Prepositions are (usually) small words which are sometimes used together to describe a relationship between nouns and often locate nouns, actions or ideas in a particular place or time. Position is in the word and is the often the reason we use them!
Examples of common prepositions include: in, on, at, of, to, for, from, by, with, about.
Prepositions can be a very difficult part of English. However, this page aims to simplify prepositions by explaining and offering some categories to learn them.
This page will be divided into the following sections:
- Basic prepositions for location and direction.
- Prepositions for time.
- Other common prepositions and basic uses.
We also use particular prepositions with a lot of verbs and adjectives, these are known as ‘Dependant Prepositions’. However, these will be discussed in the B1/ B2 section of this website.
1. Basic Prepositions for time and location
There are many basic prepositions for location – where an object is in relation to another object. These include:
in, on, beside/ next to, over/ above, behind, between, under, in front of, on the right/ left
See the sentences below using these prepositions about the bedroom:
- There is some furniture in the bedroom.
- There is a lamp on (top of) the shelves.
- There is a wardrobe beside/ next to the bed.
- There is a painting over/ above the bed.
- The pillow is behind the laptop.
- The laptop is in front of the pillow.
- The bed is under the painting.
- The mirror is on the right of the painting.
- The wardrobe is on the left of the painting.
Prepositions of time
There are many prepositions for time, some of them are also used for location, particularly in, on and at. See the table below for eight basic prepositions of time, how we use it, and a sample sentence for each use:
Other Common Prepositions and Uses
There are many other prepositions in English and there are many ways for the same prepositions to be used in a different way. The chart below gives an overview of some of the other most common prepositions/ uses in English:
Finally…
There are many prepositions missing in this page. For each section I could add more. But, for A2/ B1 level, what is on this page is more than enough. If you can use these prepositions correctly, you will be doing very, very well!