Prepositions are short words (on, in, to) that usually stand in front of nouns (sometimes also in front of gerund verbs). (GERUND VERBS ARE VERBS IN THE -ING FOR:"PLAYING/ LAUGHING/ STUDYING")
Even advanced learners of English find prepositions difficult, as a 1:1 translation is usually not possible. One preposition in your native language might have several translations depending on the situation.
There are hardly any rules as to when to use which preposition.
The following table contains rules for some of the most frequently used prepositions in English:
Prepositions – Time
English
Usage
Example
on
days of the week
on Monday
in
months / seasons
time of day
year
after a certain period of time(when?)
in August / in winter
in the morning
in 2006
in an hour
at
for night
for weekend
a certain point of time (when?)
at night
at the weekend
at half past nine
since
from a certain point of time (past till now)
since 1980
for
over a certain period of time (past till now)
for 2 years
ago
a certain time in the past
2 years ago
before
earlier than a certain point of time
before 2004
to
telling the time
ten to six (5:50)
past
telling the time
ten past six (6:10)
to / till / until
marking the beginning and end of a period of time
from Monday to/till Friday
till / until
in the sense of how long something is going to last
He is on holiday until Friday.
by
in the sense of at the latest
up to a certain time
I will be back by 6 o’clock.
By 11 o'clock, I had read five pages.
Prepositions – Place (Position and Direction)
English
Usage
Example
in
room, building, street, town, country
book, paper etc.
car, taxi
picture, world
in the kitchen, in London
in the book
in the car, in a taxi
in the picture, in the world
at
meaning next to, by an object
for table
for events
place where you are to do something typical (watch a film, study, work)
at the door, at the station
at the table
at a concert, at the party
at the cinema, at school, at work
on
attached
for a place with a river
being on a surface
for a certain side (left, right)
for a floor in a house
for public transport
for television, radio
the picture on the wall
London lies on the Thames.
on the table
on the left
on the first floor
on the bus, on a plane
on TV, on the radio
by, next to, beside
left or right of somebody or something
Jane is standing by / next to / beside the car.
under
on the ground, lower than (or covered by) something else
the bag is under the table
below
lower than something else but above ground
the fish are below the surface
over
covered by something else
meaning more than
getting to the other side (alsoacross)
overcoming an obstacle
put a jacket over your shirt
over 16 years of age
walk over the bridge
climb over the wall
above
higher than something else, but not directly over it
a path above the lake
across
getting to the other side (alsoover)
getting to the other side
walk across the bridge
swim across the lake
through
something with limits on top, bottom and the sides
drive through the tunnel
to
movement to person or building
movement to a place or country
for bed
go to the cinema
go to London / Ireland
go to bed
into
enter a room / a building
go into the kitchen / the house
towards
movement in the direction of something (but not directly to it)
NOW WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEO ON GEOENGINEERING AND USING REPORTING VERBS, WRITE A PARAGRAPH REPORTING WHAT DAVID KEITH SAID:
Use at least 10 of the following verbs: admit, complain, claim, deny, report, add, remark, refuse, doubt, suggest, advise, reckon, encourage, insist, argue, recommend...
The beginning of the paragraph has been done for you.
Geoengineering is the intentional, large-scale technological manipulation of the Earth’s systems. It is also known as Climate Engineering because it is often discussed as a technological solution for combating climate change. It is a rather controversial issue. David Keith explained that...
“Half the world is composed of people who
have something to say and can’t
and the other half who have nothing to say
and keep on saying it”
-Robert Frost
Before writing your speech you should have a clear purpose and target
audience in mind. Remember also to adjust the level of formality to the kind of speech.
OPENING
PARAGRAPH
You should:
Get the attention of your audience by:
araising
a thought-provoking question (rhetorical question)
aciting
a personal experience
amaking
a shocking statement
anarrating
a comical situation or reciting a joke
Introduce your topic
State your purpose
BODY
ARGUMENT 1
POINT: Present your argument
REASON: Justify your argument
EXAMPLE: Give examples
SUMMARIZE: Summarize your point
ARGUMENT 2
PRES
ARGUMENT 3
PRES
CLOSING
PARAGRAPH
General comments that summarize the main points of your
speech. You may also:
Provide further comments for thought for
your listeners.
Leave your audience with positive
memories of your speech.
Choose a final thought to close your
speech in an effective way. You can use
aa
proverb
aa
quote
aa well-known expression
In persuasive speeches mainly consider the
use of Rhetorical devices to support
your ideas:
UN ABORIGEN HABRIA RECIBIDO UNA PALIZA DE LA POLICIA EN AGUARAY: ESTA GRAVE
15-08-2015 - Es de la Misión Capiazutti. Se llama Gustavo Daniel Cuellar y tiene 38 años. Según la madre, los oficiales lo golpearon de manera salvaje y luego lo llevaron a la guardia del Hospital Juan Perón de Tartagal. Fue derivado de urgencia por las graves heridas al San Bernardo.
Gustavo Daniel Cuellar, un aborigen de la Misión Capiazutti, recibió una terrible paliza por parte de la Policía de Aguaray, que le produjo múltiples quebraduras en su maxilar y en el resto del cuerpo, y fue derivado de urgencia al Hospital San Bernardo.
Todo sucedió en horas de la tarde del domingo en Aguaray. El aborigen ese día había jugado un encuentro de veteranos junto a unos amigos. Luego bebieron alcohol, y fue ahí cuando los oficiales demoraron a Cuellar por una "supuesta contravención". La última vez que su familia había tomado contacto con él agredido fue a las 19. Al otro día, la madre recibió un llamado donde le informaban que su hijo, de 38 años, estaba internado en grave estado en Tartagal.
La señora viajó hacia ese nosocomio, el Juan Perón, para ver cómo estaba la situación de su hijo. El programa "El Margen" entrevistó a la madre del hombre y señaló: "Recién hoy a las 10 de la mañana -por el lunes- enteré que mi hijo estaba internado acá. El salió de casa a las 19 y fue el último contacto que tuvimos. Se juntó con un grupo de compañeros ya que juega en los veteranos. No sé si hubo pelea. El nunca fue detenido", señaló.
Luego el periodista entrevistó al médico de guardia del nosocomio tartagalense, quien le informó: "El paciente llegó a la madrugada, por la complejidad de las heridas lo vamos a derivar al Hospital San Bernardo de Salta. Tiene serios hematomas, múltiples fracturas en el maxilar, y en otras parte del cuerpo. Su estado es realmente delicado. Está grave. Decidimos derivarlo a Salta para que lo vea un neurólogo, un traumatólogo y un odontólogo. Por las heridas que tiene fue golpeado". Sobre si sabía qué le había pasado, el médico indicó: "No sabemos qué ocurrió. La investigación del caso está en manos de la Policía. Nosotros lo único que hacemos es avisar que el señor Cuellar ingresó al hospital con múltiples fracturas".
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Nora Cortiñas joined the march (photo: Patricio Murphy)
Indigenous women marched yesterday from the Julio Roca monument, on Diagonal Sur and Perú, to Congress. There, they talked to a group of deputies about introducing a bill to create a ‘Council of Women for Good Living’.
Some 500 people participated in the First Indigenous Women’s March for Good Living. Thirty-six nations were represented, including the Mapuche, Wichí, Qom, Quechua, and Guaraní peoples. They were accompanied by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mother of Plaza de Mayo Nora Cortiñas, and writer Osvaldo Bayer, among others.
Once the march reached Congress, some 200 women were received by a group of deputies from different parties, to whom they gave a draft bill for the creation of a ‘Council of Women for Good Living’. The draft indicates that each indigenous nation must appoint “two councillors according to their ancestral philosophy” and that the Council should carry out a process of consultation, participation, and information “to elaborate and propose rules and policies to guarantee Good Living and to make it effective.”
“It is the first time in the 200 years the Argentine state has existed that us indigenous women have come to bring our word. Our proposal is for Good Living and we hope the Argentine people will wake up and follow our steps,” said Mapuche leader Moira Millán in an interview with Télam as the march approached Congress.
The deputies committed to putting forward the draft bill before Parliament.
Nilda Wayna Tusuy, a Quechua woman who participated in yesterday’s march, defined the indigenous concept of ‘Good Living’ as “balance and harmony, and it’s the opposite to what the capitalist system proposes, which is about living better individually, at the expense of the majority of people being worse off.”
“Good living implies, in the first place, not to live better at the expense of someone else being worse, and when I say someone else I mean human beings but also plants and animals; it’s about living with dignity, with harmony, it is inclusion, cultural and national diversity, it is considering that we are brothers and sisters,” said Tusuy.
The day’s activities finished with an evening festival and concert on a stage set up before Congress.
This story is included with an NYT Opinion subscription. Learn more »
BHESDA KHURD, India — To begin to understand the hurdles Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in building India into an economic powerhouse and reducing extreme poverty, the rural village of Bhesda Khurd, about 45 minutes from the western city of Udaipur, is a good place to start.
It is here where Rohit Nagda, a 29-year-old computer software engineer, lives with his wife, a would-be teacher studying for a master’s degree, and his family. Though he has a degree in computer science from a local university and spent a two-year stint as a commercial web developer that ended last year, Mr. Nagda is losing hope. He has been applying online for web jobs at companies in distant Mumbai, India’s financial center, but has yet to find work.
Seated next to him on a mat in front of the local Hindu temple was Shankar Donge, 26, who runs a small pharmacy near the Udaipur airport but would rather work for a big pharmaceutical company where the benefits are better. “To get a good job, you need to move out of the village, but it’s not talent that gets you big jobs but jack,” he says, meaning political influence or a bribe. He adds that “very often you have to pay people to make the call” just to get a job referral.
Two-thirds of India’s more than 1.2 billion people are under the age of 35. Nowhere is the demand for jobs more acute, and the obstacles more formidable, than in rural areas that are home to more than 70 percent of India’s population, including the 450 households in this village.
In many ways, Mr. Nagda and his friends, who also went to college or technical school, are better off than those who live on the poorer side of the village, a 10-minute drive away. Mr. Nagda’s father helps run the water department at Hindustan Zinc, a local mining company. Most of their neighbors are farmers, and some own cows and goats. Others pick up itinerant work as migrants in Udaipur, or even Gujarat, an eight-hour bus ride away. In their neighborhood, there is a portion of a paved road and minimal drainage and electricity, and some houses are made of concrete. A few have toilets.
In the poorer section where lower-caste families live, there is no water piped to houses, which are mostly made of mud, less electricity and no paved road. The fondest wish of Sarjan Bai Jogi, mother of six children and grandmother of eight, is a house where “you don’t get wet when it rains,” she said through an interpreter.
We met on the shore of a small lake where her family has lived and worked for 60 years. They survive, barely, on fishing and jobs as laborers, stone crushers and cement mixers. Her youngest son is the most educated; he finished seventh grade.
Photo
Sarjan Bai JogiCreditCarol A. Giacomo/The New York Times
Among several dozen other women I met in this hamlet, only one went as high as eighth grade; only one young man had a college degree. He was earning money as a part-time wedding photographer because he couldn’t find work in his field. In recent years, the village public school expanded from eight grades to 10. For now, students who want to finish 11th and 12th grades must travel to Udaipur, a hardship for many families who can’t afford the expense and fear for their daughters’ safety.
The expansion of education has made a difference in nationwide literacy rates. While very few villagers over age 60 have any formal education, more than 90 percent of the younger generation are attending primary school, according to Anirudh Krishna, a Duke University professor who has been doing research in this region for a decade and traveled with me to this village. But going on to high school and college remains rare. Fewer than 7 percent of Indians (only 4.4 percent of young adults in rural areas) have a college education, and, as Mr. Nagda discovered, even that is no guarantee of success.
For all of India’s advancement — it has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies — fewer than 10 percent of workers have regular jobs with legal protections and social security benefits and as much as 5 percent of the population falls into poverty every year, Mr. Krishna said. Mr. Modi’s plans for economic growth rest largely on wooing foreign investment, making India a global manufacturing hub and developing a defense industry. And he has set ambitious goals, including building 40 million rural homes with toilets by 2022.
Economic expansion will mean millions of people moving from the countryside to the cities, as it has been in most countries, including China. But India is a nation of villages, with a population that has survived for decades on government handouts, without real opportunities for jobs or a way out of grinding poverty.
I asked the women of Bhesda Khurd if they thought a future Indian prime minister could come from their village. Mr. Modi, after all, rose to power from the lowly rung of a tea seller. “Yes,” one woman replied, “if there is education and hard work.”
