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.

Foster: Hello, hello. Hey guys and welcome to another episode, another day of the Prepositions Perfection Challenge. Again, I'm here with my friend, my confidant, my employee, my male guinea pig… Felipe.

Felipe: Hey guys, how is it going?

Foster: There we go. Awesome! So Felipe, to get started today, let me just set the scene. You are a number's person, you like data, you like math. I'm not a number's person. Alexia, definitely not a number's person. One of the big reasons we hired you and you work for us is because you're good with numbers. Is this something that has always been the case for you. Are you just… Were you born a nerd or is this something that has developed through your life?

Felipe: No. I think it was always like that. I always liked math and physics. In fact, in high school, I was in the physics club. Unrelated, but yeah. Never really thought about it but yeah. Since I was a kid, I think just like, numbers made more sense to me, they're exact and I like that. 

Foster: Yeah. Do you think it's still important that we teach math in like, high school and elementary school? 

Felipe: I do, mainly because of critical thinking. So, I remember studying calculus when I was in university and I had to go over these really crazy concepts and theorems. That's how you say it? Theorems? 

Foster: Uh-huh, theorems. Yeah.

Felipe: And I couldn't understand why I was learning that because it was way more than just math, you know? It was a little bit crazy. But then, I understood that learning that and trying to solve problems with that, I would be more of a critical thinker. And after years, I could understand that I'm not using those things but now it helps me do some problem solving. 

Foster: Yeah. So, the math is not the real point. The critically analytic part of your brain that you're developing. Cool, alright. So why are you talking about this? Because Felipe had some questions for me, specifically regarding prepositions and numbers. Or prepositions relating to quantity. So Felipe, where do you want to start? What do you have for me today? 

Felipe: Okay. So, back in the days when I was learning English, I'd use "more or less" a lot. So when I was not certain about something, I'd say "more or less" for everything. And then for numbers, it seems kind of… How do I say "relaxado"? You know like, as if you don't care?

Foster: A little bit more relaxed or almost like a… Yeah. In what sense you're saying you don't care? 

Felipe: You know like, if you ask me "How many people visit our website?" If I say "more or less" for me it just sounds bad. I rather say "around" you know? It seems more exact. 

Foster: It doesn't sound precise. Yeah. 

Felipe: Yes. Exactly. 

Foster: Yeah. So this is an interesting point because a lot of our students do this all of the time. They say "more or less" for emotions, how they're feeling, for numbers, for approximation of any kind. And the bad thing is that I have listened to so much Brazilian English that I've started saying "more or less." Alexia is like, "Is that right?" And I'm like, "Ah, more or less." And my normal English brain would not say that. So something that makes sense but it's not the best way to say it. 

Okay, so you said that a lot in the past. What have you replaced "more or less" with nowadays? 

Felipe: Nowadays I try to use "around" and "about." But I never know when to use which one of those. And we also have "up to" or "circa." I don't even know how to pronounce that. We have a lot of different prepositions. 

Foster: Yeah. These are great. Okay, let's start with probably the two most common, "around" and "about." Do you have any idea what the difference is between the two prepositions "around" and "around"?  When we're talking about numbers, if I say "How many people were at the party last night?" And you say "Around 200 people." Or "About 200 people." What do you think the difference is?

Felipe: I have no idea.

Foster: No clue?

Felipe: For me I'd say more "around" is more precise and "about" is just more like, I don't care if I'm being precise. That's how I feel about these two different words. 

Foster: Yeah. So just a tip, a little life hack for you Felipe. Most of the time, if I ask you, what's the difference between two things and you do not know the difference, that's probably because there is no difference. 

Felipe: Okay. 

Foster: So, if I say "around 2000 people" or "about 200 people." In both cases we're saying more or less, approximately 200 people. I don't know exactly how many people, but around, about is just another way to approximate.

Felipe: Uh-huh. Okay.. 

Foster: Cool. So can you give me an example with the preposition "around" talking about numbers? 

Felipe: Okay. So, "I've been reading ABOUT four or five articles a day."

Foster: Okay.

Felipe: Is that a good example? 

Foster: No such a thing as a bad example. Maybe I would prefer an example where you actually use the preposition in question. So you're saying "I read…" I think you said "I read four or five articles a day."

Felipe: No, I said "about four or five..."

Foster: Oh okay, "about four or five." Okay, I didn't hear the "about." Yeah, that's a good way to do it. I read about 4 or 5 articles a day. Okay. 

You could say the same thing, "I read around 4 or 5 articles a day." And we normally have that little bit of like, we hold on the intonation. Like, "I'm going to leave tomorrow around 2pm." It's like, we don't know exactly so we kind of hold on the "around, about." Yeah, cool. Can you think of one more example of either around or about. 

Felipe: Today I'm gonna work until… That sounds weird, right? Until around… I think it's better to say, "Today I'm gonna finish work around 6 or 7pm."

Foster: Perfect. Yeah, and I think the most natural, the most common way that an American would say this is like, "What time are you getting off work today?" "Today I think I'm gonna get off around 6pm."

Felipe: Okay.

Foster: So that's just full of prepositional magic. "To get off" also means to leave, to stop doing something. "Around"means more or less or approximately. So when we combine all of that together, "I am getting off around 6pm" means I'm going to stop at approximately 6pm. Do you think that's clear for most people? 

Felipe: Yeah, yeah.

Foster: Cool. So when in doubt, when you want to say more or less or you want to say approximately, the most natural way to do this in English is to use the prepositions "about" and "around." And in this context, they're the same. Samesies. Cool, so what's next? 

Felipe: "Up to" and "circa."

Foster: Okay. Up to and circa.

Felipe: Circa… Okay.

Foster: Yeah, give your best paulista do interior. "Circa."

Felipe: Circa. 

Foster: Nice. Okay, so "circa" is a word derived from Latin that also means approximately. We don't use this too often in normal conversational English, but we do use it in writing and like, poetry. Kind of more formal antiquity English. So you could say like, "In the First World War, circa 1918…" You're saying like, approximately or around that year. So, yeah, just another synonym of around and about.

Felipe: Okay.

Foster: Do you know what context you're seeing circa appear?

Felipe: In magazines or old pictures. They say "circa 1800."

Foster: Yeah, that's a fancy way to say about, around. 

Felipe: Okay.

Foster: Nice. So you also mentioned "up to" which we want to avoid direct translations for the most part but, I think this one has a pretty good direct translation. Which I think it would just be até. "Até 500 pessoas, up to 500 people."

Felipe: Okay. 

Foster: Okay. So "up to." Can you think of a situation where you would use that naturally? 

Felipe: Well, with the coronavirus thing you can have gatherings of up to 2 people, right? 

Foster: Perfect. Yeah, I think you can use the coronavirus for most prepositional examples. Yeah, that's perfect. So "up to" is referring to how many or how much of something can you have within a specific context. Pretty easy. Any questions about those Felipe?

Felipe: No.

Foster: No? You good? 

Felipe: Uh-huh. 

Foster: Cool. So one more thing regarding kind of numbers or quantities are the prepositions "over" and "under." So these are things that native English speakers, Americans, we use these all of the time. And I really don't hear too many of our Brazilians students using this, at least in the context of numbers or time. So do you understand if I say, "The traffic is really bad today, it's going to take me over an hour to get home."

Felipe: Uh-huh. It's "more than" right? 

Foster: Precisely. Yeah, so if I say OVER, that means it's going to take more time or more whatever than I was expecting, right? 

Felipe: And something I hear you say quite a bit is when we're talking about UNDER. If I say like, "Hey Felipe, can you work on these four things on our website? Do you think that will take a lot of time?" And a lot of times you say, "Oh, no. I can finish that in under two hours." Which means, "less than" right? 

Felipe: Okay, yeah.  

Foster: So OVER, more time than you expected. UNDER, less time. So can you think of an example for each of those? 

Felipe: So… 

Foster: I know work examples are easy for you.

Felipe: I've been trying to drink under 4 mugs of coffee everyday. 

Foster: Yeah. That's probably a good goal. To limit your caffeine consumption to less than or under 4 cups of coffee a day. Excellent. And the preposition over? 

Felipe: Also, I've been trying to walk over 30 minutes a day. 

Foster: Perfect. Yeah, it's pretty easy. Those are both good goals. Okay, so Felipe, we have AROUND, ABOUT, CIRCA. They all mean approximately. We have UP TO, that means até. We have OVER, more than, UNDER, less than. Any more questions with numbers, prepositions? Anything else on your mind? 

Felipe: No. I think that's it.

Foster: Awesome. Thanks for your participation Felipe and if you have any other questions, feel free to jump back in the conversation whenever you want. 

Felipe: Okay. Thank you!

Foster: Thank you. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Felipe: Bye.