Prepositions of time

Prepositions

Prepositions are short words (on, in, to) that usually stand in front of nouns (sometimes also in front of gerund verbs).

Even advanced learners of English find prepositions difficult, as a 1:1 translation is usually not possible. One preposition in your native language might have several translations depending on the situation.

There are hardly any rules as to when to use which preposition. The only way to learn prepositions is looking them up in a dictionary, reading a lot in English (literature) and learning useful phrases off by heart (study tips).

The following table contains rules for some of the most frequently used prepositions in English:

Prepositions – Time

Prepositions – Place (Position and Direction)

Other important Prepositions

Prepositions "On," "At," and "In"

A preposition is a word that links a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to some other part of the sentence.

Prepositions can be tricky for English learners. There is no definite rule or formula for choosing a preposition. In the beginning stage of learning the language, you should try to identify a preposition when reading or listening in English and recognize its usage. 

• to the office

• at the desk

• on the table

• in an hour

• about myself

A preposition is used to show direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object. 

Here are a few common prepositions and examples.

On

Used to express a surface of something:

• I put an egg on the kitchen table.

• The paper is on my desk.

Used to specify days and dates:

• The garbage truck comes on Wednesdays.

• I was born on the 14th day of June in 1988.

Used to indicate a device or machine, such as a phone or computer:

• He is on the phone right now.

• She has been on the computer since this morning.

• My favorite movie will be on TV tonight.

Used to indicate a part of the body:

• The stick hit me on my shoulder.

• He kissed me on my cheek.

• I wear a ring on my finger.

Used to indicate the state of something:

• Everything in this store is on sale.

• The building is on fire.

At

Used to point out specific time:

• I will meet you at 12 p.m.

• The bus will stop here at 5:45 p.m.

Used to indicate a place:

• There is a party at the club house.

• There were hundreds of people at the park.

• We saw a baseball game at the stadium.

Used to indicate an email address:

• Please email me at [email protected].

Used to indicate an activity:

• He laughed at my acting.

• I am good at drawing a portrait.

In

Used for unspecific times during a day, month, season, year:

• She always reads newspapers in the morning.

• In the summer, we have a rainy season for three weeks.

• The new semester will start in March.

Used to indicate a location or place:

• She looked me directly in the eyes.

• I am currently staying in a hotel.

• My hometown is Los Angeles, which is in California.

Used to indicate a shape, color, or size:

• This painting is mostly in blue.

• The students stood in a circle.

• This jacket comes in four different sizes.

Used to express while doing something:

• In preparing for the final report, we revised the tone three times.

• A catch phrase needs to be impressive in marketing a product.

Used to indicate a belief, opinion, interest, or feeling:

• I believe in the next life.

• We are not interested in gambling.

Prepositions "With," "Over," and "By"

With

Used to indicate being together or being involved:

• I ordered a sandwich with a drink.

• He was with his friend when he saw me.

• She has been working with her sister at the nail shop.

• The manager will be with you shortly.

Used to indicate "having":

• I met a guy with green eyes.

• Were you the one talking with an accent?

• People with a lot of money are not always happy.

Used to indicate "using":

• I wrote a letter with the pen you gave me.

• This is the soup that I made with rice and barley.

• He cut my hair with his gold scissors.

Used to indicate feeling:

• I am emailing you with my sincere apology.

• He came to the front stage with confidence.

Used to indicate agreement or understanding:

• Are you with me?

• Yes, I am completely with you.

• She agrees with me.

Over

Used to indicate movement from one place to another:

• Come over to my house for dinner sometime.

• Could you roll over?

• They sent over a gift for his promotion.

Used to indicate movement downward:

• The big tree fell over on the road.

• Can you bend over and get the dish for me?

• He pushed it over the edge.

Used to indicate more than an expected number or amount:

• This amount is over our prediction.

• Kids twelve and over can watch this movie.

• The phone rang for over a minute.

Used to indicate a period of time:

• I worked there over a year.

• She did not sleep there over this past month.

By

Used to indicate proximity:

• Can I sit by you?

• He was standing by me.

• The post office is by the bank.

Used to indicate the person that does something in a passive voice sentence:

• The microwave was fixed by the mechanic.

• The flowers were delivered by a postman.

• The branch office was closed by the head office.

Used to indicate an action with a particular purpose:

• You can pass the exam by preparing for it.

• I expressed my feeling toward her by writing a letter.

• She finally broke the record by pure effort.

Used to indicate a mean or method:

• Please send this package to Russia by airmail.

• I came here by subway.

Prepositions "Of," "To," and "For"

Of

Used for belonging to, relating to, or connected with:

• The secret of this game is that you can’t ever win.

• The highlight of the show is at the end.

• The first page of the book describes the author’s profile.

• Don’t touch it. That’s the bag of my friend’s sister.

• I always dreamed of being rich and famous.

Used to indicate reference:

• I got married in the summer of 2000.

• This is a picture of my family.

• I got a discount of 10 percent on the purchase.

Used to indicate an amount or number:

• I drank three cups of milk.

• A large number of people gathered to protest.

• I had only four hours of sleep during the last two days.

• He got a perfect score of 5 on his writing assignment.

To

Used to indicate the place, person, or thing that someone or something moves toward, or the direction of something:

• I am heading to the entrance of the building.

• The package was mailed to Mr. Kim yesterday.

• All of us went to the movie theater.

• Please send it back to me.

Used to indicate a limit or an ending point:

• The snow was piled up to the roof.

• The stock prices rose up to 100 dollars.

Used to indicate relationship:

• This letter is very important to your admission.

• My answer to your question is in this envelop.

• Do not respond to every little thing in your life.

Used to indicate a time or a period:

• I work nine to six, Monday to Friday.

• It is now 10 to five. (In other words, it is 4:50.)

For

Used to indicate the use of something:

• This place is for exhibitions and shows.

• I baked a cake for your birthday.

• I put a note on the door for privacy.

• She has been studying hard for the final exam.

Used to mean because of:

• I am so happy for you.

• We feel deeply sorry for your loss.

• For this reason, I’ve decided to quit this job.

Used to indicate time or duration:

• He’s been famous for many decades.

• I attended the university for one year only.

• This is all I have for today.

Prepositions

How can we use these little words correctly?

Prepositions are used in many different ways in English - perhaps that is why many people have problems with them.

First, they are used with time words:

• on Monday

• in the 20th century

Second, they are used to show where something or someone is:

• The plate is on the table.

• Julie is in the garden.

• The picture is on the wall.

Third, they are used after some adjectives:

• She is good at tennis.

• Scotland is famous for whisky

• I'm worried about my new job.

Fourth, they are used after some verbs:

• I'm listening to music.

• She is waiting for her friend.

• He borrows money from his sister.

Fifth, they are used after some nouns:

• She has trouble with remembering new vocabulary.

Finally, they are used in certain phrases:

• The bus arrived in the end.

• She arrived just in time for the film.

Prepositions of Time

In, at, on and no preposition with time words:

Prepositions of time - here's a list of the time words that need 'on', 'in', 'at' and some that don't need any preposition. Be careful - many students of English use 'on' with months (it should be 'in'), or put a preposition before 'next' when we don't need one.

Prepositions of Place

Prepositions of place can be difficult - here's some help about using 'at', 'in' and 'on' when you're talking about where things are.

Basics:

If something is contained inside a box or a wide flat area, we use ‘in’:

If something is on a line or a horizontal or vertical surface, we use ‘on’:

If something is at a point, (it could be a building) we use ‘at’:

Here are some more common ones that don't really fit:

• on TV

• on the bus

• on a train

• on a plane

• on the radio

• at home

• at work

Adjectives and Prepositions

Some adjectives need a preposition before their object. There doesn't seem to be a logical rule, I'm afraid! We just need to learn them.

Here are some of the most common ones:

• famous for 
  France is famous for its food.

• proud of
  He is very proud of his new car.

• interested in
  Julie is very interested in sport.

• pleased with
  John is very pleased with his new suit.

• bad at
  They are very bad at maths.

• good at
  Einstein was very good at physics.

• married to
  My mother has been married to my father for 20 years.

• excited about
  I'm very excited about my holiday.

• different from / to
  Coffee is different from tea.

• afraid of
  I'm afraid of spiders.

Some verbs need a preposition before an object or another verb. The preposition is only grammatical, it doesn't change the meaning of the verb.

Here are some of the most common ones:

• arrive at / in somewhere 
  We arrived at the airport. 
  We arrived in London.

• belong to somebody 
  This book belongs to me.

• borrow something from somebody 
  I borrow a book from my classmate.

• concentrate on something / doing something 
  I concentrated on studying at the weekend.

• depend on something / somebody 
  It depends on the weather.

• explain something to somebody 
  The teacher explained the exercise to the students.

• listen to something / somebody 
  I listen to music.

• pay somebody for something 
  I pay the waiter for the coffee.

• wait for somebody / something 
  Wait for me!

• worry about somebody / something Don’t worry about a thing!

Prepositions: 
Locators in 
Time and Place

Конец формы

A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence. In itself, a word like "in" or "after" is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere words. For instance, when you do try to define a preposition like "in" or "between" or "on," you invariably use your hands to show how something is situated in relationship to something else. Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases can be made up of a million different words, but they tend to be built the same: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun (called the object of the preposition). This whole phrase, in turn, takes on a modifying role, acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.

Consider the professor's desk and all the prepositional phrases we can use while talking about it.

You can sit before the desk (or in front of the desk). The professor can sit on the desk (when he's being informal) or behind the desk, and then his feet are under the desk orbeneath the desk. He can stand beside the desk (meaning next to the desk), before the desk, between the desk and you, or even on the desk (if he's really strange). If he's clumsy, he can bump into the desk or try to walk through the desk (and stuff would fall off the desk). Passing his hands over the desk or resting his elbows upon the desk, he often looks across the desk and speaks of the desk or concerning the desk as if there were nothing else like the desk. Because he thinks of nothing except the desk, sometimes you wonder about the desk, what's in the desk, what he paid for the desk, and if he could live without the desk. You can walk toward the desk, to the desk,around the desk, by the desk, and even past the desk while he sits at the desk or leans against the desk.

All of this happens, of course, in time: during the class, before the class, until the class, throughout the class, after the class, etc. And the professor can sit there in a bad mood [another adverbial construction].

Those words in bold blue font are all prepositions. Some prepositions do other things besides locate in space or time — "My brother is like my father." "Everyone in the class except me got the answer." — but nearly all of them modify in one way or another. It is possible for a preposition phrase to act as a noun — "During a church service is not a good time to discuss picnic plans" or "In the South Pacific is where I long to be" — but this is seldom appropriate in formal or academic writing.

.

Is it any wonder that prepositions create such troubles for students for whom English is a second language? We say we are at the hospital to visit a friend who is in the hospital. We lie in bed but on the couch. We watch a film at the theater but on television. For native speakers, these little words present little difficulty, but try to learn another language, any other language, and you will quickly discover that prepositions are troublesome wherever you live and learn. This page contains some interesting (sometimes troublesome) prepositions with brief usage notes. To address all the potential difficulties with prepositions in idiomatic usage would require volumes, and the only way English language learners can begin to master the intricacies of preposition usage is through practice and paying close attention to speech and the written word. Keeping a good dictionary close at hand (to hand?) is an important first step.

Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

We use at to designate specific times.
The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.
My brother is coming on Monday.
We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.
She likes to jog in the morning.
It's too cold in winter to run outside.
He started the job in 1971.
He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

We use at for specific addresses.
Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.
Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).
She lives in Durham.
Durham is in Windham County.
Windham County is in Connecticut.

Prepositions of Movement: to 
and No Preposition

We use to in order to express movement toward a place.
They were driving to work together.
She's going to the dentist's office this morning.

Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.
We're moving toward the light.
This is a big step towards the project's completion.

With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition.
Grandma went upstairs
Grandpa went home.
They both went outside.

Prepositions of Time: for and since

We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).
He held his breath for seven minutes.
She's lived there for seven years.
The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.

We use since with a specific date or time.
He's worked here since 1970.
She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.

Prepositions with Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs.

Prepositions are sometimes so firmly wedded to other words that they have practically become one word. (In fact, in other languages, such as German, they would have become one word.) This occurs in three categories: nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

A combination of verb and preposition is called a phrasal verb. The word that is joined to the verb is then called a particle. Please refer to the brief section we have prepared on phrasal verbs for an explanation.

Idiomatic Expressions with Prepositions

• agree to a proposal, with a person, on a price, in principle

• argue about a matter, with a person, for or against a proposition

• compare to to show likenesses, with to show differences (sometimes similarities)

• correspond to a thing, with a person

• differ from an unlike thing, with a person

• live at an address, in a house or city, on a street, with other people

Unnecessary Prepositions

In everyday speech, we fall into some bad habits, using prepositions where they are not necessary. It would be a good idea to eliminate these words altogether, but we must be especially careful not to use them in formal, academic prose.

• She met up with the new coach in the hallway.

• The book fell off of the desk.

• He threw the book out of the window.

• She wouldn't let the cat inside of the house. [or use "in"]

• Where did they go to?

• Put the lamp in back of the couch. [use "behind" instead]

• Where is your college at?

Prepositions in Parallel Form

(Click HERE for a definition and discussion of parallelism.) When two words or phrases are used in parallel and require the same preposition to be idiomatically correct, the preposition does not have to be used twice.
You can wear that outfit in summer and in winter.
The female was both attracted by and distracted by the male's dance.

However, when the idiomatic use of phrases calls for different prepositions, we must be careful not to omit one of them.
The children were interested in and disgusted by the movie.
It was clear that this player could both contribute to and learn from every game he played.
He was fascinated by and enamored of this beguiling woman.