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ESL forum > Ask for help > on or at?    

on or at?



yolprica
Spain

on or at?
 
What would you say, open your books on or at page 40?
Thanks in advance
Yolanda

2 Sep 2009      





spring
Turkey

As far as I know,we use "on".
:))
Good night everybody

2 Sep 2009     



Kate (kkcat)
Russian Federation

on is ok...another way is �turn to page... � good night :)

2 Sep 2009     



yolprica
Spain

An American language assistant told me that I shouldn �t use "on". Do Americans use "at"?

2 Sep 2009     



ranclaude
Australia

Hi Yolprica,
we would say:
Open your books "to" page 40
or
You will find this "on" page 40
or
You will find this "at" page 40 (although, semantically this is slightly awkward)
 
we would not say open your books on page 40.
 
Hope this helps,
cheers,
ranclaude

 

2 Sep 2009     



yolprica
Spain

Thank you very much, your explanation is very clear.
Hugs from Spain
Yolanda

2 Sep 2009     



Samantha.esl
Italy

Oh! I really thought It was correct to say "on" page 49!

Prepositions are such a hard thing to learn for non-native speakers of english.

2 Sep 2009     



Zora
Canada

@Ohlala_esl

You can say:

"On page 11, do exercise 2." 

BUT

You can �t say:

Open your books on page 11...  it has to be: "Open your books TO page 11".

AND you could say.

"AT the end of page 11 is exercise 2."

Smile


 

2 Sep 2009     



Tere-arg
Argentina

As far as I know:

Open your books to page 40. (American English)

Open your books at page 40. (British English)

Go/Turn to page 40.

2 Sep 2009     



ranclaude
Australia

Really, where you place the "at" and "on" depends on the context of the sentence. Yolprica asked  "What would you say, open your books on or at page 40?"

As mentioned earlier, we (in Australia) would say:
 
Open your books "to" page 40
or
You will find this "on" page 40
or
You will find this "at" page 40 (although, semantically this is slightly awkward)
 
we would not say open your books "on" page 40.
 
Even though Australian English is similar to British English, we don �t say You will find this "at" page 40  unless "at" is used in a different context. Semantially it is awkward, but still used. 
 
Cheers from Australia, one fine spring day!
ranclaudeHug

2 Sep 2009     



Kate (kkcat)
Russian Federation

wow, thank you for raising this topic, from today on, I will use the preposition �to � in �open your books to page... �. thank you! hugs. 

2 Sep 2009     

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