English prepositions along, through.

Long places and things.

The preposition along is used with verbs of movement and things which are long: road, path, river, corridor, street, beach, etc:

................X
_________

Go along the street until you come to the cathedral.

There were beautiful paintings all along the corridor.

We went for a walk along the beach.

 

Arches and doors, etc.

We use through to describe moving in a place which has walls and possibly (but not necessarily) a roof or something over our heads:

.....[....]......X

Just go through the door and you'll see the toilets on your left.

We walked through the arch into the garden.

The train went through the tunnel.

Mary walked her dog through through the wood.

In a figurative way we can use through with verbs like "look":

She looked out through the window.

Through is used for describing movement in three dimensional environments:

We walked through the long grass.

They had to go through a thick jungle.

She drove home through the rain.

 

Abstract through.

When we talk about the time spent doing something, we can use through. Note the use of "all" + through to mean "the entire time":

He ate popcorn through the film.

They sat quietly all through the story.

He talked all through dinner.

We use "go" + through in a similar way to talk about the time that passes in personal situations or processes usually in a negative context:

He's going through a divorce at the moment.

I went through a difficult time as a child.

"See" + through means to support or help:

His enthusiasm saw me through.

I don't have enough money to see me through the month.

With time words like day, week, month, year, etc. we can also use the structure "all" + time word + "long":

He watched television all day long.

I've worked all week long.

More precise time words may sound better with throughout. This is especially the case when we want to add more emphasis to the time spent:

He didn't do a thing throughout the whole evening.

 

Other uses.

Along can be used to mean "come with me" or "go away":

Come along. I'll show you.

Go along now and come back tomorrow.

In the US, through is used to express a period of time:

June through September. (US)

From June to September. (UK)

 

Exercises on along, through...

 

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