Introduction: Hello, hello. Hey, beautiful people. My name is Foster, I am an English teacher and welcome to the Prepositions Perfection Challenge. Prepositions are difficult, but we're going to make them easy. Prepositions are complicated, we are going to make them simple. Prepositions make most students anxious and nervous. We're going to teach you how to use prepositions with confidence and we're going to have some fun at the same time. So here we go, 30 days of prepositions, let's get started.

Hello, hello. Hey guys and welcome to another episode of the Prepositions Perfection Challenge. Today we are going to continue our conversation talking about prepositions of movement and prepositions of place. And today, we are going to focus on one specific preposition. The preposition BY. 

So, just to clarify before we get started, we are talking about the preposition BY. B - Y. 

And as many of you probably already know, the word "BY" is a homophone in English. A homophone refers to words that have different spellings, so we write them in different ways in English, but we pronounce them in the exact same way. 

So for example, we have the preposition BY, B-Y, which we are going to talk about today. 

And we also have the verb "to buy." Which we write as B-U-Y. For example, "I am going to buy more cheeseburgers during the quarantine."

And we also have the word "bye" like, "goodbye, bye bye." Which is B-Y-E. 

And last but not least, we also have the prefix "BI," B - I, which means two. For example, in the word bicycle. And "BI" B-I, is also common a way to say that someone is bisexual. So, if you are into girls and boys, you can say, “I’m bi.” 

So, all of this is just a long way to say that we have a lot of different versions of BY in English. But today, we are talking about just one of those BYs, which is the preposition B-Y. 

Ok, so one of the most common uses of the preposition BY is when we are talking about how you traveled. For example, what form of transportation did you use to get from point A to point B.

And in these cases, we almost always use the preposition BY. 

For example, 

“I went by car. I went by train. I traveled by plane. Etc.” 

So let’s take a look at some of the most common examples:

You could say something like: 

“The family traveled to Miami by plane.” 

So, how did the family travel to Miami? They traveled BY plane. 

Or we could say something like: 

“I went to work by foot.” 

And when we use the phrase, “by foot,” what we really mean is ‘walking.’ So, essentially, the phrase, “I went to work by foot” is the exact same thing as “I walked to work.” 

But this can be a little bit confusing, especially when you are trying to use direct translations. And this is something that Alexia does all of the time. She says something like, “Ah, do you want to go walking?” And of course, I understand exactly what she means and I say something like, “Oh sure. We can walk. We can go by foot.” Okay?

So, when you have a very strong Brazilian desire to say, “Let’s go walking!” Remember that the correct way to say this in English is, “Let’s go by foot.” 

Ok, so more examples with different forms of transportation. We could say something like:

“The businessman traveled to Paris by train.”

How did the businessman travel to Paris? He traveled to Paris BY train. 

We can also apply this exact same structure and logic to other forms of transportation. For example: 

“Yesterday, I went to the supermarket by bike.” 

So this expression, "I went to the supermarket BY bike.” This is the exact same thing as “I biked to the supermarket.” Or "I rode my bike to the supermarket.” 

And all of these examples are correct, but most of the time, I think the most common way that we say this in English is ‘by bike.’ 

So, when in doubt, when you are talking about HOW you traveled, the form of transportation that you used to get from point A to point B, most of time, you are going to use the preposition BY. By train. By car. By foot. By bike. 

Ok guys, I think that is a good place to stop today. Not too much information so we will have plenty of time to really think about this and really absorb the concept of talking about BY when you're talking about forms of travel.

And just one last note before we finish today, if you are not practicing with these audios, using the training audios, the low-hanging fruit sessions, re-listening and reviewing all of the episodes, I really recommend that you start doing that now. 

Because review is learning. That is how you learn, especially with languages. You see something again and again, you listen to it over and over, and eventually, it becomes second nature. It becomes totally natural. 

So if you have waited to start training, don’t worry, you still have tons of time, but now is a good time to start really training. 

Ok, guys, happy training. Happy prepositions and I will talk to you guys tomorrow.