Prepositions

With this lesson we continue our unit on prepositions.

Welcome to today's lesson. As with all our ESL Help! Desk units, the sentences you see below are contributed by other ESL students in college-level ESL classes.

What's grammatically wrong with this sentence?

Problem:    God helps people who help to themselves.

What's grammatically wrong with this sentence?

Problem:    They didn't let me to answer any of their questions.

   To review the previous lesson, Prepositions Part 1, click here.

Transitive Verbs and Prepositions

 

Many common verbs that take a direct object (i.e. a transitive verb) have a required associated preposition when the object is stated. And many don't.

This is one of the most challenging areas to learners of English.  English may use one preposition and the learner's native language use another; English may not require a preposition whereas the learner's native language does; English may require a preposition whereas the learner's native language does not.

In this lesson we discuss transitive verbs that do not use a preposition when the direct object is stated.

VERBS
   
ask ( ) I came up to my ex-wife and asked her, "Why are you crying?"
discuss ( ) When the students were finished talking about their own vacations, the teacher would discuss hers.
help ( ) Prayer won't help a student if the student didn't help himself.
let ( ) They wouldn't let me bring my dog.
respect ( ) Everyone respects her.
show ( ) Chrisity Brown's life showed us tthat it is important for everyone to have faith in himself.
tell ( ) The guards told me to take my clothes out of my suitcase and to put them on the table.

 

What's grammatically wrong with this sentence?

Problem:   God helps people who help to themselves.
Solution :  God helps people who help themselves.

What's grammatically wrong with this sentence?

Problem:   They didn't let me to answer any of their questions.
Solution:   They didn't let me answer any of their questions.

Next...  Power Edit.

 

We have a Power Edit unit quiz.

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