Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[oinrocinu]

How did invent the prepositions and phrasal verbs??? Grrrr

L.

[bud]

I hear you, Oinrocinu. They are perhaps the hardest part of learning English, and often they seem to make no sense. Once you are able to speak English almost perfectly, your few mistakes will be mostly with the prepositions. The consolation is that usually you will be understood even when the preposition is wrong. Don't worry too much about them. With more experience, you will improve your use of them.

Good luck.

[Corey]

True,

Most English-speaking people don't understand prepositions. They just use them intuitively. For example: "Where are you from?" is incorrect. You cannot end a sentence with a preposition - in this case "from". One correct way (which you will seldom hear) would be "From where do you come?".

Good luck,

Corey
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[oinrocinu]

Uau!!!!!!! I've found "Where are you from?" in books! (even in books for learning English). I didn't know it!
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[Cayenne]

Only technically are you not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. That's something that many people don't even know, and most don't care about it. When you are having casual conversations (or even formal conversations) it's no big deal to end with a preposition, I have yet to meet somebody that actually cares.

On another note, I HATE prepositions. English is my first language, so it's not learning to use them correctly that I have a problem with, it's just that we studied them in English class in school and it was a rather confusing topic, even for dudes like me who's first language is English. I don't exactly understand the point of studying them in school, and our English teacher even said so (he was a cool teacher) himself.

I really pity people learning English who have to deal with prepositions. I don't mean to discourage you, though, keep working at it and you'll eventually get the hang of them and they'll become second nature. Like bud said, though, usually your sentence will still be able to be understood even if the preposition is wrong, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Sometimes it doesn't seem to be worth the effort of learning them, but just keep practicing, you'll understand them eventually.
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[advoca]

Take my advice. Do NOT worry about ending a sentence with a preposition. If you go out of your way to do so you are more likely to upset somebody, (and you will sound pompous.

Sir Winston Churchill was irritated by British Civil Servants carefully avoiding ending sentences with prepositions, and he issued an instruction saying that this was something up with which he will not put.