A course on or in

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Rotter

#235577 Tue, 13 Jun 06 03:42 PM

He studied Italian.

1. He studied a course on Italian.

2. He studied a course in Italian.

Which is the correct one? I think it would be fine to say studied a course on Italian/French If you went to a school and studied an Italian or French language course.

A native speaker might think otherwise.
Your comments are welcome.

Rotter

Joined on Sun, Jul 24 2005

Japan

Regular Member (655)

Я люблю российских девочек.

pieanne

#235583 Tue, 13 Jun 06 03:50 PM

I'd say "he took a course in Italian"

In your examples, I'd use "in", or "an Italian course".

pieanne

Joined on Thu, Jan 20 2005

South of France ...But I'm Belgian!

Veteran Member (7,512)

I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...

Mister Micawber

#235586 Tue, 13 Jun 06 03:54 PM

Well, first: we don't study a course, we take a course; we study Italian.

I took a course in Italian.-- this is the one that seems natural to me: Italian is the subject title.
I took a course on the evolution of the endoproct tentacular system. -- this explains the topic of the course rather than naming it.

Others may have different opinions.