On other language SEs, I often have to talk about spoken language vs written language. Those phrases can be a little heavy, and I'm looking for shorter alternatives.
There's a very convenient and short way to say this in my language so I checked for a translation, and my searches (1) (2) returned "at speaking" and "in writing" but they don't seem to fit.
My typical use case is this:
[Word A] is almost never used [in writing], but is very common [at speaking]. On the other hand, [a synonym for word A] can be used both [at speaking] and [in writing].
I'm almost sure that's not the right way to say that, how you would say it?
Best Answer
"In writing" is common, but "at speaking" is not. Instead you can use "in speech"
In general you use "in" as the preposition with a language or type of language. For example: "in formal language", "in French", "in slang", "in the Breton dialect", "in text messages".
You can use "at speaking" in expressions like "He is good at speaking". But you can also say "He is good at writing" or "good at tennis". This meaning is different from the above.