[General] Today I had my English class.....

[Silverobama]

My student wrote the following sentence as a starter of one of her diaries. It's not a dialog.

a) Today I had my English class with my tutor in the tea house.

I then rewrote it as:

b) Today I had my English class with my tutor in the tea house where we visit once a week.

Is my italic sentence (sentence b) natural? I think if she wants to use the definite article "the", the tea house should either aforementioned or explained later.

Please enlighten me.

 

[emsr2d2]

My student wrote the following sentence as [STRIKE]a starter of[/STRIKE] the opening to one of her [STRIKE]diaries[/STRIKE] diary entries. It's not a dialog.

a) Today, I had my English class with my tutor [STRIKE]in the[/STRIKE] at a tea house.

I then rewrote it as:

b) Today, I had my English class with my tutor in the tea house [STRIKE]where[/STRIKE] [that] we visit once a week.

Is my [STRIKE]italic[/STRIKE] sentence (sentence b) natural? I think if she wants to use the definite article "the", the tea house should either be [STRIKE]aforementioned[/STRIKE] mentioned already or explained later.

Please enlighten me.

See my corrections and changes above. Your revised sentence is OK as an example of how to use "the", but it completely changes your student's sentence. If they don't meet there once a week, you have created an untrue sentence. You should leave the meaning of the sentence alone and simply make the relevant changes as I have done in sentence a) above.

 

[5jj]

And if they do meet there often, and at no other tea houses, then the definite article is fine.

 

[jutfrank]

This is a diary entry, which I assume means the writer is writing for herself. For that reason, the reference to the teahouse made by the definite article is perfectly appropriate. Of course, she knows which teahouse she's referring to.

 

[Rover_KE]

In British English, which I believe you favour, we'd say 'lesson' rather than 'class' in this context.

 

[Silverobama]

Today, I had my English class with my tutor in the tea house that we visit once a week.

Much appreciated, teachers. Would you please tell me why "where" is wrong here.

Hmm, when I typed "we" in the original post, I meant "my student and me". We usually have our English lessons there (in a local tea house).

 

[jutfrank]

Would you please tell me why "where" is wrong here.

where = in the tea house
that = the teahouse

You visit the teahouse. You don't visit in the tea house.

 

[emsr2d2]

To use "where", you'd have to say something like "... at the tea house where we have our lesson every week".