Common Mistakes in ENGLISH — How to Use Prepositions of TIME & PLACE Correctly [Grammar Lesson]

Hey Andrea, where are you?

Oh, hey Ethan, I'm...

In? On? At?

Andrea? Are you there?

In the beach! Are you coming?

Uhm, I'd love to, but I have other plans, actually.

Gotta go, bye!

Hey guys! I'm Andrea, your RealLife English coach.

I'm so happy to have you here.

By the end of this video, you will know how to use the three most confusing prepositions in English,

so that you never again have that feeling of uncertainty when using in, on, at

and not knowing how to choose the right one.

And stick around until the end of this lesson because we’ve prepared a fun quiz for you to practice with these prepositions!

By the way, if you thought that intro was funny,

go ahead and subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss our next videos with funny intros.

We’re going to learn how to use this preposition in a memory-friendly way with the in, on, at inverted pyramid.

So, in the laterals of the pyramid we have “date & time” and “location.”

Let’s start with location.

“IN” falls at the top of the inverted triangle and is the most broad and general.

Think of it for bigger areas, such as continents, countries, cities, and neighborhoods

For example: I’m in Europe, in Spain, in Barcelona.

That’s “location.” Similar, but not quite the same is “position.”

While the inverted pyramid helps you consider the two dimensional aspect of these prepositions,

the box is better for helping you think of the 3D aspect of in and on.

We use IN for rooms and enclosed spaces. For instance:

I’m in the park, or I'm in the garden.

The ball is in box. I have something in my pocket.

These are all enclosed spaces something is “in.”

An exception to these common uses of “in” is the word “home.

We use no preposition in a sentence like

"I'm home", or in "are you home?", "Is anyone home?"

Another similar exception is the word “downtown”. We say, "I live downtown" not "I live in downtown."

How about means of transportation? Is it “on the bus” or “in the bus”...?

I’ll get to that in a minute.

So, we use “in” for personal modes of transportation:

I’m in my car. I’m in a taxi.

If we think about the in-on preposition box, this is “in” and this is “on”.

Similarly, this is “I’m in my car” and this is “I’m on my car.”

However, if the personal means of transportation is that we ride on it, then we use “on,” of course!

On a motorcycle. On my bike. On a horse

Now, what about a bus, train, plane, or boat?

For a bus, you might think it should be “in”. After all, a bus is a big box, right?

For public means of transportation, we use “on.”

Another way to think of it is if something you can walk on, we use “on”.

So, I’m on the bus, on the train, on a plane, on a boat.

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Let’s now go back to our inverted pyramid to consider “on” for location.

“On” falls in the middle of our inverted triangle and is more specific.

So, we should use it for areas slightly smaller than “in”.

It's often used for a place we could consider long. For example:

On a street. On a beach. On a river.

Going back to the funny clip in the intro where I said I was “in the beach”, the correct preposition is “on”.

However, you can also say “at”.

The difference is that if you say you’re “at the beach” you could mean any location on or around the beach,

even at a bar that’s on the beach, for example.

However, if you say you’re “on the beach” it means you’re on the sand.

However, if you use them interchangeably, don’t worry, no one will notice!

Once again, when we talk about position, “on” does not follow the inverted pyramid.

We use “on” for surfaces. For example:

Be careful! There’s broken glass on the floor!

Put this painting on the wall.

The book is on the table.

Now, “at” is the most specific and it is used for the smaller areas.

It’s at the tip of the inverted pyramid.

For example, we say at an address, at a specific business, at a specific point.

At the bus stop. At the cinema. At the top of the hill. At the mall.

When talking about where we live, it can be easy to confuse whether to use “in”, “on”, and “at.

Once again, we need to think about how specific of a point we are talking about.

I can say “I live on Baker street.”

Baker street is long and we are not sure where specifically I live.

For the exact address, we use "I live at 208 Baker Street."

I live specifically at number 208 on Baker Street.

Another example is: The store is on Broadway Avenue.

This means it's somewhere on Broadway Avenue, but we don't know or we're not saying exactly where.

The best way to remember what you learn is to use it right away! Take a moment to pause...

and leave a comment below telling us where you live specifically.

Your country, city, street and address.

Please, feel free to make up your address as you may not want to share the real one publicly.

For example, I live in Spain, in Barcelona, on Balmes street, at number 1200 Balmes street.

So, so far we’ve seen this:

Now, let’s consider the “date & time” use for these three prepositions.

This is the other side of the inverted pyramid here.

Just like with location, with time “in” is the broadest, so we use it for the biggest periods of time:

centuries, decades, years, and months.

Christopher Colombus discovered America in the 15th century, in the year 1492.

My birthday is in November.

As an exception to this rule, we also use it for times of the day.

However, if it helps you to remember, we use “in” for the broadest parts of an individual day:

In the morning. In the afternoon. In the evening.

A further exception to this is that we say "at night", not “on” or “in night.”

Ugh...English…

For days, we use “on.” See you on Monday.

Although, in American English you’ll sometimes hear “see you Monday” with no preposition.

Also in American English they say "see you on the weekend", whereas in British English, we say “at the weekend.”

And when it comes to the smaller units of time, like hours, minutes and seconds, we use “at.”

Some more specific periods of time you should use the preposition “at” are:

At the start of the party. At sunrise. At the moment.

Congrats on reaching the end of the video! I’m sure you’ve learned a lot as it's an area of learning that confuses many learners.

As I said in the beginning, we've prepared a quiz, so that you could put this new knowledge to the test.

You'll find the link somewhere on the screen now, and also down in the description section of this video.

Also, if you want to watch another video now and keep learning, this one is a good follow up. Check it out!