When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

When I was at university I played cricket a lot "at" or "in" the university.

Please check my sentences.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

Given that you used "at school" in the first half of the first sentence, and "at university" in the first half of the second sentence, what makes you think the preposition would be different in the second half of each sentence?

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

Also, it would make more sense to me to use something like I played a lot of cricket (there) to avoid the repetition.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

emsr2d2 said:

Given that you used "at school" in the first half of the first sentence, and "at university" in the first half of the second sentence, what makes you think the preposition would be different in the second half of each sentence?

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I was confused about this. For example if there is a person whose son is studying at a university and someone asks that person that what does his son do? So that person will say "he is at university" so this means he is a student but not at the university at this moment when they are talking about him. So that means we can say "When I was at university one day I was at university having fun with my friends." Can we also say "in university or school?" Like I was in school at that time.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

Tdol said:

Also, it would make more sense to me to use something like I played a lot of cricket (there) to avoid the repetition.

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I just want to clear my doubts about usage of "at" in these kinds of sentences.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

I was at school yesterday.
I played cricket at school.
My son is at school today.
I had fun at school last week.

I was at university when my grandmother died.
My sister is at university at the moment.
When I was at university, I was on the hockey team.
At university, I belonged to twelve different clubs.

I'm sure you can see the pattern there, tufguy.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

emsr2d2 said:

I was at school yesterday.
I played cricket at school.
My son is at school today.
I had fun at school last week.

I was at university when my grandmother died.
My sister is at university at the moment.
When I was at university, I was on the hockey team.
At university, I belonged to twelve different clubs.

I'm sure you can see the pattern there, tufguy.

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"I was on the hockey team." Can we say "in" hockey or cricket team?

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

tufguy said:

"I was on the hockey team." Can we say "in" hockey or cricket team?

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No. Not even with the definite article required before "hockey".

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

tufguy said:

"I was on the hockey team." Can we say "in" hockey or cricket team?

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I think it's fine to use in the hockey team. Maybe this is a BrE/AmE difference.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

It doesn't sound that wrong to my BrE ears, though it does require the definite article.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

I was in the cricket team.

Re: When I was at school one day I was "in" or "at" school playing with my friends.

That works fine.