Verbs and prepositions from "Water Wars: Who Controls the Flow?"

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Prepositions are words which show relationships in space and time, or between people or groups. Common prepositions include short words like in, on, at, to, up, with also through, about, against and others. Sometimes it can be difficult to choose the correct preposition in English. There are a few reasons this can be confusing:

• If English is not your first language, you will find different prepositions are often used; for example, in English we think about things, but in Spanish you think "in/on" something.
• Prepositions do not always mean exactly what they say. For example, when you are "on" the phone, you are not really on it, are you?

• 

   This little boy is literally ON the phone

• English, especially when spoken, is full of phrasal verbs. These are combinations of verbs and prepositions which have a special meaning which is not clearly related to the verb or preposition. For example, "put up with" means "tolerate".

Consider this example:

The word "deplete" can mean "to run out of" where the verb is "run" and the preposition is "out of"

You may find it helpful to check a phrasal verb dictionary for some of the questions in this activity.

• The image "Stepping on the Phone" by Lee Sledd is in the Public Domain, CC0
• Extra Credit: "Fungi" by Johnson Cameraface is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
• Extra Credit: "Diatomee / Diatom (fossile) - Thalassiosira sp." by Picturepest is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
• Extra Credit: "uniform" by Jonathan McPherskesen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
• Extra Credit: "Unicycle" by Gene Bisbee is licensed under CC BY 2.0
• Extra Credit: "Frida Kahlo" by Travis is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0