Saturday, March 2, 2013

Prepositions for Beginners - A Tip

When you first start learning French, you will encounter French prepositions. While English and many languages have prepositions, they are not always used in exactly the same way across languages. What I am trying to say is that in English we might use one preposition to express a specific idea but that in French the preposition used to express the same idea might not be the preposition we expect.

If you are starting to learn French or if you are struggling with French prepositions (I still struggle with them sometimes), you should follow this rule initially: take French prepositions literally. Let me explain what I mean. In English, I could make this statement: "I am one the plane". No English speaker would think much of this and would understand that I boarded an aeroplane to go somewhere. However, if I said this to a French speaker, they would wonder what on earth I was doing on top of a plane and if I would not blow off there. I would therefore never say something like "Je suis sur l'avion" in French even though everyone will tell you that the word "sur" is the French word for "on". It is indeed but, as I said, on literally means "on", at least when you start learning French.

So, remember: if you are not sure which French preposition to use and if you are trying to refer to a specific location, be very literal about it.

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