Transcription
English prepositions like in, on, at, by, for, since, and during can be tricky. It's easy to get confused and make mistakes. For instance, do you say "on winter" or "in winter"? I enjoy skiing. Or do you say "I've lived in Washington DC since five years" or "for four or five years"? As you know, there are no simple black and white rules for prepositions, and what works in your language often doesn't translate directly into English, which makes things even more difficult.
So is there a solution? Absolutely. It's a combination of strategic approaches such as learning themes like the theme of this lesson today, prepositions of time, using clear examples to understand the context, practicing with your own sentences, and repeating until it sticks. This combination is the key to mastering prepositions, and that's exactly what we're going to do today. Plus, I've got quizzes throughout this lesson to test your know-how.
But before we go any further, if this is your first time here, welcome. I'm Annemarie, an English confidence and fluency coach. Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your life and work in English. Now, if you're looking to take your English even further and get more practice using prepositions and other tricky grammar points, join me inside the Confident Women Community. It's an online learning community for women where you can practice speaking regularly and get support to improve your grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. If you're ready to speak with more confidence and accuracy, you can learn more and join at speakconfidentenglish.com/community.
Now today, we'll be covering the following prepositions of time: at, on, in, during, before, after, ahead of, from plus to, by, until, up to, for, since, over, and throughout. That's quite a list! As you can see, we're going beyond the basics into advanced-level prepositions of time. To maintain our strategic approach to learning, I've divided them up into five categories or more specific themes. We're going to look at specific points in time, periods of time, time indicating before or after something else, time limits, and duration of time.
I encourage you to write down the examples I share with you today and then use those sentences as a template to create your own. This process will help you use prepositions of time correctly in your English conversations and writing. So with that, let's jump into category number one: specific points in time using at and on.
We'll begin with several ways to use the preposition at. First, we use at for specific times of the day. Take a look at these examples: "Can we talk later? I'm busy at the moment." "The team meeting is at 10:00 AM." "Can we meet tomorrow at noon?" As highlighted, each of those is focused on a specific moment of time during the day.
We also use at to refer to a specific period related to public, religious, or national holidays. For example, "We're excited to see the family at Thanksgiving." In addition, we use the phrase at the end of to refer to a specific time when something ends. For example, "The players shook hands at the end of the game." "At the end of the meeting, pizza was delivered to the staff." "At the end of January, I will take a vacation."
As I mentioned, I want you to use those sentences as templates and try to create some of your own. And now let's move on to the preposition on. While at is used for specific times of the day, like "at 10:00 AM," we use on for days of the week and specific dates. For example, "The concert is on November 20th." "We'll travel to Italy on Thursday." "I'll be offline due to an appointment on Monday."
One thing I want to note here is in informal speech, English speakers might omit on before the days of the week. For example, instead of "I'll see you on Friday," you might hear, "I'll see you Friday." One other area to distinguish between on and at is we learned that at refers to the period or season of time around a holiday. We use on when referring to the specific day of the holiday. For example, "I'll be at my parent's house on Thanksgiving Day."
Think back to the first example I provided with at when I talked about at Thanksgiving; it's around that general holiday period, but this one is the specific day. "We will be in Italy on New Year's Day." "The staff will not be in the office on Easter Monday."
The last thing I want to mention here is that in American English, we use on when referring to the weekend; in contrast, British English uses the preposition at. So this means you'll hear Americans say, "What did you do on the weekend?" "I went hiking on the weekend." "He often runs on the weekends."
Before we move on, let's do a quick quiz. I want you to complete the following phrases with the correct preposition. Choose between at and on: dinnertime, Christmas Day, the weekend, weekdays, noon, and September 30th.
What do you think the answers here are? At dinnertime, on Christmas Day, on the weekend, on weekdays, at noon, and on September 30th. If you're ready, let's move on to category two focused on time periods using in and during.
We use in when referring to longer periods of time. This can include months, seasons, years, decades, centuries, etc. For example, "I'm traveling to England in January." "In 2017, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone to the world." "In winter, I enjoy skiing and skating with my friends." "In the next decade, AI is expected to boost productivity and efficiency across sectors."
Now we also use during to indicate something happened within a specific time period, but it's specific to a time between the start and the end of something. In other words, we use it to say when something happened within a larger context. For example, "We decided on a plan during our meeting." That event occurred between the start and the end of that meeting, or "Our kids fell asleep during the movie." "I expect to be busier than usual during the next year." "They stayed at a bed and breakfast during their trip." "There was a power outage during the snowstorm."
And now it's time for another quiz. So here I want you to decide which preposition should be used for the following sentence. Decide between in and during: "I met up with my best friend for a couple of days, my summer vacation." If you selected during, you're exactly right, because this person met their friend within the time that they started and ended their summer vacation.
All right, category number three: time before and after something else occurred. Here, we're going to use those precise prepositions before and after, along with ahead of and from plus to. We use before, as you might imagine, to mean earlier than a specific time or event mentioned. For example, "Please finish your homework before dinner." "I went to the grocery store before work." "We stopped at a gas station before getting on the highway."
As you might guess, we use after to mean later than a specific time or event mentioned or simply to say next. For example, "Let's go on a walk after we eat." "The conference will be held a few months after the annual general meeting." "I'll work on this project after completing my pending tasks."
And now ahead of. We use ahead of to indicate that something is in or into the future or that something is earlier than or before someone or something. Let me give you some examples to illustrate that: "Lynn arrived at the meeting ahead of the others." In other words, she arrived before or earlier than the others. "The agenda is always posted ahead of the meeting." "Berlin is six hours ahead of New York." "It looks like we'll get this project finished ahead of schedule."
And lastly, in this category from with to, we use from and to to indicate the beginning and end points of a period. For example, "The dental appointment is from 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM." "Katie lived in New York from 2010 to 2015." "I'll be out of the office from Wednesday, November 6th, to Tuesday, November 12th."
In this category focused on time limits, we have prepositions that tend to be a bit tricky or easily confused. Here we'll be looking at by until and up to. Each of these can be used to indicate some kind of deadline or limit. For example, we use by in the sense of up to the latest or a point of time before which something must occur, and it is quite often used to indicate strict deadlines. For example, "Please review the agenda by tomorrow morning." That is the latest point in time by which something needs to happen or "I need to submit my application by midnight." "You must return your book by December 1st."
And now with until. We use until to indicate up to a specific point of time or an event in the past or future. Again, let's take a look at some examples to help: "We waited until the clients left to discuss next steps." In other words, we didn't have any discussion before the moment our clients left. Another example: "You cannot go outside until you finish your homework." This helps someone know what has to happen first: first, complete the homework, then you can go outside.
And our final example: "Tina waited at the train station until Jessica arrived."
And now the last preposition for this category: up to, which is used to indicate time limits that mean less than or equal to a specific period of time, but no more than a stated period of time. I know that can sound a bit confusing, so let's use an example to help: "You'll be given up to three minutes to brainstorm small talk questions." In other words, you have equal to or less than three minutes, but no more than three minutes.
Another example: "The store will hold the item for up to three days." So as long as you go back to that store sometime before or equal to that three-day period of time, that item will be waiting for you. If not, it may not be there when you return if you go after that three-day period.
And finally, "I can hold my breath for up to 60 seconds."
So now, another quiz for you. I want you to choose the correct sentence:
Number one: "The post office will close by 5:00 PM."
Number two: "The post office will close up to 5:00 PM."
Which one do you think is correct? If you chose number one, you are absolutely correct because "by" indicates the latest time by which the post office will stay open.
In category number five, we're going to look at prepositions that highlight a duration or length of time. If you think to your studies of the perfect forms in English, the present perfect, for example, you're certainly familiar with the prepositions since and for. Here we're also going to add the prepositions over and throughout.
So let's start with the preposition since. We use since to indicate a starting point for a continuing action or state. Usually, it indicates a period of time with a starting point in the past that continues up to the present moment. For example, "I've lived in Brazil since 2008." 2008 is the starting point. "We have been working at this company since August." "The company has offered these classes since last year."
And another example: "Our family has lived in this neighborhood since it was under construction." In that final example, we don't have a year or a specific month. We don't have a date as a starting point. Instead, we have an event that occurred at some point in the past, and this sentence assumes that whoever I'm speaking to will remember when that event started.
And now the preposition for. When we want to indicate how long something has been happening, we use for. For example, "I've lived in Brazil for 20 years now." Of course, we could do the math and find the starting point, but that's not the focus. The focus is the length of time, the duration. Another example: "We have been working at this company for three months." "Our family has lived in this neighborhood for a long time."
I briefly spoke earlier about how often we use since and for when using the perfect form such as the present perfect or the present perfect continuous. And I hear a lot of my students struggle with making a decision between using since and for. It can help to associate each one of these with the following: remember, since is the specific starting point and for is the length of time.
I encourage you to write down a few example sentences of your own. Consider for a moment how long you have lived in the city where you are now. When was the starting point, or for how long have you been there? You can apply the same questions, the same idea of determining the starting point or for how long you've worked at your company, known your best friend, or enjoyed your favorite hobby.
Before we move on to our next preposition, I do want to briefly discuss how a period of time using the preposition in is different from a period of time using the preposition for. We use in to indicate the length of time it took to do something from start to finish. For example, "I learned to drive in four weeks" means the entire process of learning to drive was complete within those four weeks; I didn't need any extra time. For, on the other hand, is used to express a duration that is ongoing or has been ongoing. For example, "I've been learning to drive for four weeks" means the learning process started four weeks ago and is continuing.
And now the preposition over. We use over to emphasize that something happened during a longer period of time. For example, "Over the years, the city has grown significantly." We're emphasizing how long that period of time is, or "The children have gotten taller over the summer." "Over the past few months, we worked on optimizing our employee benefits."
And finally, we use throughout to indicate something continues from the beginning to the end of a period of time or an event. For example, "The Royal Ontario Museum will be opened throughout the renovations." In other words, from the moment they begin to the moment they end, or "We will be working throughout the holiday season." "Most servers will be offline throughout the day."
And now a quiz. I want you to correct the following sentence: "I've lived in Washington throughout five years." The right answer here is "I've lived in Washington for five years."
If you'd love to get extra practice, I want you to do one thing. I want you to hop over to this lesson at my Speak Confident English website where I've got a bonus practice activity for you. In that bonus practice, you'll find a paragraph full of prepositions that are all wrong, and your job is to use what you've learned in this lesson to correct the prepositions. Again, you can get that bonus practice by visiting this lesson at my Speak Confident English website. I'll be sure to leave a link in the notes below.
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