"I study geography in school."

Translation: Jag studerar geografi i skolan.

[rwhodges]

So, prepositions... Do we use på skolan for things that physically occur at school, and i skolan for things that conceptually occur at school (e.g. even if you could be doing distance learning and therefore physically at home)?

[devalanteriel]

A terribly late reply, but we actually use i skolan for both. I'd only ever use på skolan for something taking place on the school roof.

[rwhodges]

Thanks for your reply. However, på skolan does have much wider use than quite literally on top of the school roof. Some examples from the web:

Fest på skolan

en konlikt ... på skolan

Det var rena kriget på Fredens skola

Han fick skulden för konflikt på skolan.

Nu sitter vi pa skolan

Föräldrarna stoppade yoga på skolan.

Nya chefer på skolan för Informations- och Kommunikationsteknik

Boende på skolan

But none of these have anything to do with what you're learning at school. That always seems to be i skolan. (Or, vid universitetet...) That's the clearest dividing line I've been able to figure out so far.

[devalanteriel]

Oh, I beg your pardon. I completely misunderstood what you meant. Your question was perfectly clear; I don't know what I was thinking.

It's actually occasionally possible to use på for learning as well. For instance: jag studerar kemi på/vid universitetet.

I've never quite considered this myself, but I'm wondering if "in school" doesn't generally correspond to i skolan, while på skolan is for the more definite sense of it. That way, it doesn't really matter exactly what activity is taking place. At least it is consistent across your examples.

[rwhodges]

Thanks very much for the clarification (and all your contributions across these many pages!) .

[DonnaSchob]

so, is på skolan correct in this case? I'm confused

[devalanteriel]

No, it doesn't work. You could say it for some other institutions, like the university (as noted above), but not really for skolan.