Thursday 5 November 2009

Monday Vs Mondays

Ah, something easier to explain for the second question:

@EnglishAnswers Why is it sometimes monday in english and sometimes mondays (with s)?


This is an important difference in English, because the 's' makes a big difference to what you mean.  Let's look at these two sentences:

1.  On Mondays I go to my friend's house.

2.  On Monday I am going to my friend's house.


The use of two different tenses should help to see the difference:  In the first sentence,  'Mondays' refers to every Monday, all the Mondays.  In the second sentence, 'Monday' refers to a specific, single Monday, just one Monday.

In other words, to say 'Mondays' is the same as saying 'Every Monday'.  To say 'Monday' is to indicate a specific Monday.




*A quick tense tip:  When you say 'Mondays', you use the Present Simple Tense - I go -  (General Truth).  When you say 'Monday', you use the Present Continuous Tense - I am going - (Time is important).




**A quick capital letter tip:  In your question you wrote, 'monday' and 'english'.  The days of the week always have capital (big) letters to start:  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc.  When speaking about the English language, the 'E' in English is always capitalized (big).


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