English Prepositions Study Guide: In, On, At and the Errors Learners Keep Making

Prepositions are short, frequent and almost never translatable word for word, which is why even advanced learners still say depend of or married with. The Flip It deck English Prepositions & Common Errors (deck code FF8039, 79 cards) tackles them the right way: every back gives a meaning plus a model sentence, so you learn the preposition inside a chunk rather than alone.

What's inside the 79 cards

The deck runs in six clean blocks, which makes a natural study plan:

1. Place and movement (cards 1-24): in, on, at, under, over, above, below, between, among, beside, near, behind, in front of, next to, across, through, into, out of, onto, off, toward(s), away from, along, around.
2. Time (25-37): in/on/at for time, for, since, during, by, until, before, after, from, to, within.
3. Abstract relations (38-54): about, of, with, without, by (agent), with (instrument), against, according to, despite / in spite of, because of, instead of, except, besides, unlike, like.
4. Dependent prepositions (55-65): listen to, wait for, depend on, interested in, good at, married to, afraid of, consist of, die of/from.
5. Contrast pairs (66-70): in the end vs at the end, in time vs on time, on TV vs in the newspaper, on the bus vs in the car.
6. Phrasal verbs (71-79): look for, look after, look up, give up, turn on/off, take off, put on, get on/off, run out of.

Sample cards

Two tips specific to this deck

Study the time block as three pairs, not thirteen cards. The errors cluster: for (a length: five years) vs since (a starting point: 2020), by (a deadline: the action happens at or before Friday) vs until (a state that continues up to 5 PM), and in (months, years) vs on (days, dates) vs at (clock times). Add one thing the cards leave implicit: since and for with an ongoing situation want the present perfect (I've lived here since 2020, never I live here since 2020), the classic error for French, Spanish and German speakers.

Rewrite card 55 before you memorise it. It says arrive at for cities and in for countries, but natives say arrive in London as naturally as arrive in France. The real rule: in for cities, regions and countries, at for a specific building or point (at the station, at the airport), and never arrive to. Likewise card 63 could add that British English also accepts different to.

The dependent prepositions (55-65) are where the "Common Errors" of the title actually live, so drill those 11 cards daily until they are automatic, and say each one in a full sentence.

Where to go next

The last nine cards are only a taste of phrasal verbs; continue with 199 English phrasal verbs from get by to put up with, then lock in fixed pairs with English collocations.

Open Flip It at flip-it.app and search for deck FF8039 to start.