At? On? In?

Those tiny but oh-so-common words called prepositions cause lots of trouble for English learners!

Even when you are very fluent in English, you may still get your prepositions mixed up.

Prepositions do lots of different jobs in English. Right now, let’s think about prepositional phrases with the words at, on and in. A phrase is a group of words. A prepositional phrase has a preposition and its object. The object can be a noun or a pronoun. In English is a prepositional phrase: in is the preposition and English is its object.

Let’s look at the picture above.

The woman is sitting at her desk. AT is a preposition that places one thing at a certain, specific point. For example:

I am sitting at my desk. She is meeting him at school. They are meeting at 8:00.

In the picture, the computer is on the desk. ON is a preposition that marks physical contact between one thing and another. For example, in the picture:

The woman’s hands are on the computer. The pencil is on the notebook. The notebook is on the desk.

Finally, in the picture, the plant is in the jar. IN is a preposition that means that one thing is contained by another thing. For example:

I am in my car. The food is in the refrigerator. He is in his room. Her clothes are in the closet.

To practice using these prepositions, try making up a few sentences to describe what you see in this picture.