Level: beginner
Most adverbials of place are prepositional phrases:
They are in France at present.
Come and sit next to me.
But we also use adverbs:
| abroad | downstairs | nearby | overseas |
| ahead | here | next door | there |
| away | indoors | out of doors | upstairs |
They are abroad at present.
Come and sit here.
We use adverbials of place to describe location, direction and distance.
Location
We use adverbials to talk about where someone or something is:
He was standing by the table.
You'll find it in the cupboard.
You'll find it inside.
Sign your name here – at the bottom of the page.
Stand here.
They used to live nearby.
Direction
We use adverbials to talk about the direction in which someone or something is moving:
Walk past the bank and keep going to the end of the street.
It's difficult to get into the car because the door is so small.
They always go abroad for their holidays.
Distance
We use adverbials to show how far things are:
Birmingham is 250 kilometres from London.
We live in Birmingham. London is 250 kilometres away.
- Adverbials of place 1
- Adverbials of place 2
Level: intermediate
We often have an adverbial of place at the end of a clause:
The door is very small, so the car is difficult to get into.
We're in Birmingham. London is 250 kilometres away.
Our house is down a muddy lane, so it's very difficult to get to.
Can I come in?
- Adverbials of place 3
- Adverbials of place 4
Hello! Could you please tell me if it is correct to use these sentences?
1. Instead of ," This is the town I used to live in ". Can I say "This is the town where/ that I used to live in" or " This is the town where/that I used to live (without in).
2. "That is the supermarket we usually did our shopping in" . Can I say, " That's the supermarket where/ we did our shopping", or "That's the supermarket where/ that we usually our shopping in''.
Thank you in advance!
Hi Mariam Arseni,
For both sentences, you can use (1) "where" without a preposition, or (2) "that" or "which" with a preposition. For example:
No preposition is needed after "where" because the meaning of "where" is "in which" (i.e. it already includes the meaning of the preposition).
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello, I'm young.
I'll ask some questions.
Question is "1. A baseball hit him yesterday."
We have to change 1 sentence to a passive sentence.
Answer is "He was hit by a baseball yesterday"
I wrote "He was hit yesterday by a baseball."
Can you tell me if my answer is wrong?
Hello juyoung,
'He was hit by a baseball yesterday' is definitely much better than 'He was hit yesterday by a baseball'. This is because adverbials of time (link) normally come at the end of a sentence, and especially in the case of passive verbs. There can be some exceptions to this, but it is a good rule to follow in general.
All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hello!
Could you please tell me if I could say "In my office it is very stuffy" or do I have to say "It is very stuffy in my office"?
Thank you very much for your precious work and I'm very grateful for the answer to this question beforehand!!!
Hi howtosay_,
Both of those sentences are fine!
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Is it correct to start a sentence with 'Last week in LA, I met a famous movie star.'
Hello Guddi,
Yes, that's perfectly OK.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
The following two example are taken from my textbook.
1.At the end of the garden stood a very tall tree.
2.At the end of the garden there was a very tall tree.
My question is why they didn't use "there" in the first example.Is it wrong if I say "At the end of the garden there stood a very tall tree "?
Hello Faii,
It's possible to use 'there' with a few verbs besides 'be'. These verbs, which include 'stand', 'live', 'remain', and others, generally refer to a state of existence. So the sentence you suggest is also correct, though please note that it's quite unusual -- 'there' is only used in this way in a formal or literary style, not in ordinary speaking or writing.
Most textbooks teach only common usage, not all possible usage, which is too extensive and less useful for most students. Of the two sentences your textbook included, 2 is far more common in most situations. 1 sounds a bit literary and would definitely be unusual in most speaking.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
It can be one or the other depending on how it is used. The Macmillan Dictionary has a good explanation that I think should clear this up for you.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nevi,
This sentence parser says that it's a conjunction, and, interestingly, uses the very sentence you ask about as an example.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello AbuBakarkhan
You can put the phrase 'at the present time' at the beginning or end of the sentence; both are correct and the meaning is the same. Please note that the phrase is 'at the present time', not 'at present time'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Federica911
In general, 'in here' is more specific than 'here' since the preposition 'in' suggests some kind of enclosed space, for example, a house or room. 'here', on the other hand, could refer to a more open space, for example, a field or a city. The context will often determine whether one or the other is better.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Ataur Rahman,
I'm not familiar with that term. Does it perhaps refer to the order of adverbs when there are more than one? Please provide an example or more specific information. You could also do a web search on your own to find different possibilities. I'm sure you can find some explanations out there as well.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
'on a table' means on top of the table, whereas 'at the table' means sitting next to the table. It is possible for you to eat on a table, but that means you are not sitting in a chair -- you are on top of the table, at the same level as the food. Most of the time, people sit at a table to eat or to work. Our food is on the table, but we sit at the table.
Bon appetit!
Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
It's clear you have many questions about prepositions with particular nouns and I think you can find these answers much more efficiently with a simple online search. Type 'river preposition' into your favourite search engine and you'll see many helpful sites.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
We generally say 'at home' and we do not say '
in home'.We can use 'in' in certain phrases such as 'in this home', 'in my home', but these are used in particular contexts. To talk about being in the place where you live, use 'at home'.
You can check which prepostions are common with which nouns in any good dictionary.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
I'm afraid we don't provide answers to lists of questions like this. We're happy to explain points of grammar and encourage you in your learning, but we don't offer an answering service for tasks from elsewhere. If we did, then we would end up doing our users' tests and homework for them, which is not our role!
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
Both of these are correct but mean slightly different things. 'at the school' is more general and focuses on the activity we do at school, whereas 'in the school' focuses more on the physical location than on what is done there.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Abdel El,
Both are possible. Generally when someone is having lessons we say 'at school' and when we we are talking about the physical building we say 'in the school'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi mitykg,
Thanks for pointing that out to us -- I've just fixed the page so that you can comment there now. Have you done an internet search for 'what is the difference between below, beneath, under, underneath'? There are several explanations out there that look good to me. If you have a specific question about what you find, then please don't hesitate to ask us.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team