I am wondering which of the following sentences is more used or even correct? What is this called? Word-choice, collocation or something else?
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I work on a team.
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I work with a team.
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I work in a team.
Learn English – “I work {on/with/in} a team”
prepositionsword-choice
Related Solutions
I work for my boss.
This is OK grammatically, but feels odd to me because it seems rather tautological: by definition the person you work for is your boss, so there's no need to say so. It would be better to indicate the specific person who is your boss:
- I work for him
- I work for Amanda Jones
- I work for Dr Jenkins
- I work for the CEO (you'd only say this if you report directly to the CEO)
(Of course if you are self-employed, or unemployed, then you wouldn't be talking about working for somebody in the first place.)
I work in a accouting corporation. (usually for business area )
You wouldn't say that you work in a corporation, you'd say at or for them. It is correct to say in when talking about which part of the company you work for, or if you are talking about a place. So:
- I work for an accounting company.
- I work at a famous legal firm.
- I work in the accounting department at Samsung.
- I work in the cafeteria.
- I work in London.
- I work for Samsung in London.
(Also, note that it's an accounting corporation, not a accounting corporation.)
I work at Samsung.
This is correct. It would also be correct to say I work for Samsung.
According to Google Ngram Viewer, finding fault is most commonly used with with and not in. The following graph makes the difference particularly clear:
If you experiment a little bit, you will see that it doesn't matter if the object (of the preposition) is a person or a thing.
You can visit the links below the graph to see some sample usages. As @DavidK mentions, in is almost never used in the manner you intend it to.
Best Answer
Prepositions like on, with, and in are indicative of the writer's intent. In your example sentences
the preposition on means that the subject works as a member of a team.
the preposition with means that the subject works in a cooperative way, although it could also indicate membership of a team.
the preposition in in this case seems to mean location within a team, but this does not convey the same sense of participation suggested in the first two examples.
As to whether this is a matter of word choice or collocation, it is word choice to convey intent. Collocation most usually refers to several words that are often used together (e.g., making my bed, bar of soap, burst into tears). Collocation for your examples might be something like work team or perhaps work in tandem.