AT THE END or IN THE END - What is the difference?
By Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com
Thank you to Clemenceaux in Madagascar for this question. These expressions sound so similar that it is easy to confuse them.
Even if you understand the difference already, when you hear people using them in conversation it can still be confusing, especially because the prepositions AT and IN are unstressed syllables.
AT THE END refers to the endpoint of something. This can be a physical location, for example
The supermarket is at the end of the street,
or it can be the end of a period of time, for example
He left his job at the end of last year.
I’ll call you at the end of the week.
It can also refer to the end of something like a story, a film, a book and so on. For example:
At the end of the book, the hero dies.
They get married at the end of the film.
IN THE END means “Finally” or “Eventually“
Examples:
I was planning to go to France, but in the end I decided to go to Spain.
IN THE END can also mean “When everything is taken into account“, or “When everything is considered.“
In the end, the most important things are friendship, trust, and love.
Just to confuse you, there is also an idiom AT THE END OF THE DAY, which means the same thing as IN THE END, or “when everything is taken into account”
At the end of the day, the most important things are friendship, trust and love.
So, is that clear for you? It’s a good idea to write your own examples of this to help you fix it in your mind. There is a free PDF of this lesson at the bottom of this page. If you are a subscriber to DailyStep Audio Lessons, you can also download this audio file there.
Hello, I'm Jane at DailyStep English!
