| Former-Teacher | Date: Saturday, 22.12.2012, 09:52 | Message # 1 |
 Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| Dear Learners!
Very often Russian learners of English are apt to confuse these two prepositional phrases - IN the picture and On the picture.
Let's look into the matter to understand why it happens.
The reason lies in the Russian prepositional model 'на картине'.
To the English-speaking mind 'на картине' corresponds to 'в картине', i.e. in the picture space.
So, when you describe what you see in the picture, you use the preposition 'IN' but not 'ON'.
When you say 'on the picture', it has a different meaning - it means there is something on the picture surface, like a pen, a fly or any other object that is not part of the picture space.
E.g.:
'I can see a big house and a garden IN the picture.'
'I can see a little black fly sitting on the picture. Wave it off!'
In both cases we have got the same translation which actually causes the mistake.
The same is true when you say 'in the photo', 'in the slide', 'in the poster'.
That's why I corrected the preposition 'on' with 'in' in message 4 by Little_Mu at http://groupa.ucoz.co.uk/photo....7-0-265
Hope this explanation makes your learning more confident 
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