【英文原文】英文知識補給站: the, this, that 的差異，它們要用在哪種場合呢？

Here are three sentences with just a word's difference between each one. 

What do they tell us about the speaker and their location? 

1. I've never been to the beach. 

2. I've never been to that beach.  

3. I've never been to this beach.  

The ideas behind the sentences are quite different simply because of the difference between "the" ,"that" ,and "this" in front of the noun. Let's find out why! 

I've never been to the beach = I've never gone to any beach, anywhere. 

The is a tricky article. As a definite article, it usually tells us about a topic that's already mentioned or a noun there is only one of. For example:

A: Here's a paper and pencil you can use. 

B: Thanks! I'll give the pencil back to you later. 

With certain place nouns, though, "the" means "any/all of this kind of place."  It usually talks about a certain kind of environment. Beach is one - when we say "the beach," we mean any beach. Others like this include the ocean/the countryside/the city/the desert/the woods/the water (enough water to swim in). If there are other nouns we think of as one big idea, like the rain or the people, they'll also have this kind of "any/all" meaning behind them when said this way. 

Ex:  The president should listen to the will of the people. 

When used with locations, this tells us that the speaker is right in or next to the place they're talking about. This places something close to the speaker, either physically or mentally. So, if you hear a conversation like: 

A: I love this restaurant! Have you tried it before?

B: Yes, it's one of my favorites.

…then the people are either at the restaurant right now, or they might be looking at it online. It also helps distinguish a particular instance of a place that you might use "the" for - like this ocean for just the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. These does the same thing of placing something close to the speaker, but for plural nouns like these woods or these people. 

Ex:  These people are all lining up for the opening of this new tea shop. (The speaker is next to the line and the tea shop) 

Just as this/these places the speaker close to something, that/those puts distance between the speaker and the topic - again, either physically or mentally. This can sometimes lead to the words having an insulting effect - if a speaker is right next to someone but refers to them as "that person/those people", they are showing they don't want to be associated with them! English speakers also avoid saying "those people" when talking about outside groups since it can seem condescending and rude.

When talking about locations, however, that has the simple function of showing the place is farther away from the speaker. It can also be combined with other phrases after the noun to express something more specific.

Ex:  

My house is just behind those buildings over there. (while pointing out or showing the direction of the buildings) 

What's the name of that mountain north of the city?  

Try making your own set of sentences in the comments expressing location with the/this/that or the/these/those! 

本篇簡易版本 （Instagram 貼文）連結點此

※想要閱讀中譯版嗎? 連結在這邊。