Name: Prepositions of place - in, on, at | English grammar
Uploaded: 2014-06-10T18:28:57.000Z
Duration: 21 min 29 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

and "at" when we are talking about places.

So, we will look first at when to use the word "at"

and the first situation is when we want to talk about

For example - So here, we have some stairs,

and so we can say this is at the top of the stairs

and this is at the bottom of the stairs...okay?

Another example would be here. We would say the cat is at the window.

Ok? So again, window, this is a specific point or place.

Some other examples would be... we can say

"at the door" - so if somebody is at the door...

or "at the end of the street" for example... et cetera

So the first use is we can use the word "at"

And we can also use the word "at" to talk about an exact address.

An exact address is when we know the name of the street

For example: He lives at 55 Oxford Street.

So, we know the number of the street - 55,

and we know the name of the street - Oxford Street...

and so we use the word "at". He lives at 55 Oxford Street.

But, if we do not know the exact address.

If we do not know the number of the street, then we do not use the word "at"

Ok, so here, we do not know the number of the street,

and he lives at 55 Oxford Street. That is the exact address.

at a conference. So this is a photograph of a conference.

So we can say this man, he is at a conference.

And so, for an event, if you want... if somebody is going to an event,

we say they are at a party or they are at a concert.

And also, when we are discussing the building where

an event happens or an activity takes place, we also used the word "at".

So we can say, for example "Andrew is at the cinema"

So these are buildings in which there is an event or activity,

Ok...and we also used the word "at" when somebody is at somebody's house.

So, for example, "He is at Andrew's house."

So, when we are talking about somebody's house, we always use the word "at"

And, we also use the word "at" for a stop on a journey, like a break on a journey ok?

For example "We stopped at a nice village."

"The train to Manchester stops at Birmingham." ok.. "at Birmingham."

So this is the only time when we are talking about towns and cities...

this is the only time that we use the word "at" ok...

and we will see the other preposition that we use for towns and cities later in the lesson.

Ok, so this is the only time we use the word "at" for a city.

And finally for the word "at", we also have some expressions.

So there are no rules for these. You must just  learn them ok?

"at church"...  and there is obviously  a photograph of the church.

And, if you notice, for all of these expressions, we do not use the word "the" ok?

So for example, we do not say "He is at the school."

Ok, so the general rule is that these are expressions,

Ok, so for all of these expressions, we use the word "at" to describe where somebody is.

Well the main use is when something is on a surface.

And this is an example here. For example, we can say there is some graffiti on the wall.

Or we could say there is a photograph on the wall

et cetera. So you can see all of these examples, they are all surfaces -

Either horizontal surfaces or vertical surfaces.

So if something is attached to something else, we use the word "on".

So for example "She is wearing a ring on her finger."

So there we have a photograph. There is her finger.

There is... the ring. The ring is attached to her finger...

and so we say "She is wearing a ring on her finger."

And another example: "There are three apples on the tree."

So the apples are attached to the tree. So we use the word "on"

We also used the word "on" when we are talking about something which is...