Welcome to your “In” / “At” / “On” 3 lesson! In this topic we talk about:
• “In hospital” / “At home” etc.
• “At a party” / “At a concert” etc.
• “In / at buildings”
• “In” / “At” a town
• “On a bus” / “In a car” etc.
Take the quizzes when you’re ready! If you’re having problems, use the comment box to contact our English Teachers.
“In hospital” / “At home” etc.
We say that someone is “in hospital” “in prison” “in jail”:
“My grandmother is in hospital for a check-up.”
We say that someone is “at home” “at work” “at school” “at university”:
“My brother is studying English at university.”
“I’m at work all afternoon, see you tomorrow?“
We also say “at sea” (on a voyage). Compare “at sea” and “in the sea”:
“It was a lovely voyage. We were at sea for three weeks.“
“I don’t like swimming in the sea.”
“At a party” / “At a concert” etc.
We say that someone is “at an event”:
“There were lots of people at the party.“
“Did you have fun at the concert?“
“In / at buildings”
You can often use “in” or “at” with buildings. For example, you can say that you ate “in a restaurant” or “at a restaurant”. You can go shopping “in a supermarket” or “at a supermarket”. We usually use “at” when we say where an event takes place:
“We went to a concert at Wembley Arena.”
“The conference took place at the headquarters.”
We say “at the airport” “at the station”:
“Meet me at the station at four.“
We say “at somebody’s house”:
“There’s a party at James’ house tonight.”
(or “There’s a party at James’ tonight.”)
We say “at the doctor’s”, “at the hairdresser’s” etc:
“I can’t answer the phone, I’m at the doctor’s.“
However, we use “in” when we’re talking about the building itself. Compare these pairs of sentences:
“We stayed the night at a hotel last night.”
“All the rooms in the hotel have air conditioning.““I work at a school in London.”
“It’s always cold in the school.“
“In” / “At” a town
We normally use “in” with countries, villages, towns and cities:
“They all live in Bournemouth.”
“I have lived in Scotland since 2007.”
We use “at” when we think of these places as stops on a journey:
“On the way to London we stopped at Surrey for a coffee.”
“Does this bus stop at Westminster?“
“On a bus” / “In a car” etc.
We normally say “on a bus”, “on a plane”, “on a train”, “on a boat”. But, we say “in a car” “in a taxi”:
“Sorry I didn’t hear my phone, I was on the bus.”
“I dropped my wallet while I was in the taxi.”
“She met her husband on a train.”
We also say “on a bike”, “on a motorbike”, “on a horse”:
“I drove past Bob, he was on his motorbike.”
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