Weak in or weak at

[Sammy Sam]

Hi,

This is my first post in the forum. Can you tell me which statement is grammatical and natural. I want to know the correct usage of the prepositions "in" and "at". We normally say that "I am not good at Spanish" or "I am not good at baseball."

How about the following statements?

1. I am really upset to know that you are weak in all your subjects.
2. I am really upset to know that you are weak at all your subjects.
3. I am really upset to know that you are weak in studies.
4. I am really upset to know that you are weak at studies

 

[emsr2d2]

Hi.

This is my first post in on the forum. Can you tell me which statement is grammatical and natural? I want to know the correct usage of the prepositions "in" and "at". We normally say that "I am not good at Spanish" or "I am not good at baseball."

How about the following statements?

1. I am really upset to know that you are weak in all your subjects. See below.
2. I am really upset to know that you are weak at all your subjects. See below.
3. I am really upset to know that you are weak in studies.
4. I am really upset to know that you are weak at studies.

Welcome to the forum.

Note my corrections above. As you can see, sentences 3 and 4 don't work because neither "in studies" nor "at studies" is grammatical. I don't particularly like 1 and 2 either. The end of both is OK - you can use "in all your subjects" or "at all your subjects". However, the opening isn't natural. "I am really upset to know that" doesn't really work. Has the speaker just found out that the other person isn't doing well at school? If so, I'd open with "I was really upset to find out that ...".

 

[Rover_KE]

Only #1 is acceptable to me.

 

[emsr2d2]

Mum: Are you good at geography?
Son: No.
Mum: Are you good at history?
Son: No.
Mum: Are you good at maths?
Son: No.
Mum: Are you good at any of your subjects?
Son: No! I'm really bad at all of them!

 

[jutfrank]

I think the question here is about whether using the word weak determines the choice of preposition. I think it does.

good at [an activity] = The meaning here is about ability.

She's good at drawing
I'm no good at maths.

weak in [an assessed area] =The meaning here is about performance.

She's weak in grammar but strong in vocabulary.
I was always weak in biology and chemistry but strong in physics.

These last two examples are about how well the person performs with respect to certain relative assessment criteria. The preposition in creates the idea that grammar, biology, chemistry are certain academic areas, as opposed to certain activities as in the examples with at.