7 Really Complicated Things You Do Without Thinking

6. Use The Word €˜The€™

If you're one of the 800 million people that speaks English fluently, then you probably use the word "the" without even thinking about it. It is, however, a total nightmare to anyone trying to learn English as it can be used in so many different ways. There is, in fact, no official rule for when to use "the", and pretty much the only way to master it is to simply learn each usage on an individual basis. For example, we would say "I have the flu" but "I have influenza", "I love the ballet" but "I love television". You might think that "the" is just used when talking about a specific thing such as "I have the car keys", but then we use it to talk about "the heart" when we mean hearts in general ("exercise is good for the heart"). Go on, have a go at defining it yourself.