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Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English 
with Jennifer. Do you like adventure?  

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Have you had some adventures in your life? I'm 
talking about the kinds of experiences that  

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allow you to break from the usual 
routine, place you in new environments,  

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and introduce you to new challenges. Quick story. 
After I graduated from college, I took another few  

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months to complete my teacher training. By then, I 
was feeling a little burned out, so I took a break  

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from academia to figure out my next step, which 
eventually would be graduate school. Between my  

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undergraduate and graduate work, I had a couple 
of adventures in the cruise line industry.

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Let me tell you a bit more about the work I did,  

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and I'll help you develop a stronger 
sense of word order with prepositions.  

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We're going to complete a series of tasks 
that will check and build your understanding.

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Task A. Can you identify all the prepositions?

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One. The first ship sailed to the Bahamas.

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Two. I worked as a youth counselor.

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Three. We had a staff of a dozen counselors or so.

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Four. Long hours on my feet 
were hard, but the work was fun.

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Five. I was also a costume character, and I 
silently greeted passengers behind my mask.

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Here are the prepositions.

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And here are their objects.

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Together they form prepositional phrases, and 
they can function like adverbs or adjectives.  

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These prepositional phrases modify nouns. 
They're descriptive like adjectives.

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These prepositional phrases modify verbs,  

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and they give information such as 
direction and manner, just like adverbs.

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Very often you'll see a prepositional phrase 
towards the end of a clause or a sentence.  

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That's because two very common sentence 
patterns are subject + verb + adverbial

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and subject + verb + object + adverbial.

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But prepositional phrases can have other 
positions. A sentence can start with an adverbial.

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We might have a prepositional 
phrase as part of the subject.

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And prepositional phrases 
can function as complements.

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Task B. Where would you place 
the prepositional phrases?

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Place comes before time, so I can say, "I 
got to relax on the beach in my free time.

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This prepositional phrase marks the time, and 
I can place it in an initial or final position.  

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Within a couple of months, I got a nice dark tan. 
I got a nice dark tan within a couple of months.

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If a place or time marker is important, I may 
choose that initial position to emphasize it.

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A general guideline is that a prepositional 
phrase closely follows the word it modifies.  

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And remember not to separate a transitive verb 
from the direct object. Place a prepositional  

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phrase after the object. So I'll say, "I 
made friends from different countries."

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Remember to keep prepositional phrases 
close to the words they modify.

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When did I leave? I left that job after several 
months. Where did I go? I traveled to Russia.  

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Where did I volunteer? In an orphanage.

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I left that job after several months because I 
wanted to travel to Russia and volunteer in an  

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orphanage. Or I can take the time marker and put 
it in the initial position: After several months,  

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I left that job because I wanted to travel 
to Russia and volunteer in an orphanage.

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I told you we usually state place before time. 
We also tend to place manner before time.  

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Manner, place, time or duration.

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O'll relive those memories 
with a smile for many years.

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Remember we can have a few different 
prepositional phrases in a sentence,  

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but especially when you're writing, look for 
opportunities to be concise. Often a prepositional  

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phrase can be replaced. For example: For many 
years, I'll happily relive those memories.

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Okay. Let's talk about a so-called 
rule that often gets broken.  

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We form a prepositional phrase with a preposition 
and an object. Right? With passengers. On a ship.

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With whatever you want.

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On it.

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But there are times when we separate 
the preposition from its object,  

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and it sounds completely natural. You 
likely already do this in questions.  

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Nobody asks, "To whom do you wish to 
speak?" It's grammatically correct,  

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but it's very formal. In everyday English, 
we ask, "Who do you want to talk to?"

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When we form a question in everyday English, we 
start with a question word, and a preposition  

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will stick close to the verb. What are 
you looking at? What do you need that for?

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This is one reason why it's helpful to 
learn collocations. Collocations are common  

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combinations of words, like "look at something." 
"Need something for something."

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I go over many collocations in 
my playlist on prepositions.

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We also separate a preposition from 
its object in an adjective clause.  

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It's grammatically correct to use a 
preposition before a relative pronoun,  

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but it's only done in formal 
English, mainly in writing.

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The ship on which I sailed catered 
to families with young children.

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The ship I sailed on catered to 
families with young children.

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Can you make this sentence sound 
more like everyday English?  

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The other crew members with whom I became friends 
were from North America, Asia, and Europe.

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The other crew members I became friends with were 
from North America, Asia, and Europe. Notice how  

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I also chose to omit the relative pronoun because 
it's an object pronoun in an identifying clause.  

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You can see my playlist on adjective clauses 
to review how to use a relative pronoun.

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So, sometimes separating a 
preposition from its object  

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is a matter of choice and a matter 
of register: formal or informal.

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With passive verbs, this kind of separation 
is simply the way we word a sentence.  

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We start with the subject, and a 
preposition will stick close to the verb.  

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Some plans are only talked 
about, but never realized.

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What's the subject? Some plans. 
And the verb? Are talked about.

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Changing from active to passive, 
we can make an object the subject.

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But we can't lose the preposition. 
The preposition will stick close to  

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the verb: are talked about. Another 
collocation. Talk about something.

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The subject of the passive 
sentence still receives the action,  

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so the relationship with the 
preposition is still clear.  

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If you need to review passive voice, 
watch my lesson on active vs. passive.

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Try this next short task. 
Make the sentences passive.  

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Change the verbs in bold from active to passive.

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The cruise was paid for before 
the passengers came on board.

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The crystal blue waters of the 
Bahamas are talked about quite a lot.

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By the way, some sources have a name for 
when the preposition is separated from  

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its object. I first learned the term "stranded 
preposition." There's also "deferred preposition."  

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Recently, a viewer asked me about a "dangling 
preposition." So there's a third name. So,  

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we can have stranded, deferred, and dangling 
prepositions in questions, adjective clauses,  

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passive structures, and you'll also see the 
separation in a couple of other situations.

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I can say, "It was too bright to look 
at the white sand on a sunny day.  

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Or I can move "white sand" 
to the front of the sentence  

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and look what happens. The white sand 
was too bright to look at on a sunny day.

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I used fronting to emphasize sand, and as a 
result, I have a stranded preposition: at.

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In that example, I'm also using an infinitive:  

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to look at. When we use infinitives and gerunds, 
we may end up with a stranded preposition.  

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Listen now. Listen for two more 
examples of stranded prepositions.

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Once a passenger chatted with 
me about my future. She was an  

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older woman who had more life experience, 
and she wondered why I was sailing on a ship  

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when I could be pursuing my original passion: 
education. Her words were worth reflecting on.  

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She gave me something to think about. That's 
when I decided to apply to graduate school.

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Her words were worth reflecting on.

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She gave me something to think about.

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Let's look at more examples to review all the 
patterns. Quickly spot the stranded preposition.  

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The second ship I worked on was much smaller.

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The job I was hired for was very different.

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My work as a gift shop purser was 
something I had never prepared for.

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My free evenings were what I waited for all 
day. I was allowed to dance in the ballroom.

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The men I danced with were polite and charming.

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During the day, I went to the 
upper deck of the steamboat.  

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Towns I had only heard of passed before my eyes 
as we sailed up and down the Mississippi River.

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What cities did we stop in? New Orleans, 
Natchez, Vicksburg, Memphis, St. Louis.

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New Orleans is a city worth going back to.

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Note in number eight "go back" is a phrasal 
verb. Sometimes phrasal verbs combine with  

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a prepositional phrase. "To" is a stranded 
preposition. Go back where? To New Orleans.

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Adventure isn't something to long for. Seek it.

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Name a goal you want to work towards.

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Has your understanding of word 
order with prepositions grown?  

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I hope so. One tip is to read. Reading 
exposes you to grammatical structures,  

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and seeing them written gives 
you the chance to process them.  

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Fiction is a good choice because you get a mix 
of literary language and everyday dialogue. We'll  

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end here. Please like the video if you found the 
lesson useful. I hope you have some adventures,  

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and I look forward to having a few more of my own. 
As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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