5 exercises — prepositions are the hardest part of English grammar because they are largely idiomatic. These five collocations appear in every technical job posting, doc, and email.
Fixed preposition collocations in this set — memorise these
depend on — ✗ "depend of / from" — always on
integrated with — two systems working together; into = one absorbed into another
responsible for — ownership of a task or system — ✗ "responsible of / about"
familiar with — you know something well — ✗ "familiar about / of"
comply with — follow a regulation or policy — ✗ "comply to"
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A junior developer writes in a bug report:
"The response time depends ___ the number of concurrent users hitting the service."
Which preposition correctly completes this sentence?
"Depend on" — this is a fixed phrasal verb in English. The preposition is always on, never "of", "from", or "about". This is one of the most common preposition mistakes for Slavic and Romance language speakers: Ukrainian "залежить від" and Spanish "depende de" both use the equivalent of "from/of", which tempts non-natives to say "depends of" or "depends from" — both are incorrect.
Usage examples: • "The deployment time depends on the size of the build artefact." • "Whether we merge depends on the review result." • "Performance depends heavily on the database index strategy."
Related fixed expressions:rely on (we rely on Redis for caching), based on (the recommendation is based on the benchmark results).
2 / 5
A solution architect writes in a technical proposal:
"The new payment service is tightly integrated ___ the Stripe API and cannot be swapped out without significant rework."
Which preposition is correct?
"Integrated with" — the correct preposition when describing that two systems or components work together. You integrate your system with another system. This is the standard phrasing in technical documentation, RFCs, and architecture descriptions.
Usage examples: • "The app is integrated with Salesforce CRM." • "The logging module integrates seamlessly with ELK Stack." • "We integrate with third-party payment providers via webhooks."
Also correct: "integrated into" — but this means physically built-in or embedded: "the analytics are integrated into the dashboard" (they are part of it, not a separate service). "Integrated with" = two separate components working together. "Integrated into" = one component absorbed into another.
Wrong: "integrated to" and "integrated by" — both are non-native errors.
3 / 5
A job posting reads:
"The DevOps engineer will be responsible ___ the full CI/CD pipeline, environment provisioning, and production releases."
Which preposition is correct?
"Responsible for" — the only correct preposition with "responsible" when indicating ownership of a task, system, or outcome. This is a fixed collocation and a very common preposition trap for Slavic speakers (Ukrainian "відповідальний за" is close, but "за" maps to "for" here, not "about" or "of").
Usage examples: • "Who is responsible for this service in production?" • "Each team lead is responsible for their own deployment." • "The platform team is responsible for the shared infrastructure."
Raci matrix usage: "Responsible" (the person who does the work), "Accountable" (the person who owns the outcome), "Consulted", "Informed" — in all RACI contexts, "responsible for" is the standard phrasing.
"The contractor admitted they were not familiar ___ our CI/CD setup or the deployment runbooks."
Which preposition is correct?
"Familiar with" — the only correct preposition when expressing knowledge or acquaintance with something. Another fixed collocation that trips up non-native speakers at all levels.
Usage examples: • "Are you familiar with Kubernetes?" • "I'm not familiar with this part of the codebase yet." • "The candidate was familiar with our tech stack from day one."
Contrast with "familiar to": This is also grammatically possible but has a completely different meaning — "This error message is familiar to me" = I recognise it from before (the thing is known to me, the person). "I am familiar with X" = I know X well. The subject-object relationship is reversed. In IT contexts, "I am familiar with [technology]" is the standard phrasing you'll need 99% of the time.
Wrong: "familiar about" and "familiar of" — neither is used in standard English.
5 / 5
A compliance email states:
"All services handling EU user data must comply ___ GDPR by the time of the production launch in Q2."
Which preposition is correct?
"Comply with" — standard legal and regulatory language when expressing adherence to rules, standards, or regulations. The noun form is "compliance with" (GDPR compliance, compliance with regulations). This is fixed: you always comply with a regulation or standard.
Usage examples: • "The system must comply with SOC 2 Type II requirements." • "Ensure the API complies with our internal security policy." • "We are compliant with PCI DSS." • "Non-compliance with GDPR can result in fines up to 4% of annual global turnover."
The full regulatory English vocabulary: comply with / be compliant with / in compliance with / achieve compliance / pass an audit. All use "with" (not "to", "by", or "for").
Wrong: "comply to" — this is the most common non-native error, by analogy with "adhere to" or "conform to". While "adhere to" and "conform to" do use "to", "comply" takes "with".