| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this video, I'm going to look at how to use the preposition "to." Let's get started. Okay. |
| First, I want to talk about using the preposition "to" to express a destination. So, we use "to" when expressing the endpoint or the destination of a movement. So, we can use this form of "to" when we talk about our travel experiences or just when we're talking about moving inside a room, moving inside our community, and so on. So, let's take a look at how we use "to" in this situation. |
| First, "She went to the bank." Here, "to" is before the destination. In this case, the bank. "She went to the bank." The bank is the destination or the end point of her movement. We use this with the past tense verb. Next example is "They drove to Mexico." "They drove to Mexico." In this case, the destination or the endpoint is a country, Mexico. We put "to" before the endpoint here to mark this. Again, we have a movement verb in this sentence. So, here, we have "drove," the past tense of "drive." Our first example was "went," the past tense of "go." Let's look at one more example of this. "Let's move this meeting to a coffee shop." "Let's move this meeting to a coffee shop." So, this is an expression we can use if we want to stop having a meeting somewhere and go somewhere else to continue talking. Here, we have the destination or the desired, in this case, endpoint, a coffee shop here. |
| So, this person is making a suggestion. This is not a past tense example. But, they're saying let's move to this destination. So, they're talking about a destination in the future. So, we can use "to" before a specific endpoint for our movement. Please keep in mind, you cannot use the word "there" in this case. Sometimes, I see learners say, "I want to go to there," or "I lived to there," or "I went to there." So, we cannot use "there" in this position because "there" is not a specific endpoint. We always use a specific location at the end of this "to" phrase. Okay? So, make sure you mark those endpoints with "to." Okay. Let's continue to the second one. |
| Number two is for recipients, recipients. So, that means we use "to" to mark the person receiving something. So, in a give-and-receive situation, when you want to express the person who takes the thing or who receives the thing, you can mark that person with "to." Let's look at some examples. Okay, first one: "Please send this file to the client." "Please send this file to the client." In this case, "the client" is the person or the group that is receiving the file. "Please send this file to the client." If it helps you, you can think of this person as the destination for something. It has kind of the same feel. That's the endpoint or the end person for the item. So, "Please send this file to the client." Next one, "I gave my sweater to my mother." "I gave my sweater to my mother." Again, "my mother" is the recipient of this object, my sweater. "I gave my sweater to my mother." |
| So, this is one kind of example sentence. There are other ways to talk about giving and receiving. For example: "I gave my mother my sweater," is also 100% correct. It's just that this is a different pattern that you can use to express this giving-and-receiving situation. Okay. Last example: "Take your application to the manager." "Take your application to the manager." So, again, we have our recipient here. So, in the future, this person is going to take their application to this destination person, the manager in this case. So, we used "to" to mark the person who receives something or who is going to receive something. They're kind of the end person or the endpoint person. Okay. Let's continue on to number three here. |
| So, number one and number two were really about marking endpoints with people and places. Number three is about marking an endpoint with time. So, we use this a lot when we talk about our schedules. Let's look at a couple of examples, and then we'll expand on this a little bit. First, "The meeting is 1 pm to 3 pm" "The meeting is 1 pm to 3 pm" Here, "to" is before 3 pm It marks the endpoint for the meeting. Okay? So, we put "to" before the end time of something. Let's look at one more example. "Her lectures are 5 pm to 6 pm." "Her lectures are 5 pm to 6 pm." Again, we have "to" before the endpoint, the end time for the lecture. This is a very, very common use of "to." We use this all the time. I want to mention we often use this form of "to" with "from." So, "from" and "to" are often used as a pair to talk about the start point and the endpoint. So, we use "from" before the start point, and "to" before the endpoint. |
| For example: "The movie is from 6:30 to 8." "The movie is from 6:30 to 8." "From" marks the start point. "To" marks the endpoint. One more example: "I work from 9 to 5." "I work from nine to five." Again, "from" is before the start point, and "to" is before the endpoint. So, we always use this pattern when we talk about endpoints. We cannot swap the two. We need to use "to" before the end time. Okay, great. Let's move on to number four then. |
| Number four also talks about an endpoint. We also use "to" to refer to an endpoint, but this is in terms of like a maximum of something. When we talk about a range of numbers, or a range of time periods, for example. When we want to talk about the last possible of something, or the maximum of something, we use "to" to do that. So, let's look at these examples. First, "We can accept eight to ten people for the event." "We can accept eight to ten people." "Eight to ten," this gives us a range of possible people. So, minimum is eight people, maximum is ten people. Inside this range is acceptable for us. So, "to" marks the maximum in this case, the maximum in our range. Okay. |
| Let's look at the second example: "The meeting will be finished in five to ten minutes." "The meeting will be finished in five to ten minutes." Again, we have a range here, five to ten minutes. So, when you are trying to estimate the end point of your meeting, you probably are going to use an expression like this. "Mm, maybe 10 to 20 minutes." Or, when you're talking about a project you're working on, "Um, it'll be finished in maybe, I don't know, one to two days." You can use this "to" before the endpoint, or the maximum point for your range. So, this is a very, very, very useful use of "to." So, "five to ten minutes" gives us the rough start point and the maximum point for our range, the end of our range. Okay. One more. "It can take two to three weeks to review job applications." "It can take two to three weeks to review job applications." So, again, we have our range here. From two maybe, about two, until the maximum point in our range is three. So, again, we use "to" before that maximum end of our range point. Okay, great. |
| So, we use all of these all of these, one, two, three, and four are referring to some kind of endpoint or some kind of destination in terms of a place, or in terms of a person, or in terms of a time. Okay. So, with this in our minds, let's continue on to some different uses. This side of the board has some kind of different uses that are important to talk about, and these are a little bit more, I guess, conceptual than the first four points we talked about. |
| So, first number five. We use "to" to express purpose. It has the meaning of "in order to." "In order to do something." So, we often reduce this "in order to" to just "to." So, let's look at some examples so you can see what this looks like. First, "I went to the store to get milk." "I went to the store to get milk." So, here, we have this first preposition, "I went to the store," right? Our destination. So, there's first "to" here is our destination, "to." Then, we have this purpose marking "to," "to get milk." This one tells us the purpose of our travels, right? "I traveled to the store" or "I went to the store" in order to get milk. So, this one is a purpose "to." How do you know when it's a purpose "to" or a travel "to" or I don't know? A good hint is that there's some kind of information at the beginning of the sentence. There's some kind of travel like we see here, "I went to the store." There's something that's already happening there. And then, we have extra information about the reason that happened. |
| So, let's look at our second example. "He bought a truck to drive to work." "He bought a truck to drive to work." Here, again, we have a simple past tense statement, right? "He bought a truck." And then, "to drive to work," "to drive to work." So, he bought a truck in order to drive to work. So, this expresses the reason he bought the truck. We use "to" to do this. We do not use "for." "He bought a truck for drive to work," would be incorrect. You may see some "for driving" patterns, like "for" plus the -ing form. You may see that "He bought a truck for driving for his job," or something like that. You might see those kinds of patterns. But, we cannot put "to" and that -ing form together, and we cannot put "for" and "drive" together. We cannot mix these two, "to drive" or "for driving." We cannot mix them. Okay. |
| Let's look at one more example. "She got a part-time job to earn some extra money." "She got a part-time job to earn some extra money." Again, we have a simple past tense statement, "she got a part-time job." Why? In order to earn some money. So, when you see this extra information, this reason for doing something, we use "to" after generally like a past tense statement at least in these examples. We use this "to" plus that extra information to express the purpose of the situation. Okay. So, just keep in mind that yes, there are some cases where you can use "to" plus that infinitive form, or "for" plus the gerund form. But, we cannot mix those two different grammar patterns. So, please be careful of that. Sometimes, I see that. Okay. |
| Let's move on to the last part. Just some other uses. So, I mentioned this just now, the infinitive verb form. The infinitive verb form is just the base verb form. The form of the verb you see in the dictionary, if you look up a word in the dictionary. So, we use the infinitive form with "to," to see, or to buy, to go, or to talk. So, when you are doing grammar practice or grammar studies when you see infinitive form or infinitive verb form, it refers to this kind of base form of the verb, "to" plus the verb. So, we use this sometimes in grammar patterns, like we just saw here, to talk about the purpose. So, when you see infinitive verb form, that means the "to" verb form. Okay? |
| Another use I want to talk about is just with set expressions. So, set expressions can mean idioms; it can mean phrasal verbs, and so on. There are lots and lots and lots of phrasal verbs and expressions that use "to," but they are different from these expressions and these uses that I talked about in this lesson. So, I wanted to cover a few that maybe could cause some confusion because they seem similar to points number three and four in today's lesson. So, a few set expressions I want to talk about are "from time to time," "from A to Z," and "from person to person." So, what do these mean? |
| You see this similar "from-to" pattern here, right? But, it's not like a start point and end point really. So, what does this mean? You might see people say "from time to time." This expression means sometimes or occasionally. Like, "I like to go to the movies from time to time." This just means sometimes. It's a casual way of saying "sometimes." This expression, "from A to Z," you might think, "What? Is this about the alphabet?" This is when we're talking about a range of something. So, we use this expression, "from A to Z," when we want to express that someone can do everything, or that someone is good at a wide range of things. So, for example: "Ah, that tech company, they have so many products. They have everything covered from A to Z." That means that that company, that technology company, can do a lot of different things, So, "A to Z," generally means that they can do everything in like a certain field, or in about a certain topic, and so on. So, you might see "from A to Z" used. |
| Lastly, "from person to person." "From person to person." So, in this expression, I have person to person. But, you may see this used in terms of groups of people. Like from community to community, or from city to city, or from country to country, and so on. These usually are used to talk about differences between people, differences between places, countries, maybe languages, and so on. So, an example sentence about with this one might be something like "Hmm, opinions are different from person to person." So, this means that each person has a different opinion in this example sentence. So, this "from person to person," or this "from noun to noun," where the noun is the same here, refers to usually differences or maybe just kind of slight differences even in each of those situations or each of those people. |
| So, these are a few set expressions that might be a little bit confusing when you see them the first time because they seem to follow this pattern, but they do have some specific uses. And, of course, as I said there are many, many phrasal verbs that use to and other prepositions that it's not possible to cover all the phrasal verbs in one video. So, I wanted to introduce these uses of "to" in this lesson. |
| So, that is it for this lesson. I hope that you got some good information about how and when to use "to." Of course, if you have any questions or comments, or if you want to practice making some example sentences with "to," 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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