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Regarding the sentence I feel like that company is a place where I could belong and contribute to with my goals and values

I'm concerned if adding where is necessary to convey the idea of feeling like you could belong in a specific institution. I've seen other sentences with similar meaning without it but to me without where it sounds incomplete.

Also, I'm not sure if, to express such meaning, the correct phrasing such contain "I could belong in and contribute to"

Which one conveys such meaning the best, "a place where I could belong" or "a place I could belong"?

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  • "Where” is optional, though I’d say most people would include it. “Where” means “in/at x place” so whether or not it's included we understand “I could belong in/at x place”. You can say: "I feel like that company is a place (where) I could belong and contribute to with my goals and values". The object of the preposition "to" is understood as "a place"
    – BillJ
    Feb 27, 2017 at 16:47

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"A place I could belong" is awkward, and you should probably avoid it. To see why, consider the following rephrasings:

If there's a place where you belong, then you belong at that place.

If there's a place you belong, then you belong that place.

You can't belong a place. You can belong at or to or in a place. So the most correct form would be "a place at which I belong" or "a place to which I belong" or "a place in which I belong", and since where implies at, "a place where I belong" is proper.

That said, "a place I belong" is used here and there. So are the other forms ("place we belong", "place they belong", etc.). If I look at Ngrams and squint, it's used as much as about a quarter of the time. If I search, I find "a place I belong" predominantly in song lyrics, though, and songs are known for taking a few shortcuts with the language to make the meter fit.

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  • Thank you for the thorough explanation. Then is it correct to say "a place where I could belong in and contribute to"?
    – Jully B
    Feb 27, 2017 at 15:04
  • "A place where I could belong in" is too much - either "where" or "in" should be struck (but not both). ....Style-wise, the whole clause feels a bit wordy. Either of the phrases "where I could belong" or "I could contribute to" might imply the other, in context, so I would try to avoid the other. But that, again, is a style consideration.
    – Paul Brinkley
    Feb 27, 2017 at 15:17

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