Prepositions & collocations¶
At a glance
Priority: P0 · Complexity: ⅗ · Est. time: 2 h · Phase: 1 · Prereqs: none (see also collocations & precision, phrasal verbs) You're done when: you can produce the correct preposition for 40 work verbs/nouns/adjectives from memory and you have a personal "preposition trap" list of your 15 most frequent errors.
Why it matters¶
Prepositions in English are largely lexical: they are attached to specific words, and there is no reliable logical rule ("discuss about" is wrong, "talk about" is right, and both mean the same). Fluent speakers transfer prepositions from their first language ("depend from", "explain me", "different than/of", "emphasize on"). Each error is small; together they make a Staff-level document feel unpolished. Because it is memorisation, the efficient method is chunk learning: store the verb with its preposition and a work example, and review by spaced repetition.
Core concepts¶
Three layers of preposition knowledge¶
- Time and place prepositions (rule-based): at / on / in.
- Dependent prepositions (lexical): verb/noun/adjective + fixed preposition (rely on, a solution to, responsible for).
- Prepositional phrases / fixed expressions (in production, on call, at risk, by design, under review).
Time: at / on / in / by / for / since / during / within¶
| Preposition | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| at | Clock time, points, night | at 09:30, at midnight, at the end of the sprint, at that point |
| on | Days and dates, specific occasions | on Monday, on 3 March (US: on March 3), on the day of the release |
| in | Months, years, quarters, longer periods; "after a period" | in Q3, in 2027, in the morning, "ready in two days" (= after two days) |
| by | Deadline: no later than | "Submit by Friday", "by end of day (EOD)" |
| until / till | Continuing up to a time | "We freeze until Friday" (freeze continues) vs "We freeze by Friday" (freeze starts no later than) |
| for | Duration | "for three weeks", "for a long time" |
| since | Start point, continuing to now (perfect tenses) | "since 2022", "since the last release" |
| during | Throughout/at some point in an event | "during the incident", "during the review" |
| within | Not longer than | "within 24 hours", "within budget", "within scope" |
| from ... to / through | Range; US through is inclusive | "Monday through Friday" (US) vs "Monday to Friday" (UK) |
| over / across | A span with change | "over the past year", "across three sprints" |
| on time / in time | on time = punctual; in time = early enough | "The train was on time" / "We shipped in time for the audit" |
| at the end / in the end | at the end (of) = last point; in the end = eventually | "At the end of the call..." / "In the end, we rolled back." |
Fluent-speaker traps: "in Monday" (no: on Monday); "since three weeks" (no: for three weeks); "during three days" (no: for three days); "until" vs "by" confusion in deadlines; "within" vs "in" ("in 24 hours" = after 24 hours, "within 24 hours" = at most 24).
Place and abstract place: at / in / on / to¶
| Pattern | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| in + enclosed or large area | in the office, in Rotterdam, in the cloud, in the repo, in the pipeline | |
| on + surface, platform, channel, list | on the roadmap, on Slack, on the call, on the agenda, on GitHub, on AWS | on for platforms and services. |
| at + point/event | at the office (as a location), at a conference, at the meeting, at scale | "at" points; "in the meeting" = in the room. Both accepted. |
| to + destination | "Send it to Anna", "deploy to production", "migrate to Postgres" | Never "arrive to" (arrive in a city, at a place). |
| Motion verbs | "reach the goal" (no preposition), "enter the room" (no prep), "attend the meeting" (no prep), "join the call" |
Dependent prepositions: verbs (work set)¶
| Verb + preposition | Example | Common error |
|---|---|---|
| agree with (a person/statement) / agree on (a decision) / agree to (a proposal) | "I agree with Priya; we agreed on Friday; I can agree to that." | "agree in" |
| apply for (a job/funding) / apply to (a person/thing) / apply (a rule) | "We applied for a grant"; "The rule applies to all services." | "apply on" |
| approve of (an opinion) / approve (a request, no prep) | "She approved the change." | "approve of the PR" is uncommon |
| arrive at/in | "arrive at the airport/in Hamburg" | "arrive to" |
| ask for (request) / ask about (inquire) | "ask for approval", "ask about the timeline" | "ask to" + noun |
| blame X for Y / blame Y on X | "They blamed the team for the outage." "They blamed the outage on the team." | "blame to" |
| comment on | "comment on the design" | "comment about" (acceptable but less common) |
| compare X with/to Y | "compare this with last quarter" | |
| complain about/of | "complain about latency" | "complain for" |
| consist of | "The stack consists of three layers." | "consist in/from" |
| contribute to | "contribute to the codebase" | "contribute in" |
| count on | "I'm counting on you." | |
| depend on | "It depends on the SLA." | "depend from/of" |
| differ from | "This differs from the previous design." (adj: different from/to (UK)/than (US, often before a clause)) | |
| discuss (no prep) | "discuss the plan" | "discuss about" |
| emphasize (no prep) / put emphasis on | "emphasize the risks", "put emphasis on risk" | "emphasize on" |
| explain X to Y | "explain the change to the team" | "explain me", "explain about" |
| focus on | "focus on outcomes" | "focus in/at" |
| implement (no prep) | "implement the feature" | "implement to" |
| insist on | "insist on a review" | |
| invest in | "invest in tooling" | |
| join (no prep) / participate in | "join the call", "participate in the review" | "join to", "participate at" |
| lead to / result in / result from | "This led to an outage / resulted in an outage; the outage resulted from a bug." | Direction confusion for result in/from. |
| listen to | "listen to feedback" | "listen feedback" |
| look at / look into / look for / look after | "look at the logs; look into the issue (investigate); look for a vendor; look after the team" | |
| object to | "object to the proposal" | |
| rely on | "rely on retries" | "rely from" |
| reply to / respond to | "reply to the thread" | "reply the email" |
| report to / report on | "report to the VP"; "report on progress" | |
| search for | "search for the root cause" | "search the root cause" (the direct object is the place: search the logs for errors) |
| suffer from | "suffer from flaky tests" | |
| think about/of | "think about scaling", "think of a solution" | |
| wait for | "wait for approval" | "wait approval", "wait to" |
| worry about | "worry about costs" | |
| belong to | "belongs to the platform team" | "belong in" |
| provide X with Y / provide Y for X | "provide teams with tooling" | |
| convert X into/to Y | "convert requirements into tickets" | |
| transition from X to Y |
Nouns¶
| Noun + preposition | Example |
|---|---|
| an answer / a solution / a response / a reply to | "a solution to the problem" |
| an approach to / an approach for (less common) | "our approach to migration" |
| access to | "access to the repository" |
| an advantage of / over ; a benefit of / to | "the advantage of caching", "an advantage over competitors" |
| a cause of / a reason for / the reason why | "the cause of the outage", "the reason for the delay" |
| a change in / to | "a change in demand (in a value); a change to the schedule (a modification)" |
| a decrease / increase / rise / fall in | "an increase in latency" (in), "an increase of 20%" (of) |
| demand for | "demand for GPUs" |
| an example of | |
| an impact on / effect on | "the impact on customers" (not "impact to" in formal writing; "impact to" is common in US tech but frowned on by editors) |
| an increase in / of | see above |
| influence on/over | |
| an investment in | |
| a lack of | "a lack of clarity" |
| the need for | "the need for automation" |
| a problem with | "a problem with the deployment" |
| a relationship with/between | |
| a solution for/to | "a solution to a problem"; "a solution for a customer" |
| a reduction in | "a reduction in errors" |
| a trade-off between X and Y | "trade-off between speed and safety" |
| the difference between X and Y | (not from) |
| in charge of / in favour of / in response to / in terms of / in line with | fixed phrases |
Adjectives¶
| Adjective + preposition | Example | Trap |
|---|---|---|
| accountable / responsible for (a thing) to (a person) | "accountable to the board for delivery" | |
| aware of | "aware of the risk" | "aware about" |
| capable of | "capable of handling 10k RPS" | "capable to" |
| committed to (+ -ing) | "committed to reducing costs" | "committed to reduce" |
| concerned about/with | "concerned about latency" | |
| critical / key / essential to (or for) | "critical to success" | |
| dependent on | "dependent on a vendor" | "dependent from" |
| different from | different than (US before a clause), different to (UK) | |
| familiar with (a thing) / familiar to (a person) | "familiar with Terraform"; "The pattern is familiar to me." | |
| good/bad at (an activity) / good for (a purpose) / good with (people/tools) | "good at estimating", "good for prototyping" | |
| interested in | "interested on" | |
| keen on / keen to | "keen on the idea", "keen to start" | |
| responsible for | ||
| satisfied / happy / pleased with | "pleased with the result" | |
| similar to | "similar with" | |
| sensitive to / to | "sensitive to latency" | |
| skilled at / in | ||
| subject to | "subject to approval" | |
| used to + noun/-ing | "used to on-call" | vs used to do (habit) |
| worried / anxious / nervous about | ||
| tired of / bored with / fed up with | ||
| typical of | ||
| prone to | "prone to failure" |
-ing after prepositions¶
After a preposition the verb takes -ing (gerund): "focus on reducing costs", "committed to shipping", "the risk of missing the date", "instead of rewriting", "look forward to hearing from you" (to is a preposition here). Exception: no infinitive after a preposition (except but/except and a few fixed cases).
Collocation as a system¶
A collocation is a pair or group of words that native speakers combine by convention. Learn them in chunks by type:
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Verb + noun | make a decision, raise a concern, reach consensus, meet a deadline, run a test, address an issue |
| Adjective + noun | heavy load, tight deadline, strong case, viable option, steep learning curve |
| Adverb + adjective | highly available, fully managed, deeply nested, widely adopted |
| Noun + noun | a decision framework, a risk register, a deployment window |
| Verb + preposition | rely on, comply with, adhere to |
| Preposition + noun (fixed) | in production, at risk, on hold, under review, by design, out of scope |
Method: when you learn a word, also note (a) what verb pairs with it, (b) its adjective, © its preposition. Use ozdic.com or an Oxford/Cambridge dictionary entry to check. See collocations & precision for numbers and data.
"Different from / than / to", "compared to/with", "based on"¶
- different from is the safest everywhere. Different to is UK informal; different than is US and natural before a clause ("different than it was last year").
- compare with = examine similarities and differences; compare to = liken ("compared to a monolith, microservices...") but both are used interchangeably in practice; compared with/to at the start of a sentence is fine.
- based on (not "on the basis of" unless you want formal) and due to (noun-cause: "The delay was due to a bug") vs because of (adverbial: "We were late because of a bug").
Resources¶
| Resource | Type | Why this one | Level | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxford Learner's Dictionaries | dictionary | Entries show the pattern ("rely on sb/sth") in bold and example sentences. | all | free |
| Cambridge Dictionary | dictionary | "Common learner error" boxes are directly aimed at preposition mistakes. | intermediate | free |
Ozdic: Online collocation dictionary  |
dictionary | Lists collocates of any word; the fastest way to check verb + noun pairs. | intermediate-advanced | free |
| Just The Word |
tool | Collocation search from a corpus; shows frequency, useful to settle in/on. | advanced | free |
| Michael McCarthy & Felicity O'Dell, English Collocations in Use (Advanced) | book | Topic-organised, exercises with keys; includes business and tech contexts. | intermediate-advanced | paid |
| Martin Hewings, English Grammar in Use (Advanced) / Murphy, English Grammar in Use | book | Units on prepositions and dependent prepositions. | intermediate | paid |
| English-Corpora.org (COCA) | tool | Query "impact on" vs "impact to" and check the real spread. | advanced | freemium |
| Google developer documentation style guide | style guide | Shows how a large engineering org phrases documentation, useful for "in/on/at" usage in tech. | intermediate | free |
Hands-on lab (45-60 min)¶
- Trap list. Look at your last 20 sent emails or Slack posts. Highlight each verb/noun/adjective + preposition. Check each against the Oxford Learner's dictionary. List every mismatch. That is your personal trap list.
- Flashcard set. Create 30 cards in the format
rely ___ retries → onwith a work sentence. Include 10 from your trap list. Review with spaced repetition over 14 days (Anki or a simple Leitner box). - Ozdic drill. For five nouns you use daily (decision, risk, deadline, incident, trade-off), look up verb collocates and write one real sentence per pairing.
- Corpus check. In COCA, compare "different from / than / to" frequency and "impact on / to".
- Write a paragraph (150 words) about your current project using at least 10 dependent prepositions; have someone or a tool check it.
Questions¶
L1 - Recall¶
Q1. Give the correct preposition: (a) depend ___ the SLA; (b) responsible ___ the migration; © a solution ___ the problem; (d) an increase ___ latency; (e) an increase ___ 20%.
Answer
(a) on; (b) for; © to; (d) in; (e) of. In introduces the thing that changes; of the amount.
Q2. Which of these are correct? \"discuss about the plan\", \"emphasize on quality\", \"explain me the design\", \"we agreed on the date\", \"attend to the meeting\"
Answer
Only "we agreed on the date" is correct. Correct forms: discuss the plan, emphasize quality (or put emphasis on quality), explain the design to me, attend the meeting (attend to means "deal with").
Q3. What is the difference between \"by Friday\" and \"until Friday\"?
Answer
By Friday = no later than Friday (a deadline). Until Friday = continuing up to Friday (duration). "Submit by Friday", "The freeze lasts until Friday."
Q4. After \"look forward to\", \"committed to\" and \"focus on\", do you use the infinitive or -ing? Why?
Answer
-ing. In each phrase to/on is a preposition, and prepositions take a noun or gerund: "look forward to hearing", "committed to shipping", "focus on reducing".
L2 - Apply¶
Q5. Correct the errors: \"We discussed about the outage during two hours and the CTO asked to us about the root cause. We depend from a third-party vendor and we are aware about the risk.\"
Answer
"We discussed the outage for two hours and the CTO asked us about the root cause. We depend on a third-party vendor and we are aware of the risk." (Discuss takes no preposition; during + a measure of time is wrong, use for; ask someone about; depend on; aware of.)
Q6. Fill: \"I'm not familiar ___ this framework, but the concept is familiar ___ me from a previous project. Our team is capable ___ handling the load, but prone ___ alert fatigue, so we're committed ___ reducing noise.\"
Answer
familiar with; familiar to me; capable of handling; prone to alert fatigue; committed to reducing. Familiar with = you know it; familiar to = it is known to you.
Q7. Choose in / on / at: (a) ___ Q4; (b) ___ the roadmap; © ___ scale; (d) ___ the call (attending); (e) ___ the airport; (f) ___ 9:30.
Answer
(a) in Q4; (b) on the roadmap; © at scale; (d) on the call; (e) at the airport; (f) at 9:30.
Q8. Rewrite with the right preposition or structure: \"The delay was resulted from a wrong estimation, and it will result to customers complain.\"
Answer
"The delay resulted from an incorrect estimate, and it will result in customer complaints." Result from = cause; result in = effect; the original also had wrong verb forms and complain (verb) instead of complaints (noun).
L3 - Judge and choose¶
Q9. \"Different from\", \"different to\" and \"different than\": which do you pick in a globally distributed team, and when is than clearly better?
Answer
Different from is safe in both varieties and formal writing. Different than is natural in American English before a clause ("Prod behaves differently than it did in staging" / "It's different than what we expected"), where "different from what" is longer. Different to is British; avoid it in a document with US readers, though it is not an error.
Q10. \"The impact to customers\" vs \"the impact on customers\": which do you write in a postmortem and why?
Answer
Impact on customers is the traditional and safe form; many editors treat impact to as jargon. In US tech and incident vocabulary impact to is widespread and understood, so it is not "wrong", but if you write for a mixed or formal audience, choose on. Use affect or effect on if you want to avoid the debate. Consistency within a document matters more than the choice.
Q11. \"Reply the email\", \"reply to the email\" and \"respond the email\": which are correct?
Answer
Only reply to the email and respond to the email (both need to). "Reply" can also be intransitive ("I'll reply tomorrow") or take a quotation ("'Yes,' he replied").
Q12. \"We're moving from Oracle to Postgres\" / \"We're migrating off Oracle onto Postgres\": what nuance does each carry?
Answer
Move from X to Y is neutral. Migrate off X onto Y is idiomatic in engineering speech and stresses leaving X (motivation to escape) and landing on Y (platform). "Off" is informal-professional. Neither is an error; prefer from...to in formal documents.
L4 - Real-world decisions¶
Q13. You are reviewing a junior colleague's RFC full of preposition errors. How do you give feedback that is useful and not demoralising, and what do you actually fix?
Answer
Fix errors that change meaning or look careless in a document that many people will read (depend from, discuss about, the by/until deadline confusion, result in/from direction). Ignore or leave alone the ones that are only stylistic (different to/than). Give a short pattern list ("here are the 5 patterns I corrected; there are also...") rather than a full markup, and link a resource. Pair that with a comment on the content first, so the language note is not the headline. Non-native reviewers' comments should also be normalised: you can share your own trap list to reduce the stigma.
Q14. A stakeholder email asks: \"Can you confirm the deployment will be done until Monday?\" You know the intended meaning is a deadline. How do you reply without correcting them in an awkward way?
Answer
Echo the correct form naturally: "Yes, the deployment will be done by Monday." Mirroring is unobtrusive and models the correct form. Only if a misunderstanding is possible (until Monday = through Monday, could mean it runs to Monday) do you ask explicitly: "Just to confirm: complete no later than Monday morning, correct?"
Q15. You need to state a deadline for a global team without ambiguity. Compare \"within 24 hours\", \"in 24 hours\", \"by EOD Friday\", \"by 17:00 CET Friday\".
Answer
Within 24 hours = at most 24 hours from now (clear). In 24 hours = after 24 hours (a future point), often read as the same, so avoid. By EOD Friday is ambiguous across time zones ("whose EOD?"). By 17:00 CET Friday (or with a UTC time) is unambiguous. Use the last one for cross-region commitments.
Real-world use cases¶
- RFC and design-doc review. Prepositions after depend/rely/agree/comment appear in every proposal; consistent editing improves credibility.
- Incident timelines. "At 09:32 the alert fired; by 09:45 traffic had shifted to the DR region; until 10:20 latency remained elevated": at/by/until each carry a distinct meaning.
- SLA language. "Within 4 business hours", "subject to approval", "in accordance with clause 3": legal-flavoured fixed phrases.
- Interview answers. "I was responsible for X, accountable to Y, and contributed to Z" - precise verbs with correct prepositions signal seniority.
- Slack. On the call, on the thread, in the channel, in the doc, on the doc (both are heard; in for content, on for the document as a place): observe and mirror the local norm.
Pitfalls & anti-patterns¶
- Translating prepositions from your first language.
- Learning prepositions in isolation rather than in chunks with a sentence.
- Assuming a preposition is "logical"; it isn't (discuss X vs talk about X).
- Overcorrecting: impact to, different than are debated, not wrong.
- Using until for deadlines and for for points.
- Forgetting that verbs of communication take an indirect object with to (explain, suggest, mention, say, propose, describe X to Y).
- Using since with a duration ("since three weeks").
Checklist¶
- I can produce the preposition for all verbs in the tables above from a cloze.
- I built my personal trap list (15 items) from real emails.
- I created and started reviewing a 30-card chunk deck.
- I can explain by/until, within/in, result in/from, familiar with/to without notes.
- I answered all L3 questions out loud in under 3 minutes each.