What meaning of 在 you use most

[phoneticsem]

在 zài 

 

1. located) at
2 (to be) in
3 to exist
4 in the middle of doing sth
5 (indicating an action in progress)

 

What meaning of 在 you use most? 

 

 

[Demonic_Duck]

1 and 5 are common. 2 is basically the same as 1, and 4 is basically the same as 5. 3 is less common outside of classical Chinese or chengyu, but not rare either.

 

Don't try to learn words or usages from dictionary definitions, especially not English-language dictionary definitions that lack example sentences. Those are for reference only. You need to learn words and their usages from seeing how they work in context.

 

You can find good articles about the various meanings of 在, with examples of sentences for each, at https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/在. Assuming you're a beginner, you'll be best off focusing on the A1 and maybe some of the A2 articles.