# English prepositions are difficult for European people?



## taked4700

Hi,

I am a Japanese.  The Japanese language doesn't have prepositions, so it is very hard to learn how to use prepositions in English( prepositions of English, I'm not sure).

Is it difficult for Europian people whose mother tongues have prepositions to learn how to use English prepositions?

Thanks in advance.


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## elirlandes

taked4700 said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am a Japanese.  The Japanese language doesn't have prepositions, so it is very hard to learn how to use prepositions in English ( prepositions of English, I'm not sure).
> 
> Is it difficult for Europ*e*an people whose mother tongues have prepositions to learn how to use English prepositions?
> 
> Thanks in advance.



No it is not. Generally, most european languages have equivalent prepositions.


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## Ynez

Spanish has prepostions, but to learn how to use them in English is really difficult. 

It is not something you can learn by applying several general grammar rules. You need to be in contact with the language for a long time to get familiar with them.


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## JoanTaber

Prepositions seem to have no logic and, as such, they must be learned in context. Misuse of prepositions is often a giveaway that the speaker or writer is not a native. As a native speaker of English, I make many prepositional errors when I speak Italian or Spanish.


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## brian

The very _basic_ (or literal) meanings of prepositions in the Romance & Germanic languages are pretty much the same, so things like _in, out of, on, with, under, _etc. will have the same equivalents in numerous contexts, especially when dealing with physical location.

However, beyond that, getting into less literal territory, _especially_ idiomatic expressions with prepositions as well as English phrasal verbs,* things get a lot more difficult. There are a ton of examples, but I don't think it's necessary to provide them.

*granted, in phrasal verbs I suppose they are often adverbs and not prepositions.


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## taked4700

I don't know a bit of German or French or some other European languages.  So, it is difficult for me to express my question, but let me try now.

My question:

1. Let me suppose German word of 'in' is 'Gin' and box is 'Gbox', the is 'Gthe'. 

2. The equivalent of 'in the box' is 'Gin Gthe Gbox'.

3. But in German, "I'm interested in music." is not "GI'm Ginterested Gin Gmusic." but you use other preposition than 'Gin' in this context.

Is this what you think makes learning other European languages difficult?


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## brian

Exactly.

Using your example:

English _I am in the house_ would use _"Gin"_ (it's actually _in_ in German, too). This is because this is the basic, literal, and physical meaning of _in_.

But _I am interested in music_ would use _"Gfor"_ (German _für_). This is because _in_ in this context is more idiomatic, less literal.

So I imagine that it's difficult for Europeans to learn English because of the many, many idiomatic uses of prepositions in English, just as it's difficult for English speakers to learn the idiomatic uses of prepositions in other European languages.


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## jmx

taked4700 said:


> I am a Japanese. The Japanese language doesn't have prepositions, so it is very hard to learn how to use prepositions in English( prepositions of English, I'm not sure).


Japanese doesn't have prepositions, but it has postpositions (usually called _particles_), which basicly do the same function. To know when to use -_de_ or -_to_, -_wa_ or -_ga_, etc. can get very difficult; the exact particle to be used often depends on the particular verb in the sentence, and the same happens in european languages and most probably in all languages in the world.


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## chics

Prepositions in English are very different from ones in Latin languages so, for European who speak native languages they are as difficult as to Japaneses.


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## Outsider

taked4700 said:


> I am a Japanese.  The Japanese language doesn't have prepositions, so it is very hard to learn how to use prepositions in English( prepositions of English, I'm not sure).
> 
> Is it difficult for Europian people whose mother tongues have prepositions to learn how to use English prepositions?


It's probably much easier than for a Japanese speaker, because there are indeed many correspondences between European languages. Nevertheless, correspondences between prepositions are never at the 100% level.

As a native speaker of Portuguese, I have trouble with the distinction between _on_ and _in_. Often, we will use the same word (_em_) for both situations in my language. _At_ can be a problem sometimes as well; we do have an equivalent to it (_a_), but in English it's often used where we would use _em_ (in/on) instead.

Another problem is that prepositions show up in many set phrases, like those dreaded phrasal verbs.  There, the meaning of a preposition is frequently not literal, or only very vaguely literal, and we usually don't have the same construction in Portuguese. Many of those expressions we must learn one by one. With time, you begin to have an "ear" for how many of those phrases are built, but I expect this happens with Japanese speakers learning English, too.


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## Forero

Knowing Spanish prepositions does not equate to knowing French prepositions, or even Portuguese ones.  Knowing English prepositions does not qualify a person to know German ones, nor vice versa.  Preposition problems even happen between American English and British English, e.g. _different from_/_than_ vs. _different to_, _around_ vs. _about_/_round_.

I agree with Brian8733 about literal meanings as opposed to idiomatic combinations. Even when languages differ fundamentally on what spatial relationships need different prepositions, the literal spatial meanings are generally easy to learn, but whether a combination works or doesn't with _with_ or _of_, and what the meaning might be has no apparent rhyme or reason.


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## effeundici

We cannot forget that, wheter you are Italian, German, English or Portuguese, at least you _feel_ that at that paarticular moment you need a preposition. You don't know which one, but you know that one is needed.

I think a Japanese may even not realize that a preposition is needed.

_A preposition?? What's a preposition???_

{I think the same should be for Arabic speakers when they are taught for the first time about 2 very strange and useless verbs used in European languages *: to be* and *to* *have* !!!!}

_Edit: Now I understand why a chinese guy,this morning, asked to me (in Italian) : where is train Rome?_


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## jonquiliser

I think most uses of prepositions are idiomatic. I mean, why do you arrive _at _an airport but _in_ Britain? And why not use _to_ in either case? 

The usefulness of being familiar with prepositions from your native language is that you know they're complicated and have a certain acceptance of their arbitrariness. But you can't transfer them from one language to another. Even if I speak Swedish, which probably has about as many prepositions as English, it doesn't help me to pick the right preposition in English. Only enough exposure to English (like listening or reading; grammar rules seldom do this work, not for me at least) can give you that feel for what is "right". And even then, don't be too sure . At least in Swedish regional varities can be considerable, and natives themselves often doubt what is considered "standard" - or even what they would themselves spontaneously use. It happens to me rather frequently .


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## Kevin Beach

It doesn't help that there is not always agreement among native speakers about which preposition to use.

For example, "from", "to" and "than" are all used after "different", to mean the same thing. Some believe that "from" is the only correct preposition, but the others are also used by many educated speakers.


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## effeundici

jonquiliser said:


> I think most uses of prepositions are idiomatic. I mean, why do you arrive _at _an airport but _in_ Britain? *And why not use to in either case?*
> .


 
I think because this verb comes from Latin _ad-ripare_ ==> _to get ashore_

So:

_{I went ashore} at the airport_
_{I went ashore} in Britain_


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## palomnik

jmartins said:


> Japanese doesn't have prepositions, but it has postpositions (usually called _particles_), which basicly do the same function. To know when to use -_de_ or -_to_, -_wa_ or -_ga_, etc. can get very difficult; the exact particle to be used often depends on the particular verb in the sentence, and the same happens in european languages and most probably in all languages in the world.



Quite right, Japanese has postpositions.  However, there are relatively few postpositions in Japanese, and in my experience they tend to be more "logical" than ones in European languages, in general.  Europeans have trouble deciding when to use _de_ and _ni_, but aside from that it's not too complicated.

The real confusion, in my opinion, for Japanese students learning European languages (and also for European students learning Japanese) is that whereas European languages have a plethora of prepostions, each with its own nuance, Japanese tends to use participles, participles with  postpositions, or nouns with postpositions in situations where western languages use prepositions, such as _ni tsuite _for "about", _ato de _for "after", etc.

Of course, western languages do this too, with words or phrases like "concerning", "debido a", "благодаря" functioning essentially like prepositions, but my impression is that Japanese does this more extensively than European languages do.


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## ExMax

In Russian language we can use only one preposition "в" for English "in", "to", "into" "at","inside" (often), "on" (often),  sometimes "for". Therefore, there is quite difficult problem of correct usage of appropriate English prepositions for native Russian speakers, and a cramming/hard studying is the only way for that. 
Although Japanese particles are rather special thing to study too.


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## Valeria Mesalina

The trouble for us Spaniards is basically that English has more prepositions than Spanish.

The Spanish preposition "de" may be "of", "from". The Spanish preposition "en" may be "in", "at", "on", "into". The Spanish preposition "a" may be "to", "for"... and so on.

And of course there is the nightmare: get up, get on, go up, pick up, stay ups...


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## Wilma_Sweden

jonquiliser said:


> At least in Swedish regional varities can be considerable, and natives themselves often doubt what is considered "standard" - or even what they would themselves spontaneously use. It happens to me rather frequently .


Hehe, sure, we had a 14-post thread last February in the Nordic forum just trying to decide what preposition to use in Swedish for picking someone up *at* the airport... 

So yes, the only advantage we have is knowing that there should be a preposition, but picking the right English one is a different matter! 

/Wilma


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## Argónida

taked4700 said:


> Hi,
> Is it difficult for Europian people whose mother tongues have prepositions to learn how to use English prepositions?
> 
> Thanks in advance.


 
Hi!

The use of English prepositions is difficult to learn. And phrasal verbs are really a nightmare!


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## Outsider

I've read somewhere that Nordic languages also have phrasal verbs. I wonder if they're a little easier to learn for them...


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## effeundici

Ah phrasal verbs!! Did you know that Italian is the only Romance language very rich in phrasal verbs?? 

How strange!!! It took centuries to make all those Latin phrasal verbs compact and now we are creating dozens of new ones!!!


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## Wilma_Sweden

Outsider said:


> I've read somewhere that Nordic languages also have phrasal verbs. I wonder if they're a little easier to learn for them...


This is true. The problem, again, is that we don't always use the same prepositions as in English even when the verbs/expressions are direct cognates. On the other hand, awareness of phrasal verbs is probably a great advantage. I have no idea whether Scandinavian English learners avoid phrasal verbs or use them to a greater extent than students without prior experience of phrasal verbs. It might well depend on their prior knowledge of Romance languages, which may tip the balance in favour of English Latinate vocabulary and away from Germanic phrasal verbs.

/Wilma


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## sound shift

Outsider said:


> I've read somewhere that Nordic languages also have phrasal verbs. I wonder if they're a little easier to learn for them...


I suspect they are. In this forum, native speakers of a Germanic language post very few questions about English phrasal verbs. Dutch, for instance, has something similar. "De wedstrijd *valt uit*": literally, "the match falls out", but a correct translation would be "the match has been cancelled".


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## Outsider

And there's a similar phrasal verb in English, nonetheless, *to fall through*...


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## Wilma_Sweden

sound shift said:


> In this forum, native speakers of a Germanic language post very few questions about English phrasal verbs.


That's pretty much what I would suspect. The other question is whether we use them actively in speech/writing or try to circumvent/get around(?)/dodge the issue... 

/Wilma


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## sound shift

Wilma_Sweden said:


> That's pretty much what I would suspect. The other question is whether we use them actively in speech/writing or try to circumvent/get around(?)/dodge the issue...
> 
> /Wilma


And what is the answer?


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## brian

I'm sure it depends on a lot of factors, and especially on the person.

The _concept_ of phrasal verbs, and how to use them, is most likely pretty easy for a native speaker of a Nordic (or Germanic or whatever) language, but that doesn't mean that learning them in a given language, like English, isn't difficult and time-consuming.

It's one thing to see a phrasal verb (in any language) and understand what's going on--I could do that myself with the Dutch example, and I don't speak Dutch--but it's another thing to learn the phrases, how exactly they are used and in what contexts, and what the relationships between the expressions are, if any.


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## Sepia

Proper use of prepositions ist difficult - in any language, providing they have prepositions.

Why? Simply because there are very few rules - sometimes prepositions are not even used the same in different dialects of the same language, or in languages that otherwise have a very strongsimilarity.

I even know an award winning literary translator who translates from Danish into High German and teaches, or at least used to teach Danish, and his use of the prepositions in Danish is very far from perfect.




Wilma_Sweden said:


> That's pretty much what I would suspect. The other question is whether we use them actively in speech/writing or try to circumvent/get around(?)/dodge the issue...
> 
> /Wilma


 

We have a lot of them in German, so maybe, for this reason, many students of English underestimate the problem.


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## jonquiliser

Wilma_Sweden said:


> Hehe, sure, we had a 14-post thread last February in the Nordic forum just trying to decide what preposition to use in Swedish for picking someone up *at* the airport...
> 
> So yes, the only advantage we have is knowing that there should be a preposition, but picking the right English one is a different matter!
> 
> /Wilma



Ah yes I remember that discussion . 

As for phrasal verbs, I guess pretty much the same goes for learning them. But I do think it comes more naturally to speakers of Germanic languages to use them, they just seem... natural . Though they can of course be used incorrectly, or uses vary.


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## asm

Prepositions are tricky and difficult almost by definition. These words don;t have real meaning so they are not easy to deal with.
I think they are difficult even for native speakers. As Spanish speaker I have trouble with in/on (I still believe there are some incongruencies, but ...)





taked4700 said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am a Japanese. The Japanese language doesn't have prepositions, so it is very hard to learn how to use prepositions in English( prepositions of English, I'm not sure).
> 
> Is it difficult for Europian people whose mother tongues have prepositions to learn how to use English prepositions?
> 
> Thanks in advance.


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## Valeria Mesalina

sound shift said:


> And what is the answer?


 
The answer is, or was when I was a student, that all of us confused students of English tried to use as many long words of Latin origin as we could; and consequently our teachers lowered our grades as much as they could too so as to blackmail us into using the dreaded prepositions and the even more dreaded phrasal verbs.

But it is hard for a foreigner to understand why one fills in a form by filling it out.


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## Outsider

On the plus side, it makes English a great language to make puns. Especially since many phrasal verbs have multiple meanings, some unexpectedly naughty. Remember that series of English pictures called _Carry On_? 

Another positive thing about phrasal verbs is that they can convey very expressive visual images.


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## Wilma_Sweden

sound shift said:


> And what is the answer?


Personally I don't wear myself out looking up phrasal verbs in the dictionary...

/Wilma


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## trance0

English prepositions and phrasal verbs seem to be the most difficult part of the English grammar. I speak a Slavic language and find English use of prepositions and especially its phrasal verbs quite foreign.


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## Sepia

trance0 said:


> English prepositions and phrasal verbs seem to be the most difficult part of the English grammar. I speak a Slavic language and find English use of prepositions and especially its phrasal verbs quite foreign.



Isn't that a two-way street?


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## trance0

I guess you could say this, but I think there are fewer prepositions in Slovene and phrasal verbs as such don`t really exist in my native language. However, we do have cases and declensions and most verbs come in pairs(perfective/imperfective), but in all I think there are fewer idioms in Slovene than in English.


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## DigitalepurpureA

Prepositions are really common in the European languages... If Leolatin languages are difficult for their variety of verbal tenses, Germanic are for prepositions and phrasal verbs... The only thing is that I don't try to understand them I just practice to understand when they have to be used =)


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## Jacobtm

effeundici said:


> Ah phrasal verbs!! Did you know that Italian is the only Romance language very rich in phrasal verbs??
> 
> How strange!!! It took centuries to make all those Latin phrasal verbs compact and now we are creating dozens of new ones!!!



When I was learning Italian, it actually seemed very simmilar to English in many ways that Spanish/Portuguese doesn't, and that could've definately contributed to it. "Lo amo da morire"

And also like English (in general, not specifically), you're all crazy with your prepositions. A/in will never make sense to me...

Let's go to the...

Andiamo in biblioteca (library)
Andiamo al cine (movies)
Andiamo in pallestra (gym) 
Andiamo al museo (museum)

Sono un pazzo, o i Italiani?


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## Chaska Ñawi

Since posts to this thread have been drifting farther and farther from the original question, this thread is now closed.

Thank you for your understanding.


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