(happy music)
- Thank you, thank you everyone for coming,
and thank you at home for joining us.
Remember, you can play along with today's game.
All you need is a piece of paper and a pen.
Write one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10 on that piece of paper.
I'm going to give you 10 example situations
with one word missing
or maybe two words
and a list of possible prepositions.
You have to decide which preposition
best matches in that situation.
Every correct answer gets you one point
and every incorrect answer,
nothing, it's fine, nothing happens.
I don't need this, do I?
It's not plugged in to any,
I don't need, why did you give it to me then?
So let's get started in today's
very hard preposition quiz.
(happy music)
When we describe your ability, your talent, your level,
we can say you're good, you're bad, you're rubbish,
you're amazing,
what?
For example, you are so good,
what, English?
In?
At?
On, or for?
You have five seconds to decide.
(timer ticking)
You're so good at English.
And if you got that one correct,
you got one point,
and you,
you are so good at English.
Well done.
(clapping)
Number two, we're talking about time.
This guy works at a book shop,
and he says this,
"I've been working here," blank, "two years."
Which word is missing?
Is it for or since?
(timer ticking)
I've been working here for two years.
Number three.
(chinking)
That sound means there's a bonus attached to this question.
If you get this question correct,
tell them Jim, what are they gonna win?
(laughs) That's right, Ellie.
Everyone who answers the next question correctly wins
a brand new car (audience cheering).
Wow, I want to win that.
Oh no, you spent hours doing your work
and now the dog has eaten it.
Now you have to start again.
Which preposition means do something again?
Is it through, over, around, or behind?
(timer ticking)
Over.
I have to start over means I have to start again.
And congratulations to everyone who got this correct,
because you just won a brand new car.
This is a complete lie.
You didn't win a car.
Please don't sue me.
Number four, where does your friend live?
Here's the road, here's you, here's your friend.
You live this side.
She lives the other side of the road.
So my friend lives across me,
across to me, or across from me?
Which do you think?
You have five seconds.
Decide.
(timer ticking)
My friend lives across from me.
Did you get that correct?
(clapping) Well done if you did.
Give yourself one point.
When we talk about first impressions,
the idea that you give someone about yourself
the first time you meet.
For example,
what's your impression of me?
How do I seem to you?
Do I seem friendly?
Do I seem happy, angry, what?
Well, we have a phrasal verb for that, and it's this.
You come something as an idiot, for example.
Now, from these four prepositions,
two of them are possible here.
Which two?
You need both of them to be correct to get the point.
Five seconds.
(timer ticking)
Come off or come across as blah, blah, blah,
whichever impression you get from someone.
If you got both of those correct, you get a point.
If you only got one or none, you didn't get a point.
You owe me a coke.
Thanks.
You have a relationship with someone
and something, in this case, pizza,
separates you and destroys the relationship.
We have a phrasal verb.
Something comes
something you two.
(timer ticking)
That pizza obsession, it came between us, and we broke up.
Next, a very useful phrasal verb.
Can you imagine that someone doesn't know who Beyonce is?
I mean, I imagine that people like that exist,
but it's crazy, you know?
So she doesn't know who Beyonce is,
but her friend says,
"Just search for her when you get home."
A specific phrasal verb which means
search for information online.
So search for a name, a number, an address,
some information in general.
What's that phrasal verb?
Look her around?
Look her up?
Look her through?
Or look her down?
(timer ticking)
Just look her up when you get home.
Let's move on.
Now, personally, for me, I hate, when I go to the cinema,
and someone is talking and they don't stop.
Which preposition can we use
when we want to say this guy was talking
from the start to the end of a movie?
Between, amid, throughout, or during?
(timer ticking)
Throughout.
From beginning to end, he was talking throughout the movie.
Now, maybe you were thinking,
"But wait, I can say during, no?"
Don't worry, I'll explain at the end of this video.
When someone is acting like this aggressively,
in which direction?
Your direction.
How can you say that?
Which preposition should you use?
He's being really aggressive at me,
towards me,
or on me?
What do you think?
(timer ticking)
If you got this one correct, (clapping) well done to you.
You are amazing.
But if you didn't get it correct,
if you got this one wrong,
then don't worry, you're very good-looking,
and lots of people like you.
And finally,
when you have lots of work to finish and then
you look at the time, uh-oh, not much time left,
and I have so much to do.
That's the time?
I'm so, which preposition?
Remember, we want to say,
you are late according to something.
You need to do a lot of work,
but you don't have much time to do it.
Or maybe everyone else has done the work, and you are...
You are beyond?
You are after?
Or you're behind?
Which preposition?
(timer ticking)
Oh no, I'm so behind.
If you got this one correct,
that's one more point to your total.
Now, count all your total correct answers.
How many out of 10 did you get correct?
(musical notes)
So thank you for playing.
Why are you giving this again?
It doesn't work.
Thank you for playing.
How many did you get correct?
It's between one and 10, remember.
If you got between one and three correct answers,
you're a stranger to me.
I don't know who you are.
Who are you?
If you got between four and six correct answers,
I like you, but we're not friends yet.
If you got between seven and nine correct answers,
you are a great friend to me.
I call you I'm sad, but I don't tell you all of my secrets.
But if you got a perfect 10, a perfect score of 10,
we are best friends.
(clapping)
Best friends.
I love you.
Okay, that first situation.
When you describe the level of ability,
someone is good, bad, rubbish, amazing,
the preposition is at.
You're so good at English.
For example, me, in school, I was so bad at
everything.
No, it's rubbish at everything.
Let me know in the comments.
What are you good at and what are you rubbish at?
Okay, the for and since thing.
Very quickly.
For is for lengths of time.
For example, I've been working here for two years.
Or, I've lived here for six months.
Whatever.
That's a length of time.
But since is for the start of that time.
So if you want to use since here,
we need to make this a time reference, a point in time.
So we could say two years ago.
So I've been working here for two years.
Or, I've been working here since two years ago.
That's now a time reference.
You could also use it with a year.
So
what year is it now?
Still 2020.
This year never ends.
It sucks so bad.
Okay, we could say I've been working here since 2018.
That also works.
It's a year, it's a time reference.
Just remember, for, length of time,
since, time reference, the start of that time period.
Okay, this one, the preposition, over, after a verb,
it can mean do something again.
For example, start again, start from the beginning.
If, for example, you want to watch a TV show or a movie,
again, you could use it in the same way.
Think of this like the prefix re,
do something again.
So you could say I want to re-watch all of
The Sopranos.
Or I want to watch this series over.
You want to do something again from the beginning.
Do it over.
And again, practice this in the comments.
Is there something that you want or need to do over?
A test that you need to do over?
Is there a thing that you need to start over?
So in this case, the road is in the middle.
We use across from when we talk about
things on the other side.
Across from me, across from her.
But we just say across when we talk about
what separates those two things.
Again, try this in the comments.
This is the best way to learn.
Make it unique to your life.
Make it something that you might say in the future.
Then you'll remember much more easily.
Now in this situation.
You come off as blah, blah, blah.
You come across as blah, blah, blah.
Both mean the same thing.
They talk about the impression that you give someone
the first time you meet, for example.
So who was the last person that you met?
How did they come off?
How did they come across?
Remember, they both mean the same thing.
An example that I could give.
Who's the last person I met?
Ah, okay.
A few months ago, there was a YouTube event in London,
and a few educators went there,
and there was one dude who, I love his videos.
He does like lawyer videos, is this guy.
Love his videos.
And
I met him and I was like,
"Dude, I watch your videos all the time.
"You're amazing, you're awesome.
"I'm such a big fan."
Basically, I shouldn't be allowed to meet new people.
I always come across weird.
I come across strange.
This situation, when something breaks your relationship.
For example, you or the other person
puts too much focus on something and not you,
then it comes between you.
It separates you
and ends or destroys your relationship.
So again, try your own example in the comments.
Make it relevant to your life.
That's the way you'll remember it,
and I'll correct you.
This one is a very useful phrasal verb.
Use it when you want to search for
something or someone online.
For example, you could look up a music video on YouTube.
You could look up your favorite celebrity on Instagram.
You could look up a phone number that you don't recognize.
I don't know.
I promised I would explain this one, and I'm going to.
So throughout the movie, that means from beginning to end.
If you said he was talking during the movie,
yes, it means in the middle of the movie,
but it doesn't mean specifically from start to finish.
It just means, I don't know,
maybe five minutes at the beginning,
five minutes in the middle.
It's still annoying, but it's not from start to finish.
Very important difference.
Of course it's not between, because
we're not talking about two separate movies,
and he's talking in the middle of those two separate movies.
No.
Amid doesn't work either.
He was talking amid the movie?
No.
Amid is not for this situation.
But here, when someone acts a certain way in your direction,
we say towards.
Someone's being or someone's acting aggressive towards you.
Someone's being very friendly towards you.
Someone's being or acting
away?
Towards.
And finally, this one.
To be behind on your work, for example,
it means you have a lot of work to do to be at pace with,
to be at the correct point in your work,
according to the time.
I know that's a strange...
This is a difficult one to explain.
So if you know the phrasal verb to catch up,
to be at the same pace as everyone else,
or in this case, your workday, your workload,
you need to catch up, that goes very well with this.
If you are behind, you need to hurry,
you need to catch up with your work.
And you can use this for many things actually.
So for example,
if there's a TV series,
and you haven't seen the latest episode,
"Oh my god, have you seen all of the episodes
"of that TV show that we're both watching?"
"No, I'm like two episodes behind.
"I need to catch up."
So again, in the comments,
practice this using your real examples.
Is there a TV series you're behind on,
something you need to catch up on?
For me, it's Westworld.
I'm still behind.
I finished Season One.
I started Season Two.
But I need to catch up, because
I think Season Three just finished, right?
Anyhoo, yeah, I'm behind on Westworld.
So how many of my best friends are watching right now?
Let me know in the comments,
because I don't have any friends in real life.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time on
The Very Hard Preposition Quiz.
(happy music)