In person means being there yourself: meeting face to face rather than talking on the phone, messaging or having a video call. People use it about meetings, interviews, classes and errands where you have to show up yourself. Before a noun, it takes a hyphen: an in-person interview, in-person classes.
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meet/see/apply/pay + in person; in person (vs online / by phone / by email); in-person + noun (in-person interview, in-person classes)
- The first interview is online, but the final one will be in person at our London office.
- We've chatted for months, but we've never actually met in person.
- You have to collect your new passport in person, a friend can't do it for you.
What changed
First versionWe've only talked online, we've never met live.
RevisionWe've only talked online, we've never met in person.
It's tempting to use live for “face to face”. But in this sense, live is used about performances and broadcasts: see a band live, watch the match live. So met live sounds as if you saw the person on stage. When two people meet face to face, they meet in person.
Personally looks like a close match, but it usually means “as far as I'm concerned” or “myself, without anyone else”: Personally, I prefer online classes. Only in person is about being physically there: I'd rather discuss it in person than by email.
Your turn
We've been writing to each other for a year, and next week we're finally meeting ___.
Show the answer
in person — The two people have been writing to each other for a year and will now see each other face to face for the first time, so it's in person. Personally is about your own opinion or doing something yourself, not about meeting face to face.
Write about someone you talked to online or by phone for a long time. Say where and when you first met them in person.
After two years of video calls, I met my business partner in person at a café in Berlin last spring.
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