This is a list of common prepositions. There is a big difference in just knowing the signs for the words and using the right sign for the meaning when it comes to prepositions. This lesson focuses on the signs while the next one is focused on the usage of those signs.

Vocabulary learned in this lesson:

• 
  
• In / Into / Inside
  
• Out / Outside
  
• While / During / As
  
• Since / Up to now
  
• On
  
• Off
  
• Over / Above
  
• Under / Beneath / Below
  
• With / Together
  
• Without
  
• Through
  
• To
  
• From
  
• For
  
• Of
  
• Around / About
  
• Up
  
• Down
  

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View the episode transcript.

Hello! Welcome to LearnSigns.com lesson number 25.

In this lesson we are going to talk about prepositions. Now prepositions are those words that talk about position of things to other things. And some words don’t really seem like prepositions. I’ve always thought of prepositions as any relationship a bird can have to a cloud. Can be IN, OVER, UNDER. But there are other words that fall into prepositions. So we are going to talk about many of those in this lesson. And really all I am going to do is show you the sign this time around and not necessarily talk about the deep definitions of some of these words. Because some of them are somewhat complicated. So the next lesson, lesson number 26, I’ll will cover over what some of these words mean and how to use them properly. Because there can be multiple ways to sign the words depending on what the word means.

So lets go through the prepositions. And this certainly is not all the prepositions. There’s many more. But here are the ones that will be most common and easiest to learn. Alright?

IN

IN – You have a cup and you are going to put something INSIDE the cup. This can be INSIDE, IN, INTO.

OUT – Same sign but you just pull it OUT.

OUT

So the motion going INTO it is IN. And then if you were to start here and go OUT. IN and OUT.

WHILE

WHILE – WHILE this was going on, we went to the store. DURING the movie someone screamed. This can also be AS. AS I was eating, my sister came to talk to me.

WHILE, DURING or AS. Now this is your index fingers pointing out and then your palms are up on both hands. You are going to point up, back towards yourself and then roll under and forward. WHILE, DURING or AS.

Now the opposite direction, where you start at the bottom and you come back towards yourself, up and out, this is SINCE. And the way to think of this is: in the past, SINCE then, UP TO NOW. So you are going to go from back to forward. SINCE

WHILE, DURING or AS goes from forward to back, or top to bottom. And then SINCE is from bottom to top. SINCE. SINCE I learned how to do this. So in the past, UP TO NOW. This is also the word UP TO NOW, SINCE.

ON – This is simple. ON. ON

And then OFF. You can pull it OFF. Now, this is like to take something OFF the table. It is not necessarily to turn something OFF, though you will see it used that way.

ON – OFF

OVER – Now OVER and ABOVE you can do it two different ways. Same way with UNDER or BENEATH.

OVER you are showing the movement of your dominant hand. If you are right-handed, that would be your right hand. OVER. Or you can also do it with the A. OVER or ABOVE.

And then UNDER or BENEATH. UNDER or BENEATH. Same idea but you can do it a couple of different ways. UNDER or BENEATH. It is also BELOW.

WITH

WITH – You take and put your two hands WITH each other. Or, TOGETHER. You can move it out to show the idea of duration. These two things have been TOGETHER for a long time. If it is just two items sitting on a table TOGETHER then you can put them TOGETHER. Or you can do TOGETHER or WITH over a duration of time.

WITHOUT – You do the sign WITH and the you just pull them apart and open. WITHOUT. WITHOUT

THROUGH

THROUGH – You are going to take your dominant hand, palm up, and then put it THROUGH the fingers of your other hand. Your non-dominant hand. You can do it THROUGH these two fingers, or THROUGH these two. THROUGH. Going THROUGH.

TO

TO – Now this the preposition TO not the infinitive. Like, to eat, to dream. It is not to eat. You don’t say that. Because that to in the phrase to eat, to dream, doesn’t mean the preposition. It doesn’t mean movement from one place TO another. So this is movement from one place TO another. That would be TO, the preposition. TO

FROM

FROM – You are going to take your index finger pointing up with your palm out of your non-dominant hand. And then you are going to take the X of your dominant hand, of your…in my case right hand. With the palm kind of facing toward me or to the side…a natural way of doing this. Then you just pull back FROM the index finger. FROM. Where you FROM? Where are you FROM?

FOR

FOR – I did this FOR this purpose. Or because of, FOR. Or I am going to go get: I am going FOR. There are many different usages for the word FOR and also the word OF, the next word. In those cases…that is what I want to cover in the next lesson because it really depends on what the word means as to what sign you would use. But, generally you can do FOR. Sometimes you will see this done a few times, FOR, FOR, FOR and that means WHY. FOR what purpose? FOR. There is also a sign for WHY, we’ve talked about that. But this is FOR. FOR what purpose? FOR

And then OF. Now OF has so many different meanings. Just the general word OF you can spell it. OF. O-F. But, if you know what the word OF means, then you should sign the meaning for the word. In some cases you don’t even need it at all. But if you have a meaning for the word, then that is what you want to sign. And that is one of the words we will cover in the next lesson. The word OF.

AROUND or ABOUT – You can do this two different ways. You are going to take your kisssy fingers, all your fingertips together and you can point your palm off to the side and then the index finger of your dominant hand is going to go AROUND. Or you can point your hand up. AROUND. AROUND or ABOUT. AROUND and ABOUT.

And then two very easy ones. UP – DOWN. Just point. UP – DOWN.

Alright? Here we go through them again.

IN

INSIDE

INTO

OUT OUT

WHILE, DURING or AS

WHILE

DURING the process of this, that happened.

And then, SINCE. SINCE comes up.

ON – Put this ON the table.

Or, OFF the table. Take it OFF the table.

OVER

OVER or OVER

UNDER or UNDER, BENEATH, BELOW

WITH or TOGETHER

Or, if you are showing these two people spend time TOGETHER, you can go WITH and show time or duration. TOGETHER

WITHOUT

THROUGH

TO – Now, remember this is the preposition. Moving FROM this place TO that place. TO

FROM

FOR

OF

AROUND or AROUND

Or, ABOUT

UP and

DOWN

This is LearnSigns.com lesson number 25. So LearnSigns.com/25. And the next lesson will go into more detail about some of these words. But until then work on these words. Start forming sentences. You’ve got plenty of words now. You’ve got adjectives, nouns, verbs. You’ve got prepositions now. You’ve got adverbs. Hmm, a few adverbs we’ve done. Not many.

So you’ve got plenty to actually make sentences and to be able to communicate. Find a friend and communicate as much as you can. And enjoy these new signs that you’ve gotten. And then we will go over more detailed meaning of these signs in the next lesson.

Thanks for watching!

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