English grammar in accessible language. Other important prepositions in English. Place of preposition in a sentence

Why I love English prepositions is the ability to completely change the meaning of the main word with the help of one small word. It was "watch" ( look at), and it became:

. "search" ( look for)
. "to have an opinion" ( look upon)
. "take care" ( look after)
. "forgive" ( look over)
. "track" ( look to).

Juggling English prepositions is aerobatics. If you learn this art, you will enrich your lexicon and with your speech you will cause a roar of approval.

Many students of English treat prepositions with some arrogance, believing that it is like a student repeating the English alphabet at night. Underestimated. But in vain. Yes, prepositions are considered auxiliary, they don’t answer any questions, but they allow you to get different meanings from the same verb, form cases (yes, the same ones that exist in Russian) and do other interesting things. There is only one problem: there are a LOT of prepositions in the English language. But this does not mean that you need to learn them all right here and now. It is enough just to know the basic ones, as well as understand the division into groups.

Let’s not waste time on the fact that prepositions can be simple, monosyllabic, polysyllabic, consisting of several words, blah blah blah. Let's get straight to the point and provide not only tables of prepositions in English, but also visual examples in pictures. We will also look at the use of prepositions using examples.

1. Prepositions of place and direction (spatial)

2. Prepositions are temporary

Let's look at the most basic ones: about, after, at, during, for, in, on, till, within.

3. Causal prepositions

because of- because;
on account of- as a result, because of;
thanks to- thanks to;
in accordance with- according to, in accordance with.

As you can see, the same preposition can be in different groups (for example, in or on can be both temporal and spatial). Moreover, if you open any dictionary (well, at least Yandex) and select any preposition, you will be surprised by the number of meanings. Let's say the most frequently used English preposition to can have 13 values ​​(don't be lazy, take a look).

Let's talk a little about the nuances before inviting you to go into battle in the "tests" section, where the first linguistic tests of knowledge of prepositions await you.

Sing the prepositions!

Yes, yes, just sing or even read. When you are familiar with the basic prepositions, try yourself in the role of Eminem, Timati or any rapper you like. Still lacking an idea for a text? Mix prepositions! Knowing small and remote prepositions is very cool. Make sure of this by watching the video and feeling like a rising rap star.

ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS AND RUSSIAN CASES. Let's remember the second grade.

Genitive case (of whom? what?) - preposition of
Show me the plan of the house.

Dative case (to whom? what?) - preposition to
Give it to me.

Accusative case (who? what?) - without preposition
Give me a pen.

Instrumental case (by whom? with what?) - preposition with
She was cutting the letter with scissors.

Prepositional case (about whom? about what?) - preposition about
Don't speak about me.

PLACE OF PREPOSITION IN A SENTENCE

Every excuse, know its place!

In general, a preposition is supposed to be placed BEFORE a noun or pronoun (if the noun has an article or attribute, then it cannot be broken)

Put the book onthetable.
Give it to me.
The shop is behind green house.
You must do it with in two months.

IN interrogative sentences(which begin with what, where, etc.) the preposition is placed at the end:

What city do you live in?
Who are you waiting for?

The remaining cases are associated with the use of prepositions in subordinate clauses, passive structures. All this will be more relevant to study in the “Syntax” section.

It is very useful to learn tablets where the preposition has already merged with a specific noun. Useful in everyday communication.

By the way, about the last three prepositions. They won a special place in the sun and formed their own caste - prepositions of place. Why it is necessary to collect a dossier on them no less than on a counterintelligence agent will be told and proven by someone specially dedicated to them.

Just valuable advice: since it is impossible (and not necessary) to learn ALL prepositions at first, when you write out another new verb from the dictionary, mark yourself with at least 2 options with different prepositions.

For example:

Put- put
Put on- bet on (someone, something)
Put across- deceive

When this becomes a habit, one day you will be pleased to discover that the use of the verb comes out masterfully: in different meanings according to the situation. This will decorate your speech and get rid of all sorts of pauses and “mmm”, “uh”, “ahh”. In the meantime, the problem exists, you need to solve it, starting with passing a thematic test on prepositions.

Have you sorted the predogs into shelves in your head? Even the Sun has spots, so we suggest once again (which is not superfluous) to go through the prepositions by watching a video lesson on the topic. After viewing and several years of practice, you can safely assign yourself the honorary title of “guru”.

“I don’t want to speak intelligently. I want to speak like a lady,” these words belong to Eliza Doolittle, the heroine of Bernard Shaw’s famous play “Pygmalion.”

Eliza may not have wanted to learn to speak correctly, but without grammar she would not have been able to speak at all. We are now talking about grammar as a system of words and syntactic structures inherent in a particular language. Grammar in this sense is “our main asset,” emphasized Eliza’s mentor, Professor Henry Higgins.

But this is not the only definition of grammar. The systematic study and description of a language or group of languages ​​is also grammar, descriptive grammar. Professor Higgins was mainly concerned with just one aspect of it - phonetics, or the study of speech sounds. Henry Higgins recorded the conversation of ordinary people in his notebook - this is a very accurate image of what descriptive grammar is.

And yet, for most, “speaking like a lady” means speaking correctly, as prescribed, speaking in accordance with the linguistic norm. Bernard Shaw spoke about the importance of prescriptive grammar when he wrote in the preface to Pygmalion: “The English do not respect their native language and stubbornly refuse to teach their children to speak it.” It is about the need for a prescriptive approach that Rex Harrison, who played the role of Professor Higgins in the musical “My Fair Lady,” said: “And there are places where our language has already been reduced to nothing. It hasn’t been in use in America for God knows how long!”

Why do we need to learn English grammar?

Grammar is a tool that can be used to describe any language. Grammar gives names to the words and word groups that make up sentences. Already in early childhood we learn to form sentences - grammar native language subject to everyone. Studying English at school, university, with a tutor or on the Internet, we are faced with the need to once again independently and consciously go through this path. And here we need to have an idea of ​​the types of words and phrases and how they form sentences.

Literate people are more likely to succeed in relationships with the opposite sex
According to an online survey in which 1,700 people took part, 43% of users on dating sites consider a low level of literacy to be a significant disadvantage to attractiveness.
More than a third (35%) say literacy is sexy. The survey also showed that women are more demanding of their partner’s literacy than men (Michael Sebastian, “43 Percent of Singles Say Bad Grammar Is a Turnoff”).

Parts of speech in English grammar

Depending on their function in a sentence, words are assigned to one or another part of speech. There are 8 parts of speech in English. Just learning their names will certainly not make you a grammar professor. in English. But you will have a basic understanding of the English language and will be ready to start reading other articles on our site - and these articles will help you make significant progress in learning English grammar.

Remember: if a sentence consists of one word, only an interjection can act as that word.

Other parts of speech - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions - appear in combinations. To understand which part of speech a word belongs to, we must look not only at the word itself, but also at its meaning, place and role in the sentence.

Let's consider three proposals:

1. Jim showed up for work two hours late. (Jim showed up at work two hours late).
   Here work is what Jim came to work for.
2. He will not have to work overtime. (He will have to work overtime).
   And here work is the action that Jim will carry out.
3. His work permit expires in March. (His work permit expires in March.)
   Finally, here work denotes the attribute of the noun permit.

In the first sentence the word work acts as a noun, in the second as a verb, and in the third as an adjective.

We hope you are not confused yet? Let's see what functions the 8 parts of speech perform in English.

NB! Articles (the, a/an) were once considered a separate part of speech. Nowadays they are more often classified as defining words or determinants.

What do we use to build proposals?

TOP 18 grammatical terms with film examples

Brush up on your English grammar with memorable quotes from your favorite movies and show off your knowledge in an interview or exam! We have compiled a “dossier” on 18 of the most common grammatical terms with rather unusual examples:

1. Active voice - Active Voice

A form of a verb that denotes an action performed by the subject (that is, the main character of the sentence, expressed by the subject). In other words, we are talking about how someone does something, produces, accomplishes something, that is, acts actively.

This construction is the opposite of the passive (passive) voice (see below).