Author's note: The introduction to this section has been written with English teachers and learners in mind. If you aren't interested in the finer details of your mother tongue, I suggest returning to the index and choosing one of the jobs links.

Firstly, I'm going to define 'work' as the following: directed activity in exchange for financial remuneration or academic success. A 'job' is similar, but excludes the academic aspect. Whereas 'job' is a countable noun, usually preceded by a possessive adjective (my, your etc.) e.g. 'He had three different jobs last year' and 'what's your job'; 'work' can be an uncountable noun with two meanings:

1. As in my initial definition e.g. 'her work has been excellent' and 'I left my work on the table and went for lunch'.

2. Job location e.g. 'I arrived at work at 9am and left work at 9pm' (Note, there's no possessive adjective with this usage, and no preposition after 'leave', 'start' & 'finish').  See below for more information on prepositions.

You can see one of the grammatical differences between countable and uncountable nouns in the following sentences:

He's looking for a job.

He's looking for work.

Most uncountable nouns don't end in the letter 's', but 'works' has the meaning of 'output in sb's life' e.g. 'I've read the complete works of Shakespeare?' or, in British English, 'where work is in progress' e.g.  'works entrance'.

This difference in meaning is also expressed in compound nouns e.g. 'roadworks', 'waterworks', 'gasworks' (location) and 'homework', 'housework' (activity).

Of these two words (work & job), only 'work' can be used as a verb e.g. 'I've been working for the same company for 6 years'.

When used as a verb, 'work' along with 'rain' and 'study', are not intensified by the determiner 'a lot' e.g. "I'm working a lot" IS WRONG. With these words, the adjective and adverb 'hard' is used e.g. 'it's hard work' (ADJ) and 'I've been working hard' (ADV).

'Work' can also have the meaning of 'function' e.g. "The lift doesn't work, so we'll have to use the stairs."

Prepositions with 'work' and 'office'

'work for + company' means 'employed by' e.g. He works for Shell.

'work at + company' indicates location, and therefore implies that the person is sub-contracted and isn't paid directly by the company e.g. He's an English teacher working at Shell, Lloyds Bank and British Aerospace'

With 'office' - pronounced as two clear syllables e.g. /O     FIS/ - the preposition is 'in' e.g. 'He works in an office in the city centre'. 'Bank' and 'shop' function in the same way, for example:

He works for Lloyds Bank. (employed by company)

He works in a bank. (location)