Lesson 2

Prepositions

How prepositional phrases work — and why spotting them is the key to unlocking any sentence.

What Are Prepositions?

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun and other words in a sentence. Prepositions can show location, time, direction, and many other relationships.

Prepositions are important because, compared to all other types of words, there are very few of them — yet their phrases can make up 30–60% of any given text. While it is impossible to memorize millions of nouns and thousands of verbs, it is possible to memorize prepositions.

There are only about 150 prepositions in the English language. Below are the 73 most common.

The 73 Most Common Prepositions

of

in

to

for

with

on

at

by

from

about

as

into

like

through

after

over

between

around

under

against

before

without

near

down

off

during

including

up

across

behind

throughout

among

along

until

above

according to

past

out of

ahead of

away from

beyond

beside

besides

except

inside

unlike

in front of

rather than

but

concerning

as to

as well as

aside from

because of

beneath

regardless of

other than

per

instead of

such as

in addition to

in relation to

up to

upon

out

round

towards

since

despite

near to

within

Common Prepositions in Use

Here are some common prepositions and examples of how they are used:

In: I put the book in the bag.
On: The cat is sitting on the chair.
At: We will meet at the park.
With: I went to the store with my friend.
For: I bought a gift for my sister.

Prepositional Phrases

A prepositional phrase is simply: preposition + noun.

near the lake

Prepositional phrases make sense when they stand on their own — not like a full sentence, but they represent a basic idea. For example:

under the table  (somebody or something is under the table)
at the store  (somebody or something is at the store)
beside the desk  (somebody or something is beside the desk)

The Key Rule

Words inside a prepositional phrase can NEVER be the subject or main verb of a sentence.

The phrase itself might act as the subject, but not any individual word inside it. More on that in Lesson 8.

A group (of girls) bought Mary a cake.

"Girls" cannot be the subject — it is locked inside the prepositional phrase.

Coming Up: Three Sentence Types

Now that you can spot prepositional phrases, you have one of the most important tools for analyzing any sentence. In Lessons 4–6 we build on this with the three basic sentence structures:

First, Lesson 3 covers the other type of phrase you need to recognize: verbal phrases.