文法跟讀 In-Tense Ep.038: Definitive article "the" 的文法特例

Welcome to 15mins.today the home of English Shadowing. I'm your host Gavin and this is InTense Episode 38. Well guys we are looking at the definite article “the” and up till now we've looked at everything where you do not use it.

Today we're looking at exceptions, so in the previous episode we spoke about places and locations, now I mentioned in there “the office” which is an exception. Now there are a bunch of these and they are all related to one thing, just like your office where you go and work every day, there are certain places where we go specifically. Think about the airport, when you go to Japan usually you go to the same airport. Hospitals and places like that, they are very specific ones.

There are thousands of bus stops in Taipei city, but when you go to work or come back from work you usually use specific bus stops, and so for those we put “the,” for those things we use generally. So, if I want to differentiate that I use “a bus stop” as opposed to “the bus stop” what does that mean? It means, normally I use that particular one that would be “the” but today i used a random bus stop. So. let's look at our questions and answers, to look at some examples of these exceptions.

Did Jane go to the office today? Yes, she went to the office today.

Did Jane go to the office today? No, she did not go to the office today.

Did you go to the bank last week? Yes, I went to the bank last week.

Did you go to the bank last week? No, I did not go to the bank last week.

Did Peter go to the movies on Saturday? Yes, he went to the movies on Saturday.

Did Peter go to the movies on Saturday? No, he did not go to the movies on Saturday.

Did John and Susan visit the hospital on Friday? Yes, they visited the hospital on Friday.

Did John and Susan visit the hospital on Friday? No, they did not visit the hospital on Friday.

Will you go to the post office tomorrow? Yes, I will go to the post office tomorrow.

Will you go to the post office tomorrow? No, I will not go to the post office tomorrow.

Will Susan be going to the airport next year? Yes, she will be going to the airport next year.

Will Susan be going to the airport next year? No, she will not be going to the airport next year.

Is Brian on the way to the train station? Yes, he is on the way to the train station.

Is Brian on the way to the train station? No, he is not on the way to the train station.

Can we meet at the bus stop? Yes, we can meet at the bus stop.

Can we meet at the bus stop? No, we cannot meet at the bus stop.

Did Benson go to the doctor? Yes, he went to the doctor.

Did Benson go to the doctor? No, he did not go to the doctor.

Is Mary going to the dentist? Yes, she is going to the dentist.

Is Mary going to the dentist? No, she is not going to the dentist

Well there you go guys, these are the exceptions, tongue twister, exceptions for “the.” We use “the” in front of these things because they are specific to us, we usually go to the same doctor and dentist, post office, etc. We go to our bank, we just we don't go to any bank. We might go to any branch, but we go to our specific bank. So, that is when we do use “the” in front of locations or places. Hope that helps, keep practicing and catch you next time, bye!