Study materials
Imagine you are pointing. A thing in your hand and a thing across the room get different words in English.
This book is interesting.
That house is old.
There are only four such words, and they split along two lines: near or far, one or several.
They are called demonstratives, because they point at things as if with a finger.
The four demonstratives
| One thing | Several | |
|---|---|---|
| Near | this | these |
| Far | that | those |
These shoes are new.
Those trees are tall.
You decide the distance yourself. What is in your hand is this. What is across the room is that.
How the noun and be change
Two more things change with a demonstrative: the noun and the form of be.
This child is happy.
These children are happy.
Check the whole chain at once. If one word changed, all three have to change.
Singular means one thing, and plural means several. The plural usually shows up as an s ending, but some words change completely. Child becomes children, man becomes men, mouse becomes mice, foot becomes feet, and people already means more than one person. They still take these or those and are.
These people are my neighbours.
Uncountable words, things that are not counted in pieces (water, music, money), behave like the singular. They take this or that and is. Watch out for money, because the Ukrainian word for it is plural.
This money is for the bus.
Some words go the other way and are always plural, even for one item. These are jeans, glasses and scissors, because they are made of two matching parts.
These glasses are new.
Before a noun and instead of one
These words stand in front of a noun, and they can also replace it when the thing is obvious.
this phone, those students
This is mine. Those are expensive.
When this stands before a noun, it points at that particular thing. When this stands instead of a noun, is follows it straight away, and it means “this thing”.
This pizza is cold.
This is a cold pizza.
Introductions and phone calls are a special case. There it is always this, wherever the person is.
This is my friend Mia.
Hello, this is Alex.
When you introduce several people, it is these are.
These are my grandparents.
Not only about objects
This and that can point at a situation, an idea or a time.
This is a good idea.
That was a great day.
this week, that day
Before a time word, this means the current period. This morning is the morning of today, and this year is the current year. That points at what is far in time too, so that day means a day that is already over.
We are in Lviv this week.
Questions and negatives
Questions are built exactly as with be, with the form of be moved to the front. In the short answer, though, the demonstrative is not repeated.
Is this your bag? Yes, it is.
Are those your keys? No, they aren't.
In a short answer the demonstrative is replaced by a pronoun, a short word standing in for a name. For one thing the pronoun is it, and for several it is they. The short form it's is never used at the end of a short answer, where the full it is always stands.
Questions with what and who are built the same way, with the question word first. Answers about things usually switch to it or they as well.
What are these? They are chestnuts.
Who is that?
Negatives work just as with be. Not goes straight after is or are.
Those aren't my keys.
Common mistakes
The first is taking the singular for a plural.
this books → these books
The second is taking the plural for a single thing.
those car → that car
The third is repeating the demonstrative in the answer.
Yes, this is. → Yes, it is.
The first two are caught by asking yourself how many things there are. The answer settles both the demonstrative and the form of be after it. The third shows in the short answer, where it replaces this or that, and they replaces these or those.