Question
Updated on
29 Jul 2021
- Simplified Chinese (China)
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English (US)
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French (France)
-
English (UK)
Question about English (US)
What is the difference between suburb and suburbs ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
What is the difference between suburb and suburbs ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
Answers
30 Jul 2021
Featured answer
- English (US)
suburb = singular
suburbs = plural
A suburb is a type of neighborhood.
A neighborhood is usually a small group of houses which is built close together, so they all know each other as neighbors. So the houses on both sides of the street, for one block (until it is interrupted by end streets going in the other direction) is a common neighborhood concept.
Most of the time, you don't need to pluralize it. But sometimes you need to talk about a bigger area which has a lot of smaller neighborhoods in it, so you may say "neighborhoods" or "suburbs" instead of just "neighborhood" or "suburb". Because you are talking about several at once, instead of only talking about the one that you live in. So that is when you might use the plural version.
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Using "a suburb" vs "the suburb"... in English when you say "a thing" it means in general, any example of that thing, any one of them it doesn't matter which one. But when you say "the thing" it means a very specific example of that thing, the one that you are pointing at, the one that you are talking about, the one that is red instead of all the others which are blue, etc.
So:
"I bought a cake at the store." [any cake, the details don't matter] vs "I bought the cake we talked about with the pink icing flowers on it." [a very specific cake].
So for suburb, "a suburb" is just any example of a suburb, it is not being very specific. You are probably just talking about the concept of any suburb at any place.
But "the suburb" is a specific example of a suburb, so maybe "the suburb on the left side of the street" [so that you know which one they mean] or "the suburb on the east side of town" or "the suburb that I grew up in was..." etc. There may be several of them, but you are only talking about a very specific one.
In general:
If it uses "the" in front of it, then you know it is a specific example.
If it uses "a" or "an" in front of it, then you know it is just any of them, the details don't matter.
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
'I live in the suburb.' 'I live in a suburb.' and 'I live in the suburbs.'What's the different between them?
- English (US)
suburb = singular
suburbs = plural
A suburb is a type of neighborhood.
A neighborhood is usually a small group of houses which is built close together, so they all know each other as neighbors. So the houses on both sides of the street, for one block (until it is interrupted by end streets going in the other direction) is a common neighborhood concept.
Most of the time, you don't need to pluralize it. But sometimes you need to talk about a bigger area which has a lot of smaller neighborhoods in it, so you may say "neighborhoods" or "suburbs" instead of just "neighborhood" or "suburb". Because you are talking about several at once, instead of only talking about the one that you live in. So that is when you might use the plural version.
---
Using "a suburb" vs "the suburb"... in English when you say "a thing" it means in general, any example of that thing, any one of them it doesn't matter which one. But when you say "the thing" it means a very specific example of that thing, the one that you are pointing at, the one that you are talking about, the one that is red instead of all the others which are blue, etc.
So:
"I bought a cake at the store." [any cake, the details don't matter] vs "I bought the cake we talked about with the pink icing flowers on it." [a very specific cake].
So for suburb, "a suburb" is just any example of a suburb, it is not being very specific. You are probably just talking about the concept of any suburb at any place.
But "the suburb" is a specific example of a suburb, so maybe "the suburb on the left side of the street" [so that you know which one they mean] or "the suburb on the east side of town" or "the suburb that I grew up in was..." etc. There may be several of them, but you are only talking about a very specific one.
In general:
If it uses "the" in front of it, then you know it is a specific example.
If it uses "a" or "an" in front of it, then you know it is just any of them, the details don't matter.
Highly-rated answerer
Was this answer helpful?
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