Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[lenin95]

I'm sorry if this topic was discussed here before, I couldn't find it.

My question is: what's the rule for using 'at' and 'in' when talking about place.
To give an example, is there any difference between saying, "He's at the garage" and "He's in the garage"?

As far as I understand, we usually say 'at the airport', not 'in the airport'; or 'at a bus stop' and not 'in a bus stop' when talking about location/place. While some phrases are easy to understand, others are different in my language and make me stop and think about the correct form when writing, for example. In my native tongue, I'd say 'He's in the cinema', but this sounds odd in English. I wasn't able to find any specific rule for this.
It seems when we talk about the location only, we use 'at', like in 'at the spot', while when something's happening inside of a building, let's say, 'in' is used instead, as in 'He's hiding in the garage', not 'hiding at the garage'. While some things are obvious, other things are not very clear for me, because of the language differences, I guess.

I'd appreciate your help. Thanks alot.

[pugachevV]

You've got it.
Everything you've written is correct.
One of the uses of At is to express location or arrival at a particular place or position.
e.g. At the station, at home.
Another is to express attendance of an educational institution or workplace.
At school, at work.
N.B. You can be at work or at school, but be nowhere near the office or school building. e.g. You could be a cop driving around in a police car, or your class could be visiting a museum.

One of the uses of In is to express the condition of being enclosed or surrounded by something.
Also, In expresses motion that results in being within or surrounded by something.

In the school, in the office, in apartment 404.

So, you can be "at the station" (standing outside or location unspecified) or you can be in the station, which means inside the buildings, etc.

Generally speaking the "rules" are as set out above. There may be regional variations.

[lenin95]

Thanks for the reply! It's much clearer now. I guess it just takes a little more input and paying attention to how the native speakers use the prepositions in different situations.