Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about how to use the preposition "at." Let's get started.
The first way that I want to talk about in this lesson is using "at" with locations. When we use "at" before a location, it's for places inside cities or places in the countryside. So, we use "at" before a specific location, like for an activity or to describe our position. Some examples are "at the bank," or "at work," or "at the supermarket." So, we could put a simple expression like, "I am at the bank," or "He is at work," or "We are at the supermarket." These expressions all describe a location, our current position. Another very common expression is "at home." "At home." A note about "at home" is that we use "at home" when you are already inside your home. When you are already at home. We do not use "at home" when we're talking about moving to our home. So, for example, when we say something like "I'm going to go home," we do not use a preposition there. We do not say "I'm going to go at home." We do not use it in that way. We use "at home" to describe an object inside our home or to describe our position when we are inside our home. So, we would say, for example, "I'm at home," meaning I am inside my house now. This is much more natural than saying, "I'm in my house." So, usually, we say "I'm at home." Or if, for example, you forget something inside your home and you go to work or school for the day, you might say, "Oh no! I left my wallet at home." So, it refers to something inside your house. So, please note this when you use "at home."
Some other examples, these are kind of more countryside-related. But we say in American English, "I'm at the river." I'm at the river. The reason we use "the river" here is typically because when we are in a town or a city with a river or a couple of different rivers, we can generally guess which river the person means. So, yes, even if there are like maybe two or three rivers in your town or in your city, we tend to use "at the river." So, we're not always super specific about it, even if there are a few different rivers in the place where we live. Another expression you might hear is "at the mountain." At the mountain. This is used when we do mountain-related activities, like skiing or snowboarding. So, if you're on the phone with a friend or texting a friend, you might say, "I'm at the mountain today." You might also use this when you're hiking. You might say like, "I'm hiking at the mountain," though I feel like it's more commonly used with skiing and snowboarding. "I'm hiking at the mountain." You might also hear "in the mountains." Plural. "In the mountains." That tends to be a little bit more commonly used for hiking-related activities, "I'm hiking in the mountains today." Because it sounds like you're going between mountains like there's more than one perhaps. So, we tend to use "in the mountains" more for hiking, "at the mountain" more commonly for ski and snowboard, and other snow-related activities.
So, a note about "at" and "in" is that, sometimes, "in" is also correct, but it refers to being inside a place. So, in many of these example sentences, we absolutely can use "in" instead of "at." So, a lot of questions from viewers are like, "Is it correct to use 'in'?" or "is it correct to use 'at'?" And the answer is yes. They're both correct to use in many cases. The difference is this right here. When we use "in" with one of these locations, like "in the bank" or "in the supermarket," it refers more to being inside the supermarket. If you just want to describe like being, maybe, in front of the supermarket or you're going to enter the supermarket, but you're not inside yet, you want to say "I'm at the supermarket." It's better to use "at." If you want to refer to being inside something, inside a location in a city, you would say "I'm in the supermarket." Like, on the phone, "I'm in the supermarket right now. Do you need anything?" is also totally correct. You could say, "I'm at the supermarket right now." Also totally correct. So, we use it with these kinds of city locations, both "in" and "at." We do not however say, "in work." We don't say "in work." We say "I'm at work" because it's kind of like a condition. Same thing with "home." We don't really say -- we don't say, "I'm in home." You might hear people say, "I'm inside my house," or "I'm inside my home right now." But we don't say "in home." So, you can use "in" with these kinds of places. "I'm in the bank right now." "I'm in the supermarket right now. "I'm in my school right now." So, you might hear it with like building names, and that's totally correct. You can use "at" or "in" in those cases.
A couple of other points. Regarding use of "in" for locations, you can use "in" before city and country name. So, for example, "I'm in Barcelona," or "He's in Switzerland," or "She's in Toronto." So, we do not use "at" in these cases. Like, "He's at Barcelona," we don't use that. Or, "She's at Switzerland." We do not use "at" before city and country names in this way. So, please keep this in mind. Locations inside cities and in the countryside areas, we use "at" to describe those. We use "in" before city and country names.
Okay. Let's continue to the next use of "at." We use at to talk about the time of day. So, this means we use it before the time of a scheduled activity. Some examples. "Let's meet at 2." So, "at" comes before 2. Yes, you can say, "Let's meet at 2 pm," or "Let's meet at 2 o'clock." All of those sentences are correct. We just need to use it before the time expression. Another one. "She arrived at 3:30." "She arrived at 3:30." Again, you can say "half past 3," that's totally fine as well. All of those are correct. This is a past tense action. But, we're still talking about the scheduled activity. Something that happens like according to a schedule, we use "at." Another one, "We left at 10." "We left at 10." So, again, comes before the time expression. One more, "He's going to start the meeting at 9." So, this is a future activity, a future scheduled activity. "He's going to start the meeting at 9". You'll also hear "at night," at night. When we want to talk about something that happens at night, we use "at night." Please note, we do not use "at morning," or "at afternoon," or "at evening." We do not use "at" with these words. We use it for night, "at night." "Something happens at night." "I go to sleep late at night," "Let's meet late at night." So, "at night" is kind of a set expression for you to remember.
A note about the "time of day" portion here. We use "in" in cases like these. But we use "in" before a length of time to show duration. So, you'll notice each of these example sentences, like 10, 9, 3:30, 2, these are not lengths of time. These are specific points in time. Something happens at a specific point in time. When we use "in" before a length of time, it shows how long that activity is going to be. Or, it talks about how long something took in the past. Some examples of this. "Let's meet in two hours." "Let's meet in two hours." This means two hours, from this point in time, let's meet. So, this refers to a duration of time. We are going to meet in two hours. This is the suggestion here. We use "in." We cannot use "at." "Let's meet at two hours," is incorrect. Another example. "We finished the task in 10 minutes." "We finished the task in 10 minutes." That means 10 minutes was the duration of time, the length of time, required to finish the task. "We finished the task in 10 minutes." "At" is incorrect here. Similarly, we cannot use "in" in these cases. "Let's meet in 2," does not refer to meeting at 2 o'clock. We cannot use that in that way. You may, however, hear someone use "in" before a period of time. Like, 2 or 10, or something like that, when they mean 10 minutes. Like, "Let's meet in 5," means "Let's meet in five minutes." Five minutes from now, it follows this pattern. But, this is used in very casual situations where the relationship and the plan is very clear. This is a case where you may hear "in" used before a number. But please keep in mind, it does not refer to a time period, or rather, it doesn't refer to a time, directly. It refers to a time in the future. Usually, 10 minutes. We usually use this expression with minutes. "Let's meet in 5." "Let's meet in 10." "Let's meet in 20," perhaps. It's generally a very short period of time. But, you cannot use "in" in these cases. "She arrived in 3:30," is incorrect. "We left in 10," is incorrect. We do not use it in this way. So, please keep this in mind. "In" is used before a length of time to show duration.
Okay. I want to finish this lesson by looking at some common expressions. Some common expressions that use "at." So, many people ask like, "Why do I use 'at' in this expression? Or, "What's the rule for using 'at'?" So, we have these two big rules that we can think about. But, there are many English expressions that don't have a specific rule. It's just part of a set expression, like "at night." That's just how it is. It's just an expression we use with "at." So, I've chosen some very common expression that you can use with "at," and practice.
First, "at best." At best. "At best" means in the best possible case, in the best possible case. We see "at best" very commonly at the beginning of a sentence. For example, "At best, we have two weeks to solve the problems with our product." "At best, we have two weeks to solve the problems with our product." This means, in the best possible case, we have two weeks. So, this is a short way to say, "In the best possible situation, we can do this." So, we shorten this to "at best," at best.
Another expression is "at all," a very common expression. This is often at the end of a sentence. We use it for emphasis. It means in any way, or to the least degree. So, for example, "I can't speak Chinese at all." "I can't speak Chinese at all." So, this sentence, "I can't speak Chinese," is grammatically correct. "At all" shows emphasis. It means, in any way, I can't speak Chinese. "I can't speak Chinese at all," is much stronger. It's better for emphasis to include this "at all" expression there. So, you'll find this very commonly at the end of a sentence like this. And it often, but not always, has to do with inability to do something or something that's very difficult to do.
Okay. The next expression is "at last." At last. "At last" means finally. Finally. Something you have waited for for a long time or anticipated, been excited about. "At last" means finally. You'll see it very commonly, like alone, in a kind of excited expression. For example, "At last! I saved enough money for a car." "I saved enough money for a car." So, something the speaker was excited about, or something the speaker has been planning for or working towards. We would use "at last" in coordination, together with that expression. So, "At last! Finally, I saved enough money." At last.
Another expression. "At all hours." At all hours. "At all hours" means at any time of day. So, this one is maybe a little clearer to understand. "All hours." That means all hours of the day or at any time of the day. For example, "The customer service phone line is available at all hours." So, you can kind of see that this "at" follows this time of day pattern. It's available at all hours or "My neighbors did something at all hours," "My neighbors were noisy at all hours." So, it's kind of like this pattern, but we use "all hours" here to mean any time of day.
Okay. One final expression is the very common expression, "at any rate." At any rate. This means "anyway" or "regardless." So, this is used typically at the beginning of a sentence, and we often use it when we're kind of contrasting. We're showing like the difference between two points. So, for example, if you're really, really busy at work and you explain to your co-worker, "I'm so busy right now. I have so many things I have to do. But, at any rate, I have to get this report done by tomorrow." That means anyway. So, even though there's all this other stuff, I have to do this. We use "at any rate" to mean "anyway." So, this is a very common use, a very commonly used expression, too, in work situations and in school and study situations. So, it's kind of a nice way to move on from a topic and focus in on something else. So, "at any rate."

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