More problem prepositions arriving…

March 5, 2008 · By admin

(128 votes, average: 3.93 out of 5)

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Question from Cathy in Canada:

Can we say I arrive to work at 9 o’clock or do we need to use “at”? Also can we say I was late to class or do we need to use “in”? Thank you.

Answer:

Hi Cathy, thanks for your question. The worst thing about prepositions is that there are no nice simple rules to let you know how to use them with certain words. Your question, Cathy, demonstrates this. In most cases you just have to learn the prepositions that go with certain words. Let’s look at your two verbs : to arrive and to be late.

‘Arrive‘ can be followed by several prepositions depending on what is following, look at these:

I arrived for work in the morning. (arrive + for where ‘work’ is a task or job to undertake)
I arrived at work in the morning. (arrive + at where ‘work’ is a place)
I arrived in time to see her. (arrive + in time where there is a temporal aspect)

So, in terms of your first question, I would say that you can use ‘for‘ or ‘at‘ depending on what sense you want to give ‘work’ (a place or a task).

Your second question with ‘to be late‘ is a bit different as I don’t think either of your options is correct.

I was late for class.

is the correct usage … late for something.

Hope that’s helped!

Prepositions with arrive and late

11 Responses

hassan

March 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
1

thanks a lot for this help
Aamir Khan

April 29th, 2008 at 5:24 am
2

yes, deffinataly i got completly agreed
with you sir after reading the reply of the
question being asked thanks
atiah

August 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 am
3

what different between house and home and when i can use each word
Charles Svoboda

August 15th, 2008 at 8:21 am
4

Hmmm…the sentence:
“I can’t ______ now, I am late to the _______”,
where “to” is an abbreviation for “going to” or “getting to” is still VERY common in everyday speech, whether completely correct or not.
Angela

October 7th, 2008 at 10:54 am
5

Actually, I think it’s okay to say, “I was late to work.” Or, for another example, “Rats! I’m going to be late to class!” At least, having been a native English speaker my whole 26-year life, I would say that’s okay.
Berenice

October 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
6

The answer is really good, very clear
Michael

November 24th, 2008 at 7:40 am
7

“Late TO something” is particularly American usage (and probably Canadian too). In Bristish English, the original answer is correct: “Late FOR something”. On a similar note, Americans always say “different than” whereas, in British English, it should be “different from”.

Incidentally, Charles Svoboda refers to this text as a sentence: ““I can’t ______ now, I am late to the _______”. In fact, this should be two separate sentences (separated by a full-stop (period) or, preferably, a colon – since the second sentence is adding more information to that in the first sentence). So, in British English, it should be either “I can’t ______ now. I am late for the _______” or “I can’t ______ now: I am late for the _______”.
Hour Ngy

May 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
8

what is different between the word “is going and will”‘
Hour Ngy

May 4th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
9

I want to know how can I save all record from you speaking ?
drini

May 14th, 2009 at 12:44 am
10

Hi can you learn me all the verb tense.
I have same dificult in english grammer.
thanks
john jatai

May 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 am
11

u helped me a lot, thx