The prepositions below refer to the picture above.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 6^th national cycle race.

It is turning into quite a day! All about / around me people are leaning over (1) the barriers to get a good view of the race. Local residents are hanging out (2) of their windows, and beyond the spectators, traffic is at (3) a standstill.

The police are out in full force. There's a police motorbike next to / beside / alongside (4) the cyclists, a policewoman leaning on (5) the barriers, and a helicopter overhead (6).

Not far from me, in / among the crowd, I can see last year's champion with his daughter on (7) his shoulders. And off to the right, there are a number of fans pushing their way through (8) the crowd to / towards the front.

Across (9) the finishing line in first place comes number thirty four. Directly in front (10) photographers are trying to get shots of the winner, and just below / beneath / underneath (11) me jubilant fans are cheering.

On / to (12) the left of the new champion, cycling past the photographers is number sixty one. Then, behind (13) the leaders, in a red helmet, is De Kosten from Belgium who is racing towards / in the direction of the finishing line. Chasing after (14) him are numbers ninety two and a hundred and five, and at this very moment a small group of cyclists have just come round (15) the corner into view.”

The picture and text above were copied from Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English, the 2000 edition (the bundled CD-ROM did not have the image file).

A complete guide to English prepositions is:

Prepositionary, The Writer's Guide to Prepositions

A reference book full of the most frequently-used English words and their right prepositions. Over 7,500 examples. More info at:

http://www.goodenglish.com/

(~ $ 20, as of May 2007.) I uploaded that book, along with this small file, to:

http://nano.sharebig.com/share.php?id=s4ahedinchzSSauP

Those who can afford the original book should feel free to purchase it.

I attach below 2 other pages that relate to prepositions. These two are from “The New Oxford Picture Dictionary” (ISBN: 0194343553).

This picture is from page 102, entitled “prepositions of description”.

This picture is from page 103, entitled “prepositions of motion”.

If I find bilingual pages like these, I will try to upload them to:

http://nano.sharebig.com/share.php?id=s4ahedinchzSSauP

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