What is the right preposition for this?
QUESTION
Should it be “has he had any experience in doing xxx” or “has he had any experience at doing xxx?”
ANSWER
Depending on the preposition you use with ‘experience’, it will mean different things.
In this instance, it should be ‘experience in’ because you’re asking about a person’s history of being involved in a particular activity or organisation. So you can have experience in skydiving, experience in Singapore Airlines, etc.
‘Experience with’ covers a more general scope. If you say ‘My experience with Singapore Airlines’, it could mean that you’re a customer or an employee or someone who’s worked with Singapore Airlines.
If you say ‘my experience in Singapore Airlines’, this only refers to one thing – your time being an employee of Singapore Airlines.
Those two prepositions ‘in’ and ‘with’ cover the whole range of ‘experiences’ you could have. There is no need to use the word ‘at’ in the second sentence.
Source: Edited from “English As It is Broken” on STOMP. Visit www.stomp.com.sg for more
