Teacher Discussion Forums

Is the term of " at the beach" the same with " on the beach"?

please tell me...

I am confused by my teaching material ....


yvonne

They are both pretty much the same. The difference is slight. I would say 'at the beach' implies the beach is a place, like 'at the mall', and 'on the beach' is more a geographical description, 'I'm standing on sand; I'm on the beach'. We'd usaully say "I'd like to spend the day at the beach", but "I saw a crab crawling on the beach".

However, you need to say "the same as", not "the same with". Darn prepositions! How does anyone learn this language!

-Sharon

yvonne wrote:Is the term of " at the beach" the same with " on the beach"?

please tell me...

I am confused by my teaching material ....


yvonne

It depends on how we think of "beach".

We use "at" for a location.

"Where are Maria and Joe? They're at the beach. " Here, "beach" is a location.

We can also think of the beach as being a surface, in which case we would use "on".

I found some nice seashells on the beach.

We found a starfish on the beach.

I'd like to note that we also have "along the beach".

Just as we have "We walked along the side of the road." We can also have "We walked along the beach."

With "walk" I would also use "on". "We took a walk on the beach." Now, "the beach" is a surface.

This lesson for "in, on, at" is for time. However, the little picture, I believe, is helpful for other applications of "in, on, at" as well.

http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Vered-TimePrepositions/

It might be worth a mention that 'we took a walk along the beach' is probably American English. In British English I am sure we would say 'we went for a walk along the beach'.

Worth thinking about!