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4 Dec 2020
- Simplified Chinese (China)
-
English (UK)
-
English (US)
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Question about English (US)
I don't understand why "the" should be placed before USA?
I don't understand why "the" should be placed before USA?
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4 Dec 2020
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- English (UK)
- English (US)
The UK
The US
The UAE
The Soviet Union
The People’s Republic of China
Vs.
England
America
Italy
Canada
Russia
China
Does that make sense? If there are words in the name, then you’ll need to use ‘the.’
Highly-rated answerer
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- English (UK)
- English (US)
Because ‘USA’ stands for ‘United States of America’
You need the article ‘the’ to go with ‘states’ - because these are specific states.
If you just call the country ‘America’ then you don’t need ‘the.’
E.g. He’s from America.
It’s the same with the UK - I’m from the United Kingdom, and I’m also from England (which doesn’t need an article).
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Highly-rated answerer
- English (UK)
- English (US)
The UK
The US
The UAE
The Soviet Union
The People’s Republic of China
Vs.
England
America
Italy
Canada
Russia
China
Does that make sense? If there are words in the name, then you’ll need to use ‘the.’
2
likes
0
disagrees
Highly-rated answerer
- English (US)
The word “the” is more like a transition word. When you are talking about a place or a thing you would have to add a “the” before it in order to refer to the thing u are talking about. It refers to the thing in the general term.
For example when you say “the U.S.A.” you are not talking about a specific place in U.S.A. but just somewhere in the U.S.A.
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- English (US)
Another example is if you said “give me the pencil” if there are a group of pencils then you would be asking for any of those pencils. Or if you said “feed the dog” then you would be referring to all of the dogs you have. If you had one then it would be that one dog. If you had two then you would be talking about both of those dogs.
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
@lydiadragonfruit Thanks for your informative answer.
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