Hi guys, how are you today?

Welcome back for another grammar post! I hope you enjoy it. I hope you like this post. Let me know your opinion about it in the comments!

This post is intended for beginners, but it is always nice to review. Therefore, if you are a pre-intermediate student or even an advanced one, I am positive you can benefit from this lesson.

Today, we are going to learn more about the pronouns “this” and “that”. We are going to study these pronouns both in the singular and plural

I’m going to show you examples of affirmative and negative sentences as well as questions.

 

As I wrote above, this and that are pronouns. But they are different pronouns. They are called demonstrative pronouns.

What’s the purpose of a demonstrative pronoun? It is used to show, to point at, to demonstrate something.  So, we use  demonstrative pronouns, when we are showing objects, pointing at objects and talking about them

 

Now, we need to learn the difference between this and that. Let’s start with “this”

 

When do we use THIS?

We use “this” when we want to specify a person or something that is near us (the speaker). There are other uses, such as to introduce someone, but I will focus on the first explanation only.

What does this mean? It means, you are showing an object, something, you are talking about this object or pointing at this object and the position of this object, the location of this object is very near you, it is close to you

Look at this example:

this box is black          

Look at the hand and the box. The hand is very “near” the box.

This is a car           

 

In this case, we can see that I used the article a. The articles a/an are very important when we are using the demonstrative pronouns. The first and second examples are different. Look:

This box is black.  In this case, the article is not necessary. You are using the object (box) next to the pronoun “this”, so don’t use the article

This is a car –  in this case, the article IS necessary. First you used the article and verb to be and then the object. In this case, use the articles a/an

Asking questions with “this”

The most common question is: What’s this? You use this question to ask someone the name of the object you are pointing at, showing or talking about. For example:

What’s this?       

To answer this question you have two options. You can say:

This is a car. OR

It is a car.

To answer this question, you can use the demonstrative pronoun this or the pronoun it.

You can also make yes/no questions. For example:

Is this a car? 

To answer this question you have two options, again:

No, this isn’t a car. This is a box OR

No, it isn’t. It is a box.

 

When do we use THAT?

We use “that” when we want to specify a person or something that distant from us (the speaker). There are other uses, but I will focus on this one for now.

What does this mean? It means, you are showing an object, something, you are talking about this object or pointing at this object and the position of this object, the location of this object is very far you, it is distant from you

Look at the examples:

That box is black 

Look at the hand and the box. The hand is very “far” from the box.

 

That is a car       

 

Asking questions with “that”

The most common question is: What’s that? You use this question to ask someone the name of the object you are pointing at, showing or talking about. It is the same idea of “what’s this”. The only difference is the distance!

What’s that?        

 

To answer this question you have two options. You can say:

That is a car. OR

It is a car.

To answer this question, you can use the demonstrative pronoun that or the pronoun it.

You can also make yes/no questions. For example:

Is that a car? 

To answer this question you have two options, again:

No, that isn’t a car. That is a box OR

No, it isn’t. It is a box.

THESE / THOSE – PLURAL

This and that also have “plural” forms.

This = These

That = Those

The idea is still the same. The only difference is the quantity. Pay attention that the conjugation of the verb (most of the times we need verb to be) should be plural, ok? In this case, you will not need the articles a/an.   Remember, the article a/an is only used in the singular.

EXAMPLES:

What are these? (this – these – verb to be: are)

  

 

These are boxes – Remember, no article  A/AN.

OR

They are boxes – You can use the pronoun “these” or the pronoun “they” to answer the question.

What are those?                  

Those are cars OR

They are cars. Remember, no article a/an

One last thing! If you would like more explanation, I also have a video where I explain all about demonstrative pronouns. Check it out:

 

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Prix