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01Hello!
02This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Kelvin in Ghana about the usage of prepositions in English.
03Dear Teacher, Please, I would like to know more about prepositions.
04Thank you, Kelvin.
05I'm happy to answer this question, Kelvin.
06Prepositions are those small words that give additional information about nouns, such as direction, time, location, and possession.
07We can put prepositions into two large groups.
08In the first group, prepositions tell us about direction, location, time, and relations between people or things.
09These details are what people first learn when they study prepositions in English.
10Just a few examples of location and time include...
11On the table.
12Under the table.
13By nine in the morning.
14At night.
15Some examples that show relations between people include...
16A friend of mine.
17I worked with him.
18I did it for you.
19The second large group includes expressions where the preposition sometimes has a less exact meaning.
20That is why knowing which preposition to use with these expressions becomes more difficult.
21Consider the following two examples.
22The first is used in British English.
23The second in American English.
24This house is different to the one I used to live in.
25This house is different from the one I used to live in.
26The two examples mean the same thing.
27And there is no clear reason why we should use one preposition instead of the other.
28Here is another expression where we use one preposition instead of another.
29We often say...
30The news took me by surprise.
31But we never say...
32The news took me with surprise.
33However, notice that changing the preposition by to the preposition with does not appear to change the meaning of this expression.
34To someone learning English, one preposition might seem as good a choice as any other for this expression.
35That is why it is easy to make mistakes and sometimes difficult to remember the correct preposition to use.
36So, how can you remember what preposition to use with such expressions?
37Do not try to learn the expression separately from the preposition and then go back and put the preposition in your memory.
38Instead, try to hear and remember the entire expression as one phrase instead of several words.
39Just as we put numbers into groups of three or four to remember phone numbers, try to think of an expression and its preposition together as one group.
40For our readers and listeners, what are your questions about American English?
41We'd like to hear from you.
42Send us an email at learningenglish at voanews.com.
43And please include where you are from in your email, too.
44And that's Ask a Teacher.
45I'm Andrew Smith.
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