Prepositions are where the rubber hits the road for British and American speakers.
With Asian students I had to insist on plurals of nouns with numbers. Students wanted to say "I sold three book." Their explanation was that the reader/listener understands because of the number. The audience might understand but expects books to be plural. That's how English is, kids!
Maybe these things shift. For example I have always said “I did this by accident” but both my kids say “I did this on accident”. We have debated this around our kitchen table often. However I just asked my elder daughter what she is going to do at the weekend and she replies “what the hell was that?” Maybe we will debate it at the weekend.
Prepositions are where the rubber hits the road for British and American speakers.
With Asian students I had to insist on plurals of nouns with numbers. Students wanted to say "I sold three book." Their explanation was that the reader/listener understands because of the number. The audience might understand but expects books to be plural. That's how English is, kids!
Maybe these things shift. For example I have always said “I did this by accident” but both my kids say “I did this on accident”. We have debated this around our kitchen table often. However I just asked my elder daughter what she is going to do at the weekend and she replies “what the hell was that?” Maybe we will debate it at the weekend.