What Are Prepositions?
Prepositions are little words that express relationships between nouns/pronouns or groups of words (noun groups).
They can be a bit difficult sometimes: they don’t easily translate between languages. The reason is that every language is different from every other language. Some languages have many prepositions, others just a few. Some don’t have any.
To learn prepositions use pictures, not words: visualize. Most prepositions have other, metaphorical meanings. If you visualize not translate, this gets much easier.
- Prepositions are almost always followed by a noun (in Cáceres), pronoun (to her) or a noun group (into the great wide open).
- Sometimes a preposition is all alone at the end of a clause, especially in questions. We call these ‘stranded’ or ‘dangling’ prepositions: “What are you looking at?”, “This isn’t what I hoped for.” → Prepositions: Some Advanced Points.
Prepositions of Place
Prepositions of place express where something is in space, and relative to something else.
Look at the chart to see the most important ones:
So, some examples:
- I read it in a book.
- Extremadura is between Madrid and Andalucia.
- I finally found the paper -it was somewhere among the old exams.
- The teacher is standing in front of the class.
- Japan is far from Spain.
- You will find some exercises below (…this paragraph).
Exercises on prepositions of place are here.
Also check out this worksheet.
List of Prepositions
