Learn English – Is “on that level” correct

prepositions

Here on this website, I have found a sentence containing the preposition at before the noun level and it seems correct to me: experience at/in/on high school levels

I have student-teaching experience at the high school level.

However, I wonder now whether one could also say on … level in other contexts as in

On a certain level you should try to immerse yourself in the language you want to learn …

So I think with at it would be correct but I am not so sure about the preposition on here although my gut feeling tells me it is wrong. But I am not a native speaker, of course. Could someone of you tell me whether it is wrong or right?

Best Answer

Level can mean two things - how something measures against a scale, and a platform one stands upon.

If by "level" you mean "how high, how much," at is used. Think of a scale, like that on the side of a measuring cup, and with this use of level you are asking where the thing you are measuring lies on such a scale. You would typically use the preposition at when answering where.

If by "level" you mean a platform one stands upon, on is used.

Also, @MrTheWalrus is 100% correct, on a certain level is an idiom and should be treated as a special case. So is on the/that/a same level:

Her and I were on that same level.

This is an informal (if not slang) idiom that means the two people here had a mutual understanding about something, likely not explicitly spoken.

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