How to Use To, In, and At - Prepositions in English Grammar

157,433 views ・ 2017-06-21

Oxford Online English


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

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Hi, I’m Niamh and welcome to Oxford Online English.
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In this lesson, we’re going to look at the prepositions to, in and at.
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Have you ever asked yourself why there don’t seem to be any rules for prepositions in English?
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If you have problems with these small words, don’t worry; you’re not the only one!
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A good way to understand and learn the difference between prepositions is to look at them in
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groups. That way you can compare and contrast them.
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We’re going to look at to, in and at together because they can be used to talk about place.
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First, look at a picture: Listen to three sentences. Which one fits
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the picture?
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I’m driving to the airport. I’m at the airport.
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I’m in the airport.
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Which sentence fits? The first one: I’m driving to the airport.
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A good way to understand English prepositions is to look at the words that go before and
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after them.
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Which words go before and after the preposition to?
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For example, which verb comes before to in our sample sentence?
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The verb drive. Drive is a verb of movement.
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To expresses movement, so before to, we need a verb that expresses movement.
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So, let’s think: can you think of any other verbs which express movement?
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Go is an obvious example.
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Maybe you also thought of verbs like run, walk or come.
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For example:
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He ran to end of the road, We walk to school every day.
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Do you want to come to my house for dinner?
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These verbs are all about people and how they move.
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You can also move things.
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For example:
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He sent a letter to France.
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Can you think of any more verbs related to moving things?
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Good examples are take or move, but there are many more.
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For example:
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I took my bike to the shop to get it repaired. We moved the sofa to the other side of the
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room.
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I have another tip for you. You can also use to after nouns that express movement.
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What do I mean by that?
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What’s the missing word in this sentence?
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I’m planning a ---- to China this summer.
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Do you know? The missing word is trip.
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I’m planning a trip to China this summer.
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Can you think of any other nouns like trip, where you can use to after the noun?
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You can also use to after nouns like holiday, invitation or way.
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For example:
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We went on holiday to Egypt last year. They sent us an invitation to their housewarming
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party. Do you know the way to the botanical gardens?
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There is an exception to these rules. Do you know what it is? It’s with a very common
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word, which I’m sure you all know. The place home does not use the preposition
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to.
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You cannot say:
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I’m going to home.
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The correct sentence is:
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I’m going home.
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Also, don’t use to with the pronouns here or there.
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For example:
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Bring it to here. Let’s go to there and see what we can find.
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So, now you know how to use to, use to after verbs or nouns which express movement.
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So, what about in? How would you describe this picture? There’s
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a woman—where is she?
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You can say:
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She’s in the library.
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Why do you use in?
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You use in to describe being surrounded by walls or other things.
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Let’s look at some more examples:
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The Empire State Building is in New York. They stayed in a small town in the south of
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England. My cousin lives in China.
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Remember, to understand prepositions, you should look at the words before and after
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the preposition.
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Let’s look at the verbs you can use before in. You can see the verbs be, stay and live.
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Do these verbs express movement?
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No, they describe states, without movement.
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Can you think of other examples of verbs which don’t express movement?
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There are many. You could use stand, sleep or study. For example:
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Why’s he standing in the corner like that? She was sleeping in the car on the way here.
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Do you prefer to study in your room or in the library?
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Now let’s look at the nouns.
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All of these nouns: New York, China, a small town, the corner, the car, your room, the
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library—what connects them?
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They’re all places which surround you.
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You use in for cities, countries and buildings which you are inside.
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These are direct, physical ways to use in. Can you think of other things which you can
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use after in?
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You can also use in in more indirect ways. For example:
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Is that you in the picture? She works in the finance department.
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I read about it in the newspaper.
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So, use in with verbs which don’t express movement, like be, stay or live.
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And, use in with places or things which surround you.
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So, what about at? Look at some examples with at:
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She wasn’t at the bus stop when the bus came.
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I’m waiting for you at the end of the road. We’ll meet you at the subway exit.
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Which verbs can we use with at? We have be, wait and meet.
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These verbs do not express movement.
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This sounds very similar to in. So, what’s the difference?
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Let’s look at the words after the preposition. You have the bus stop, the end of the road,
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and the subway exit.
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Why at the bus stop? Why not in the bus stop?
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You use at for bus stop because you’re not surrounded by it.
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Think about it: the bus stop could just be a pole by the road with a sign on it.
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In this case, you can’t be in the bus stop, right? There’s nothing to be inside.
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Similarly, you say at the end of the road or at the subway exit because it’s a specific
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place, but you’re not surrounded by anything.
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So, then why do we say things like:
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She’s studying microbiology at university. I saw it at the cinema.
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We can get something to eat at the supermarket.
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Why do we say at the cinema and not in the cinema? After all, the cinema is a place which
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surrounds you. It’s because you use at to talk about why
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you go to a particular place.
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If you say:
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She’s studying microbiology at university.
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You use at because you talk about what she’s doing at university, and why she’s there.
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She’s there because she’s a student.
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Similarly, if you say:
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I saw it at the cinema.
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What are you talking about? What is ‘it’?
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I hope it’s obvious that ‘it’ is a film! You say at the cinema because you’re going
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to the cinema to watch a film.
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You’re not focusing on the place as a place; you’re focusing on why you go there.
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Let’s look at another, slightly different example:
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Did you meet Anne at the party?
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Okay, what about party? That’s not exactly a physical location. So, why do you use at?
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You can also use at for events.
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For example:
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He met his wife at a speed metal concert. There were so many people at the wedding.
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So, like in, you use at to describe where something is.
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Unlike in, use at to talk about specific places where you’re not surrounded by anything.
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You can also use at when you want to focus on why you go to a place, rather than focusing
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on the place as a place.
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Finally, you can use at for events.
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So now we’ve looked at each preposition individually, let’s compare, and contrast
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them. Okay, so can you remember the difference between
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to, in and at in English? To expresses movement. That means you need
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a verb which expresses movement before to, and a place after to.
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At and in both express where something is.
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There are some places which can only be used with one preposition. For example:
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Are you still in bed? There’s still some sauce in the fridge.
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He sat at the end of the table. What did you do at work today?
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In these cases, you can’t choose. There’s only one possibility.
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However, sometimes, you can use either at or in with no difference in meaning:
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I can’t talk right now. I’m in a meeting. I can’t talk right now. I’m at a meeting.
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Then, sometimes at and in are both possible, but with slightly different meanings.
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For example:
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I’m at the bank. I’m in the bank.
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Can you tell the difference? Now, these two sentences could have the same
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meaning. They aren’t necessarily different.
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However, they could be different. I’m in the bank focuses on the bank as a physical
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place. Maybe it started raining really hard, and you just ran into the bank so you wouldn’t
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get wet.
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I’m at the bank focuses on the bank as a bank. If you say, I’m at the bank, you have
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some banking to do there.
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Let’s see one more example like this:
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We were at Mike’s apartment last night. We were in Mike’s apartment last night.
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Can you tell the difference this time? This time, the sentences are definitely different,
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and you probably wouldn’t use one of them!
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We were at Mike’s apartment last night focuses on why you were there. Why were you there?
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You were visiting Mike, probably. Maybe you went over to Mike’s for dinner, or something
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like that.
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We were in Mike’s apartment last night focuses on Mike’s apartment as a place. This suggests
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that you were in Mike’s apartment, but Mike wasn’t. So, what were you doing there?
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This is why you probably wouldn’t say in Mike’s apartment.
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I hope some of these rules have helped you understand the difference between these prepositions.
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I strongly recommend that when you are learning vocabulary, don’t just learn one word but
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learn the words on either side too.
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For example, if you want to learn the word bus stop, learn a full phrase, like wait at
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the bus stop. That way it’s easier to remember the correct preposition.
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If you enjoyed this lesson you can find more of our free lessons at OxfordOnlineEnglish.com.
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Thanks for watching!
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