David and Victoria are in the kitchen preparing a meal. Some friends are coming round for dinner tonight.
For dessert, they have decided to make a delicious, healthy fruit salad. Victoria asks: 'Will you pass me the mangoes, David, please?' David picks up the fruit and says: 'Remember, Mark doesn't like mangoes. We won't put any in the salad. We'll put more papaya instead.'
Pass me the mangoes. Mark doesn't like mangoes. Why do we need 'the' in the first sentence but not in the second? We are talking about the same mangoes, so why is the construction different?
The explanation is simple and easy to remember. We do not use 'the' with plural nouns (mangoes, bananas, houses) or uncountable nouns (wine, water, money) to talk about the object in general. We need 'the' in front of the noun if we are talking about a particular object or set of objects.
Pass me THE mangoes. (the particular mangoes that we want). Mangoes are delicious. (mangoes in general). I hate cats. (cats in general) I hate the cats that my grandma has. (a particular group of cats)
Answers: G: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12; P: 2, 4, 6, 10, 11; the: 12, 13, 15, 17, 21, 22; xxx: 11, 14, 16, 18-20