'FROM' is such a small, common word in English, but it has so many different uses! In this lesson, I explain 10 different uses of ‘from’. This English lesson will be especially useful to beginners and intermediate-level students, who tend to get prepositions mixed up. I’ll give you plenty of examples showing exactly when ‘from’ should be used. We’ll also look at more advanced uses of ‘from’ as part of expressions such as ‘from dusk till dawn.’ And finally, I’ll mention some examples from popular culture in which ‘from’ appears in the titles of films and songs. There’s also a slightly rude example of when you should be careful about using ‘from’ if you don’t want someone to get the wrong idea!

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TRANSCRIPT

Hi, everyone. In this lesson we're looking at uses of "from". "From" is a really common word in English, you see it all the time, but do you know when to use it? We use "from" as a preposition, and we also use "from" in phrasal verbs, so let's look at all the different situations where we use "from".

We'll start with a phrasal verb, which is: "come from". Somebody asks a question to you: "Where do you come from?" That means: "Where were you...? Where were you born and where did you live when you were younger?" So, I come from London. Where do you come from? "Where do aliens come from?" Aliens are the ones with the big eyes and sometimes they're green, or sometimes they're reptiles. "Where do aliens come from?" Aliens come from outer space, out there where the UFOs live.

Timespan. "Timespan" means between this time and this time. "Yoga is from 7 to 9am in the pagoda." Yoga pagoda, it rhymes. A "pagoda" is a kind of... A kind of... Imagine the kind of building where some Hippies would go and do some yoga, with a pointy roof, and maybe made from wood or something like that. That's a pagoda, anyway. "The wedding season is from May until September." This means that between May and September that's when most of the weddings happen. We're really busy with weddings between May and September. So, the wedding season is from May until September.

Now we're using timespan for an historical event, something that happened a long time before, something that happened in history, something that we know as a fact. "World War I was from 1914 to 1918." And: "Queen Elizabeth 1st", let me say that one again. "Queen Elizabeth 1st reigned from 1558 to 1603". "Reigned" is a word... "To reign" is the word we use to say a queen or a king was in power for that time. So we could say: "Queen Elizabeth 1st was in power from 1558 to 1603", but "reigned" is a specific word that means that.

Now we have "made from". This one is also a phrasal verb. When something is made... We use "made from" to say how we get a thing. So, my jumper is made from wool, and wool comes from sheep. Here's some other things: "Plastic is made from oil." You take oil, you do something to it, after you get plastic. "Paper is made from wood." Wood is the first thing you have, and you do something to it in the factory, and after you get paper.

Now let's look at distance. We use "from" as a preposition to talk about the distance to a place. "We are 10 minutes from the lake." Here's the lake, we are 10 minutes over here. A lake, if you don't know it, is a natural, large area of water. It's bigger than a pond. A pond... A pond... A pond you would never swim in, and a pond is usually what you see in a person's garden if they have a nice garden. But a lake is much too big for most people to have in their gardens. Maybe if you were Queen Elizabeth 1st, you would have a lake in your garden, but not many other people.

"The moon is 385,000"-zero, zero, zero-"kilometres from the Earth". Here's the Earth, let's get in our rocket and go 385,000 kilometres, if we survive, we make it to the moon. And the last example here: "How far away is Tom's house from Steve's?" What that sentence means is: How far away is Tom's house from Steve's house? But we don't need to repeat the word "house". So, we could answer the question: "Tom's house is 10 miles from Steve's house." Coming up: More examples of "from".

Now we have the origin of something when we're using "from" as a preposition. "Origin" is a more formal way of saying where something begins, where something starts. So: "I have a letter from the bank." Here's my letter, coming from the postman, he puts it in my letterbox, here's my letter from the bank. "I have a present from my Mum." Oh, thank you for my present. What a lovely... What a lovely scarf you gave me. And: "I got a call from Tom", as in phone call. Now, a phone call isn't a real object, like a scarf or a letter that we receive, but we can use "from" in this case. […]

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