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By is not Bei

Basics

The English word by does not have the same meanings as the German bei.

The place where John lives is called John's house, John's flat, John's place, or simply John's. This is only used for where John lives, not where he works or anything else. John's refers to John's home, not his office or his factory.

With John's, we can use at to indicate location or to to indicate destination:

I am at John's.
I am going to John's.

Other forms

Note that John's means John's home whether he is there or not. In contrast, with John means in the same place as John, wherever that may be.

In German, bei is used for workplaces as well as homes: it is common to say bei uns to mean 'the place where I work'. English does not have a form with exactly the same meaning. We can say at work: this does not specify a person, but the person should be obvious from context:

I am at work. 'I am at the place where I work.'

In German we might say:

Das würde nie bei uns passiern.

The easiest translation into English would be:

That would never happen where I work.

If I work at a company called Hydrocorp, I might say:

That would never happen at Hydrocorp.

If I am in the Hydrocorp building, I might say:

That would never happen here.

See also:
Prepositions.

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