MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Prepositions of Movement: across, along, through (Nick Shepherd)
click image to open video page
7:51
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/course/prepositions-of-movement-across-along-through-nick-shepherd-5292
Description

This video looks at the uses of 'across', 'along' and 'through' - all prepostions of movement.
"He walked across the room, along the wall and through the door"

At the end of the video, test what you've learnt with an interactive quiz - just click on the correct answer to proceed. (Please ensure that annotations are enabled in the video bar.)

Transcript

Hello! In this video we'll be looking at "across", "along" and "through", like "across a garden",
for example. Or, "along a road" or "through the trees". Hope you enjoy it!

We're looking at "across", "along" and "through", three little prepositions of movement, and
I've got three little scenes, little stories. Here's the first one:

Here's a, this is (believe it or not) a room. That's the wall, that's the floor, that's the door at the back, just to show you that it's a room there are the walls but I'll take those away for the moment and put in my little friend, George.

Here is George. He's standing there in the room, I'll get my grabber, and now he's walking across the room, across the room to there. Now he's walking across the room over there, now he's walking back to where he started. So I'll just write that in: "across the room" - he could be going over there, or over there, different directions.

Let me grab him again and take him on another little walk over there, across the room. Now he's going along the wall, along the wall, he's looking at the pictures. He's going along the wall then he's going back across the room to the middle then back to where he started. So I'll just write that in, "along the wall".

Now I want to add a new element to the story which are people, here they are. Lots of people in the room, there's a crowd in the room in fact. And, once again, I'll grab my friend George and he can walk through the crowd to the door, now he's walking back through the crowd over here to the wall. Now he's walking along the wall, he's walking back through the crowd, across the room to where he started. I'll just write that there at the bottom, "through the crow - oops! - through the crowd", there we are.

Now I'd like to do diagram just to show that idea again so here's "along", which is like following a line, and here's "across" which is going from one side to the other of a surface and finally, "through" which is like into the middle of something and out the otherside.

Right, now I'd like to move on to my scene number two. Here we've got a young man who is ready to go hiking, he's got his rucksack and there's a field, a wood, and a river. I'll just put the three words in there - "field", "wood" and "river". And here's the young man off on his walk, I'll use my grabber, there he goes. He goes across the field, through the wood and along the river. I'll just write that in there. So I'll write "across the field", haven't got much room here I'll put it above "through the wood" and "along the river". There we are, so once again we've got "across", we've got "through" and we've got "along".

Now let's move on to the last picture. If you've seen enough, you can just jump ahead to the test at the end, otherwise look at this. Here's a young man with a rucksack and a dog and he's walking across the road, and he's walking through the house, you can see him through the window there, oops, and across the garden and along the path. And there he stops. And again I'll just write in what we need here: "across the road" (that's not very clear) and through the (where shall I write it? I know, I'll write it up the top) "through the house" and "across the garden" (oh, that's not very clear but you can see it, just about) and finally "along the path". And that's it.

To finish I'll put the little chart back there - "along", following a line; "across", from one side of a surface to the other and "through", into the middle of something and out the other side. Right, now  it's  time  for  the test.