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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Prepositions of Place

Sorry if there's the same question somewhere already. I've been trying to find out what's the difference between 'in the supermaket' & 'at the supermarket', or 'at a restaurant' & 'in a restaurant'. Is there a difference at all? Thanks
  

Top answer

"in" means physically inside the building, while "at" gives more of a sense that building is a location in space (a place on a map, if you want to think of it like that). If you're inside the building then both "in" and "at" are possible. I perceive little practical difference between the two, but I probably have a slight preference for "at" -- unless for some reason it was important and non-obvious that I was actually inside the building, and I wanted to make this clear, in which case I'd use "in".

— Mr Wordy

  • "in" means physically inside the building, while "at" gives more of a sense that building is a location in space (a place on a map, if you want to think of it like that).
  • If you're inside the building then both "in" and "at" are possible.
  • I perceive little practical difference between the two, but I probably have a slight preference for "at" -- unless for some reason it was important and non-obvious that I was actually inside the building, and I wanted to make this clear, in which case I'd use "in".
  • If you're immediately outside the building then you can use "at" but not "in".
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2 Answers
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"in" means physically inside the building, while "at" gives more of a sense that building is a location in space (a place on a map, if you want to think of it like that).

If you're inside the building then both "in" and "at" are possible. I perceive little practical difference between the two, but I probably have a slight preference for "at" -- unless for some reason it was important an
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