Hi! Could you explain, please, when we use "arrive at" and "arrive to"? They say that "arrive at" if arriving at an island, and "arrive to" if we arrive to another any place. Is that correct?
Eladio (Thanks in advance)
Eladio (Thanks in advance)
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Arrive to is only used when the 'to' is part of a verb combination, not related to the place. For example 'the workmen arrived to mend the boiler'.
Thank you for your comment. A friend of mine, American (he is just a doctor, not a grammarian, but born in America), sitting besides me right now says that he can say, for example "Elaine should be arriving in the States about now". And he himself ask for an explanation, more detailed if possible, about this point. Here, he is using "arrive in", but he says that he could say "Elaine will arrive to Canada tomorrow". So....???!!!
Eladio
Eladio
Nice to hear from you! It's been quite a while. Of course there are some exceptions, but basically the choice of preposition after arrive is easy. Use the same preposition that you use after is:
He is in New York. He arrived in New York.
He is at the airport. He arrived at the airport.
If no concrete place is involved, the preposition is usually at:
He arrived at the right conclusion.
Cheers
CB
If you Google "arrive to the U.S" you will see it in many government documents.
Also, I think it is much more common to say, Don't arrive to school late" than to use a different preposition.
I've seen many schools themselves talk about "arriving to school" on their sites.
I was taught that in Modern Linguistics usage by the educated in society always trumps written grammatical rules.
example - who vs. whom
Thank you