Learn English - English Speaking Tutorial

Prepositions to Describe Where Action Takes Place

Consider a situation where you want to describe a cat lapping milk in your kitchen. Depending on how you want to write the sentence, you might use a different preposition to link the cat’s action and where it is taking place. For example, you might write the following: “My cat, Charlie was lapping up milk in the kitchen”. Or, you might want to try “My cat, Charlie was sitting on the kitchen floor lapping up milk”. Even though these two sentences convey similar information, each preposition – “in” versus “on” – requires a different sentence structure in order to flow properly.

In other instances, prepositions may be used to create a sense of how much one object is influenced by the subject of a sentence. Words like “throughout”, “marginally”, and “somewhat” are often used in these kinds of situations. If you’re trying to describe how many dandelions are on your lawn, you could say, “My lawn is somewhat covered by dandelions”, or “There are dandelions throughout my front lawn”.

The Preposition “Of” and Ownership

Many people trying to learn English have a difficult time translating the word “of”. Among other things, it’s important to realize that “of” does not convey the meaning of ownership in English sentences. For example, if you want to say that Mary owns a book in English, you would simply write “Mary’s book”. This is distinctly different from Spanish and other romance languages, where you would say “el libro de Mary”, or literally “the book of Mary”.

“For” and “On” as Timing Descriptions

Prepositions can also be used to describe a general period of time. You might hear someone say, “You can borrow this book for one day”, or “On Monday, I will go to the post office”. While these types of prepositions may seem unnecessary, they still give the sentence a subtle flavor. They also serve to help someone that is listening or reading to focus on the fact that information about the timing of an event is about to be transmitted.

In many cases, when you’re learning your primary language, prepositions seem to fit naturally into your speech and writing patterns. Unfortunately, when you’re trying to learn a second language with different prepositional rules, you’ll likely find that you need to think carefully about how you use them. Depending on the rules of your primary language, you might find it fairly easy to adapt to English. When in doubt, try different prepositions in a sentence to see how you can create the same meaning with different words and structures.

Adjectives That Denote Quantity

As with nouns themselves, you can use specific numbers or you can create a generalized impression of quantity. While the statement “Joshua owns several books” may not tell you exactly how many books are being discussed, “several” is considered an adjective. At the same time, if someone says “Joshua owns seven books”, the number seven is still considered an adjective. In some instances, this kind of accuracy is important, while in other cases, conveying the generalized impression may be enough.

Adjectives that Denote Quality or Describe a Noun

In many cases, adjectives are used to describe a specific aspect of a noun. The word “cookies” may be preceded by “delicious”, or “fresh”, as well as many other words that convey something special about the cookies. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to overuse adjectives in this capacity. Learning how to use them correctly is not something that can be taught. Rather, you’ll develop your own style and pattern of adjective usage that will change as you practice speaking and writing English.

While adjectives are often placed before nouns, they can also occur after a noun. As an example, you can write “That is a beautiful painting”, or you can write “That painting is beautiful”. Even though beautiful is placed in a different spot in the sentence, it’s still describing your opinion of the painting. Depending on the adjective and the topic of the sentence, you may or may not be able to alter where the adjectives go in relation to the noun. That said, practicing these kinds of sentence changes can help you develop a wider range of sentence patterns more quickly.

Adjectives That Become Part of a Noun

Aside from enhancing nouns, adjectives can also be used as nouns themselves. Typically, numbers are often used for this purpose. For example, “3 Musketeers” is the name of a candy bar. At the same time, “3” is also an adjective that describes a number of men from a children’s fable. When you’re diagramming a sentence, it’s important to realize that these kinds of naming practices may cause you some confusion. Unfortunately, it may not always be easy to determine when adjectives are part of a name, or actually describing a noun.

Even though adjectives are a main part of many languages, getting a feel for how they are used in English isn’t always easy to define. In some cases, adjectives will precede the noun that they are modifying, while in others; there will be times when the adjective is placed after the noun. As you might expect, once you begin to get a sense for the general rhythm of the English language, you’ll also develop instincts for where adjectives belong in order to make a sentence sound correct.