🔥 THE RULES! When do we use “THE” in English? (And when DON’T we?)

When do we need to use the word "THE" in English? And when must we NOT use it? And what are the rules?... Watch this video to find out!
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⭐️ [WATCH NEXT]
🔥 IN the hospital or AT the hospital? Watch this to find out... 👓

🔥 EXPLAINED! The Difference Between ANOTHER, OTHER, THE OTHER and OTHERS | English Grammar

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► CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro: When to use the word THE in English
00:18 Pronunciation of the word THE
1:15 When don't we use the word THE in English
5:59 Common mistakes with THE
7:30 When we need to use the word THE

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► TRANSCRIPTION
So much confusion. Most of my students use "the" when they shouldn't use "the" and don't use "the" when they should use "the". So how do we know when to use it?

Before I give you some rules on when to use the and when not to use the in English, I want to tell you about two different ways we can pronounce this simple word. First, we have the, and there is also the pronunciation the. Now it all depends what the next word begins with. If the next word begins with a vowel, we say the. The elephant, the octopus, the owl. But if the next word begins with a consonant, we use the pronunciation the. The building, the table, the boy, the girl.

Okay, I got over 100 questions about the when I asked you about it on YouTube. So let's start with the first one, the big one. When don't we use the.

Meals like breakfast, lunch and dinner? Have you had lunch yet? Do you want to go out for dinner tomorrow night? I have breakfast at 8am. When we're talking about meals, we don't use the word the.

Compass directions. When we're talking about directions, we don't use the word the like birds fly south for the winter. It's the direction that they are going. However, when we're talking about a particular region, then we use the word the. For example, I am from the north of England. They pronounce some words differently in the south.

Proper Nouns What is a proper noun? A proper noun is something like a name of a person, a city, a month, a day, things that we normally use a capital letter for in English. And we don't use the word the for those. My English teacher is Greg, not the Greg. I bought it on Amazon. I didn't buy it on the Amazon. Greg bought it on Amazon and it will be delivered on Tuesday. No the in any of those situations. Why did I use Amazon as an example there? Well, keep watching and you'll find out why later in the video.

Languages. Do you speak English? What's your level of English? I speak Spanish fluently. I would love to learn Greek. With languages we don't use the. Okay. We have some very common words that we talk about every day. They are bed, home and work. And these don't have the word that. I go to work at 9am. I get home at 5pm, I go to bed at 11pm. Are you at home? No, I'm at work. I wish I was in bed. ... [... Due to character limit, the rest of this transcription is unavailable]

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Your British English Teacher,
~ Greg 😀

#EnglishWithGreg #EnglishVocabulary #EnglishGrammar #B2 #ESL

[EnglishWithGreg]

Hi folks 👋🏻 Leave a comment using one of the rules in today’s lesson ⤵️

[paulgutman]

In America we always use "the" with university and hospital. (A dialectal difference here.) In all the other examples given, American and UK usage are identical.

[marcbelisle]

I’ve been teaching ESL for 17 years. When teaching something like “in hospital” versus “in the hospital” you should always acknowledge the difference between different accents or dialects. Characterizing a dialectic variation as “wrong” because it’s not your native dialect is just setting up students for confusion later if they encounter it in a different context.

[markbujdos]

"In THE hospital" is correct in American English. The British usage sounds extremely odd to Americans.

[gianluigimarabini]

Hi Greg, great lesson! I'm 73 and I'm writing from Tuscany Italy. I'm trying to improve my low english level. You speak slowly and clearly so that everyone can understand. You're a great teacher! Thanks a lot

[advance]

The only exceptions I use in my American dialect are "in the hospital" (sick) vs. "at the hospital" (visiting), and most speakers I know, including myself, drop the definite article before instruments ("I play piano, She's great at playing guitar, etc.).

[RoxanneRichardson]

Several people have mentioned that in the U.S. we say "the hospital, " but another distinction is not only would we say someone is "in the hospital" if they were a patient, we would say "*at* the hospital" if they were working there or visiting there. We don't typically say someone is in university, we say they're in college, and they go to <name of institution> (which very well may be a university). Some universities have "The" in their name, some do not, but if the first word of the institution's name is "University" we will put a "The" in front of it when referring to it, e.g. I went to the University of Michigan. If I referred to its abbreviated form, I'd say "I went to U of M, " not "I went to the U of M." To make things more confusing, here in Minnesota, the University of Minnesota is referred to as "the U." The thing is, these distinctions can be regional. Different states refer to Interstate Highways in different ways. In California, they'll say, "Take the I-5 north out of Los Angeles." In Michigan, we'd say, "I took I-75 south when I drove to Florida." In Minnesota, not only do we omit "the" from the name of the Interstate highway, we skip saying the "I." I took 94 east to go to St. Paul." No one's going to misunderstand you, though!

[JRJonesOD]

Texas English Speaker here: We say: He's in the hospital. (He's sick, etc) She's at the hospital. (She's visiting someone, or she works there and is currently there.) We also say: I'm going to the grocery store. But: I'm at Kroger. OR I'm at Walmart. (exception: some people in East Texas say I'm at the Walmart. OR I'm at Walmarts.)

[bradparnell]

Interesting. As an American and an Anglophile I've often wondered why the Brits say don't use "the" with university or hospital. You've helped me understand this. It still of course sounds very strange to an American ear, but at least I now know why.

[louf]

As US, we commonly use 'the' for cases of 'hospital' and 'university' in either of the examples.

[Leonorexplore]

A very useful and well explained lesson! Thanks Greg!

[cosmeticenaturalebymichell]

I wish you good health for your baby, I'm so very sorry. I will pray for her! A strong strong hug!

[alberturuzan]

among several good english professors, you are one of the best. I love your style of teaching

[jimjungle]

Watching British TV and movies from 50 or 60 years ago, the British commonly said, "queue up", as a verb, similar to American, "line up", but more recently many Brits simply say, "queue", even when used as a verb. Grammatically, both might be, "correct" with, "in the hospital" and "in hospital" likely both being grammatically correct as well. I don't think the difference is separately by any grammar rules, but only by common usage.

[joelmasamba]

Oh my gosh!!! Thanks a lot about your great lesson my amazing teacher keep up the good work!!!! I have understood more from your lessons

[Ian]

Hi Greg! I am a taiwanese student trying to improve my English skills recently. Thanks for sharing these useful knowledge so that I can speak more natively.

[DVMYouTube]

Thanks for the good clarification Greg. I had no idea how much difference there is in the phrase with the use of THE - 'in THE hospital' and 'in hospital'. Thank you!

[blotski]

As a native speaker I find this so fascinating. You just don't think about these things but it's so true. If you say 'he's in hospital' you know he's a patient and is staying there. If he's just gone to visit somebody or has gone for an appointment but is coming home, you'd say 'he's at the hospital'. I think you'd say 'at' rather than 'in' although both are correct. 'At' just sounds more normal.

[lijahsampson]

Some exceptions- you can say “I go to the bed in the corner of the room and sit.” Or “once I get to the home of my brother’s family.” Or “I go to the work meeting at 9 a.m.” because those are all instances where one needs “the” to indicate that it is something specific being referred to. You kind of touched on that with the banana thing but the rule can be applied to a lot of the “words you can’t use the with” so, maybe this makes it a little more clear.

Also, at least in the USA, we would use the word “the” with school— “the school has a new policy.” “He left the school at 3 p.m.” in the situation you mention it would not be used, but I think that is the exception and not the rule, at least in the USA

Another exception is the percent rule. This one is more idiomatic, but a lot of times you hear people make reference to “the one percent, ” meaning rich people.

A lot of other people mentioned how weird it would be to hear someone in the USA say “I’m in hospital” and that’s probably why a lot of native English speakers such as myself clicked on this video.

[engin]

Extraordinary information, I must listen the lesson for several times to understand the gist of it! Thank you, again and again, that the information that you have delivered to us!