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In or On the street | ||
Tags: Syntax | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 14 06 December 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would probably say "The woman is walking down the street", but I am not a native speaker :-)
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 10 of 14 06 December 2012 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
You fill out a form. I believe this is region-dependent, though. As far as I remember, the first is US and "fill in" is UK, but this can be wrong. (I was wrong, and changed it. Fill out is US apparently. Guess there's some Canuck left in me.) Edited by tarvos on 06 December 2012 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5132 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 11 of 14 06 December 2012 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I think it's going to come down to context. I've heard both in the US. Then again, we have "drive on the parkway" and "park in the driveway". R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PillowRock Groupie United States Joined 4736 days ago 87 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 14 07 December 2012 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
I'm from the US (grew up and lived most of my life in SE Michigan), and "The woman is walking on the street" doesn't sound natural to me. At least, I'm having a hard time thinking of a context where I would ever say that or expect to hear it. Now if you change it to a specific street - "The woman is walking on State Street" - then "on" sounds natural. However, in that case I would understand it to mean "alongside State Street" or "on the sidewalk next to State Street". (Of course, the previously mentioned "walking down the street" or "down State Street" also sounds perfectly natural.) If what is meant is that the woman is actually in a traffic lane, at least potentially obstructing traffic flow, then it becomes "The woman is walking in the street." In residential areas, sometimes you might see "children playing in the street". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6439 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 14 09 December 2012 at 7:22am | IP Logged | ||
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"The children are playing in the street." Parents will tell their children "don't play in the street."
There's a trash can in the middle of the street. "I had to swerve out of the way because there was a big box in the street." Although that sounds a bit weird, and you would probably say "...in the road." "In the middle of the road" is kind of a common saying if something is in your way. "Yeah, traffic has stopped. There's a big tree in the middle of the road!" Do not confuse that with "on the road" which refers to cars and trucks in motion. For example, "I probably won't be there for another 15 minutes. There are so many cars on the road today that we're all going really slow." If you're referring to parked cars, you can use either. "There are a lot of cars parked in the street in front of our house." "There are a lot of cars parked on the street in front of our house." Both of those are ok. "On the street" refers to addresses or locations of buildings. For example, "oh, that restaurant on State Street we went to was really good." "Oh... it's on... I can't remember the name... it's on the street next to O'Riley's Pub." "On the street" can also refer to something being physically put on the street, like "they painted new lines on the street today." As a general rule, "in the street" means "in the middle of the street," and "on the street" means "along the street." That's why children are told not to play in the street (cuz they might get hit by cars), why buildings are on streets (cuz they're technically along the edge of the street rather than in the middle of the street), and why cars can be parked in or on streets (cuz they're along the edge of the street but they're also taking up space in the street). Edited by IronFist on 09 December 2012 at 7:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6439 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 14 of 14 09 December 2012 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||
Every time I hear that, I think of this other one: "Why do they call it taking a sh*t? You're not actually taking it. 'Leaving' would be more accurate." I think of that because I learned those two together when I was a kid. Haha. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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