
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Think of the verb.
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The verb is talking about movement.
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"She went to the bank."
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Next: "I bought this keychain _______ the gift shop."
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"to the gift shop" or "at the gift shop"?
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So here the answer would be
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"at".
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Very good.
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Next... The next one:
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"Meet me _______ the coffee shop."
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"Meet me to the coffee shop", "at the coffee shop"?
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What do we say?
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"Meet me
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at", right?
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Because it's a place.
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Next: "The movie starts _______ 4:00."
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"to 4:00", "at 4:00"?
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Which one is right?
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"The movie starts
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at", okay?
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We always use "at" for very specific times.
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Next: "We flew _______ Amsterdam."
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What do we say?
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"We flew..."
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Flew, movement.
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Right?
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Flying is movement.
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"to Amsterdam", very good.
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"I sent a card _______ my Mom."
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Sending, is it movement?
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Yes.
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Sending implies movement, so for movement we have to say:
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"I sent a card to my Mom."
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Okay.
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"She read a story _______ her son."
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When you're reading, the activity is directed towards someone, so:
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"She read a story
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to her son."
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And the last one: "John studied _______ the library."
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So, where was he?
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Was he in one place or was he moving?
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He was in one place, one location.
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All right?
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So we can say: "John studied
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at the library."
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Okay?
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I hope that my little demonstrations helped you to understand the meaning
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of "to" as well as "at".
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All right?
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If you'd like to do some more practice, please go to our website, www.engvid.com.
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There you can do a quiz on this and also check out more than a thousand other videos.
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I'm sure you'll find something that you're looking for at your level in your specific area.
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We have grammar, and business, and pronunciation, and vocabulary, and writing, anything you need.
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All right?
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And also, subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on getting lessons that will help
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you to improve step by step.
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All right?
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Thanks very much for watching, and all the best with your English.
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