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Doha0011 Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary
Good at / Good in
Sirs
Request your help....
When I was going through "Common Mistakes in English" (Longman), I saw the following:
Good at, not in.
Don't say: My sister's good in maths.
Say: My sister's good at maths.
But I saw the following on one Site:
When it comes to school subjects, both “good at” and “good in” are used
Jere is good at math: he always finishes first.
Jere is good in math: he makes all A’s.
Please clarify which one is correct nowadays....
Request your help....
When I was going through "Common Mistakes in English" (Longman), I saw the following:
Good at, not in.
Don't say: My sister's good in maths.
Say: My sister's good at maths.
But I saw the following on one Site:
When it comes to school subjects, both “good at” and “good in” are used
Jere is good at math: he always finishes first.
Jere is good in math: he makes all A’s.
Please clarify which one is correct nowadays....
Top answer
Language changes over time. Longman is traditional, and you can't go wrong following their guidelines. When you take a grammar test, go traditional.
- Language changes over time.
- Longman is traditional, and you can't go wrong following their guidelines.
- When you take a grammar test, go traditional.
- But "in" is OK in modern conversations.
- Perhaps a newer edition of Longman will reflect this change.
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4 Answers
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Language changes over time.
Longman is traditional, and you can't go wrong following their guidelines.
When you take a grammar test, go traditional.
But "in" is OK in modern conversations. Perhaps a newer edition of Longman will reflect this change.
Longman is traditional, and you can't go wrong following their guidelines.
When you take a grammar test, go traditional.
But "in" is OK in modern conversations. Perhaps a newer edition of Longman will reflect this change.
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It's possible also that there are regional and/or personal differences. For me, "My sister's good in maths" seems unacceptable if "maths" means the subject. It may be feasible if "maths" means "maths classes".
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Following on from my previous reply, the graphs below do seem to suggest that "good in" in this sense is predominantly US.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=good+in+math%2Cgood+at+math&year_start=1800&year_end=20
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=good+in+math%2Cgood+at+math&year_start=1800&year_end=20
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