Learn English: The difference between THIS and THAT

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• published: 29 Jun 2015
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Would you say, "Did you like THIS book" or "THAT book?" What about "THESE books" and "THOSE books?" How can you know which of these two words is correct and when? Learn to use "this" and "that" and their plural forms like a native speaker by watching this useful lesson on demonstratives. You will learn the difference between when the demonstrative is a pronoun and when it is an adjective and when to use them. Now, THAT is a great way to spend THESE next ten minutes! Don't forget to try my quiz afterwards so you can test your understanding: http://www.engvid.com/learn-english-difference-this-that/ Изучаем английский Разница между THIS и THAT TRANSCRIPT: You can go for this, or you can go for that. You can go for this, you can... Hi. James from engVid. Yeah, sorry, I was just singing a song by Fat Boy Slim; came out 2006. It's about demonstratives. I mean, you could go for this, or you could go for that. And you're going to say: "Why did I change it?" We're going to do demonstratives, and you're going to understand why I was singing and doing that little dance, and you're going to find out why I moved the book to me and away from me when I changed. You ready? Let's go to the board. All right, so E is talking about "this" or "that". No difference here, but there is a difference over here. When we say "this" in English, we mean something is near or close. For instance: "Are you talking about this book?" Or maybe you're talking about that book. You go: "That book, yeah, that book. It was over there." So "this" is here. When we talk about "this", we're talking about here. When we talk about "that", we're talking about there. Okay? See? Near is close to you, and that is not close or far. Another way to remember it if you get a little confused, see the "a" in "that", it means away, away from you. Cool? All right, I thought you'd like that. It's considered relative distance. "Relative" meaning there's no real distance. I can say: "I like this marker", but it's not near to me, but it's closer than the marker that's over there. Okay? All right. Good. Now, there are two types of demonstratives. We can talk about pronouns and adjectives, but before we get there, let's look at what a pronoun is. A pronoun is something that can stand by itself; it represents something. You know these already: "he", "she', "it", "we", "they", "us", they're pronouns. Right? Some are subjects, some are object. Right? They represent nouns. For instance, if I said: "Mr. E is happy", I can then afterwards say: "He is going... He is happy because he is going to a party." "He" represents E. All right? So it's a pronoun, but it can also stand by itself as in: "He is sitting in the room by himself." Right? We know "he" is a male of some type sitting in a room. When we talk about an adjective, we use adjectives to describe nouns, so they help us with nouns. What kind of man? The tall man is sitting in the room by himself. Still talking about a man, but now we have more information, and that's what adjectives do. They describe nouns. So as we move down here and we look at demonstrative... Demonstratives, we can have them either as pronouns and adjectives. What do we mean? When a demonstrative is a pronoun, it comes... Oops. It comes before a verb. Right? Or it could be a verb by itself. Okay? So we could say: "This is my car." Notice: "this" is the pronoun, "is my car", like: "it is my car". Same, except we're using "this". Right? Now, where do you think that car is when you say: "This is my car"? Do you think it's way over there or maybe it's here? Probably here. I'm probably opening the door-ch, ch-"This is my car. That is his car over there." All right? And you can say... See how it stands by itself? "Do you like that?" Or: "Did you like that?" Something happened. Right? Maybe somebody, you know, said: "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you", and I say: "Hey, did you like that, the fact that they were singing?" Did you like that? It can stand on its own. All right? Here, as we said, is the verb, and our pronoun; and here it stands by itself. Now, what happens when we want to actually use it to help...? Help us describe something? All right? We're going to go over here to the demonstrative adjective. All right? Now this is really easy. You just put "this" before a noun. "This cup", "This book", "This marker". You just learned demonstrative adjectives. What are you talking about? This marker or this marker? That's it. Put it in front. And here we go, right? "This car is mine." So you can imagine there's a car, and I'm saying: "This car" to describe which kind of car? This car. And: "Did you like that book? Did you like that book?"