Hi everybody, welcome to www.engvid.com, I'm Adam.
In today's video, I want to answer a very common question that I hear from people - from
all of you guys in the comment section.
Why are prepositions so hard?
How can I study prepositions?
So today's video is going to give you a bit of an idea of why they're so hard and what
you can start doing to try to improve your use of prepositions.
And yes, prepositions do make a big difference because they're very little words, but they
can completely change the meaning of an expression or a sentence and so on.
So, the first thing I want to look at are three different ways to approach prepositions.
One is just direct collocations - words that are working together that sometimes have a
different meaning.
So, for example, we have "in-house" with a hyphen, this is going to be used as an adjective,
compared to "out-house", which is one word that joins the two words, "on the house",
and "something is housed in something else".
So, I have four expressions here with "in", "out", "on", and "in" with completely different
meanings and no real way of guessing, and that's the hard part about prepositions.
So, "in-house", so for example, some companies hire an in-house social media manager.
Instead of getting somebody outside, like a freelancer or to outsource something, they
hire somebody full-time to run their social media pages, right?
Or channels.
So, this person is an in-house employee, works inside.
"Out-house", now if you can think of this as an in-house employee, what is an "out-house"?
Now, completely, I'm sure you can't guess.
An "out-house" is a toilet.
It's a toilet that is actually outside, it's not inside the house.
So, especially if you're going to go camping or you're going to go to like some cottage
or cabin, a lot of these buildings or a lot of these houses won't have a toilet inside
the house.
They have a little hut outside or like just basically a box with a hole in the ground
and that's where you go to the toilet, and that is called an "out-house".
And it's one word.
So, if you think you can guess one and guess the opposite, no.
Completely unrelated, so you have to be a little bit careful about that.
"On the house" doesn't mean like on top of the house.
It actually has nothing to do with house.
"On the house" means free, but usually at a restaurant or a bar or anywhere that charges
for a service.
So, if you go to the bartender and you chat the bartender up and you have a nice time,
the bartender will be nice and say, "Now, this drink is on the house."
It means you don't have to pay for it.
The house means the place, the establishment, the business.
The business will pay for it.
They will take the charge.
It's on them, right?
So, on the house.
Now, here, "house" is different.
"House" is a verb, basically means to be like a container to something.
So, something is housed in something means it is inside this container, right?
So, now, here's one situation where you have completely unguessable collocations or idioms
in some cases.
Now, here, I have a few expressions with time.
Now, in the first examples, "in time", "on time", "at the time", all of the uses of time
are the same, and then you have to understand the difference of "in", "on", "at" like you
do with other situations with prepositions, especially with time prepositions.
So, if something is in time, if you do something in time, it means before the limit of time
that you have, right?
So, the project has to be finished in time so that we can start the next phase of it,
for example, right?
It has to finish on time means at the set time.
So, in time, you have, for example, you have this much time to work on it.
In time means somewhere here.
On time means here, at the last spot or a specific spot that you set.
At the time means at that specific time, not before or after, exactly the same.
On time, at the time are similar, but you're going to use them differently, right?
A project has to finish on time, and at that time or at the time, we will begin phase two.
So, on time, usually like a deadline, at the time is a specific time you can do whatever
you want with.
So, a little bit confusing because the time doesn't change.
It's how you're using it with all these other prepositions that changes.
And then you have out of time, means time is finished, no more time.
By the time, so at this time or before, right?
With time, so any pain you have, if somebody broke up with you and your heart is broken,
with time it will mend, right?
So, over some time, over a period of time, and I didn't write that here.
Over time or with time, things will get better, right?
And there's another one, over and with.
Until such a time, time out, like again, going to take a little break, or time out in a game,
you have a time out where you take a pause.
Over time, over time, right?
So, there's over the time, but when you put them together, now you're going beyond the
scheduled time.
So, if you work overtime at work, you finished your 40 hours for the week, now you're working
extra.
In a game that is finished with a tie, they play a little extra time or a little overtime
to decide.
Now, the scary thing is I can give you at least another dozen, maybe even 20 more expressions
with time, with different prepositions.
So, the key is just to understand the use of the word "time".
Here, you don't need to know the word "house", you need to know the whole expression.
Here you need to use the word "time" and then see how it's being used with the different
prepositions.
And then, as you add more expressions, you can start to understand the actual call location.
So, if somebody says to you, for example, "It's about time", they're not talking about
time, time is not the subject of a conversation, it's or it is about time, it means they're
very frustrated, they've been waiting a long time and finally you came, it's about time
that you came, etc.
So, I'll get back to this in a minute.
And then there's the last one, now, "agree to", "agree with", etc.
A lot of people confuse these types of call locations with phrasal verbs.
These are not phrasal verbs, these are just call locations where you're using a certain
verb with a certain preposition for a certain purpose.
So if you agree to, then you still agree, you agree to do something, or you agree to
the demands of the company, means you accept, right?
But you're generally agreeing to do something.
Agree with means share an opinion, or agree with the rules, agree with someone means you
share an understanding that you accept the same thing, so very similar.
Agree about, again, now you - there's a specific topic and you have agreement.
So, the "agree" doesn't change.
What comes after the preposition changes to suit the purpose, right?
So, this is where it becomes a little bit tricky.
Here, the preposition changes in reaction to time and what's happening.
Here, the preposition changes in reaction to what comes after, to the purpose or the
target of the agreement, and so on.
Agree on, so we agree on the timing for the project to be completed, for example.
So, an "agree in" will generally take something else.
You agree in principle, you agree in writing.
So just because I say I agree with you in a legal context doesn't mean anything.
If we agree in writing, means we wrote it out and both signed it, then we have an agreement,
right?
So, the reason I'm showing you the three different ways to look at prepositions is so that you
can start collecting these collocations, like keep them in a notebook.
So, you have to study these like vocabulary.
Of course, know the difference between "in", "on", "at", "for", "of", "from", etc.
"Over", "under", "next to", "between", etc.
Know all of those and their functions, but start collecting collocations that are idiomatic,
collocations that are just collocations, and collocations that work before and after the
main verb.
And also remember, it doesn't have to be a verb, it could be a noun or a verb, right?
Time out, agree to the verb, the noun, the adjective, the preposition.
Start learning all of these different collocations, and then you'll see that you can start making
different expressions as well, okay?
And that's basically it.
Now, the main thing is also to realize that you can - a lot of it comes from just listening
to native speakers or listening to TV shows and movies.
Start paying attention to the use of the prepositions, and especially in writing.
When you're writing, these prepositions, small mistakes can lead to huge misunderstandings,
so make sure you know how to use them correctly.
Now, you can also go to my other channel, www.writetotop.com, you can watch on YouTube.
I do have a few lessons showing you more of these collocations, and it'll help you with
your writing as well.
If you have any questions about these, please ask them in the YouTube comment section or
in the www.engvid.com comments area.
Take the quiz and come back soon, and we'll do this again, and I'll show you some more
interesting collocations like these.
See you then.