The I

A.      We use the… when there is only one of something:

·         What is the longest river in the world? (there is only one longest river)

·         The earth goes round the sun and the moon goes round the earth.

·         I’m going away at the end of this month.

Don’t forget the:

·         Paris is the capital of France. (Not ‘Paris is capital of…’)

But we use a/an to say what kind of thing something is.

·         The sun is a star. ( one of many stars)

·         The hotel we stayed was a very nice hotel.

B.      We say:  The sky, The sea, The ground, The country, The environment:

·         We looked up at all the stars in the sky. ( not ‘in sky’)

·         Would you rather live in a town or in the country?

·         We must do more to protect the environment. (the natural world around us)

Note that we say space (without ‘the’) when we mean ‘space in the universe’:

·         There are millions of stars in space. (not ‘in the space’) but

·         I tried to park my car but the space was too small.

C.      We use the before same (the same)

·         Your pullover is the same colour as mine. (not ‘is same colour)

·         These two photographs are the same. (not ‘are same’)

D.     We say: (go to) the cinema, the theatre:

·         I often go to the cinema but I haven’t been to the theatre for ages.

When we say the cinema/the theatre, we do not necessarily mean one particular cinema or theatre.

We usually say the radio, but television (without ‘the’):

·         I often listen the radio.

·         I often watch television.

·         We heard the news on the radio.

·         We watched the news on television.

But: Can you turn off the television, please? (the television set)

Compare a:

·         There isn’t a theatre in this town.

·         I’m going to buy a new radio/television (set).

E.      Breakfast, lunch, dinner

We do not normally use the with the names of meals (breakfast, lunch etc.):

·         What did you have breakfast?

·         We had lunch in a very nice restaurant.

·         What time is dinner?

But we use a if there is an adjective before breakfast, lunch etc:

·         We had a very nice lunch. (not ‘we had very nice lunch’)

F.       Platform 5, Room 126 etc.

We do not use ‘the’ before noun + number. For example, we say:

·         Out train leaves from Platform 5. (not ‘the Platform 5’)

·         (in a shop) have you got these shoes in size 43? (not ‘the size 43’)

In the same way, we say: Room 126 (in a hotel) page 29 (of a book) Section A etc.