Ways to Use the Preposition "By"

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. In this lesson, we’re going to look at 10 different ways to use the preposition “by.”

I’m going to cover some of the most important and most common uses of this preposition, but of course, there are some other uses such as phrasal verbs and idioms and so on. Today, we’re going to look at 10 very important and very great to know pieces of this preposition.

Let’s get started!

Okay. First, let’s look at this one, no.1 here. This is the use of “by” to mean near or close, referring to its position from you.

So, for example:

“He lives by the park.”

In this sentence, we could replace “by” with near or close and the sentence will remain the same. The meaning will remain the same.

“He lives near the park.”

Or “He lives close to the park.”

Same thing with our next example:

“My bag is by the door.”

So, my bag is near the door or my bag is close to the door.

Last example:

“She put her coffee by the computer.”

Again, this means near. “She put her coffee near the computer.”

So, all of these refer to “by” as meaning close to something else.

Okay, let’s move on to the second use. The second use is to describe the method of travel. So, we use this “by” along with a way of getting somewhere, like a bus, an airplane, being on foot, and so on.

Here are examples.

“We went by bus.”

So, “by” comes before the method of transportation. In this case, “bus” is our method.

“We went by bus.”

Second example:

“I’ve never traveled by train before.”

Again, “by” comes before the transportation type here. Okay.

Last example:

“She’s coming by car.”

So, again, we have car here, our method of transportation and in front of that is “by.”

“She’s coming by car.”

Please note the only time that we don’t use this is when we’re talking about traveling on our feet. When we talk about traveling on foot, we use the expression, “on foot.”

So, “It’s about 10 minutes on foot.”

We don’t say “by foot” or “by walking” really. We say “on foot.” So, this is a special exception to this one. If you’re talking about buses, trains, cars, bicycles, and so on, you can use this “by” method.

Okay, let’s go on to no.3. No. 3 is also about a method, but it’s a little more open. We use “by” to describe methods of doing things.

So, there are two kind of breakdowns that I want to talk about here. The first one is using “by” before an -ing word. So, this is a way of expressing the process of something.

Let’s look at some examples.

First - “Turn on the car by pressing this button.”

“Turn on the car by pressing this button.”

So, in this situation, we have “by” before this -ing word, “by pressing.” So, this sentence is saying you can turn on the car if you do this action. So, this part here is telling us the method of turning on the car.

“Turn on this car by pressing this button.”

Let’s look at another example:

“Download the file by clicking this link.”

So again, we have “by” and next is an -ing word, by clicking. So, clicking is this motion on the computer or tapping on a smart phone. So, “Download the file by clicking this link.” This is another way to say you can download this file if you click this link. So, we’re talking about the method of doing an action.

One more example of this:

“Make an appointment by calling our office.”

So again, we have “by” followed by an -ing word.

“Make an appointmen by calling our office.”

So, we’re talking about the manner or the method by which we can do this thing.

Okay. So, this is the first one that I wanted to talk about, the first way that we use this “by” to describe the method of doing something. We always do this with an -ing word after “by.”

There is a second type that I want to talk about and we typically use this to talk about communication, methods of communication and methods of making payments. So, in this case, we follow “by” with a noun, a noun that’s related to communication or noun that’s related to payments.

So, let’s look at these examples. There are two examples I want to talk about here and a couple of notes for you.

So, first example:

“I’d like to pay by credit card.”

So, in this situation, it’s a payment situation, right?

“I’d like to pay by credit card.”

Here, we have “by,” followed by a noun phrase, credit card, okay? So this is a very common way to express I want to use my credit card. It’s just a different way of saying I want to use my credit card.

So, here, we havem “I’d like to pay by credit card.” Okay, that’s one type of payment. Maybe you have a debit card, for example, “I’d like to pay by debit card.” You might also hear people say “I’d like to pay by check.” It’s possible, you might hear that, depending on the region, but we also, in this kind of case, we tend to use the word “with” a lot though.

So, for example:

“I’d like to pay with a credit card.”

Or “I’d like to pay with a check.”

We also use this when we’re talking about cash. We do not use “by” when we want to pay with cash. We don’t say, “I’d like to pay by cash,” totally incorrect. We often say, “I’d like to pay with cash” or “I’d like to pay in cash.” You might also hear no preposition, “I’d like to pay cash for this, please.”

So, these are all common ways of expressing payment, but we typically use “by” before a card type. “I’d like to pay by (card type)” or maybe by bank transfer or wire transfer as well.

Okay, let’s look at the next one. The next one is a communication example. So when I say communication, I mean, for example, phone or fax or email or maybe online meeting and so on.

So, let’s look at this example and then I’ll talk a little bit about some other patterns that you might see.

So, “We sent the contract by express mail.”

“We sent the contract by express mail.”

So, in this situation, we’re expressing a kind of communication or in this case, transfer of information. “We sent the contract by express mail.” So “express mail” means physical mail, right? Express means fast, right? So, we sent the contract by express mail.

You might see this used to talk about the type of mail that was used to send something. So maybe in your country or in your region, there is like a basic kind of mail, express mail. Maybe there’s a special kind of super express mail, whatever. If it’s important to express that kind of thing, like the level of mail, you can use “by” to do that. “By” is the most natural way to do that.

However, in recent years, we use things like Skype or other online meeting things like Zoom, for example, but we don’t really use “by” to express that. For example, if you want to talk about a meeting that you have on Skype or on Zoom, we generally don’t use by to talk about that. We generally don’t say “We’re going to have the meeting By Zoom” or “We’re going to have the meeting by Skype.” We don’t use “by” in these online situations. Instead, we typically use “on.” “We’re going to have the meeting on Skype” or “We’re going to have the meeting on Zoom,” so please keep this one in mind.

So this “by” tends to be used by… I”m sorry, tends to be used to talk about mail, physical mail. You might also see it used to talk about fax, like “He sent it by fax.” You may also see the word “via,” V-I-A, used in these cases.

So, as you can see, there are a few different ways that we can express communication, but I just want to point out that sometimes, we do use “by” in these cases to talk about payments and to talk about communication. But generally, if you want to express the method of doing something, this is a really easy one to remember, “by” + [an -ing verb]. Okay, that was a lot of information. Let’s go along to the next one then.

The next one, no.4 is “by” used to express a deadline. So a deadline, that means the finish point for something.

So, let’s look at our examples:

“Submit your application by Friday.”

This means “Friday” is the deadline, so you have until Friday to do this action, okay.

The next example:

“Call me by 3 PM.”

So, “by” is before the deadline for something. So, 1 PM is okay, 2 PM is okay, 3 PM is the last chance that you have. So, “by” comes before our deadline or stop point for the action.

Last one - “Finish the proposal by next month.”

“Finish the proposal by next month.”

So, all of these sentences mean that it’s okay to do that action before the deadline. This “by” just marks the last possible point for something.

A lot of learners ask about the difference between “by” and “until” and I’m not going to talk about it in this lesson because there are a lot of differences, but I have a video about this, so definitely check out the “by” versus “until” video that I’ve made and I hope that that will help answer your questions about these differences.

Okay, let’s move on to no.5, no.5. We can use “by” when we want to express that we are doing something alone or that someone else is doing something alone. There’s a very specific grammar point we need to keep in mind here, so let’s look at these examples.

First - “She likes to go to the movies by herself.”

“She likes to go to the movies by herself.”

So this “by herself” means alone, just one person, in this case, “she.”

So, “She likes to go to the movies by herself.” We use “by” before this word “herself,” herself, okay? This is an example of what’s called a reflexive pronoun. We’re going to see this kind of pronoun in all of these example sentences, so you’ll notice the pattern here.

Let’s look at the next one, first off:

“I ate lunch by myself today.”

So, “I ate lunch by (again) myself.” So, we have this reflexive pronoun here after “by.” This sentence expresses I ate lunch alone today. It’s just a different way to express that idea.

One more example:

“My son got dressed by himself this morning.”

So this is probably a sentence about a very, very young boy. So, “My son got dressed by himself,” again reflexive pronoun. So, when you want to use this “by” + himself/herself/myself pattern, it always is used to express that something is happening alone. Someone is doing something alone. We will always use this reflexive pronoun to do that. If you want to know more about reflexive pronouns, I also have a video about this topic that you can check out as well for more information.

So, in this example, I used “herself,” I’ve used “myself” and “himself.” We also have “ourselves” or “themselves” and so on to talk about more than one person, but in those cases, we’re talking about doing something with just two people in these cases. So, I hope that you check out that other video about reflexive pronouns, if you want to know more about this, but this is how we use it together with “by.”

Okay, onto the next one, no.6. No.6 is a very simple use of “by.” We use “by” to talk about the author or the creator of (something). So, the creator of your favorite book, your favorite song, your favorite movie, your favorite piece of art and so on. When you want to talk about the person who made it, you can use “by” to do that.

For example:

“My favorite book was written by George Orwell.”

So, “by” comes before the name of the person who created that thing, in this case, a book.

Second example:

“This film was directed by Christopher Nolan.”

So, we have “by” before the director’s name, the movie director’s name in this case, Christopher Nolan. So again, this is talking about the creator of a work or the director of a work.

Okay, one more:

“Her favorite piece of music is by Beethoven.”

In this case, we have just one name, Beethhoven. So some artists, some creators are known by just one name or maybe they have a performance name or something like that. If it’s a very famous artist like Beethoven, for example, most people just know it by one name and that’s okay. So, we use “by” before the creator’s name to talk about the person who made something.

Okay, let’s move along to no.7 then. No. 7 is to pass a location or to stop somewhere for a short time. We can use “by” to do both of these things. And you might think, well, how do I know which is which? How do I know if it means pass or stop somewhere? Generally, we can understand from the situation, from the context, so let’s take a look at these examples.

First - “I drove by your house today.”

“I drove by your house today.”

So here, I have “drove,” past tense of drive, drive a car, by your house today. In this case, it means I passed by your house today. So how do we know that it means pass and it doesn’t mean stop? Well, probably, if I’m telling the other person, “Hey, I drove by your house today,” I probably didn’t talk to that person, right? I’m letting them know, oh, I was in your neighborhood, I was in the area. So, if I stopped at the house, I would have talked to the other person, right? They probably would already know. In this case, it means “pass.” “I passed by your house today” is another way to understand that.

Okay, next one - “Can you please stop by the supermarket?”

“Can you please stop by the supermarket?”

So here, we have “by” before the location - “Can you please stop by the supermarket?” So how do we know? Does this mean pass or does this mean stop somewhere? Well, our big hints are here, “stop.” “Can you please stop by…” which means go very quickly to the supermarket. It would be very strange to say “Can you please pass the supermarket,” right? This sounds like a request. We probably would start a request for something with this expression, right? So this one means can you please stop at the supermarket very quickly for something.

Okay, last one - “We walked by the library yesterday!”

“We walked by the library yesterday!”

Here, we have “walk,” again, past tense, by (our location), by the library.

“We walked by the library yesterday!”

This sounds like it’s probably passing. “We walked pass the library yesterday” is how we understand this.

So generally, based on the situation, we can understand if it means “pass” or if it means “stop” somewhere for a short period.

Okay, we’re almost done. Let’s continue on to no.8 now. No.8 is using “by” to talk about changes or differences with numbers. Let’s take a look at these examples.

First one - “Sales increased by 15% this year.”

“Sales increased by 15% this year.”

This means that the total number of sales increased, so it went up. This “by” shows us how much of a change, okay? So, one big question that people had is which should I use? Is it to or it by? What should I use here? “Sales increased to 15%” means that from some, like, for example, 13% or 10% or something like that. The point that the sales reached was 15%. However, “Sales increased by 15%” means the total change was 15%.

So, “by” and “to” communicate very different things. “By” is telling us the difference in change. “To” is talking about the point that was reached, so they are very different. Keep this one in mind.

We tend to use this a lot with the verbs “increase” and “decrease.” Also just “go up” or and “go down.” So, we’ll see that again in another example.

So, “Sales increased by 15% this year.” That’s the total change.

Okay, next example - “The temperature went down by 5 degrees.”

“The temperature went down by 5 degrees.”

So that means the temperature decreased by 5 degrees. This means the total change was 5 degrees. For example, from 30 to 25, that’s a 5-degree change, right? Again, if we say the temperature went down to 5 degrees, that means the end temperature was 5 degrees. So again, we cannot use “to” and “by” in the same way. “By” tells us the change or the amount of difference.

Okay, last one - “We missed our bus by 5 minutes.”

I’m sorry - “We missed our bus by 2 minutes.”

So, this sentence is a little bit different here. So in this case, we’re talking about a like a change or a difference in schedule.

For example: If a bus leaves at 12 o’clock, we arrive to catch the bus at 12:02, we can say “We missed our bus by 2 minutes.” So, we can express this difference in time with a “by.”

So when you miss something or you're late for something, you can use "by" to do this.

Like, oh my gosh, "I was late for my plane by an hour."

So we're expressing that difference in time with "by".

Okay, let's move on to number 9.

Number 9 is using "by" for units of measurement.

This one is a very straightforward and easy to remember one.

So we use "by" to talk about the dimensions of an object.

So dimensions mean the height and the length and the depth of something.

So let's look at our examples.

This room is five meters by ten meters.

This room is five meters by 10 meters.

So we use by to talk about kind of the total area of a space.

So when we're talking about the length and the width, we connect them with by.

We can do this with three units of measurement too.

So I mentioned earlier, length and width and height or depth depending on the object.

We can do that with something like this.

"Her bag is 30 centimeters by 60 centimeters by 28 centimeters."

So this gives us three units of measurement, 30 centimeters by 60 centimeters by 28 centimeters.

So we connect all of those different measurements with the word "by."

Okay, one more example.

"Our living room is about 13 feet by 18 feet."

So in this case, I'm using feet as the measurement.

This is a common unit of measurement in the USA.

This room is, or sorry, "our living room is about 13 feet by 18 feet."

So typically we express two dimensions, two units of measurement at the same time in this manner.

As an example sentence one, an example sentence number two, when we talk about a room or maybe a house or something like that. If it's an object, we might use three different dimensions to talk about those, but we connect all of those with "by."

Okay, let's move on to our last one for this lesson.

The last use of "by" I want to talk about is with passive.

So we use passive sentence structures sometimes to hide information or if we don't know who did an action or if we just want to focus on the effects of the action.

But sometimes we want to indicate or we want to share at the end of the sentence who did the action.

We can do that with "by."

Let's take a look.

"The file was sent by my coworker."

So a basic passive sentence is just the file was sent.

The file was sent.

This sentence is 100% correct.

But sometimes maybe it's important to share a little bit about who did the action.

In this case, we have "my coworker."

So who did the action?

My coworker.

Okay, next example.

"Her bag was stolen by a man on the subway."

So this is answering, Who stole it? A man on the subway.

So we connect the two with "by" here.

So again, "her bag was stolen" is perfectly fine.

If you don't know who stole the bag, that's okay.

You can just use that sentence.

But if you want to include some extra information about who did that action, you can do it with by.

Okay, last one.

"Our reservation was changed by the staff at the hotel."

So who changed our reservation?

The staff at the hotel.

We add this information with by to the end of the basic passive sentence. So you can do this if you want to give that information and you want to use a passive sentence structure for some reason. So it's up to you if you want to use an active or a passive sentence here. That's your choice, but here is how you can share about who did that action. Just use 'by' to do that.

Okay, great! So those are 10 uses of the preposition "by."

As I mentioned, at the beginning of this episode, of course, there are many other ways to use "by."

For example, we use it in phrasal verbs.

We use the word "by" in idioms, and there are other expressions that we we see "by" used from time to time.

Of course, I cannot cover all uses of "by" in one video because there are too many, but I hope that these ten uses will help you a lot and help you to understand the different ways that you can use this preposition in your communication.

So I hope that this lesson was helpful for you.

If you have any questions or comments or if you want to practice making some example sentences with this word, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video.

Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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