When to use 'the' to talk about places - English In A Minute

57,841 views ・ 2020-09-21

BBC Learning English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Today, we look at geographic features, and
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why some don't use any article, and others
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use the definite article 'the'.
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Usually, we don’t use the with names. That’s
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why we don’t need to use 'the' before the
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names of:
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Lakes: 'I live near Lake Como.'
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Mountains: 'I visited Mont Blanc last year.'
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Cities: 'I went to Tokyo last summer.'
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Islands: I really want to go to Cuba.
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Continents: Asia is a huge continent.
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We also don’t use ‘the’ with the names of
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most countries.
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'I love Spain.'
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However, for countries which are plural nouns,
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we need to use ‘the’.
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'I flew to the Netherlands.'
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And for countries which contain words like 'states',
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‘kingdom’ or ‘republic’, we use 'the'.
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'I visited the United States last year.'
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'I live in the United Kingdom.'
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You know what, I'd love to visit the US again. Bye!
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