Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sabrinak]

Hello, I need your 'professional' help.


Though I looked up the dictionary many times, I'm still confused about the use of prepositions: in, with, about, at.



1. I�m disappointed i[b]n[/b] your score. --> with, at, about are also possible?
2. I�m disappointed in your attitude. --> with, at, about are also possible?
3. I�m disappointed in the results. --> with, at, about are also possible?
4. I'm disappointed in your papers. --> with, at, about are also possible?
5. I'm disappointed in you guys. --> with, at, about are also possible?
6. I'm disappointed with the way you resolved the question. --> in, at, about are also possible?


Thank you for your hlep.

[dragn]

First off, here's a tip: Never ask if something is "possible." You're less likely to get a useful answer that way. Ask "What do most native speakers say most of the time?" or "What do most native speakers consider correct or acceptable?" and so on. It's "possible" to make some pretty God-awful sentences that no self-respecting native speaker would say in a thousand years, and yet don't violate any grammar rules and so must be considered "possible."

* * * * * *
All of these are "possible." Beyond that it's matter of contextual meaning and personal opinion.

Greg

[redset]

Dragn's right about this - I honestly don't remember covering prepositions at all at school, and if we did then I completely forgot all the rules . Most native speakers are simply familiar with seeing and hearing certain prepositions used in certain situations, and actually defining rules for their use can be tricky. But this is generally how we approach learning second languages, so I'll give you some pointers:

(These are all regarding disappointed)
about is usually used in a general sense - I'm disappointed, and the reason relates to your score. Sometimes it's obvious what the speaker means, other times it could be ambiguous - I'm disappointed about my school could mean the school did something I disagree with, or I didn't get into a class I wanted, or maybe the school didn't perform well this year.

at is, to me, used mainly when you're disappointed that something occurred or took place. I'm disappointed at what happened implies that something took place and you're sorry that it did, whereas I'm sorry with what happened implies that it's the result that you're unhappy about - it could have gone better. This is fairly subtle though and I don't think everyone makes the distinction - a huge number of people will say I'm disappointed at you for example, so this is more my personal take.

with is often used for talking about people, but as I mentioned many people say at too. I explained by general thoughts on it above, but you can also consider it interchangeable with at.

in is basically equivalent to with, I think. It might actually imply disappointment with the actions somebody took - I'm disappointed with this pie feels like I'm disappointed with how the pie turned out (needs more sugar...), but saying I'm disappointed in this pie seems like I'm saying the pie did something wrong. Same goes for I'm disappointed in this rock and so on.

This is basically my personal opinion and of course it's based in my cultural experiences, other native speakers from around the world (and even in other parts of Britain) will say things that sound unusual to me, and vice versa. The bottom line is that most if not all of the prepositions will work fine in your sentences, but whether they sound natural or not will come down to your audience.