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Hi, I’m Justin.
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Welcome to Oxford Online English!
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In this lesson, you can learn about using
the.
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What language do you speak?
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If your language has a word like the, then
the isn’t too difficult.
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There are some small differences, but you
don’t have to think about it too much.
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However, if you speak a language which doesn’t
have a word like the, then learning how to
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use the is a nightmare!
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This lesson is made more for people whose
native language doesn’t have a word like
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the, although we hope that speakers of all
languages will find it helpful.
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Learning about articles and the is the only
grammar topic I’ve seen which regularly
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makes students angry.
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Any time I have to teach someone about articles,
I know they’re going to go through an angry
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stage.
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Why is this?
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It’s because there are hundreds of rules
about using the.
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Every rule has exceptions (of course, it’s
English!)
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Sometimes, the rules overlap and you don’t
know which one to use.
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We’re not going to try to cover all of the
rules in this class.
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If you really want a headache, you can find
a grammar book and try to read and learn all
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of them.
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Instead of giving you rules which you can
read in a grammar book, we’re going to give
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you some practical tips that we’ve used
with students and which work.
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You’ll see six tips and one simple technique
you can use in your written English.
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These tips and tricks are easy to remember
and use; you won’t need to study for hours
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or memorise lots of complex rules.
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Watch the video to the end, and you can start
using these ideas today.
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Let’s start with a general question: what
does the mean?
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Have you ever thought about this?
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What does the mean?
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What does it do?
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If I say to you:
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Show me the book.
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What does the mean?
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Why do I say the book and not a book?
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The in this sentence shows that you—the
listener—know which book I’m talking about.
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It shows that I’m talking about a specific
book, and I know you know which one I mean.
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That’s what the means: it shows that you’re
talking about something specific.
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You can think of the as a ‘pointing’ word,
like this or that.
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When you use the before a noun, you’re ‘pointing’
to a specific thing and saying, ‘that one’.
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So that’s the basic meaning of the.
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Keep this in mind, because it’s useful to
remember these basic points if things get
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confusing.
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Let’s see how you can use these ideas.
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Let’s start with some examples:
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Can you open the window, please?
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Is that the woman you were telling me about?
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The Taj Mahal is really worth going to see.
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When you look at these sentences, they look
completely different, right?
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But there is a connection.
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Can you see the connection?
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Think about why you use the in these sentences.
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If I’m talking to you, in all of these three
situations, you know which one I mean.
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For example, if you say, Can you open the
window, please, then we’re in the same room,
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and it will be obvious which window you mean.
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Sure, there are many windows in the world,
but if we’re in the same room, then we know
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which window you’re talking about.
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You can see the same idea in these sentences:
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Where’s the bathroom?
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I’m going to the shop.
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In both of these cases, we use the because
it’s obvious which one you mean.
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If you’re at someone’s house, and you
ask, Where’s the bathroom, we know which
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bathroom you mean: the bathroom in the house
where you are/
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If you say, I’m going to the shop, again
you mean that whoever you’re talking to
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will understand which shop you mean.
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Probably, you mean the local shop—one you
go to often.
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Let’s look at our second sentence.
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If I ask you, Is that the woman you were telling
me about, you know who I mean.
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But here, the reason is different.
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You know who I mean because we were talking
about her before.
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You were telling me about her.
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So, this is our second idea.
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You can use the if the person you’re talking
to will remember which one you mean.
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Here are a couple more examples of this:
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What did you think of the film?
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Do you remember the hotel we stayed at in
Berlin?
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In both of these examples, you’re referring
to some kind of shared experience.
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What did you think of the film?
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--> Why do you use the?
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Because you’re either talking about a film
we saw together, or a film we’ve talked
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about before.
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Either way, when you ask this, you use the
because the person you’re talking to will
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know which film you mean.
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Do you remember the hotel we stayed at in
Berlin?
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--> We both stayed at the same hotel, so you
know which hotel I mean.
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Okay, let’s come back to our third original
sentence.
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If you say, The Taj Mahal is really worth
going to see, why do you use the?
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It’s because there’s only one Taj Mahal.
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We know which one you mean, because there’s
only one!
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Let’s see some more examples of this idea:
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The moon is so beautiful tonight!
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It was the happiest day of my life.
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In both of these examples, you use the because
you’re talking about one of something.
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The person you’re talking to will know which
one you mean, because the thing you’re talking
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about is unique.
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The Earth only has one moon, so we say the
moon.
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You can have many happy days in your life,
but only one can be the happiest, so you say
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the happiest day of my life.
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So, you’ve seen three important ideas about
using the in this section:
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Use the for things around you, where it’s
obvious which thing you mean.
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Use the to refer to shared experiences—things
you’ve talked about before or done together.
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Use the when something is unique.
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These are practical, general ideas which will
help you to use the correctly in English.
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Next, let’s look at another simple rule
that can help you.
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Here’s a good rule you can use, especially
in your written English.
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If a noun is singular and countable, it needs
some kind of determiner.
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A singular, countable noun can’t stand by
itself.
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Okay, this isn’t specifically about using
the, because a determiner could be something
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else, maybe a or this or that, or something
else.
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But, it’s often helpful if you’re trying
to decide whether to use the or not.
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Let’s look at an example:
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Manager told us more about plan for New Year’s
party.
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Maybe you can already see that this sentence
doesn’t look right.
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Let’s apply our rule.
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Can you remember it?
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If a noun is singular and countable, then
it needs some kind of determiner, like the,
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a, this, that, and so on.
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So, look at our sentence.
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How many nouns are there?
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The first noun is manager.
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Is this singular?
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Yes.
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Is it countable?
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Let’s see: one manager, two managers, three
managers…
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Yes, it’s countable.
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So, it needs a determiner.
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It can’t stand by itself.
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Probably, whoever says this sentence knows
which manager they’re talking about.
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That means we can use the.
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What about plan?
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Is it singular?
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Is it countable?
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Yes, and yes, so again, it can’t stay like
it is.
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Here, we say that the manager told us more.
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That means you already knew something about
this plan.
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That means you can use the.
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You know which plan the manager is talking
about.
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What about New Year’s party?
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Is it singular?
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Is it countable?
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Yes, and yes.
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So, you need something.
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How many New Year’s parties can there be
each year?
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I mean, technically, you could have more than
one.
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But generally, one company will just have
one New Year’s party.
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If there’s just one, then you know which
one the manager’s talking about.
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So again, you can use the.
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The manager told us more about the plan for
the New Year's party.
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Let’s do one more example:
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Government should do more to help elderly
people.
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Think about this sentence.
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Where are the nouns?
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Do they need determiners or articles?
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Let’s use our test.
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The first noun is government.
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Is it singular?
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Yes.
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Is it countable?
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One government, two governments…
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Yes, it is.
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So it needs a determiner.
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Should we use the, or something else?
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There are many governments in the world, but
whenever you talk about the government, you
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mean ‘the government in your country.’
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So, it’s clear which government you mean.
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That means you can use the:
There’s one more noun: elderly people.
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Is it singular?
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No.
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So, it doesn’t need a determiner.
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It can stand by itself.
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However, just because it doesn’t need one
doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have one.
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You still need to think: should you say the
elderly people?
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Here, you’re talking about elderly people
in general.
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When you talk about things in general, you
don’t use the.
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So the sentence is now correct.
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The government should do more to help elderly
people.
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The test that you’ve seen in this section
isn’t a magic spell.
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You still need to think about where to use
the or not.
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However, it’s simple and it does help.
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Use this in your written English and you will
make fewer mistakes with the.
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Trust me—we’ve seen this work for many
students.
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Okay, so now you’ve seen some simple but
important ideas to help you decide when to
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use the.
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But, part of using the correctly is knowing
when not to use the.
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So, let’s talk about that!
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We just mentioned one case where you shouldn’t
use the.
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Do you remember?
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Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.
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For example:
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Greek food is both healthy and tasty.
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--> You’re talking about all Greek food,
in general.
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I hate shopping for clothes.
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00:11:31,860 --> 00:11:34,730
--> I hate shopping for all clothes, all the
time.
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I’m not talking about some specific clothes.
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Football is more popular than basketball in
most countries.
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--> Again, everything here is general.
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You’re talking about football in general,
basketball in general, and countries in general.
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Nothing is specific here.
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So that’s your first important rule.
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Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.
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This is a really solid rule.
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It works well, so you should definitely remember
it.
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There’s another useful point here: don’t
use the with most names.
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When we say ‘names’, we mean nouns that
you’d write with a capital letter.
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This works most of the time.
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There are a lot of exceptions, but if you
remember, ‘don’t use the with names’,
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you’ll be right more often than not.
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Obviously, if you know the detailed rules,
then that’s better.
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However, if you’re in a situation where
you don’t know whether to use the or not,
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then use this rule.
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It works most of the time.
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So, this means: don’t use the with people’s
names:
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I met Jamie.
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Don’t use the with names of cities or countries:
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Stockholm is the capital of Sweden.
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Don’t use the with names of streets or other
city features:
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Queen’s Park is near Broad Street.
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Don’t use the with the names of schools,
companies, universities or other institutions:
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Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to start
Microsoft.
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I know what some of you are thinking…
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What about The United States?
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What about the Hilton?
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What about…?
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Yes, of course there are exceptions.
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There are exceptions to everything!
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That’s not the point.
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Remember what we’re trying to do here: this
is a simple trick that you can carry in your
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head and which is easy to use.
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It will work most of the time.
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There’s one more simple tip here: don’t
use the with another determiner.
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Determiners include this, that, these, those,
possessive adjectives like my, your, his,
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or her as well as quantifiers like many, much,
a lot of, each, every, and so on.
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So you can’t use the in examples like:
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I like this one more than that one.
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Is this your bag or is it hers?
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I want to spend lots of time with
every person here.
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Okay, quick review:
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- Don’t use the if you’re talking about
things in general.
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- Don’t use the with most names (but remember
there are many exceptions to this).
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- Don’t use the with another determiner.
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From this lesson, you’ve got six rules:
three rules about when to use the, and three
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rules about when not to use the.
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00:14:50,340 --> 00:14:56,860
You also saw a simple test to check if a noun
needs an article or not: is the noun singular?
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Is it countable?
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If yes and yes, it needs a determiner, possibly
the.
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00:15:04,009 --> 00:15:09,480
If you find it difficult to use the correctly,
take these six rules and this test, and try
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using them.
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00:15:11,329 --> 00:15:15,410
We hope these tips are simple enough that
you can remember them and start using them
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right now.
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00:15:16,470 --> 00:15:21,819
If you do, you will use the more accurately,
and you will make fewer mistakes.
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00:15:21,819 --> 00:15:27,230
Remember, these tips have helped many of our
students, and they can help you, too!
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Also, if you want more practice, check out
the full version of this lesson on our website:
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00:15:32,149 --> 00:15:34,420
Oxford Online English dot com.
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There’s also a quiz to help you practice
using the.
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Thanks for watching!21307
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