Preposition madness!
I's been quite a long time since I last wrote here. Since then, I've realised two things. The first is that I'm terribly lazy, and the second one is that writing the date in the post title is a stupid thing to do, as it already appears at the bottom of the post automatically. So, for today's post I tried to find an attractive title and "Preposition madness!" was the result. I think it describes perfectly my relation with those hateful little words.
And about my laziness, well, I'm to lazy to write about it right now, hahaha.
This weekend I decided to do some of the grammar homework I was asked to do some weeks ago (did I say I was lazy?). So yesterday I took the "Advanced grammar in use" book and looked at its table of contents to look for the units related to prepositions and adverbs. A total of twelve units - seven of them about prepositions and the rest about adverbs - were waiting for me. With a sigh, I started working with prepositions.
Hey, what's with that look in your face? Huh? The twelve units? Ohhh, don't worry, dude. You imagined that they were big units, right? Well, they aren't. To tell you the truth it's only two pages per unit. One of them has the theory and the other one is full of exercises. But though they are small units, it takes time to finish them.
On Saturday I did three units ("prepositions of position and movement", "between and among" and "prepositions of time"). They weren't very difficult and I did the exercises almost without errors (except one in which I had to decide which preposition was the correct one: "across", "over", "along", "through"). But right now I'm realizing that I've already forgot most of the contents of these units. Just a moment ago I wrote this sentence: I had to choose between "across", "over", "along" and "through", and the truth is that I'm not sure if I had to write "between" or "among". This is crazy!
Today I did another two units: "talking about exceptions" and the fearsome "prepositions after verbs". The first unit was the easiest I've done so far, but I'm still not sure about when to use "except", "except for" and in which cases I can use both of them.
The second unit, "prepositions after verbs", was like hell. It includes a beautiful table with eight rows containing verbs like "ask", "agree" or "learn" and six colums contaning some prepositions ("about", "after", "for"...). In each cell, a tick appears if the verb in the row can be followed by the preposition in the column. Below the table, there's a big explanation of all those combinations. For example, did you know that you can say "ask after" or "enquire after" and that it's used to get information about a person? I didn't. And of course, I didn't know either that you can't use it to talk about thigs. So you can say, for example, "I'm phoning to ask after Mrs. Brown, who was operated last night". But you can't say "He got angry when they asked after his private life" (instead, you'll use asked about).
That use of "after" is not difficult to understand and remember. The difficulty comes when you try to understand and remember the rest of combinations:
- The most common meaning of "care for" is related to doing the necessary things for someone or something in order to keep them in good health or condition: "Jean cared for her disabled mother until her death last year". But "care for" can also mean "like" (or dislike): "I don't care for the theatre much". But hey! this last use of "care for" is formal, so don't you use in an informal context.
- "Talk on" / "Talk of": I still don't understand the difference, so I'll ask my teacher to explain it to me.
There are a lot more examples, but I won't write about all of them.
What I want to say is that I only knew the most basic combinations and that may be enough for getting the First Certificate in English, but definitely not for the Certificate in Advanced English. I need to improve a lot!!
And about my laziness, well, I'm to lazy to write about it right now, hahaha.
This weekend I decided to do some of the grammar homework I was asked to do some weeks ago (did I say I was lazy?). So yesterday I took the "Advanced grammar in use" book and looked at its table of contents to look for the units related to prepositions and adverbs. A total of twelve units - seven of them about prepositions and the rest about adverbs - were waiting for me. With a sigh, I started working with prepositions.
Hey, what's with that look in your face? Huh? The twelve units? Ohhh, don't worry, dude. You imagined that they were big units, right? Well, they aren't. To tell you the truth it's only two pages per unit. One of them has the theory and the other one is full of exercises. But though they are small units, it takes time to finish them.
On Saturday I did three units ("prepositions of position and movement", "between and among" and "prepositions of time"). They weren't very difficult and I did the exercises almost without errors (except one in which I had to decide which preposition was the correct one: "across", "over", "along", "through"). But right now I'm realizing that I've already forgot most of the contents of these units. Just a moment ago I wrote this sentence: I had to choose between "across", "over", "along" and "through", and the truth is that I'm not sure if I had to write "between" or "among". This is crazy!
Today I did another two units: "talking about exceptions" and the fearsome "prepositions after verbs". The first unit was the easiest I've done so far, but I'm still not sure about when to use "except", "except for" and in which cases I can use both of them.
The second unit, "prepositions after verbs", was like hell. It includes a beautiful table with eight rows containing verbs like "ask", "agree" or "learn" and six colums contaning some prepositions ("about", "after", "for"...). In each cell, a tick appears if the verb in the row can be followed by the preposition in the column. Below the table, there's a big explanation of all those combinations. For example, did you know that you can say "ask after" or "enquire after" and that it's used to get information about a person? I didn't. And of course, I didn't know either that you can't use it to talk about thigs. So you can say, for example, "I'm phoning to ask after Mrs. Brown, who was operated last night". But you can't say "He got angry when they asked after his private life" (instead, you'll use asked about).
That use of "after" is not difficult to understand and remember. The difficulty comes when you try to understand and remember the rest of combinations:
- The most common meaning of "care for" is related to doing the necessary things for someone or something in order to keep them in good health or condition: "Jean cared for her disabled mother until her death last year". But "care for" can also mean "like" (or dislike): "I don't care for the theatre much". But hey! this last use of "care for" is formal, so don't you use in an informal context.
- "Talk on" / "Talk of": I still don't understand the difference, so I'll ask my teacher to explain it to me.
There are a lot more examples, but I won't write about all of them.
What I want to say is that I only knew the most basic combinations and that may be enough for getting the First Certificate in English, but definitely not for the Certificate in Advanced English. I need to improve a lot!!
posted by Tania-chan at 2:27 PM
2 Comments:
I hate English grammar.
I mean... My teacher said that my English is not bad, and I think I manage quite well with it (I should improve a lot anyway, of course, but this will allways be tautologically true). However, I'm convinced that, should you show me any of those exercises, I would fail most of them.
Moreover, when I'm asked to translate something, I usually find a way to do it. But if I'm asked to explain why that particular sentence is correct, or if I'm asked to confirm whether my sentence is correct or some variation would be better, I usually can't explain much. I don't know the rules, I don't use them. They are waaaaay too difficult for me to memorize.
"Preposition madness" is probably the best title you could have chosen :-) But be strong, don't give way, and you'll succeed. Sure.
Tania, I like how you write in English. It sounds natural and funny :)
And about prepositions, adverbs and other grammar subjects... Well, I learned my English thanks to The Legend of Zelda saga so I can only say:
¡Follow the path of the Hero to the Triforce!
(Oh¡ And poor Jean. I hope she isn´t to much depressed...)
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